Second Battle of Ypres and First Poison Gas Attack
The Second Battle of Ypres (22 April – 25 May 1915) is chiefly remembered for the first large-scale use of poison gas as a weapon of war. At 17:00 on 22 April, German forces released approximately 168 tonnes of chlorine gas from 5,730 cylinders along a 6-kilometre front near Langemarck. The greenish-yellow cloud drifted into French and Algerian positions, causing mass panic, asphyxiation, and the collapse of a 4-mile section of the Allied line. Canadian and British troops counter-attacked, urinating on cloths to hold over their faces as improvised gas protection, and managed to contain the breach. Germany lacked the reserves to exploit the opening and the Ypres salient held. Both sides subsequently developed and deployed increasingly lethal chemical agents — phosgene, mustard gas — and countermeasures including gas masks. Chemical warfare became a defining horror of the Great War, causing approximately 1.3 million casualties and 90,000 deaths, and generating a post-war revulsion that led to the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning its use.
- Year: 1915 CE
- Category: Military
