![]() ![]() This led to the deadliest gas of the war: phosgene, which smelled like hay and destroyed the lungs so that men suffocated where they stood. The military wanted a gas weapon that required smaller quantities and could be delivered by an artillery barrage. Chlorine wasn't ideal because it needed to be released in huge quantities, and it took days to accumulate enough gas and to get the pipes to deliver it into position.This made chlorine a better defensive than offensive weapon, so the effect was to slow down warfare even further – especially when troops now had to wear bulky gas masts and respirators. Estimates of the number of dead range from 1,000 to 5,000, with many more seriously injured.Īfter that, both sides were drawn into what's sometimes called the chemists' war, a race to develop new and deadlier chemical weapons. The green fog caused victims lungs to fill up with fluid, effectively downing them on dry land. ![]() Canadian forces who counterattacked the next day were met by an even bigger gas attack. When the wind was blowing in the right direction, Germans released the gas against French colonial forces across a four-mile front. In April 1915, Germany stockpiled some 6,000 cylinders of chlorine containing more than 150 tons of gas in forward trenches at Ypres. Poisonous chlorine gas was a byproduct of their chemical industry, which meant huge quantities were waiting in warehouses. Before the war, German chemists had led the world particularly in the area of artificial dyes. The Germans stepped up gas warfare by making chemicals on an industrial scale. One German officer won a crate of champagne by betting that he could stand in a cloud of it for five minutes. In fact, when the Germans used shells filled with an agent called dianisidine against French positions in 1914, the French troops did not even notice the gas. This was meant to drive the enemy from their trenches, but it was impossible to get enough gas on target. Gas attacks in World War I started with artillery shells filled with early types of tear gas. ![]()
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