And you had two goggles here on to look out, two glasses to look out and with your breath it didn't take long before the glasses were steamed up and you couldn't see where you were going. Well then they got this, the improved type. The chemical was pretty near as bad as the gas. It was something like flannelette, wool serge would probably better describe it. You respired through this heavily, heavy material. You inhaled through your nose and respired through your mouth. The old one we had first, you pulled it over your head like a balaclava. I remember the old one, the one that this was a respirator, you know, one that you clamped on your head with an elastic. I remember one night, some of our fellas put them on when we come to a dead horse, that was the only reason. I don't remember ever putting my gas mask on. If you hadn't used it then you wouldn't mark anything on this. Every time you used your respirator you were supposed to mark how long you had it on, if you used it. The gas officer would always, when you had your staff parade in the morning, he would test your, he would look at your respirators and you had to have that ticket, the little ticket. MacLeod gives a good comparison between the original respirator and newer gas masks used by Canadian soldiers. However, the masks could not protect them against mustard gas used later in the war, which burned the skin, caused severe breathing problems, and could cause blindness. Official figures declare about 1,176,500 non-fatal casualties and 85,000 fatalities directly caused by chemical warfare agents during the course of the war.Allied troops were given gas masks to protect against chlorine gas attacks. A total of 50,965 tons of pulmonary, lachrymatory, and vesicant agents were deployed by both sides of the conflict, including chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas. The first full-scale deployment of deadly chemical warfare agents during World War I, was at the Second Battle of Ypres, on April 22, 1915, when the Germans attacked French, Canadian, and Algerian troops with chlorine gas.ĭeaths were light, though casualties were relatively heavy. Germany used another irritant, xylyl bromide, in artillery shells that were fired in January 1915 at the Russians near the town of Bolimów, nowadays in Poland. One of Germany’s earliest uses of chemical weapons occurred on October 27th, 1914 when shells containing the irritant dianisidine chlorosulfonate were fired at British troops near Neuve-Chapelle, France. The French were the first to use chemical weapons during the Great War, using tear gases, ethyl bromoacetate, and chloroacetone. The Hague Declaration of 1899 and the Hague Convention of 1907 forbade the use of “poison or poisonous weapons” in warfare, yet more than 124,000 tons of gas were produced by the end of World War I. The canaries were used to detect poisonous gas, and cats and dogs were trained to hunt rats in the trenches. Horses, donkeys, mules, and camels carried food, water, ammunition, and medical supplies to men at the front, and dogs and pigeons carried messages. However, animals remained a crucial part of the war effort. Horse and camel-mounted troops were used in the desert campaigns throughout the war, but on the Western Front, new weapons like the machine gun made cavalry charges increasingly difficult. In 1914, both sides had large cavalry forces. For years few knew of the unimaginable suffering of the beasts transported across the Channel to the Western Front. This is the forgotten tragedy of the Great War – a conflict that pitched as many animals into the line of fire as it did humans. Of the million British horses sent overseas to help with the war effort, only 62,000 returned home. Horses were equipped with gas masks over their muzzles and were protected from inhalation of poison gases such as phosgene.Įquine eyes were not affected by lachrymatory agents so that their masks consisted only of specially made nose bags but, unfortunately, these animal’s eyes were vulnerable to the effects of chlorine and vesicatory gases. Horses, mules, dogs, and pigeons were vulnerable to poison gases so that special protection was necessary for them. Many animals were used during World War One. Two German soldiers and their mule wearing gas masks in World War One, 1916
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