#GERMAN WWI GAS MASK HOW TO#
#GERMAN WWI GAS MASK ARCHIVE#

As they moved forward, they saw the French dead and dying, as they choked on their own fluids, retching up bile and blood. The Canadians even counterattacked on the 22nd and 23rd, halting The Canadians were lucky to escape the worst of the cloud, but those men on the left of the Canadian Division were hacking through burning lungs and firing at the enemy with teary eyes. German troops, no less afraid of the death clouds, advanced tentatively into the gap. Many died in agony.Ĭhoking and gasping in terror, those who did not succumb to the gas fled from the front. Men were blinded, their lung tissue destroyed. As the gas combined with moisture in the soldiers’ eyes, noses and lungs, it turned into an acid. Territorial and colonial (Algerian) divisions to the north of the Canadian Division. The eerie green-yellow tendrils seemed to slither over the battlefield, filling the crevices, craters and trenches, before passing through two French On a sunny 22 April 1915, the Germans released their gas cloud, some 10 km long and almost 1 km deep. Trained soldiers, creating a cloud of chlorine that would be blown by strong winds over the enemy lines. Transported to the front in steel canisters, the gas would be released by specially Opposite the British, French and Dominion troops, the Germans were indeed waiting for proper weather conditions to unleash chlorine gas, in the hope of breaking the deadlock. No one was certain what the new gas might be, or how it would affect soldiers, so little was done to defend The Germans had launched tear gas attacks on both the Western and Eastern Fronts earlier in the war, but to little effect. In April, the Canadians were moved to the Ypres front in Belgium, east of the shattered city, in the large salient that jutted into enemy lines.īy mid-April 1915, British High Command had been warned by their spies that the Germans were planning to unleash poison gas. Dozens of Canadians were killed or wounded, usually from sniper fire, as they mucked through shallow The Canadian Division arrived in France in February 1915 and so missed the early battles however, it soon experienced the realities of trench warfare.

#GERMAN WWI GAS MASK HOW TO#

Warfare.) The opposing armies faced off against each other along the Western Front, unsure of how to advance in the storm of steel. The ditches became trenches and then expanded into trench systems, eventually running some 700 km from Switzerland to the North Sea. The front stalemated by the end of 1914, with soldiers digging deep to escape the rain of shells and bullets. Rapid-firing artillery, modern rifles, and machine guns resulted in devastating losses during advances over open ground ( see Armaments). During the first weeks of battle this was the case, with German troops marching through BelgiumĪnd sweeping downwards into France as they followed the Schlieffen Plan. The mount for the gas mask was graciously prepared by the conservator at The Rooms Provincial Museum.World War, generals expected the war on the Western Front would be one of marching troops, thrusting cavalry and fast-paced action in a campaign of movement.

#GERMAN WWI GAS MASK ARCHIVE#

The display was created and installed by Melissa Glover, Archival Assistant at the Faculty of Medicine Founders’ Archive in the Health Sciences Library. The display is located on the second floor of the Medical Education Centre, Faculty of Medicine, at Memorial University. Macpherson as well as a biographical sketch, excerpts from his notebooks, and photographs of Dr. This display pictured above features an exact replica of the gas mask created by Dr. He was demobilized on 9 September 1919 at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was appointed a member of the first War Office Committee on poisonous gases, and also director of medical services for Newfoundland during World War I.

Macpherson returned to Newfoundland in October 1916, after being injured in Egypt. While in Gallipoli, he designed the first gas mask, which he fashioned out of a German helmet.ĭr. He became an advisor on poisonous gas, which the Allies feared Germany might be ready to use. He served in France, Belgium, Egypt, Salonica, and was eventually transferred to Gallipoli. Macpherson first enlisted on 21 September 1914 at the rank of Captain. Cluny Macpherson, Principal Medical Officer, 1 st Newfoundland Regiment, invented the gas mask during World War I (1914-1918).ĭr.

German wwi gas mask