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Poison Gas!
Diary Entry
2nd Lt. Kenneth Callan-Macardle
Personal Comments by Two "Girls With Yellow Hands"
Gabrielle West and Caroline Webb
Suffering in Germany
Princess Blucher
A Sense of the Meaning of Total War
Peter Strasser
Poison Gas!
The following description of a poisonous gas attack by the French against the Germans was written by a German soldier. The Germans were in an underground fortress that they had earlier captured from the French by using gas. Hundreds of French soldiers had died in this underground fortress. The Germans soldiers, crowded in the fortress, believed they were safe from enemy attack and were relaxing.
Wilhelm Hermanns
"It was an enormous place crowded with many hundreds of soldiers. Some lay on bunks sleeping, snoring and moaning. Here a flashlight, there a candle, match, or cigarette dotted the dark with flickering islands of light continually shifting in brightness.
I opened my knapsack to get something to eat, but a putrid smell spoiled what little appetite I had. Schulze told me that under this heap of earth many French soldiers were buried, having been killed by poison gas when we Germans captured this underground stronghold.
Suddenly I heard the cry "Poison gas!" I saw people around me putting on their gas masks. Soon many were dying, and the bunks and floors were filled with bodies over which the living stepped and stumbled in search of air. It was as if the souls of the dead Frenchmen who were gassed and lay under the very mound on which I was standing had demanded and were receiving their revenge....Firmenich said to me, "Remember, Willie, we must not hate the French for using gas. We used it first."
Diary Entry
As we advanced, German shells littered the battlefield with dead and wounded. All around us and in front, men dropped or staggered about. I found a Sergeant and shouting in his ear asked where were his officers. 'All gone, sir', he shouted back.
The regiment was crumbling away.... All the world was forever dead to Vaudrey and Kenworthy, to Chesham, Sproat, Ford, and of the other ranks. We did not know how many. Vaudrey used to enjoy early morning parades; Chesham had loved to hunt the buck in Africa when the heat was shimmering with the birth of a day. Young Victor was killed, his problem of marriage to a woman six years his senior finally settled. General Shay has wired 'Well done, 90th Brigade, you will attack again soon'. We are about 400 strong today. We who went in eight hundred.
Personal Comments by Two "Girls With Yellow Hands"
With men off to war, many women volunteered to do what previously had been 'all -men's' work. One job was in the munitions factories helping to make bullets and artillery shells. This was dangerous work because of the chemicals that were used, insufficient safety and health standards, and possibility of accidents. The effects of the chemicals turned the skin of many men and women yellow, made women infertile, and lead to illness and death. The readings below represent just a few observations by two of the women who sought to help their country win the war.
The first time you go around [the factory], you think, 'What an interesting place.' Then the evil smell becomes more noticeable. The particles of acid land on your face and make you nearly mad with feelings like pins and needles.
The fumes [from the acid and chemicals] often mean 16 or 18 casualties a night... You are blind and speechless by the time you escape [from the factory].
Gabrielle West
Sometimes when we came up on our old train, it would be packed with different people. And there'd be all the officers, sitting there. Some of them used to look at us as if we were insects.... And other used to mutter, "Well, they're doing their bit." We said, "well, we don't mind dying for our country."
Caroline Webb
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Suffering in Germany
Princess Evelyn Blucher, British by birth, was married to a German Prince and chose to spend the war in Germany with her husband. She kept a diary. The segments below reflect some of her reactions and feelings during the latter part of the war.
Reading B: Strikes are breaking out in different parts, leading to disturbances which have already caused the deaths of a few unfortunate policemen....We are now entirely at the mercy of the military courts of justice.... Anyone who strikes is being sent off to the front at once. In the darkest days of serfdom men could not have been more in a state of slavery than we are in these days of militarism.
Reading C: Naturally [the people] begin more than ever to say; "Why should we work?... starve?... send our men out to fight? What is it all going to bring us?... More work?... more poverty?... more men crippled?... our homes ruined? What is it all for?
Reading D: The days come and go. Every hour brings its fears, disappointments, and vague hopes.... The feeling towards the Kaiser is steadily diminishing in loyalty and respect.... The same people who greeted him so warmly a short time ago with 'Ave, Caesar,' are now distributing leaflets in the back streets of Berlin proclaiming 'Down with the Kaiser, down with the government.' More and more [Ludendorff] and his adherents are perceiving the fatal mistakes of the U-boat war, and the madness of ever allowing things to go so far that America should enter the war.
A Sense of the Meaning of Total War
We who strike the enemy where his heart beats have been slandered as baby killers and murderers of women. What we do is repugnant to us too, but necessary. Very necessary. A soldier cannot function without the factory worker, the farmers and all the providers behind them. Nowadays there is no such animal as a non-combatant.
During World War 1, German Airman Peter Strasser commanded the fleet of Zeppelins that, in early 1915, flew to Britain and carried out the first systematic bombing of civilians from the sky. Strasser did not live to see the end of the war. His Zeppelin was shot down and all aboard were killed.
2nd Lt. Kenneth Callan-Macardle, Manchester Regiment
Gabrielle West and Caroline Webb
Princess Blucher
Reading A: There is intense cold here, such as has not been known for more than half a century. There are shivering throngs of hungry care-worn people picking their way through snowy streets... We are all gaunt and bony now, and have dark shadows around our eyes. Our thoughts are chiefly taken up with wondering what our next meal will be, and dreaming of the good things that once existed.
Peter Strasser