Evening star., 1918-04-07
German Objective Is Calais.

80 iaF tue German onenSfve north Of
Amlens has been moving almost direct
~ westward, as though the Hindenburg
strategy were to attempt to reach the
coast at the mouth of the Somme thus
leaving intact the British connections
with england. no matter what might hap
pen to their French connections The
Arras fighting Is the first indication of a
reversion to the older strategy Of the
Germans, whose objective has always
been Calais. If this should be carried
out, the German right flank would now
begin to attempt to move its penetrat-
ing point to the northwestward, in an
effort to get behind the English lines in
Flanders.
In all the advance accounts of the
German preparations gas was scheduled
to be the most formidable weapon with
which the Hindenburg forces were to
assault the entent battle lines So terri
flying were the details with which these
reports reached Switzerland that the in
ternatfonal Red Cross at Geneva issued
formal appeal to all belligerents to
agree In advance that this form of fight
ing should be abolished Neither side
would listen to this proposal and it failed
Despite the fact that the official COM
munications have had so little to say
about the use of gas and nothing about
Its effectiveness, one fact about the
first days fighting seems to indicate
that the Germans made anything but
negligible use of 1t. This significant
fact is the shortness of the artillery
preparation which ushered in the pres
ent slaughter. In the present opera
ttons there was no possibility of sur
prise attack and none was attempted
The artillery preparation, however, was
comparatively brief and consisted of
perfect torrent Of gas shells. With the
present use OF concrete and under
ground retreats a brief artillery prep
aration with ordinary types of shells,
even though shot from the heaviest
howitzers and mortars, is of little avail
Only gas can make an effective weapon
In short space of time. Therefore.
the Germans used gas in their effort to
parayze the British defenders Doubt
less the gas was not only used against
the trenches themselves, but even more
vigorously against the supporting bat
teries. For while 1t takes accurate
gunnery to put battery out of COM
mission with shells when 1t is hidden
six or eight miles behind the trenches,
gas bombs are effective over a much
greater area.
Prussic Acid Gas Terrible.
Whether the Germans made use Of
ised probably will not be publicly
known until after the detailed reports
of the first days operations have been
published. The reportJ in Switzerland
declared that the Germans credited
their Italian successes to the use of
new prussia acid gas. One of the neu-
trail military attaches who was with
the German armies in Italy told me
that this gas was used there with ter
rible effectiveness. He said that the
with a vapor that worked through the
nerves OF the skin in a way to cause
nausea and thus force the Italians to
wave was followed by bombs Of the
deadly prussic acid gas, against which
the maskless soldiers were Defense
less, and decentralization was inevita-
BILE. The same gas, he told mo, had
been used with similar effect In the
German counter attack at Cambria
against the British last fan. The latter
scale to indicate what might be ex-
pected from an effort to use gas on a
fifty-mi1e front.
Later Information reached Switzer-
land. however. declaring that the Ger
mans had again improved upon their
gas bombs, and that the projectiles to
be used in the spring offensive were
far more terrible than the old. In one
Of these boasts 1t was declared that the
new gas was 800 times as strong as
the gas used in Italy. 1t was declared
OF prussic acid with chlorine.
The first gas used by the Germans,
more than two years ago, was a chlo-
rfne gas, but it has long since been su-
perseded by the deadlier prussic acid.
The German name of their new COM
pound is "phosgencyankali," which
means combination OF oxychlorid and
potassium cyanide. The latter is the
drug store name for prussic acid.
This compound is greenish-looking
It is SO easy to produce that they had
last December 10000 tons Of It ia tn air
munition depots in Belgium and north
ern France.