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DULCE ET DECORUM EST
By Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through
sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The 2nd battle of
Ypres was the first battle on the Western front in which
was gas was used. On April 22nd the Germans conducted a
short bombardment of French Algerian troops and the
Algerians could see fog bank of greenish yellow clods
drifting towards them from the German lines. The Germans
had opened up 5,700 canisters which contained 168 tons
of chlorine gas and watched to see it's effect on the
French troops.
The Germans had lost
their 1914 gamble of trying to knock France out of the
war before Russia could come fully into the conflict and
in 1915 Eric von Falkenhyan was commissioned with the
launching of the only major attack on the western front
that year. German forces were mainly directed to wearing
down and trying to take Russia out of the war on the
Eastern Front in 1915.
The attack on Ypres
was intended to achieve two objectives, the first being
to divert allied focus from the Eastern Front and the
second being to test the new gas weapons. The success of
the gas on the Algerian troops was almost complete and
when the Germans advanced with their experimental gas
masks on, they found almost no resistance. The French
Algerian troops had either died from the attack, had
fled or were unable to resist. The Germans crossed 4
miles of French trenches and took 2,000 prisoners. They
had created a 7 mile gap in the French lines and were
able to march right through it but not expecting this
degree of devastation they had made no plans to
follow-up the opportunity and were halted after 3
kilometres when a panicked counter attack by the British
second army, under General Smith-Dorrien, manage to
stabilize the line.
On the 24th of April
the Germans repeated their brief artillery barrage and
then launched another gas attack, but this time it was
on the Canadian troops located just north-east of Ypres.
This time the Canadians were aware that gas might be
used in an attack and although not ready, they were able
to inflict heavy casualties on the advancing Germans.
They resisted German attacks until May 3rd when British
relief forces arrived. The Canadians had lost 1000 dead
with 5,975 causalities overall.
The fighting continued
to groan on with terrible losses to both sides with no
conclusive results. The Germans did capture territory
and managed to reduce the allied salient around Ypres
but had missed that initial opportunity to take
advantage of the complete breakthrough they could have
made on the first day of the gas attack. More slaughter
lie in wait with gas becoming a weapon that both sides
would use.
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