German guest troops in the First World War
The German gas troops in the First World War were units of the pioneer troops in the German army , which specialized in the use of poison gases as a chemical weapon during the First World War . Set up according to the plan since January 1915 and under the supervision of Fritz Haber , who later won the Nobel Prize , they increasingly lost their importance from the summer of 1917. The gas troops, who specialized in blown attacks, were replaced by units of the regular artillery equipped with gas mine launchers and poison gas grenades . The use of chemical weapons was no longer restricted to a special force. In 1918 about a third of all artillery shells used were filled with chemical warfare agents. However, there is also evidence that the proportion of poison gas ammunition may have been much higher.
history
Lineup
The first German special force for gas fighting was set up at the beginning of January 1915 after a corresponding proposal for the use of chlorine gas as a chemical weapon had been approved by the Chief of the General Staff , Erich von Falkenhayn . The soldiers assigned to the gas troops were trained in the technology and tactics of gas attacks according to the plan and under the supervision of the German "chief war chemist" Professor Fritz Haber from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry , including the determination of the attack date based on the weather forecast as well as experiments to determine the necessary gas concentration.
Mission profile
The tactical value of the gas weapon looked partners that it in a surprise attack movement in the trench warfare install and break up the solidified fronts should.
Blow molding technique
In the "blowing process" proposed by Haber, a poison gas suitable as a warfare agent was to be released as a cohesive cloud from one's own positions under appropriate wind conditions, pouring into the enemy ranks and driving the entrenched soldiers from their positions.
As a weapon for the blowing process, the German army initially used chlorine gas , based on Haber's suggestions , which was cheap to produce and was available in large quantities in German industry as a by-product of paint production. Chlorine gas can be easily compressed and bottled in a liquid state, which makes it easy to transport. Since liquefied chlorine gas does not attack iron, it was stored in cylindrical steel bottles (initially commercially available carbon dioxide bottles). To be on the safe side, the inside of the gas bottles was lined with lead. There was a pressure valve on the gas bottle to discharge the gas, to which a flexible lead made of lead was attached before the attack. Once the valve was opened, a gas bottle emptied within 2 to 3 minutes and released the warfare agent into the environment. Initially the gas bottles were filled directly in the chemical factories, later 40 trucks were equipped for this purpose and assigned to the engineer units responsible for the gas attacks.
The liquid chlorine gas filled in the filling station was transported to the front either by rail ( full-line , small and conveyor lines) or by cart. To prevent telltale metallic noises, the gas bottles were wrapped in straw. The task of the gas troops was then to install the gas cylinders in the immediate vicinity of the front in the balustrades of the trenches , to pack them with sandbags and to attach the 3 m long lead hoses to the valves, which - directed against the enemy - were laid over the edge of the trench. These activities were monitored by the "front observers", the specialists brought in by Haber for the gas troops. First of all, they had to investigate the local conditions for the possibility of using chlorine gas with the blowing process and to manage the installation of the gas bottles. During the attack themselves, they had to measure gas concentrations and ensure that their own troops were not endangered in the event of unexpected wind changes. The command over the gas troops remained with the troop officers.
Before deciding on a gas attack, the gas force command had to consider two important parameters: the weather and the terrain .
Weather conditions
For a gas attack with the blowing method, the speed of the wind could not be more than 3 m / s, since the gas cloud generated by blowing off the gas bottles would otherwise dissolve too quickly; on the other hand, it could not be less than 1.5 m / s, because otherwise there was a risk that the gas would stagnate and pose a threat to the attacking German troops.
In addition, one had to wait until the wind was blowing directly or diagonally in the direction of the enemy, which was not always the case, since during the trench warfare on the western front the front line was oriented from north-west to south-east and the wind in this area was mainly out blowing west. For this reason, the Allied troops often had an advantage in terms of weather conditions during the fighting in Flanders . However, especially at the beginning of spring, the wind was blowing from the northeast, which was an advantage for the German troops.
You also had to avoid extreme heat due to the strong solar radiation, as well as heavy rain, as the gas would then dissolve very quickly. The best moment for a gas attack with the blown method was early in the morning, especially when there was fog, or in the evening at sunset.
Terrain conditions
The reason why the German guest troops carried out most of the attacks with the blow molding method in Flanders or Champagne is that the terrain there is flat and not very overgrown. In terrain formations that are cut through by valleys or deep hollows, the gas driven away by the wind can blow back again after it has bounced off a slope. In terrain formations with low vegetation (fields, vineyards, etc.) the gas cloud divides, whereby the lower part remains in the vegetation, while the upper part moves on but loses concentration. In the wooded area, the gas cloud penetrates the forest and dissolves there very quickly, or drifts over it, only to fall again several kilometers further. Watercourses, on the other hand, can hold back the gas cloud, and in the case of chlorine, large areas of water can even absorb it.
Attack process
.jpg)
For a gas attack using the blowing method, the German troops set the following procedure: “As soon as the order to attack has been given, the infantry withdraws, except for a few machine guns that protect the engineers while they prepare to blow off the poison gas. Then the pioneers open the valves on the gas bottles and the chlorine gas escapes and forms a cloud. Under ideal weather conditions, the resulting gas cloud can travel approximately 30 km. It is fatal within 15 km. A few minutes after the gas was blown off, the infantrymen, equipped with gas masks, gradually occupy the trenches abandoned by the enemy. ”This type of tactic was particularly successful in the German troops in 1915 and 1916.
Building on Haber's work, the Nernst - Duisberg Commission ensured that increasing concentrations of phosgene were added to the chlorine gas blown off by the German gas troops . After the German soldiers were provided with protective masks that protected against chlorine gas and phosgene due to the work of Richard Willstätter , the routine use of phosgene as an admixture to chlorine gas was possible without risk. This happened for the first time at the end of May 1915 both on the western front against French soldiers and on the eastern front near Bolimów an der Bzura , where 240 tons of chlorine gas with up to 5% phosgene were blown off. Further attacks of this kind on the Eastern Front took place on June 12 and July 6, 1915. Another large blow attack with a chlorine-phosgene mixture took place on December 19, 1915 on the western front near Wieltje in Flanders against the British with 180 tons of poison gas. In addition, chloropicrin mixtures were blown off, the first attack with chloropicrin being carried out by the Russian army. The peak in terms of volume of the German blown attacks was on January 19 and 20, 1916. During this attack 500 tons of chlorine were blown off the Marne near Reims by the gas troops .
staff
The staff of the German guest troops consisted mainly of chemically and medically trained soldiers and officers. Commander of the gas troops was Colonel Max Peterson, his staff initially from his adjutant Otto Lummitzsch , Lieutenant dR Ludwig Hermann composed and Fritz Haber himself. His private assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, Friedrich Kerschbaum , acted as technical adjutant for Habers . Peterson (after which the later Engineer Regiment No. 35 was also called "Peterson Gas Regiment") was later promoted to major general.
Fritz Haber, who was later promoted to captain dR, endeavored to fill the officer positions of the guest troops with qualified scientists as much as possible, above all with physicists and chemists, but also doctors, pharmacists and meteorologists. James Franck, for example, who had volunteered as a war volunteer and was initially busy digging trenches in Königsberg , was requested by letter from the Haber Institute and assigned to Pioneer Regiment No. 35/36. Other conscripts bypassed service in the guest force by being recruited by other units. Max Born joined a unit of physicists and technicians under Max Wien who developed radio equipment for aircraft. According to Born's memories, they were “less brilliant than the gas people”, but had “a much more harmless task”.
Some of the soldiers called upon by Haber to serve in the guest troops included scientists who later achieved world fame. The later Nobel Prize winners James Franck , Otto Hahn and Gustav Hertz , but also Wilhelm Westphal , Hans Geiger and Erwin Madelung should be mentioned . Hugo Stoltzenberg , another assistant to Haber, opened the chlorine taps near Ypres on April 22, 1915, which was the first time that poison gas was used on the western front .
structure
The special troops for the gas fight, camouflaged as disinfection units, initially consisted of three pioneer companies, which were mainly formed from students who volunteered for the war. They were trained on the Wahn shooting range near Cologne .
On March 29, 1915, Haber's special force was reorganized under the command of Colonel Max Peterson into two battalions of three companies each . After the first successful gas attack during the Second Battle of Flanders on April 22, 1915 near Ypres , two pioneer regiments were formed from this, whose task was the use of poison gas in the blowing process: On April 27, 1915, first the Pioneer Regiment No. 35 was formed, at the beginning of May the Pioneer Regiment No. 36 .
Breloh in the Lüneburg Heath served as a garrison for the first German gas pioneers . The nearby military training area was the most important test and training area as the " Gasplatz Breloh ", which was continuously expanded as the war progressed. From 1916, three plants for the manufacture of chemical warfare agents and the production of the corresponding ammunition were built on the approximately 6,500 hectare site . In 1918, more than 6,000 people (75 officers, 677 NCOs and around 5,775 other personnel) produced around a quarter of the total war ammunition for the German army . Extensive tests with substances and weapon systems were carried out on firing ranges and test areas.
The pioneer regiments No. 35 and 36 each consisted of two battalions of three companies each , a company for the stocks (material), a weather station and a radio station. When using the blowing process, each gas battery consisted of twenty gas bottles. Each squad had to install the bottles in the trenches and camouflage them so that they could not be seen from the aircraft or by patrols. This work was carried out exclusively at night. On each one kilometer of the front line there were fifty batteries of 1,000 gas bottles with a total of approx. A regiment was able to equip a front line twelve kilometers in length for an attack using a blow molding method in five nights.
In August 1917, Pioneer Regiments No. 35 and 36 were disbanded and reorganized as independent Pioneer Battalions 35, 36, 37 and 38. In the last year of the war, the gas troops were expanded: in February 1918 the pioneer battalion 39 was added, in June 1918 the pioneer battalions 94, 95 and 96, so that at the end of the war there were eight poison gas units in the German army.
In the spring of 1916 the German troops used up to 500 tons of chemical substances and in the spring of 1917 another 300 tons. In the course of trench warfare , the warfare was characterized by more and more new technical ordnance. For this reason, further staffs were gradually added to the German Army High Command , which were directly subordinate to the Chief of the General Staff . They were supposed to advise the army command and the subordinate units on their type of weapon. For example, on September 27, 1918, Army High Command 17 had its own staff officer for the gas troops (Stogas) in addition to the affiliated staff of the General of the Pioneers .
Combat use
Attacks with the blow molding process
The first war deployment of the German gas troops took place during the Second Battle of Flanders on April 22, 1915 east of Ypres ( Belgium ). General Erich von Falkenhayn ordered a limited attack in the 4th Army sector to test the effect of the newly developed combat gas. The Gheluvelt - Langemarck - Yser Canal section was assigned to the army commander, Albrecht von Württemberg , charged with the attack .
The Chief of Staff of the 4th Army, Major General Ilse , organized the operation of the gas operation with Colonel Peterson, the leader of the chemical weapons. The chlorine gas required for the attack was delivered to the Western Front in 6,000 40 kg bottles and 24,000 20 kg bottles. From March 10, 1915, the boundary conditions for the use of the gas were initially met at the southern Ypres arch , but were postponed to the northern Ypres arch due to technical problems, enemy fire, repairs and the installation of additional cylinders.
When they arrived in the new operational area, the gas pioneers began to widen the trenches of the front line between Bixschoote and Langemarck over a length of seven to eight kilometers in order to deposit bottles with chlorine gas there. The filling station and the company responsible for the stocks were in Kortemark , about ten kilometers further north on the road from Diksmuide to Tielt .
The preparations were finally completed on April 11, 1915. On April 22, 1915, the gas could be blown off against the enemy positions in a northeast wind. General Berthold von Deimling (since 1913 Commanding General of the XV Army Corps ) gave the order to attack at 6:00 p.m. at 5:24 p.m. The attack lasted six to eight minutes. Any leader of a department could have the appropriate batteries opened. A total of 150 tons of chlorine gas were used after the blowing process. A 6 km wide, 600–900 m deep gas cloud formed, which drifted towards the French and Canadian troops near Sint-Juliaan.
The German infantry, protected by gas masks made from sodium thiosulphate and soda solution, advanced in compact lines. 35 minutes after the poison gas had ended, the German infantry had gained four kilometers of terrain without firing a single shot. At the end of the day, of the 15,000 soldiers attacked with war gas, 5,000 were reported dead and 5,000 captured, and 60 guns were captured.
In the course of the First World War, the German gas troops carried out a total of around 50 attacks with the blowing method between April 1915 and September 1917, with some of their own soldiers being endangered due to the changing wind direction. From the end of April 1917, Grünkreuz-1 was mainly used as warfare agent , which consisted of diphosgene and chloropicrin in various proportions . However, with the spread of the gas war, the widespread introduction of gas masks and better preparation of the Allied troops in the forefront, effective blown attacks became impossible.
In the last years of the war, all belligerent nations stopped blowing attacks in favor of newly developed gas projectiles. The use of poison gas grenades and gas mine throwers instead of the blowing method should enable chemical warfare agents to be used independently of wind and weather. Further advantages were that the surprise effect of the poison gas was preserved, a large number of chemical substances with the most varied of effects could be used as warfare agents, and the use of chemical weapons was no longer restricted to specially trained special troops.
Attacks with poison gas projectiles
.jpg)
The specialized gas troops were increasingly replaced by units of the regular artillery , which multiplied the use of chemical warfare agents at the front.
During the Battle of Verdun (February 21 to December 19, 1916), German troops carried out an offensive against French positions near Fleury , Thiaumont and on the Côte Froide Terre from June to October 1916 . The attack on June 23, 1916 began on a front width of three kilometers, which had been prepared for the French positions with heavy artillery fire since June 21. Most recently, the German artillerymen fired thousands of diphosgene- filled green cross grenades at the French gun batteries in order to deprive the enemy infantry of their protection. The impacted Grünkreuz projectiles did not explode directly and were initially mistaken for duds by some French. Within a short time, however, the poison gas had a devastating effect: the available French gas masks only partially protected their wearers from the new warfare agent. Many French fled in panic, while others held their positions in agony. The gas attack was followed by another heavy bombardment. When the gunfire ceased in the early hours of the morning of June 23, the German infantrymen left their trenches and launched an assault. They soon reached Fleury, because many French trenches were no longer occupied and could offer little resistance. On July 11th another attack took place on Souville , St. Michel and Belleville. The artillery preparation with gas grenades did not have the desired success here, however, as the French troops were now wearing improved gas masks. Furthermore, westerly winds blew the gas back into the German positions, where it led to death.
Until the middle of 1917, the Germans had developed and used other new substances that supplemented the warfare agents already available (Grünkreuz, Rotkreuz , Weißkreuz ). These new warfare agents were blue cross and yellow cross . For the first time, Blue Cross was fired against Allied troops on June 10-11 , 1917 near Nieuwpoort in Belgium. A little later, blue cross was also used in the so-called “ colored shooting ”, as invented by Colonel Georg Bruchmüller . This procedure was used, for example, in the German spring offensive from March 21 to July 17, 1918 in northern France: After a short artillery strike with mixed use of high explosive and gas shells , assault battalions were to move in and clear out remaining pockets of resistance. The mixed use of gas by the German artillery consisted of two attack series. The first series, in which volatile irritants affecting the nose and throat (blue cross) in connection with deadly lung warfare agents ( green cross ) were fired at the enemy positions to break the mask , had a ratio of 30% high explosive to 70% gas grenades. The second series consisted only of HE shells.
Yellow Cross , the other new chemical warfare agent, was first used by German troops on the night of July 12th to 13th, 1917, i.e. only shortly after the Blue Cross was first used against Allied soldiers near Ypres. In this attack, shells with around 125 tons of yellow cross were fired. Since the new grenades had a very low explosive power and no smoke like phosgene or hydrogen cyanide could be seen, the French-British armed forces initially believed in a trick of the German troops and did not put on their gas masks. As a result, around 2,000 injured and 50 to 60 dead had to be reported. In November 1917 the forest of Bourlon near Cambrai was deliberately contaminated with yellow cross to prevent the enemy from advancing.
In view of the increased importance of the use of poison gas by artillery and the newly available chemical warfare agents, the remaining units of the German gas troops were converted to the new weapon systems in the course of the summer of 1917. For example, Pioneer Regiment No. 35 was withdrawn from the western theater of war between July and mid-September 1917, relocated to Machalt near Reims and reorganized together with Pioneer Regiment No. 36. This was followed by training on a new gas appliance at Sedan from mid-September to early October 1917 . Units of the reorganized gas troops were then relocated to the southern front, where soldiers of the now 35 pioneer battalion of the Austro-Hungarian 22nd Rifle Division were subordinated and at the start of the 12th Isonzo battle on October 24, 1917 near Flitsch (Slovenia), a mortar attack with 70,000 green - and carried out blue cross grenades against Italian troops.
_1918.jpeg)
1918.jpeg)
By using poison gas grenades and gas mine throwers instead of the blowing process, the effectiveness of the use of poison gas could be increased significantly. In the war year 1918 about a third of all artillery shells used were filled with chemical warfare agents; According to Harris / Paxman, around 94 percent of all poison gas operations at that time were carried out by artillery fire.
An example of the frequency with which poison gas was used in the last year of World War I is the Fourth Battle of Flanders (March 18 to April 29, 1918). The clashes began on March 18 when the Allied positions were bombarded with gas grenades . The main attack of the German troops began after strong artillery preparations on April 9th, after the opposing troops had been exposed to the German gas bombardment since April 7th. On April 10, the German troops captured Armentières , at the same time an offensive took place north of the Lys with the capture of Messines (Mesen) and Bailleul . After the Allies had repulsed a first German attack on the Kemmelberg by April 19, the fighting began again on April 25. All night before, the Germans had fired gas grenades at the enemy positions, which were defended, among other things, with air strikes. At 6 a.m., the German Alpine Corps stormed Kemmelberg before the Fourth Battle of Flanders ended on April 29, 1918.
After the armistice on November 11, 1918, the remaining German troops were relocated from the theaters of war to the German Reich , where the former special troops for the gas fight were demobilized from December 1918 as well as the other land forces of the German Empire .
List of missions (extract)
The following table lists some of the combat missions that were carried out by German troops with poison gas during the First World War.
War year 1915
| date | Theater of war | German unity | opponent | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 22 | Western front | Gas Regiment "Peterson" (later Engineer Regiment No. 35) | French and Canadian troops | Blow attack near Ypres (Belgium) between Bixschoote and Langemarck during the Second Battle of Flanders , a total of 150 tons of chlorine gas blown off. |
| April 24th | Western front | ? | allied troops ( 1st Canadian Division ) | Blow attack near Ypres (Belgium) in the Sint-Juliaan area . On May 24, the chlorine gas attack and artillery bombardment in the Ypres arc killed 5,000 Allied soldiers, including John Condon , who was long considered the youngest of the Allies to fall in World War I. |
| May 1st to 5th | Western front | ? | British troops | Blow attack near Ypres (Belgium) in the fight for height 60 |
| 1st of May | Western front | Engineer Regiment No. 35 | British troops | Blow attack near Loos-en-Gohelle (France) |
| 2.May | Western front | ? | British troops | Blow attack near Ypres (Belgium), north of Wieltje at the Mouse Trap Farm command post |
| 5th of May | Western front | ? | British troops | Blow attack near Loos-en-Gohelle (France) |
| May 6th | Western front | Engineer Regiment No. 35 | British troops | Blow attack near Loos-en-Gohelle (France) |
| 10th of May | Western front | Engineer Regiment No. 35 | British troops | Blow attack near Loos-en-Gohelle (France) |
| May 23 and 24 | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | allied troops | Blow attack east and southeast of Ypres (Belgium). On the morning of May 24, there was a combined attack with chlorine gas and artillery on Allied positions between Menin Road and Sanctuary Wood , with the release of the poison gas lasting over four hours and still clearly noticeable in the city of Ypres itself. |
| May 24th | Western front | Engineer Regiment No. 35 | British troops | Blow attack near Loos-en-Gohelle |
| end of May | Eastern Front | ? | Russian troops | Blow attack near Bolimów an der Bzura (Poland) with chlorine gas and up to approx. 5% phosgene as admixture, a total of 240 tons of poison gas. |
| 31. May | Western front | ? | french troops | Blow attack near Ypres (Belgium) with 95% chlorine gas and 5% phosgene as admixtures. |
| June 12 | Eastern Front | ? | Russian troops | Blow attack with chlorine gas and 5% phosgene |
| July 6th | Eastern Front | ? | Russian troops | Blow attack with chlorine gas and 5% phosgene |
| 29th of July | Eastern Front | ? | Russian troops | Test attack with gas mine launchers using “C mines” with the “ C ” or “ K material ” developed under Nernst . |
| 6th of August | Eastern Front | ? | Russian troops | Blow attack with chlorine gas on the fortress of Osowiec . Since the released gas cloud, with an estimated width of 8 kilometers, only reached a height of 10 to 15 meters, some enemy soldiers remained ready to defend themselves. This was described by the Allied press as the " battle of the dead men ". |
| October 19th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | french troops | Blow attack at Pontfaverger on the Marne near Heutrégiville ( Pontfaverger ) to ward off an expected attack. The 3rd Company was assigned to the 29th Infantry Division east of Reims (France) from mid-August 1915 to the end of May 1916 . |
| October 29th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | french troops | Blow attack at Pontfaverger on the Marne near Heutrégiville ( Pontfaverger ) to ward off an expected attack. |
| November 26th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | allied troops | Blow attack near Montfaucon |
| 19. December | Western front | ? | British troops | Attack at Wieltje northeast of Ypres in Flanders. On the front line between Boezinge , Pilckem and Verlorenhoek , a chlorine-phosgene mixture was used in the blowing process, a total of 180 tons of poison gas. The blow attack was followed by an artillery attack with poison gas grenades. In the English-language literature this is sometimes referred to as "the first German phosgene attack". |
War year 1916
| date | Theater of war | German unity | opponent | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | allied troops | Blow attack near Péronne on the Somme (France). |
| January 19th and 20th | Western front | Pioneer Regiment No. 36 | allied troops | Blow attack on the Marne near Reims (France), a total of 500 tonnes of chlorine blown off, the high point of German blow attacks in World War I in terms of volume. |
| 21st of February | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | allied troops | Blow attack near Liancourt (France). |
| April 27 | Western front | Pioneer Regiment No. 36 | British troops | Blowing attack in Hulluch north of Loos-en-Gohelle (France) with a chlorine-phosgene mixture, a total of 3,800 gas cylinders. |
| April 29 | Western front | Pioneer Regiment No. 36 | British troops | Blow attack in Hulluch north of Loos-en-Gohelle with a chlorine-phosgene mixture. During the attack, the wind turned and blew the poison gas back into the German positions, where it claimed around 1,500 dead and wounded. |
| April, 30th | Western front | ? | British troops | Blow attack in Heuvelland (near Ypres). On a front length of 3.2 km, a chlorine-phosgene mixture of 2,000 larger and 3,000 smaller gas cylinders was blown from German positions between La Petit Douve and Spanbroekmolen onto opposing troops near Wulverghem, with the gas cloud extending into the French city of Bailleul - see map . |
| May 19th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | Russian troops | Blow attack at St. Souplet on the Somme. The installation of gas cylinder batteries south of St. Souplet, necessary for this, began in early March 1916. |
| June 16 and 17 | Western front | ? | British troops | Blow attack in Heuvelland near Ypres with a chlorine-phosgene mixture. As on April 30, 1916, the gas was blown off German positions along the front between La Petit Douve and Spanbroekmolen on British troops at Wulverghem. |
| June 22nd and 23rd | Western front | ? | french troops | Attack near Verdun in the area of Fort de Souville and Fort de Tavannes, first use of diphosgene- filled green cross grenades. On the night of June 23, 1916, around 110,000 gas grenades were fired into the French hinterland of Fleury within six hours . |
| 2nd July | Eastern Front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | Russian troops | Blow attack at Smarhon as part of the Brusilov offensive in the section east of Smarhon - Baranavichy ( Belarus ). |
| July 19 | Western front | ? | allied troops | Blow attack near Fromelles (France) west of Lille , using poison gas, presumably based on phosgene, against Allied troops. The attack by predominantly Australian troops on the German positions was planned as a relief attack for the Battle of the Somme , but went down in history as the greatest defeat by Australian troops in a single day. |
| July 28th to November 4th | Eastern Front | Pioneer Regiment No. 36 | Russian troops | Blow attacks during the Battle of Kovel (July 28, 1916 to November 4, 1916) in Ukraine as part of the Brusilov Offensive . The 36th Engineer Regiment was temporarily subordinate to the 121st Division and the 10th Army . |
| August 2nd | Eastern Front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | Russian troops | Blow attack at Smarhon as part of the Brusilov offensive in the section east of Smarhon-Baranavichy. |
| September 3 | Eastern Front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | Russian troops | Blow attack on Russian positions on the Shchara near Baranavichy as part of the Brusilov offensive in the section east of Smarhon-Baranavichy. |
| October 6th | Eastern Front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | Russian troops | Blow attack on the Shchara as part of the Brusilov offensive in the section east of Smarhon – Baranavichy. |
| November 28th | Eastern Front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | Russian troops | Blow attack on the Shchara as part of the Brusilov offensive in the section east of Smarhon – Baranavichy. |
War year 1917
| date | Theater of war | German unity | opponent | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 January | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | allied troops | Blow attack near Époye on the Marne (France). This mission northeast of Reims is related to the German operations around Verdun and on the Aisne . |
| 7th of April | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | allied troops | Blow attack near Thiaucourt (France). This mission southwest of Metz and northeast Reims is related to the German operations around Verdun and on the Aisne. |
| May | Western front | ? | allied troops | Attack near Berry-au-Bac (France), first use of green cross grenades with the new lung warfare agent phenylcarbylamine chloride |
| June 10th and 11th | Western front | ? | allied troops | Attack near Nieuwpoort (Belgium), first use of blue cross-filled grenades |
| July 1 | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Regiment No. 35 | allied troops | Blow attack near Thiaucourt (France). This mission southwest of Metz and northeast Reims is related to the German operations around Verdun and on the Aisne. |
| July 12th and 13th | Western front | ? | British troops | Attack near Ypres, first use of yellow cross-filled grenades, with a total of around 125 tons of this new weapon being fired. |
| October 24th | South front | Engineer Battalion 35 | Italian troops | Gas mine thrower attack south of Flitsch (Slovenia), in which the Naklo Gorge was bombarded with 70,000 green and blue cross grenades containing the substances chlorine arsenic and diphosgene , new on the southern front . This mission, for which the Pioneer Battalion 35 was subordinate to the kuk 22nd Rifle Division, took place at the start of the 12th Isonzo Battle . |
| November | Western front | ? | allied troops | Use of yellow cross-filled grenades to create contaminated rooms in the forest of Bourlon near Cambrai (France) that the enemy can no longer enter. |
| 6th of December | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack in the area south of Dieuze (France) in support of the bay. 1st Landwehr Division at Réchicourt . |
| December 28th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack in the area south of Dieuze in support of the 48th Landwehr Division south of Leintrey . |
War year 1918
| date | Theater of war | German unity | opponent | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 26th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack in support of the bay. 4th Infantry Division south of Thiaucourt (France). |
| February 15th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack in support of the bay. 4th Infantry Division south of Thiaucourt (France). |
| February 22 | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack in support of the 78th Reserve Division southwest of Thiaucourt, France. |
| 1st March | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack in support of the 78th Reserve Division southwest of Thiaucourt, France. |
| March 10-13 | Western front | ? | allied troops | Attack near Cambrai (France) with yellow cross-filled grenades. Within four days, around 150,000 of these shells were fired at Allied positions, of which 20,000 were fired within 15 hours at Armentières , where "liquid mustard gas flowed like rainwater in the gutters of the streets" (Harris / Paxman). In the weeks that followed, the Allied hospitals had to treat around 20,069 injured soldiers, although the toxic effects only set in gradually and the Allied troops were additionally paralyzed. |
| March 21st | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack near Gauchy (France). This mission at the Siegfried Line near Saint-Quentin is related to the spring offensive in the “ Zone rouge ”. |
| April 6th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine-thrower attack on the southern suburb of Chauny (France). This mission at the Siegfried Line near Saint-Quentin is related to the spring offensive in the “ Zone rouge ”. |
| 2.May | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack on Courcy in connection with the offensive on Reims. |
| May 27th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine-throwing attack on the Aisne-Marne Canal in connection with the offensive on Reims. |
| 18th of June | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack on Reims. |
| September 15th | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack on Diksmuide . |
| 17th of September | Western front | 3rd Company / Engineer Battalion 35 | allied troops | Gas mine thrower attack on Diksmuide. |
literature
- Margit Szöllösi-Janze : Fritz Haber: 1868–1934; a biography. Beck-Verlag, Munich 1998 (also habilitation paper University of Munich 1996/97), ISBN 3-406-43548-3 (online) .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Thomas Weißbrich: Poison gas. Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, September 1, 2014 (online), accessed February 1, 2015.
- ↑ vliz.be
- ^ Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman: A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Gas and Germ Warfare . Arrow, London 2002, ISBN 0-09-944159-4 . , P. 24.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Margit Szöllösi-Janze : Fritz Haber: 1868–1934; a biography. Beck-Verlag, Munich 1998, pp. 327–329 (online) , accessed January 26, 2015.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Ypres, 22 avril 1915: les premières attaques au gaz de combat (German version) on the website of the French Ministry of Defense (online) , accessed on 21. February 2015.
- ↑ a b c d Die Deutschen Gasmasken (1915–1918) / Les masques à gaz allemands (1915–1918), accessed on January 26, 2015.
- ^ Georg Feulner: Natural sciences: data, facts, events and people . Compact Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8174-6605-4 .
- ↑ Hans Günter Brauch : The chemical nightmare, or is there a chemical weapons war in Europe? Dietz Verlag, 1982.
- ^ A b Carl Duisberg, Kordula Kühlem (Ed.): Carl Duisberg (1861-1935): Letters from an industrialist . Oldenbourg Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-71283-4 .
- ↑ https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/7YU7K3QJCBUE6RWX4YL7AF2NB6NDFPAQ
- ↑ The Monitor Hugo Stoltzenberg and Chemical Weapons Proliferation.pdf ( Memento of the original from November 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1995 University of Georgia (PDF)
- ↑ a b c d e Pionier of Pionier-Regiment 35 (online) ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed January 26, 2015.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af Verein für Computergenealogie , 3rd Württembergische Pionier-Kompagnie Pionier-Battalion No. 35. (online) , accessed January 26, 2015.
- ↑ http://www.geschichtsspuren.de/artikel/versuchsanlagen/108-munster-kampftstoffe.html
- ^ Hermann Cron: The organization of the German army in the world wars. Berlin 1923, p. 35.
- ↑ Map of the front line ( English ) World War One Battlefields. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
- ^ Margit Szöllösi-Janze: Fritz Haber 1868-1934: A biography. 1998, p. 329 f.
- ↑ special units.net
- ^ A b Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman: A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Gas and Germ Warfare . Arrow, London 2002, ISBN 0-09-944159-4 . , Pp. 24-27.
- ↑ a b Jack Horsfall, Nigel Cave: Bourlon Wood. (Battleground Europe), Pen & Sword Books, 2001, ISBN 0-85052-818-6 . (on-line)
- ↑ a b Manfried Rauchsteiner : The gas cannons from Flitsch. In: The press . Print edition from October 20, 2007 and online edition from October 19, 2007, accessed on January 17, 2015.
- ^ Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman: A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Gas and Germ Warfare . Arrow, London 2002, ISBN 0-09-944159-4 , pp. 24 .
- ^ Margit Szöllösi-Janze: Fritz Haber 1868–1934: Eine Biographie, 1998, p. 329 f.
- ↑ Staff: On the Western Front, Ypres 1915. (No longer available online.) Veteran Affairs Canada, July 29, 2004, archived from the original on December 6, 2008 ; Retrieved April 8, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman: A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Gas and Germ Warfare . Arrow, London 2002, ISBN 0-09-944159-4 , pp. 3 .
- ^ Henry Wilson, Victor Lefebure: The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War . Kessinger Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-4179-3546-4 .
- ↑ James Edward Edmonds, Graeme Chamley Wynne: Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1915. volume 1, London 1927, p. 289.
- ^ A b c d Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman: A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Gas and Germ Warfare . Arrow, London 2002, ISBN 0-09-944159-4 , pp. 6 .
- ↑ cwgc.org
- ↑ Hans Günter Brauch : The chemical nightmare, or is there a chemical weapons war in Europe? Dietz Verlag, 1982.
- ^ Georg Feulner: Natural sciences: data, facts, events and people. Compact Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8174-6605-4 .
- ↑ a b 100 Years of the First World War, technology: gas war , accessed on July 27, 2016.
- ^ Klaus Hoffmann: Guilt and responsibility: Otto Hahn - conflicts of a scientist . Verlag Springer, 1993, ISBN 3-642-58030-0 .
- ^ Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman: A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Gas and Germ Warfare . Arrow, London 2002, ISBN 0-09-944159-4 . , Pp. 17-19.
- ↑ See First German phosgene attack (engl. WP)
- ↑ a b See Gas attacks at Hulluch (Eng. WP)
- ↑ a b See Gas attacks at Wulverghem (Eng. WP)
- ↑ See also The Verdun Eyewitnesses, Der Spiegel Online, accessed on February 22, 2016
- ↑ Disaster at Fromelles article by Ross McMullin for: Australian War Memorial, Wartime Issue 36
- ↑ europeana1914-1918.eu
- ↑ Bavarian State Office for the Environment: Working aid for the investigation of blasting sites, Appendix 3.1: List of abbreviations / glossary ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 871 kB), p. 19, accessed on May 15, 2013.
- ↑ abc-waffen.de: Lung-damaging warfare agents , accessed on May 15, 2013.
- ^ Robert Harris, Jeremy Paxman: A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Gas and Germ Warfare . Arrow, London 2002, ISBN 0-09-944159-4 . , P. 31.
