The Second Battle of Ypres was fought from 22 April to 25 May 1915, during the First World War, for control of the tactically valuable high ground to the east and the south of the Flemish town of Ypres, in western Belgium. The First Battle of Ypres had been fought the previous autumn. The Second Battle of Ypres was the occasion of the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front.
Background
The German chemist Walther Nernst was a volunteer driver in 1914 and proposed to Colonel Max Bauer, the German general staff officer responsible for liaison with scientists, that they could empty the opposing trenches by a surprise attack with tear gas. Observing a field test of this idea, the chemist Fritz Haber instead proposed using heavier-than-air chlorine gas.
The professional head of the German Army, General Erich von Falkenhayn, agreed to try the new weapon with the 4th Army. Falkenhayn wanted to use the gas to cover the transfer of units to the Eastern Front to assist the Austro-Hungarian Army against the Imperial Russian Army after its losses in 1914. Gas could not be released directly because the valves would freeze; liquid chlorine from cylinders would be syphoned for it to vaporise and be carried by a breeze to the British and French lines. German troops carried 5,730 gas cylinders, the largest weighing 40 kg (88 lb), into the front line for the release.
The installation was supervised by Haber, Otto Hahn, James Franck and Gustav Hertz. Cylinders were breached by shell fire on two occasions and the second time, three men were killed and fifty wounded. Some of the Germans were protected by miners' oxygen breathing apparatus. The Ypres Salient was selected for the attack, the front line followed the canal and bulged eastward around the town. North of the salient, the Belgian army held the line of the Yser, and the north end of the salient was held by two French divisions. The eastern bulge of the salient was defended by the 1st Canadian Division and two British divisions. The II Corps and V Corps of the Second Army comprised the 1st Cavalry Division, 2nd Cavalry Division and 3rd Cavalry Division, as well as the 4th Division, 27th Division, 28th Division, 50th (Northumbrian) Division, 3rd (Lahore) Division and the 1st Canadian Division.
Battle
In A record of the Engagements ... (1923), E. A. James used The Official Names of the Battles and Other Engagements ... (1921) to provide a summary of each engagement and the formations involved. In the Battles of Ypres, 1915, there were four engagements involving the Second Army from 22 April to 25 May.
- Battle of Gravenstafel (Thursday 22 April – Friday 23 April)
- Battle of St. Julien (Saturday 24 April – 4 May)
- Battle of Frezenberg (8–13 May)
- Battle of Bellewaarde (24–25 May)
Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge (22–23 April 1915)
On 22 April 1915 at about 5:00 p.m., the 4th Army released 168 long tons (171 t) of chlorine gas on a 4.0-mile (6.5 km) front, between the hamlets of Langemark and Gravenstafel. This sector of the Allied line was held by the 87th Territorial Division (comprising older reservists from 10th Military District, based in Rennes), alongside the 45th Infantry Division (France) (comprising troops from the (North African) 19th Military District). The French troops in the path of the gas cloud suffered 2,000–3,000 casualties, with 800 to 1,400 fatalities. Troops fled the gas cloud,
... haggard, their overcoats thrown off or opened wide, their scarves pulled off, running like madmen, directionless, shouting for water, spitting blood, some even rolling on the ground making desperate efforts to breathe.
— Colonel Henri Mordacq, 90th Infantry Brigade, 45th Division.
A 3.7 mi (6 km) gap in the French front was left undefended. German infantry followed well behind the cloud, breathing through cotton pads soaked with sodium thiosulfate solution and occupied the villages of Langemark and Pilckem, where they dug in, even though they might have occupied Ypres almost unopposed. The Germans had captured 2,000 prisoners and 51 guns. Canadian troops defending the southern flank of the break-in identified chlorine because it smelled like their drinking water. The Germans released more chlorine gas at them the following day. Casualties were especially severe for the 13th Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada) of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), which was enveloped on three sides and had overextended its left flank after the Algerians of the 45th Division broke.
In an action at Kitcheners' Wood, the 10th Battalion of the 2nd Canadian Brigade was ordered to counter-attack in the gap created by the gas attack. They formed up after 11:00 p.m. on 22 April, with the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) of the 3rd Brigade arriving to support the advance. Both battalions attacked with over 800 men, in waves of two companies each, at 11:46 p.m. Without reconnaissance, the battalions ran into obstacles halfway to their objective. Engaged by small-arms fire from the wood, they began an impromptu bayonet charge. The attack cleared the former oak plantation of Germans at a 75 per cent casualty rate.
Dusk was falling when from the German trenches in front of the French line rose that strange green cloud of death. The light north-easterly breeze wafted it toward them, and in a moment death had them by the throat. One cannot blame them that they broke and fled. In the gathering dark of that awful night they fought with the terror, running blindly in the gas-cloud, and dropping with breasts heaving in agony and the slow poison of suffocation mantling their dark faces. Hundreds of them fell and died; others lay helpless, froth upon their agonized lips and their racked bodies powerfully sick, with tearing nausea at short intervals. They too would die later—a slow and lingering death of agony unspeakable. The whole air was tainted with the acrid smell of chlorine that caught at the back of men's throats and filled their mouths with its metallic taste.
The Germans reported that they treated 200 gas casualties, 12 of whom died. The Allies reported 5,000 killed and 15,000 wounded. Within days the British were advised by John Scott Haldane to counter the effects of the gas by urinating into a cloth and breathing through it. Both sides set about developing more effective gas masks.
Battle of St. Julien (24 April – 5 May)
The village of St. Julien (now Sint-Juliaan; 50°53′24″N 2°56′13″E / 50.890°N 2.937°E) was in the rear of the 1st Canadian Division until the poison-gas attack of 22 April, when it became the front line. Some of the first fighting in the village involved the stand of Lance Corporal Frederick Fisher of the 13th Battalion CEF's machine-gun detachment; Fisher went out twice with a handful of men and a Colt machine gun, preventing advancing German troops from passing through St. Julien into the rear of the Canadian front line. He was killed the following day.
On the morning of 24 April, the Germans released another gas cloud towards the re-formed Canadian line just west of St. Julien. Word was passed to the troops to urinate on their handkerchiefs and place them over their nose and mouth. The countermeasures were insufficient and German troops took the village. The next day the York and Durham brigades of the Northumbrian Division counter-attacked, failing to secure their objectives but establishing a new line closer to the village. On 26 April the 4th, 6th and 7th Battalions of the Northumberland Brigade, the first Territorial brigade to go into action, attacked and gained a foothold in the village but were forced back, having suffered 1,954 casualties. Despite hundreds of casualties, the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers participated without respite in the battles at Frezenberg and Bellewaarde. On 24 April the battalion, subjected to a German gas attack near St. Julien, was nearly annihilated.
Soldiers realised they were being gassed and many ran as fast as they could. An hour after the attack began, there was a 1,500-yard (1.4 km) gap in the Allied line. Fearing the chlorine, few German soldiers moved forward and the delay enabled Canadian and British troops to retake the position before the Germans could exploit the gap.
After the first German chlorine-gas attacks, Allied troops were supplied with masks of cotton pads soaked in urine; it had been discovered that the urea in the pad neutralised the chlorine. The pads were held over the face until the gas dispersed. Other soldiers preferred to use a handkerchief, sock or flannel body-belt, dampened with a sodium bicarbonate solution and tied across the mouth and nose, until the gas passed. Soldiers found it difficult to fight like this and attempts were made to develop a better means of protection against gas attacks. By July 1915, soldiers received efficient gas masks and anti-asphyxiation respirators. Private W. Hay of the Royal Scots arrived in Ypres just after the chlorine-gas attack on 22 April 1915:
We knew there was something was wrong. We started to march towards Ypres but we couldn't get past on the road with refugees coming down the road. We went along the railway line to Ypres and there were people, civilians and soldiers, lying along the roadside in a terrible state. We heard them say it was gas. We didn't know what the Hell gas was. When we got to Ypres we found a lot of Canadians lying there dead from gas the day before, poor devils, and it was quite a horrible sight for us young men. I was only twenty so it was quite traumatic and I've never forgotten nor ever will forget it.
— Private W. Hay of the Royal Scots.
Battle of Frezenberg (8–13 May)
The Germans moved field artillery forward and assembled three corps opposite the 27th Division and 28th Division on the Frezenberg ridge (50°52′05″N 2°57′00″E / 50.868°N 2.950°E). The German attack began on 8 May with a bombardment of the 83rd Brigade in trenches on the forward slope of the ridge but the first and second infantry assaults were repelled by the survivors. The third German assault of the morning pushed the defenders back. Although the neighbouring 80th Brigade repulsed the attack, the 84th Brigade was pushed back; this left a 2 mi (3.2 km) gap in the line. The Germans were prevented from advancing further by the counter-attacks of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) and a night move by the 10th Brigade. The PPCLI success was costly, their 700 men were reduced to 150, who were in no shape to fight.
Battle of Bellewaarde (24–25 May)
On 24 May the Germans released a gas attack that hit Shell Trap Farm and to the area around the north-west, which was affected the most by the attack. A report of the event by Captain Thomas Leahy, of the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, shows that their C.O. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Loveband suspected a gas attack and had warned all company officers. Later the Germans threw up red lights over their trench, which would signal a gas release.
We had only just time to get our respirators on before the gas was over us.
— Captain Thomas Leahy
German forces managed to advance and occupy the British line to north and left of the Battalion. The Battalion was now under heavy fire from the German forces. But with shellfire and the aid from the 9th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders they managed to hold their trenches to the end.