The Battle of Ypres, April 1915

Essay by vaughan0 December 2003

download word file, 4 pages 5.0

Downloaded 35 times

It came in the year 1915 when the "New Born" Canadian Army was moved from what was their somewhat silent sector on the Western Front to the apparent space in the line in front of the town of Ypres, Belgium. On the right of the Canadians would be two British Divisions, and on the left would be a French division comprised of Algerian colonialists.

It would be here, at Ypres on April 22, 1915 that the German Army would introduce crude and chaotic torture in the form of a yellow cloud, known as chlorine gas. The Germans had decided that they needed a break in the line, and this was the place to do it. So after heavy artillery bombardment, and the smoke had settled, roughly 160 tons of an ominous yellow cloud began to creep its way into the Algerian trenches. The Algerians, not being equipped with gas masks from the French High Command began to die a slow and horrible death.

As they inhaled the gas it went through their lungs, tore them apart, and causing the their fellow soldiers, their friends, to cough up blood, and gasp for air. As they we gasping for their last breath, their eyes burning, as if a hot stick of coal, right out of the fire pit, had been placed right in their eyes. Immediately following this horrific scene, the Algerians, or what was left of them, retreated, and the Germans fired, and moved up into the four mile gap left by the brave, yet tortured Algerian Force.

Surprisingly, instead of a huge charge to break through the gap, and finish off the Canadians and the British, the Germans had only moved a mere 2 miles with a small contingent of men, and dug themselves in. Some say that this...