METHODS OF GAS WARFARE 



(Report of a lecture delivered before the Wash- 

 ington Academy of Sciences on Jan. 17, 1918) 



BY 



S. J. M. AULD, D.S.M. 

 British Military Mission 



I happened to be present at the first gas attack and 

 saw the whole gas business from the beginning. The first 

 attack was made in April, 1915. A deserter had come 

 into the Ypres salient a week before the attack was 

 made, and had told us the whole story. They were pre- 

 paring to poison us with gas, and had cylinders installed 

 in their trenches. No one believed him at all, and no no- 

 tice was taken of it. 



Then came the first gas attack, and the whole course of 

 the war changed. That first attack, of course, was made 

 against men who were entirely unprepared absolutely 

 unprotected. You have read quite as much about the 

 actual attack and the battle as I could tell you, but the 

 accounts are still remarkably meager. The fellows who 

 could have told most about it didn't come back. The 

 Germans have claimed that we had 6,000 killed and as 

 many taken prisoners. They left a battlefield such as 

 had never been seen before in warfare, ancient or mod- 

 ern, and one that has had no compeer in the whole war 

 except on the Russian front. 



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