CHAPTER VIII
The gas-proof dugout—First-aid methods of alarm—Von Buelow improves German gas tactics—Popular errors about gas—Effectiveness of new British respirators—Vomiting gas—Germans speed up their manufacture—Gas as a neutraliser of artillery fire—As a neutraliser of work behind the trenches—Raw recruits ashamed to wear the mask—Casualties resulting.
The gas-proof dugout—First-aid methods of alarm—Von Buelow improves German gas tactics—Popular errors about gas—Effectiveness of new British respirators—Vomiting gas—Germans speed up their manufacture—Gas as a neutraliser of artillery fire—As a neutraliser of work behind the trenches—Raw recruits ashamed to wear the mask—Casualties resulting.
The gas-proof dugout—First-aid methods of alarm—Von Buelow improves German gas tactics—Popular errors about gas—Effectiveness of new British respirators—Vomiting gas—Germans speed up their manufacture—Gas as a neutraliser of artillery fire—As a neutraliser of work behind the trenches—Raw recruits ashamed to wear the mask—Casualties resulting.
Probablythe most important thing that was done as the result of the Somme Battle experience was to insist on there being at least one protected or gas-proof dugout at every headquarters, battery position, signal station, aid post, or wherever gas shell were particularly likely to drop.
I have deferred describing these protected shelters until now, but as a matter of fact they had been devised and adopted nearly a year previously, though not many of them had got into actual use. The protection consists essentially of a damp blanket fitting closely over the entrance to the cellar or dugout or emplacement, whicheverit may happen to be. The value of the blanket depends on the fact that if you prevent the movement of air you prevent the movement of gas. That is all there is to it. Stop any possible draft and you will keep out the gas. In practice the blankets are kept rolled up out of the way and are let down only when the alarm is sounded or when gas is about. In order to get an air-tight joint the blanket is made to rest on a sloping framework set into the entrance to the dugout. To make sure that the blanket really does remain stretched out over the frame and does not gape at all, two or three wooden battens are fastened across it at intervals.
Where space is available two such sloping blankets are used, at least two feet apart and preferably far enough apart to allow a stretcher in between. This forms an “air lock”—you must go into the lock and close the outer blanket before going through the inner one—and not only makes protection of the interior doubly sure but makes it possible to enter the dugout even in the middle of an attack or bombardment. In the old days the blankets used to be sprayedwith the Vermorel sprayer solution, but anything that will keep them damp and flexible will do. In the early days, too, the companies or batteries used to do all their own work on protecting dugouts, and it was always possible in cold weather to obtain an extra supply of blankets on the plea that they were required for making gas-proof shelters. Nowadays a close eye is kept on these supplies, which are doled out by the engineers, and it is seen that if blanket material is supplied for protected dugouts it is going to be used for protected dugouts, and for nothing else.
Gradually all dugouts, cellars and buildings within the gas-shell area—let us say up to three miles from the front line—are being provided with blanket protection, which means a big decrease in casualties, for once inside such shelters men can sleep in more or less comfort until they again have to don their respirators and face their tour of duty in the poisoned air outside.
It practically came then to this—that protection against the poison-gas shell was a question of gas-proof dugouts on the one hand and rapidity of spreading the alarmand quickness of getting protected on the other. At the gas schools and in the regiments and batteries men are trained to be so quick in their movements that they can get on their masks in six seconds. They are also taught on the burst of a gas shell in their neighbourhood to hold their breath at once. It sounds easy enough to do this, but it must come to a man automatically in any circumstances he may happen to find himself—and you can find yourself in some queer circumstances in war—and to assure this a great deal of training is needed. Anybody, however, can hold his breath for thirty seconds, and with practice it is possible to go well over a minute. During this time it is possible to make a fool of oneself in half a dozen different ways in putting on a respirator, and yet get it on in time in the end. But drill sergeants will stand for nothing less than the standard time and the most meticulous accuracy. God bless these tyrants—they must have saved a lot of lives! One of the difficulties we began to encounter with regard to gas shell was the spreading of the alarm among men on the march or in communication trenches where no alarm devicesare installed. In some battalions it was the custom to teach men to spread the glad tidings by taking off their steel helmets and beating them with their bayonets. This certainly makes a good old noise, but unfortunately it is just when gas shell are coming over that shrapnel is also likely to be in the air, and to deprive a man of this tin hat at this time in order to provide him with a gas alarm is rather robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The best way undoubtedly, and the one now taught throughout the British and American forces, is to hold the breath, then put on the respirator, and finally spread the news to everyone else by shouting “Gas shell!” as loudly as possible with the mask on. In this way the information can be spread throughout a big working party or from front to rear of a column of infantry on the march in a remarkably short space of time. Even in the trenches it is well to give word-of-mouth warning as well as by means of the local-alarm devices, for a second or two of absolutely invaluable time may be saved in this way. One soldier questioned by an officer going the rounds as to what hewould do in the event of a gas shell bombardment replied nervously: “Put on my gas mask and shout ‘Rattles!’”
For the remainder of 1916 the boche treated us with gradually increasing numbers of Green Cross Shell. His tactics, too, got a bit better—I mean for him—for he began to make more concentrated bombardments on particular targets. Possibly this was because of special orders that were issued on the subject. One of these was by General von Buelow to the artillery of his army, in which he said: “There have been many instances of Green Cross Shell being fired in small quantities. This is a waste of ammunition, as with all gas shell good effects are only obtained by using them in large quantities. The firing of small quantities of gas shell has also the disadvantage that the enemy is practiced in the use of his anti-gas appliances and attains a higher degree of gas preparedness. For this reason the effect produced by larger quantities will be reduced.”
This showed the increasing interest in the use of gas shell taken by the German General Staff, and heavier and more concentratedbombardments based on the above orders became more frequent. One of these, brought off in unusual circumstances, occurred at Arras in December, 1916. I say “unusual” because the weather was so cold at the time that the Green Cross liquid did not evaporate so quickly as usual but hung about in some places for long periods. The bombardment occurred at night and about three thousand shell must have been fired into one corner of the town—in fact, all round the old gateway through which the whole of the transport from the St. Pol road would have to pass. The surrounding houses and cellars got filled with gas, and in such billets, especially where shell had actually burst inside a room, the liquid soaked into the walls and floors and only evaporated the next morning when the air grew warmer. A lot of men were gassed in this manner on the following day, as they naturally thought the gas had vanished, and were gradually overcome as things warmed up.
In the open, gas disappeared more at its usual rate, though it hung about all during the bombardment and for several hours after, thus forcing men in the neighbourhoodto wear respirators for long periods. Some of these men, overcome by fatigue, actually slept in their respirators. I think this was the first time I had heard of its being done, though it has been done often enough since.
By this time the British Army had been fitted out with the celebrated box respirator—a respirator of particular interest to Americans, as it was the type adopted for and at present in use in the American Army. A short description of it will not be out of place. The principle of the respirator is to have a box filled with chemicals and attached by a flexible tube to a face piece or mask, which fits closely to the face. All air breathed by a man must therefore pass through the chemicals, and these are so chosen that they will absorb any and every poison that may be present in the atmosphere at the time. In order to keep the air pure in the mask and to have a double line of protection a man breathes through a special mouthpiece and has his nose clipped. So even if the face piece, which is made of rubber cloth, should be torn or damaged in any way the soldier is perfectly safe as long as he does not attempt to talk—that is, ifhe keeps his nose clipped and does not remove the mouthpiece from his mouth.
The respirator is not only active against a diversity of poisonous gases but it will keep out very high concentrations of gas for many hours.
One of the most misleading statements made about gas masks—sometimes by newspaper men and consequently given wide publicity—is that such and such a mask will stand up for so many hours against gas. It is a very natural thing to want to know or to state how long your respirator will last, but without stating what concentration of gas is being talked of it is impossible to give such definite information about any mask. It simply depends on the amount of gas there is in the air. But the box respirator if kept in good condition and properly used is guaranteed to keep out German gas continuously for many hours, even in concentrations which it is quite impossible for the boche to maintain in the field. In the American modification of the box respirator the absorptive power of the chemicals used is even greater than in the British box, and this makes it the best respirator in theworld, which is very reassuring for those who have to make use of it.
The box respirator is contained in a haversack and is carried slung on the shoulder until such time as the soldier comes into the forward areas, where it must be carried tied up on the chest ready for instant adjustment in case of need. As I mentioned before, it can be put on in six seconds from the word “go,” and once a man is practiced in wearing it he can walk, run, shoot, dig, speak or do anything but eat and smoke in it; and this for long stretches at a time. I know many cases where men have been forced to wear masks literally continuously for more than eight hours; and much longer periods than this, with perhaps short intervals of rest in protected dugouts or in unaffected areas, are common.
Of course the soldier has to be practiced in putting the mask on quickly. It is not quite so simple as the old “gas bag,” about which a drill sergeant said to a squad: “You just whops it out and you whops it on.” But it does not take long to make men proficient with the respirator, at any rate on the parade ground. It is making him proficient underconditions of war that counts and all his instruction is now aimed toward this end.
With the mask in position and a tin hat on top of his head a soldier has a peculiar beetlelike appearance, which is not very improving, though the following conversation was reported to have been overheard by an officer about to enter a dugout:
“’Ere, mate, take yer gas mask off.”
“It is off.”
“Then for Gawd’s sake put it on!”
The Germans were much interested in our new respirators and their development, and apparently had great difficulty in obtaining specimens for examination. During the winter of 1916-17 German soldiers were being offered a reward of ten marks for every British box respirator that they brought in; but as we were doing most of the shooting at that time I can hardly think that Fritz made a fortune out of his chance.
But to return to the gas shell. During 1917, it became apparent that the Germans were placing more and more reliance on the use of gas shell and were manufacturing them in enormous numbers. For a whole year after the introduction of the GreenCross there was only one modification of the chemicals used and that was the admixture with the diphosgene of a material which has been called “vomiting gas.” This substance is a chemical named chloropicrin, and it certainly lives up to its pet name if you take a real good breath of it. The boche mixed it with his diphosgene in order to make the latter more potent if possible, or else because he was running short of diphosgene; but he still calls the mixture Green Cross and uses the gas for its killing power.
The chief development, however, was rather in the tactics than in the chemicals used. Gas shell were no longer thrown away; each target or area was apparently considered separately and was given enough shell to make certain of putting up a very high concentration of gas on it. At this time the boche divided his gas-shell shoots into two classes—those for “destructive” effect, and those for “harassing” purposes.
The destructive fire was intended to take on big targets, which were not only definite but were known to contain living targets—for example, concentration points wheretroops were bound to be gathered; billeting areas, including well-known villages or towns; areas known to have a number of batteries collected in them, and so on; in the latter case the batteries themselves would be taken on individually if their positions were known.
Apart from a number of fairly big bombardments, like that at Arras, mentioned above, the destructive shoots were chiefly counter-battery ones, intended if possible to “neutralise” our artillery while it should be actively engaged in putting down a barrage, either to prevent a German attack or in preparing the way for our own infantry when we were attacking, which, of course, was much more frequently the case in 1916 and the first half of 1917.
This neutralisation business wants a bit of explaining. It will have been realised that the Germans were and still are using two very distinct kinds of gas shell—those which kill, like the Green Cross, and those which only temporarily put a man out of action, like the lachrymators and nowadays the mustard gas. Of course, the idea underlying the use of gas shell in general—andthe whole war for that matter—is to put men out of action. The most effective way of doing this is to kill, as that puts a man out of action for good and he doesn’t return. But you can kill men with gas only by taking them by surprise, because of the excellence of the gas masks.
After the surprise has been effected the chief use of the gas shell is to force the opposing side to continue wearing their gas masks and in that way to hamper them and reduce their fighting efficiency for considerable lengths of time. This is where the lachrymators and mustard gas and similar stuffs come in, because they are very persistent, and a little goes a long way in forcing a man to keep his respirator on. The quick-killing gases, like phosgene and the Green Cross, are not very persistent, and it would be waste of material to continue shooting them when you could effect the same thing with another stuff, which would hang about for hours or perhaps for days.
Now see how this affected the German “fire for effect,” or destructive shooting, as applied to a battery, and why the gas shell are so particularly suited for taking ontargets of this kind, which used to be engaged only by high-explosive shell. Imagine a battery of, let us say, field howitzers. Our men are making an attack. The howitzers are busy pounding the German trenches to bits, and then they are going to “lift” on to the support trenches when our men go in. The whole of the success of the infantry assault may rest on the guns’ keeping up to the program with the requisite amount of fire. The boche business then is to try to put our guns out of action. If he can do this he has the infantry—I won’t say at his mercy, but at any rate at such a serious disadvantage that their losses will be tremendous compared with what they would be under cover of a good barrage from the guns.
Now if the enemy uses high-explosive shell to take on our batteries he can put them out of action only by registering a direct hit. If the guns are well dug in in good emplacements with head cover it will be possible for high-explosive shell to drop within a dozen yards without doing anything but scare the gunners. Not so, however, with the gas shell. Drop enough gas shell within a dozen ortwenty yards of the battery position and the gas will float down with the wind and penetrate every nook and cranny. If the gunners are not quick some of them may be gassed; and if, as is sometimes the case, the gun has been worked short-handed this alone may throw down the rate of fire to a very considerable extent. Add to this the fact that the remainder of the crew will have to don their respirators in order to fight their gun at all, and it can be seen that the rate of fire may be reduced to such a low limit as to make it of little value for the time being; or the gun may even be put out of action completely.
Once the first surprise is over and no more immediate killing can be counted on, the bombardment may be continued with persistent gas shell, which are just as effective in making the men wear masks.
From our point of view it all comes down to the ability of the gunners to be quick enough at first in preventing themselves from being gassed; and then later of their being capable of carrying on with their firing while wearing masks. It means that gas training and discipline are, if possible,more important for the artillerymen even than for other branches of the service. This is realised to the full in all their training and practice, for if they are not able to respond to an S O S call from the infantry an otherwise abortive German attack may be turned into a disaster. It is like everything else in this war—a question of training and discipline.
The neutralisation of the infantry or the transport is conducted on similar lines, and though it rarely reaches the point of being complete a partial neutralisation of reserves which prevents their getting up in sufficient numbers or in time, either for reinforcement or attack, may have most serious consequences in an operation. The partial neutralisation is attempted, just as for the artillery, by killing as many as possible by heavy surprise bombardments with the lethal shell and then continuing with persistent gas in order to force the remainder to wear their gas masks.
Let me describe as an example a particular way in which the infantry may be partially neutralised if they are not thoroughly steady, well-disciplined andtrained up to the final dot in gas-defensive measures and the use of their respirators. Troops in the front line, whether they are in settled lines of trenches or merely in temporary positions, are absolutely dependent on their supplies. Supplies of ammunition, barbed wire and, above all, rations must be brought up to them constantly; otherwise they cannot continue to fight. All these things are brought up at night. The motor lorries of the Army Service Corps take the supplies up to selected points, where they are taken over by the first-line transport—that is, the regimental transport, which consists of horse or mule drawn general service or limber wagons.
As night approaches everything is loaded up and departure timed so that the trysting place with the infantry carrying parties is reached after dark. These meeting places are very frequently crossroads immediately below the lines, and in position warfare are usually situated close to the entrances of the communication trenches. Pass by such a place by day and you will find it deserted, but as soon as darkness has fallen it becomes a hive of activity—as busy a crossroads asyou might find in the centre of a big city. There is a constant movement in and out of men, animals and vehicles. Unloading and taking over of the supplies alternate with checking off the goods and the moving off of the carrying parties. Military policemen direct the traffic and relieve the ever-threatened congestion. Altogether it is one of the busiest and most important phases of the routine side of war, and anybody there without a special job is a nuisance and is not wanted.
Places like this of course are apt to be well-known to the boche, and every now and again he will drop in some high-explosive shell or put over some shrapnel in the hope of catching the crossroads at its busy hour. But even if he is lucky and manages to get on to the spot it hardly holds up the work at all. I have seen a big shell drop into just such a place and make a huge hole in the road, killing men and horses and smashing up a wagon. Half an hour later there was hardly a sign that anything had happened. The hole had been filled in and the material debris cleared away. The wounded of course had been looked after first.
Now imagine instead of ordinary shell that a number of gas shell had been dropped into this busy centre. On a dark night, probably very muddy underfoot and with all the excitement of kicking mules, flares going up and anything from machine-gun bullets at long range to shell of every size dropping in or expected, things are difficult enough. But with the advent of the gas shell every man must get himself protected. It is now that the “hold the breath, and mask on in six seconds” stunt is going to be of value. With well-trained troops the losses from the gas may be negligible, and it is equally true that they will be heavy if the discipline is poor. But whether one way or the other it means that all the frightened horses and mules must next be fixed with their respirators and the work in hand must be proceeded with by everybody while wearing gas masks. This is the real test.
If the men are well trained the carrying parties—perhaps with loads of barbed wire on their backs—will get away as before and proceed up the filthy communication trench to the front line; swearing probably, uncomfortable certainly, but safe. Similarlythe drivers will be able to get their teams away from the gassed area as soon as they are unloaded, and the serving out of the supplies will go on as before, though at a reduced rate. But if the soldiers were not able to carry on in these terrific circumstances—could not wear masks for long periods and could not do anything in them—confusion would undoubtedly supervene and the work be brought to a standstill. If this happened the men in the front line next day would be short of rations, of ammunition, of wire. They would, in fact, be neutralised.
It is attempted neutralisation of artillery and infantry by methods such as these, carried out over large selected areas and generally as a preface to an attack—either their own or ours—which constitutes the German “fire for effect.” The “harassing fire” is simply the same thing on a smaller scale and with no immediate tactical reason at the back of it except that of killing and general annoyance. As a rule a sudden burst of a few shell will be landed on some likely place, such as the entrance to a communication trench, a sunken road, a bridge or an observation post. These small shoots were alwayscausing us a few casualties. There was no warning, or somebody was not quick enough, or did not get his respirator on, or took it off too soon. There would always be some reason—but in the end it would generally come down to something that the disciplinary thumbscrew could cure.
It is almost unbelievable nowadays that at one time one of the chief sources of these constantly occurring casualties was shame-facedness at being seen in a mask. Men would not protect themselves until absolutely forced to do so, for fear others would regard them as being too easily frightened. This was especially the case with new comers, who did not want to drop in the estimation of the older hands.
One case was reported where a corporal in charge of a small party of men in passing along a communication trench ran into some pockets of gas from a bombardment that had just stopped. He ordered his party to don their masks and proceeded up the trench. A few yards farther on they passed through the support line, which happened to be fairly free from gas, and here they were met by jeers from some of the supporting troopswho shouted “Hello, got the wind up?” and in this way induced the corporal, really against his better judgment, to order masks off. Not more than twenty or thirty yards farther along the party ran into a particularly bad pocket of Green Cross and the corporal and several of his men were so badly gassed that they had to be sent to the rear.
The attitude of the officers is always reflected in the attitude of the men. At that time you would sometimes meet young officers who had either been on the outer fringe of a gas-shell shoot or had merely smelled tear gas thinking they knew all about it and refusing to believe in the extreme deadliness of the poison gas and the need for enhanced discipline. They would damn the gas and the need for taking precautions, and their men would consequently damn the gas and the need for taking precautions. This of course would mean another batch of casualties when Fritz did treat them to the real article.
Just to show how a small matter of indiscipline may result in disaster I would instance the case of two men who took off their respirators in a front-line trench. Theirbattalion was going to be relieved that night and they took off their webbing equipment for the purpose of fastening on the haversack and pack. Absolutely against orders they also removed their box respirators, and of course it was just that moment that the boche chose for dropping in half a dozen small trench-mortar bombs filled with phosgene. These vicious little guns are very accurate and most of the shell landed on or near the parapet and filled the fire bay with gas. Both men dived at once for their respirators and in so doing upset three other men in the bay. All five were gassed and three of them died later.