This Wednesday, a hundred years ago...

The first gas attack in WW1.

1200 people died.

First WWI gas attack produced new horrors, changed warfare

By RAF CASERT, The Associated Press
Published: April 18, 2015, 5:16 am | Updated: April 18, 2015, 5:46 am

STEENSTRATE, Belgium (AP) — As a spring breeze wafted into his trench, commander Georges Lamour of the French 73rd infantry saw something almost surreal drift his way. A yellow-green cloud.

He barely had time to react. “All my trenches are choked,” Lamour cried into the field telephone to headquarters. “I am falling myself!”

These were the last words heard from Lamour. World War I, and warfare itself, were never the same.

Chlorine gas — sent crawling in favorable winds over Flanders Fields from German positions — sowed terror and agony for the first time on April 22, 1915. The era of chemical weaponry had dawned. The weapon of mass slaughter came to symbolize the ruthlessness and, many say, futility of the 1914-1918 Great War.

http://wbay.com/ap/first-wwi-gas-attack-produced-new-horrors-changed-warfare/