figures running wildly in confusion over the fields. 2 A British soldier described the pandemonium that flowed from the front lines to the rear. Within a matter of minutes, this slow moving wall of gas killed more than 1000 French and Algerian soldiers, while wounding approximately 4000 more. The surprise use of chlorine gas allowed the Germans to rupture the French line along a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) front, causing terror and forcing a panicked and chaotic retreat. Disregarding intelligence reports about the strange cylinders prior to the attack, the French troops were totally unprepared for this new and horrifying weapon.
The order to release the gas was entrusted to German military meteorologists, who had carefully studied the area’s prevailing wind patterns. Filled with pressurized liquid chlorine, the cylinders had been clandestinely installed by the Germans more than 3 weeks earlier. Within 10 minutes, 160 tons of chlorine gas drifted over the opposing French trenches, engulfing all those downwind. IN THE LATE AFTERNOON OF April 22, 1915, members of a special unit of the German Army opened the valves on more than 6000 steel cylinders arrayed in trenches along their defensive perimeter at Ypres, Belgium.
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