![]() The Germans waited for the gas to clear then moved to the abandoned French trenches. They were mostly blind and choking to death, and as fast as they died were just heaved behind the trench." "Our trenches were shortly filled with them crowding in from out left. The French troops who weren't immediately overcome fled to the Canadian trenches.Ĭanadian Lieutenant Colonel Ian Sinclair described the scene: ![]() In the late afternoon, a green cloud - poisonous chlorine gas - rose from the German trenches and moved slowly with the wind over the French lines. Then on April 22, 1915, old-fashioned warfare turned modern. The Canadian First Division took up position alongside French troops near Ypres, the last Belgian city not captured by the Germans.Īt first there was constant bombardment on the battlefield. The troops were poorly equipped and hastily prepared but three months of training awaited them in England.īy the spring of 1915, the German army had swept through most of neutral Belgium and Canadian troops were about to see their first action. On October 3, 1914, thirty-one thousand Canadians set sail for the battlefields of Europe, the largest convoy ever to cross the Atlantic. "It will be a terrible war," a Canadian doctor named John McCrae wrote to a friend, "and somebody's finish when all is said and done."īut even McCrae couldn't imagine the terror to come when chemical warfare was first introduced to the battlefield. In August 1914, the First World War broke out in Europe pitching Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire against Britain, France and Russia.Īs part of the British Empire, Canada went to war as well. ![]() ![]() (Courtesy of the National Archives of Canada) Canadians soldiers are front and centre during some of the first gas attacks in the First World WarĬanadian soldiers were among the first to witness the horrors of modern warfare as "the war to end all wars" exploded onto the world stage.ĭuring the First World War, gas attacks killed or injured an estimated 1,296,853 soldiers on both sides. ![]()
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