![]() ![]() In what became the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used gas on three more occasions on 24 April against the Canadian 1st Division, on 2 May near Mouse Trap Farm and on 5 May against the British at Hill 60. However, the German infantry were also wary of the gas and, lacking reinforcements, failed to exploit the break before Canadian and British reinforcements arrived. At 17:00, in a slight easterly breeze, the gas was released, forming a gray-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops who broke ranks, abandoning their trenches and creating an 8,000 yard (4.5 km) gap in the Allied line. īy 22 April, 1915, the German Army had 168 tons of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders opposite Langemark-Poelkapelle, north of Ypres. In cooperation with Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, they began developing methods of discharging chlorine gas against enemy trenches. German chemical companies BASF, Hoechst and Bayer (which formed the IG Farben conglomerate in 1925) had been producing chlorine as a by-product of their dye manufacturing. The first killing agent employed by the German military was chlorine. However, instead of vaporizing, the chemical froze, completely failing to have the desired effect. On 3 January, 1915, 18,000 artillery shells containing liquid xylyl bromide tear gas (known as T-Stoff) were fired on Russian positions on the Rawka River, west of Warsaw during the Battle of Bolimov. Germany was the first to make large scale use of gas as a weapon. In October 1914, German troops fired fragmentation shells filled with a chemical irritant against British positions at Neuve Chapelle, though the concentration achieved was so small that it was barely noticed. During the first World War, the French were the first to employ gas, using 26-mm grenades filled with tear gas ( ethyl bromoacetate) in August, 1914. The early uses of chemicals as weapons were as a tear-inducing irritant ( lachrymatory), rather than fatal or disabling poisons. 1.2 1915: large scale use and lethal gases.
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