Attempts at breaking the Stalemate - Gas

Essay by BoO!High School, 12th grade March 2006

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The stalemate at the Western Front brought many revolutionary and inventive weapons to the war. Two of which were the tank and gas. These two weapons were thought prior to use, to have ended the stalemate at the western front for their respective countries. Both of these weapons were a flump and did very little apart from cause harm and pain to their enemy.

Gas was the first type of chemical warfare used in war. It was thought to have been a weapon, which would win the war but instead it was an extreme disappointment. The French, not the Germans at the beginning of the trench warfare at the Western Front in 1914, first used gas. The French fired tear-gas grenades at the Germans; this was very unsuccessful so the French did not deploy anymore more tear-gas from that stage onwards until further development was made.

The Germans revolutionised chemical warfare.

The German army gave serious study to the development of chemical warfare and they were the first to use it on a large amount. They had the most advanced chemical industry in Europe of the time. The first experiment of gas by the Germans was unsuccessful. They fired tear gas at the Russians at Bolimov. The liquid gas inside the shell did not vaporise in the air because of the freezing temperatures at the venue. The Germans made the debut of poison gas. The Germans first fired the chlorine gas at the start of the battle of Ypres. The Germans bombarded around the town of Ypres at the morning of April the 22nd. By the afternoon the bombardment seised. The allied troops did not know what hit them until they inhaled the greenish yellow fog. The gas then attacked the allied soldiers' respiratory system and choked them. From that...