Battle of Loos with Peter Doyle

In a special episode we are joined by Professor Peter Doyle who delivered this talk on Loos at a Podcast Supporters Evening for the 110th Anniversary of the battle last month.

Peter's new edition of is book is found here: Loos 1915.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
Last month was the hundred and tenth anniversary of
the Battle of Luz.
Luz was an important turningpoint in the British Army's
experience on the Western Front,its first big battle, its first
big Porsche.
And the first time on thatWestern Front, the Kitchener's
army, men from the new army, hadbeen used in a major offensive.

(00:34):
Luz changed the Britishapproach, really, to battles on
the Western Front, in the waythey were fought, with the
resources that were available.
This was a battle in which men,manpower wasn't a problem,
artillery was no longer aproblem.
That was something that haddogged British offensives in the

(00:54):
earlier phase of 1915.
And the turning point with newweapons in that lose was the
first occasion in which poisongas was used by the British
Army.
So it was important that lastmonth's podcast supporters
evening, on that 110thanniversary, that we marked it
somehow.
And Professor Peter Doyle,historian, geologist, author,

(01:19):
and great friend to thispodcast, who's appeared on it on
many occasions, very kindly camealong to deliver a talk about
that very battle.
So here we'll share Peter's talktomorrow on the Old Frontline
YouTube channel.

(01:40):
And do check out Peter's talk,and I'll put the details of that
in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
Right, so what I'm going to do is talk to you about
uh the British use of gas in1915 and really whether its
expectation was greater thanreality.
So clearly there's a lot offaith placed in this.
Um so this is taken from thephrase is taken from one of
those popular magazines of theperiod, and you can see repaying

(02:13):
the Germans with their owncoins.
So the things I'm gonna address,not necessarily in this order,
not necessarily with individualslides, but I'm gonna look at uh
the idea of Luce or Luce as theill-fated battle.
I'm gonna focus predominantly onterrain and trench warfare
because, as I've mentioned toyou already, this is my primary
interest, and it's somethingthat I've been interested in

(02:36):
since I was about eight yearsold when I first saw All Quiet
on the Western Western Front.
Of course, the only decent one,uh not the recent rubbish one,
but you know, that's just myperspective on it.
You may have different views.
Um, I'm gonna look at this as atrench warfare as a siege, and I
think that's a well-establishedconcept, but I want to look at

(02:58):
how what siege engines wereused, if you look, how this was
uh comprised, and particularlyas one of those, why gas?
Why would we use gas?
What was gas all about?
Um, I think we often have gas inour minds through Dulce de
Corumest, um, obviously throughWilfred Owen, but really, was it

(03:19):
that terrible a weapon?
That's uh a question to beaddressed.
I'd leave that really witheveryone.
I'm gonna focus a little bit onunderstanding some
misunderstandings,misapprehensions about gas, and
particularly its release.
And there's some very principalpoints here that I need to point
out to you.

(03:39):
Um, we're gonna look at whathappened at Luce, but I'm gonna
be spending my time mostly onthe first part of that battle
rather than the latter part withthe grinding, trench warfare,
trench raids, uh, and all therest of it was played.
So I'm really looking at thatfirst component.
And was there a chance ofsuccess?
Well, I'm a great believer, andthere's always a chance.
Um, I'll say it with hushedbreath here, but I I still have

(04:03):
half a view that Gallipoli couldhave succeeded.
There you go.
I know this goes against thegrain right now.
Uh, don't tell uh Peter Hartwhatever you do, but principle
behind this is maybe just maybe.
So let's have a look at that.
And was there anything learned?
Well, we are often talk aboutthe concept of the learning
curve, learning process.

(04:24):
It's been discussed, kickedaround since the 80s or 90s.
Um, there's definitely going tobe something learned.
So that's what I'm gonna try anddraw out from this, and
obviously, very happy to answerany questions.
So let's look at it in anutshell.
Why uh loose?
Well, this is all about JosephJoff.
Uh, he had a vision, and hisvision, of course, was in

(04:47):
1914-15 was to break through andto sweep uh the Germans from the
fields of France in Artois andChampagne.
Um, and I think they'recommencing in winter 1914, which
is against the normal doctrine.
You know, you don't fight butwars in winter, apparently.
Um, that's certainly the case.
But Joff um, mustachio, like allof these guys are, insists that

(05:12):
the British are engaged in this,they're gonna have to happen.
So there he is, Joff.
Um, I think we can you know beatthat mustache with uh with the
kitchener, but you know, it'sdown to you to to measure this
up.
Um, joking apart, Joff was acommitted to the elimination of
uh a big knee in that old frontline, the front line which

(05:32):
extended down, of course, fromthe British sector in the Noy on
salience.
And we're if we're talking aboutsalience, this is one hell of a
salience, so attack at all costsis his principle.
So we have uh this crustyindividual, of course, field
marshal Sir John French.
Um he is given the opportunityto you know to commit his

(05:54):
troops.
In fact, he was forced intothis, but he realized he knew
that after Neuf Chapel, and ofcourse, after those early
battles, that really the it hadto stand on the defensive until
the new army was in tip-topcondition, could be shipped to
France, and could actuallyengage.
And of course, Leurce is thefirst time that the new army is

(06:17):
really committed, it also goesto Gallipoli, and also that
artillery supplies and artillerycapability was made available.
So he was hedging his betsalways, uh, not wishing
necessarily to commit.
Nevertheless, the Joffre and therest of the French were really
committed to this idea of theNeuyan salient, which I don't

(06:37):
know if you can see my cursor,but it's right here, this big
old bend.
Uh, and so when we look at this,uh, we can see the the British,
of course, are far up there inYpa and Amentia, you know, the
areas of the 1914-15 battles,early 15.
And what we're really looking atis this sort of attacks at
Artoiran Champagne, in order toagain cut off that salient and

(07:02):
then start can commence thebreakthrough for uh the the
French, you know, to beat theGermans.
So the British were dragged intothis.
Now, one of the things that uhif you have traveled there, and
I know Paul knows this area verywell, the Champagne region.
It obviously is famous for itschampagne, but wow, its

(07:23):
landscape is phenomenal.
And I think when you look at it,you realize just how challenging
that is in this open, wonderfullandscape.
And we can see Douglas Johnson,who was an American military uh
colonel who was also ageographer and uh really studied
the landscape.
He really considered that thechampagne, of course, was really

(07:46):
significant.
So if you know the MindusMestige, which uh Paul knows
very well, and maybe some of youvisited there, it is an
incredible hand shape.
That's what this is all about,of a landscape.
It's a chalk hill, well-drainedchalk, you know, vast vistas,
open vistas, you huge uh rollinghills that go away from this.

(08:09):
Uh, this is terrain writ large.
So, this is the kind of thing,the battlefield of the
champagne, uh, reallysignificant, and of course, in
Artois, a little bit moredifficult, perhaps, in some
senses.
So, why terrain and militaryhistory?
So, if we take the words of acontemporary, we can see that in

(08:30):
his view, the military historyof any company country, sorry,
is largely determined by itstopography.
Um, so I think obviously I'mgonna say that, but I would
imagine that anybody would knowthat.
Um, of D-Day, for example,Burma.
You know, we're looking at inthe Second World War, terrain
being so varied and so complex.

(08:51):
Think about the Italiancampaigns 1944, 43, 44, 45.
I mean, wow, that's that isterrain.
So, really, I think the militaryhistory of that country uh is
clear, but obviously, we'relooking here uh in France and
Flanders.
It's also a concept of of thesoils, so in the ranges of

(09:11):
hills.
This is uh Petit Bois, um, whichof course is one of the areas on
the Messines battlefield where aum particular mine did not
explode.
Um, we can see just the richnessof this soil, and naturally we
pervade this with our ideas ofhow that soil is going to

(09:32):
descend into a muddy quagmire.
There are reasons for that, andthere are reasons why a lot of
the uh upheld views on why itwas muddy quagmire are actually
overstated or wrong.
But uh, what we are seeing hereis the clarity of the challenge
of that landscape.
And so what we can see is thatthis kind of thing, these

(09:53):
landscapes, these soils, uh,these hills of features which
impeded the march of armies.
And this is Hilaire Belloch,1914, a quote somebody largely
derided.
If you read the uh wipers times,you'll come across him.
I can't remember how he's uh howhe's uh pervaded in there, but
it clearly uh is mocked.

(10:14):
But he was a geographer again,and he's pursued he's pursuing
this idea of the landscape, andthis is his view of uh the
landscapes.
So, terrain analysis issomething that everybody has to
engage in, whether it be theTommy on the ground who's in the
trench and really close to thatmud, or whether it is uh Haig or
anybody else at the top.

(10:36):
I'm not a big believer in, youknow, was Hague a butcher or a
bungler?
He's a general like anybodyelse, he's gonna make mistakes,
it's the same as any othergeneral.
So I think there's too muchplayed on that.
But if you think about whetheror not they're engaged with
terrain, think about whathappened in the South African
War, the Boer War.
And what happened in that wasthe realization that terrain was

(10:57):
massive.
And so the general staff and thetraining of British officers,
which came in the wake of thefailures in the early part of
the Boer War, led to this senseof the choice of position, the
need for uh you know an economyof effort, uh, a lot of power
and defense, and ensuring uhthat you know the defensive

(11:20):
positions are there to stop theenemy.
So, really, it's all aboutconsidering of selecting a
position.
Now, what we know is that thatsounds great if you've got the
opportunity to select yourposition.
But what we do understand andrealize is that the Germans in
invading through France andBelgium were able to pick and
choose.
Uh, and of course, the French,Belgians, British were able

(11:43):
perhaps to push them back.
But we look at the Upersalient,we know where they command the
Inverted Gomes Heights, we knowthe conditions on the Sun where
again they're forming on sort ofridgetops and valleys.
All of this has been selected bythe Germans, not by the allies.
So let's look at one of thoseareas, uh, Lus or Lus on Gohill

(12:07):
in Artois.
It's neglected, innovativecommas.
It's because people blast bythis on the motorway or on the
train.
The zoom.
As you go past on that motorwayand you're heading towards Vimeo
and beyond or Aras, and you gosouth, you'll see those pimples
on the landscape, and you'll geta sense of the industrial
landscape that it was a WorldHeritage Site in many ways.

(12:28):
It's where the ground clearlyplayed its part.
And remembering that dictum thatyou should choose your
landscape, you choose the placewhere you would fight.
This was chosen for French.
This was Joff saying, Tell youwhat, this is a great place for
the British to fight a battleagainst the Germans.
And I think, uh, as we can see,this was not something that was

(12:52):
accepted by the British.
So another entrance into themustachio stakes.
Um, here we have um thegood-looking field marshal Sir
Douglas Haig.
Um, Hague, whatever people viewof him, however he is
personified, Haig, of course,was an intelligent individual,
and he was committed ascommander of the first RE to

(13:15):
complete an evaluation of theground, a terrain analysis south
of La Basse.
So to look at this ground andtell French, is this any good
for us to fight that battle,even though we have no choice?
Let's have a look at it.
So, what Hague did, look, excuseme, looking at this ground, um,
as you can see, fairly open anduh fairly dismal.

(13:38):
The ground is bare and open.
It would the sense of it, theGerman trenches, obviously,
they've chosen their positions,numerous villages and you know,
built into this fortifications.
This was going to destroy anykind of rapid advance.
So, Haig, who was going to be incharge of the battle with the
First Army, was also recognizingthat this is not a place you

(14:01):
would choose to fight a battle.
Yet, in line with the French,this was the place where they
were demanded to fight.
So, the open landscape of Luz,if we look at it, it's yes, it's
open landscape.
It is broken by industrialclutter, so you know, plenty of
that clutter now, still uh asthese mine heaps.

(14:23):
Uh, not much of the builtenvironment in terms of the uh
the the heads of those of thosemines, but lots of villages and
coal at depth, very important.
Miners were still at workunderneath the battlefields,
which is absolutely incredible.
So, if we look at this, I meanthis uh Puikans um put Poit 15

(14:46):
uh Tower Bridge.
I mean, that's a wonderfullooking structure.
I think if it was uh, you know,if this hadn't been destroyed,
this would have been preserved.
It's an incredible thing, andthat became known as Tower
Bridge because of the sort ofslight resemblance to the towers
on Tower Bridge.
It also reflects the men whowere fighting here: men from
Scotland, men from London, andthe Midlands in uh the Battle of

(15:08):
Luce.
So you can see one of thepanoramic photographs, you can
see the sort of dismal look ofthe landscape.
Uh, we can see the roads, we cansee Tower Bridge and uh this
sort of loose crassier, whichare these uh uh hills of waste.
So Newman Flower, one of theparticipants in the battle, um,

(15:29):
he said it it's not apicturesque one, which is a
slight understatement.
Uh, he goes on to say thesqualid little red brick
villages and ugly mine works.
I'm not sure whether thevillagers of Lewis would be
happy to hear that their villagewas called squalid little red
brick villages, but you canunderstand where he's coming
from at the time.
Um, and what we're seeing, ofcourse, it could get even worse.

(15:51):
Philip Gibbs, who's a warcorrespondent.
Really interesting books byPhilip Gibbs.
You know, he really gives asense of of the of the war.
Um, and he's calling it ahideous country, he's calling it
the black country, rathersimilar to that in Midland,
England is a place called theBlack Country, reflecting on the
amount of chimneys uh andfactory work.

(16:14):
And so, what they're sayingagain is that this sort of yeah,
there's rich soil, but there's alot of this coal waste going on
there.
So, Philip Gibbs, again, it'shideous flat country.
It's not just flat though.
Uh, not only do we have all ofthose mine workings, but we have
slag heaps and quarries, and uh,I'm not going to spend a lot of

(16:35):
time referring to this, butthose are both capable of being
fortified under the Germandoctrine of fortification.
So the quarries are forming amajor part of the later uh
struggle for the loose frontline.
So the German way offortification or Stellungsbau,

(16:56):
the idea of fortress building,uh, really defines how the
Germans are going to approachthis.
To be honest, there's nothingnew in this, it's not to say
that other nations did not haveengineers and engineering
doctrine, but the French and theBritish were not in a position
where they're going to sit onthe defensive all forever.

(17:17):
They're going to be alwayswanting to attack.
The French are not happy thatthe Germans have put their big
clot up us all over France.
And so, what's going to happenis that the Germans are going to
place their work, their way offortification in action.
Stellungsbow would set thedefinition of the construction

(17:38):
principles, the fortificationsmanual.
And so, what we can see in thereis everything.
And you look at this relative tothe Somme, and this, of course,
the edition I'm showing here isvery definitely associated with
that.
Then you can absolutely see howthey use these principles, but
they use them everywhere.
And the reason, of course, isthat the Germans are holding the
Allies at bay whilst they fightthe Russians.

(18:00):
Beat the Russians, bring thetroops to the west, beat the
Allies.
So that's the whole principlebehind this.
So every advantage of thetopography was needed to be used
in developing this, the ground,and everything scrap of forest,
remnants of villages, any kindof industrial uh attributes are
going to be built into thatfront line, and there's no doubt

(18:23):
that the Germans were able to dothis.
Now, one of the things that isalways surprises me, and it's
probably down to the way thatthe British view things are
rather dastardly, that they, youknow, and rather on sporting,
that the the Germans sat atdepth, how dare they?
You know, 15 or even 20 feetbelow the surface.
Well, I think for uh most of ourmodern minds, I think, well, why

(18:45):
wouldn't they?
Um, and if they're going to havethis defensive position where
the allies are going to wearthemselves out against the
trench lines, they're going tobuild those dugouts at depth in
that chalk that we've referredto.
So uh James Norman Hall,American who served in the uh
the infantry at this time, earlypart of the war, went on to be

(19:07):
an aviator, of course.
Uh, what we see is that uh he'stalking about this stratum or
solid chalk.
The Germans are digging downinto that, which is 15 to 20
feet below the surface.
So a lot of this we think aboutin the Somme, but we are
forgetting that there are sortof preemptive elements to that
on Lus.
So when we're talking about in1915 the big push, we're talking

(19:29):
about Lus.
We're not talking about theSomme, which came later.
So if we look at uh the Britishunderstanding of trench warfare
relative to position, uh, we canalso see some hints about what
was going to happen when theGermans built the Hohenzollern
Redoubt.
So, what we can see here, thiscomes from uh an article written

(19:52):
in 1916, which shows exactlytheir positional warfare.
So, what we are getting here isthe drawing the enemy into a
valley and then you know gunningthem down, if you like, with
machine guns and creating theawful phrase a kill zone or
beaten zone into which the enemyare going to be drawn.
And this you see this uh bothour sides of this slide on the

(20:15):
sun.
This is and we see it also atmachines uh as well.
And so if you're on a spare,that means adjusting out bit,
you draw your lines back, andagain you draw the enemy over
that spare and you gun them downand create yet another kill
zone.
So I think the point here isyou're inviting the enemy in so
that they can wear themselvesout against this.
And although that was difficulton at Lus, the other things like

(20:41):
the quarries and the trenchfortifications allowed this to
happen.
Think about what was going onabout the Hoesona and Redoubt.
Uh, you can see what Hague isthinking, the strong trench
fortifications become afortress, and of course, without
absolute uh use of artillery,then it's going to be really
difficult to engage this.

(21:02):
So, although the Germans areheading themselves out into a
salient, they've created thissort of huge jutting out
position, with, of course, theBritish Tommy humour of Big
Willy and Little Willy, thetrenches on either side.
Um, this of course refers to theKaiser and the Sun, by the way,
in case you're wondering aboutanything else.
But the the principle here is uhonce again the attack uh would

(21:26):
would have to take this salient,but this was really well bedded
in, and that trench fortress, ofcourse, is kind of
semi-subterranean, and it was amajor, major thing.
So, if you look at the Lustbattlefield, uh there's a sort
of contemporary map on theright, and uh we're looking at
the battlefields on the left.

(21:48):
You see a trench map.
Uh, what we get a sense of isthe variety of things that are
breaking up this battlefield.
We're seeing the idea of mineworks, we're seeing where the
redoubt is.
You can see it there on thetrench map, and how that is a
great fortification.
Uh, we can see the variousroads, the Hulu Vermel Road.

(22:09):
Um, we can see Hill 70, which isbehind the German lines.
Uh, we can see the Lone Tree,which is really important on the
battlefield.
Um, and we can see that also ona Landsat image uh over Lane.
And yeah, it looks pastoral.
We can see those villages, um,we can see the sense of this,
and it looks pretty flat to us.

(22:32):
You know, it's low-lying slopes,industrial clutter, villages.
Again, not a place you'd reallywant to fight in necessarily.
So we can see the roads, uh, wecan see the positions of the
various points.
So loose road, the Lange Road,these are both important as they
cross the uh the trench linesand have fortifications in them.

(22:55):
You see La Basse, see the GrenaySpur, which is a very low spare,
you know, an upland thing outinto a valley and a double
crassier on the other side.
So hold those in your mind ifyou can.
And then you can see what theGermans have done is there's the
British front line in red, andthe Germans have built redoubts.
The redoubts are fortifications,just like uh the Horner Song Son

(23:18):
Redoubt.
You can see the double crassieris another one of these.
Remember Stellungsbow, buildevery last thing into your
fortifications and break up theuh the enemy uh and uh attempts
to attack it.
You know, this is why thesethings are incredible uh
fortifications.
So, um, how do you then breakthrough these stellungs bow?

(23:41):
So, what I'm really interestedin is the idea of siege
breaking, and uh maybe too myhead stuck too much into
medieval or earlier.
So, I'm looking for a fewtrebuchets here, um, uh as well
as batching rams and the rest.
And actually, we do have those,uh, clearly.
So, artillery, of course, is ourtrebuchet, no, no doubt about

(24:05):
that.
Um, mining was something thatwas carried out in medieval
times.
You know, you undermine thewalls, uh, you allow them to
collapse, siege of Rochester inwhenever it was, sometime in in
the past, he said, uh, showinghis ignorance of of medieval
warfare, and also um the idea ofyou know using siege weapons,

(24:28):
battering ramps.
Maybe that battering ramp couldbe a tank, and maybe just maybe
a new thing, gas.
Now let's look at how those areintended to work.
Okay, so what the artillery isintended to do is to destroy the
fortification and the men withinit.
You know, you you blow it up,you blow the men up, and then
you walk through.

(24:48):
That's the idea.
So just think of Nivelle, andthat was his idea.
Let's do that, no problem.
Blah blah blah.
Ain't gonna happen if youhaven't got enough.
Uh, mining.
Mining is very fashionable.
Everybody loves mining, it'sgreat, you know, the the clay
kickers and so on.
I'll I'll uh disappoint you.
It's pointless in many ways.
The reason for that is notbecause I'm anti-mining,

(25:11):
clearly, uh, as a geologist aswell as a historian, I'm really
interested in Battle ofMachines, which is as has an
absolute point, it wascoordinated, it meant that it
was carried out.
It took two years to plan, andonce it was over, it was over.
You're not gonna have thatagain.
So it meant the mining had to bevery, very specific.
And on the sum, we can see,yeah, it leaves a great hole in

(25:34):
the ground, but did it do anygood?
Well, that's for us to considerwhat it does do is it undermines
strong points as a tacticalweapon.
So, that again is to destroy thefortification and destroy the
men.
Tanks, different concept.
You are a battering ram, you'regoing through the trenches in a
fortress.

(25:55):
So you you bring all your men inthe fortress, you go across that
wire, go across those trenches,and you you know you kill the
enemy with machine guns in yourfemale tanks in a vertical, or
you know, uh six-pounders in fewhave uh a male tank in a
vertical commas.
So that's what you do, you takethe fight to them by crossing
it.
What about a different method?

(26:15):
How about you don't destroy thetrenches?
How about you destroy the men uhor drive them out?
And that's what gas is about.
Because when we're talking aboutcasualties, what we mean is we
are looking at battlefieldinoperatives.
So we're looking at dead, we'relooking at wounded, we're
looking at captured.
So drive the men out, uh, makethem incapable of fighting.

(26:40):
You've done your job.
You don't have to kill them.
Again, this is terriblebrutality that we're talking
about here.
Uh, but I thought it was as wellto take you through that.
Whoops, down here again.
Don't beep at me.
Right, so cease breakingartillery.
Um, 1914, 1915.
We know the story, don't we?
Uh, they're concentrated onfield guns, lots of shrapnel.

(27:02):
This is a great picture, I loveit.
Um, flat trajectory.
Flat trajectory is great in uh,you know, if we have open sites,
you have mobile warfare, youtrain your guns on the uh
cavalry or the infantry, boom,uh, shrapnel, and you know,
awful, awful situations to bein.
But what we do know is we needhigh trajectory, how it's gonna

(27:25):
lob shells in and destroystraight into your Hoensola and
Dow.
That's not gonna be easy if youhaven't got enough field guns,
you haven't got enough industry.
I remember 1940, 1915, you haveall of those men or many of
those men who served in orworking in big factories and
making these kinds of things wasvolunteered for war.

(27:47):
So it took mobilization of theof the nation and particularly
mobilization of women and thecapability of those women to
create the war machine ofartilleries, women who
contributed massively to thewinning of this war in a sense,
but it was inadequate in 1915,and we saw that in you know uh

(28:11):
Aubert, we saw that in NeufChapelle, and we can see just
how difficult the Neuf Chapelle,okay, could have been glorious
if you like inverted commerce,but the reality is is that we
see the limitations of shellsupply because Kitchener
thought, great, well, I'll justput a few more extra orders into
the factories for shells, andwe'll be fine.

(28:32):
But of course, the factories canonly produce as much as they can
produce.
You need a much morenationalized and significant
approach, which of course iswhat happened in 16 onwards.
So let's look at siege breakingmining.
Mining is spectacular, it is ahuge effort, it's you know,
there's a lot of warunderground, it's it's in many

(28:56):
ways uh inhumane warfare, andthat's why it has taken the
public imagination, uh,particularly, I think, through
Birdsong.
Of course, there's no clayunderground on the song, but
anyway, let's not uh split hairshere with that book.
But the reality is uh that thisimage of Hawthorne Ridge, which

(29:18):
we've spent a bit of timestudying, you know, shows the
power of that in uh 1916.
In 1914 to 1915, we're lookingat this in an early stage uh
with small-scale mines, whichare terrifying to the infantry,
but again have limited effect.
So Luce did war.

(29:38):
There were some mines there, andif you go onto that battlefield,
you will come across those minecraters, spectacular as they
are.
Now, the thing is, who doesn'tlove a tank?
And the great thing about a tankis rivets.
That's just an amazing set ofrivets on that one, isn't it?
So, um, but the point about thetank is that these are mobile
fortifications capable ofcrossing the Trenches crushing

(30:01):
wire.
Uh, they came in 16, they cameof age 17, 18, they won the war
alongside everything else,aviation.
So this is incredible, but it'snot going to be available in
1915.
Although, of course, it was inplanning.
And a lot of time is spent onthinking, well, tanks are very
vulnerable to poor groundconditions, and how dare Hague

(30:22):
send the trench tanks in atPasshondale.
You're a general, you've got awar winning machine, you're
gonna say, Now I'll keep themback.
I don't think so, is is areality.
What needed to happen is uh moreclarity over where they could go
and where they couldn't, and uhcertainly um there's there's a
few studies been done in this.
Okay, so you're thinking when'she gonna get to the gas?

(30:45):
Gas.
Okay, so here we are.
So this this image is a famousone.
I think there's some peoplethink it's the Western Front,
some people think it's easternfront, but there's one thing
that this shows absolutely whatis driving the gas.
Anybody like to tell me thewind.

(31:09):
Okay, that's what people aregonna be thinking.
Wind always, that's what youneed for the gas.
I'm here to tell you yes, butthere you go.
So, yes, but so gas um isterrifying because it's a
weapon, vidious, uh, it's greenat this time or yellowish, it is
awful, it's a cloud, it createshorrifying images, it it

(31:34):
destroys man's uh ability tobreathe.
And many of you, I'm sure, knowof stories, maybe have them as
family stories, uh, validstories of the horror of gas.
But the reality is get a gasmask, use it properly, you'll be
okay.
But that's the challenge.
Gas clouds are also dependent onenvironmental conditions, which

(31:57):
is why the science bit is comingin in a moment.
And the thing that you may notbe aware of, you may be, is that
sloping landscape also assistedin the development of gas
warfare.
Um, and that was known.
So, Hugh Pollard, uh, again,writer of many uh or several
accounts of the thing, quite afire eater.

(32:19):
And again, he's looking at thisstrange green cloud of death.
Uh, the Easterly Brieve waftedit towards the defenders.
Okay, so you can't blame themfor breaking and fleeing.
Obviously, not because you'vegot no protection in this
period, you don't know what thisstuff is, you don't know what
it's going to do to you.
Why wouldn't you run away?

(32:39):
Uh, I'd probably be uh anOlympic sprinter in that one.
But the principle behind it isreally significant.
So if we look at the first cloudgas, which means you release it
as a cloud, and you think aboutthis uh in the second battle of
Yape, you know what's gonnahappen here is the Germans

(33:00):
released their cloud gas in thenorthern part of the salience,
uh, and of course, the uh Alliedsoldiers, the French colonial
soldiers and and British andothers who were there were faced
with this incredible greenishcloud heading towards them.
Now, the thing that you possiblyknow, you possibly don't, is if

(33:21):
you look at that, the I Lee, youcan see in the uh Isaacanal,
this is slopes, very generalslopes, but they're draining
downwards towards that.
So, whether there is an easterlybreeze blowing towards Epa or
not, uh, there's the capabilityof that gas to flow.
Um, so uh Fritz Harbour's sonknows this in his famous book in

(33:44):
1986.
He's talking about 6,000cylinders, 150 tons of chlorine,
it moves at 0.5 meters a second,the gas rising and flowing.
So he's saying that the wind isnot only the possibility of
pushing it, but the density ofthe gas means it runs downhill.
So you're getting where um I'mcoming from here, I hope.

(34:07):
So here's the science.
Okay, we can make a cup of teanow, or hopefully you you can
stay here.
So the science of gas escape isreally significant, but they
didn't really know about this in1915 because they hadn't really
done much about it.
Um, so my part of the world, I'mfrom the northwest, uh, from uh
near Liverpool, but nearby inRuncorn, that's where chlorine

(34:31):
gas for the British wasmanufactured.
That's where its capabilitycould be delivered.
Of course, the Germans werepreeminent in uh chemistry in
this particular time, and FritzHaber, who came up with the use
of gas, received the Nobel Prizefor chemistry in 1919.
So think of that as you will.
Um, one thing, a couple ofthings you need to know about.

(34:55):
So you don't have to look at allthe numbers, but basically,
chlorine is two and a half timesheavier than air.
So, you know what's going tohappen.
These lads are in the trenches,the the cloud of gas goes over,
boom, down into the trenches orthe shell holes.
Don't be in a shell hole anddon't be in a crater, and don't
be in a trench when that'scoming.
And you can see that it is, youknow, um quite dense in that

(35:19):
sense.
Uh, one thing that you need tobe also be aware of is actually
you need to be in highconcentrations to die from
chlorine.
I mean, it's horrific, but uh,we can see that it is at 240
milligrams per cubic meter.
There you go, first science foryou.
It is going to incapacitate youwithout necessarily killing you.

(35:41):
But that would mean that beingincapacitated, you are a
battlefield ineffective, andalso you're going to flood the
casualty clearance stations whoare not going to be necessarily
able to deal with you.
Then, how the hell do we treatthis guy?
And it's so you need really highconcentrations to kill you
outright.
So, this is not a gas, this gasis not necessarily going to kill

(36:02):
you outright, but it is going tolead to potentially lingering
death, uh, which is a thing thatwe all are aware of.
Now, in Utah, uh, in 2015, 2016,uh, if you've ever been to Utah,
as I have, uh, you'll see manywonderful sites, but you
probably haven't seen containersat the side of a road with them

(36:23):
releasing chlorine gas.
I think just a couple of weeksago there was a chlorine gas
escape in a laboratory in theUK, and it was a major lockdown
of that.
It's not a laughing matter, asyou can imagine.
So, this is in you can chase itup if you want in the journal
Atmospheric Environments.
Um, last first time I gave thistalk, there was an actual expert
of this in the room.

(36:43):
I couldn't believe it, but I gotaway with it.
It was fine.
So, early studies then areshowing that because of the
toxicity, yeah, it's gonnaincapacitate you, but it's not
gonna necessarily kill you.
The early studies reallyoverpredicted the number of
casualties by 10 times, youknow.
So if you're thinking aboutusing this as a weapon, you're

(37:04):
gonna be thinking, hold on aminute, these lads could
potentially survive this.
So, is it gonna work?
Not only that, the chlorinedoesn't just kindly roll roll
over in one big cloud, it sortof rains out as droplets and
forms on the ground in pools,but also evaporates upwards into
what we called aerosols.

(37:25):
So, this cloud effect is notjust a dense cloud of gas, it's
it's all stuff going on, and themore it goes on, the thinner and
weaker it becomes.
And so we're looking at thislethality reducing rapidly.
So, why I'm going through allthis is because Haig, the guy
that everybody thinks, or manypeople think, is anti-science,

(37:47):
is thinking, great, uh, new toy.
Yes, uh, this worked for theGermans.
I can use this, can't I?
Uh, but he probably didn't knowall this stuff.
So, um, here you go, Dr.
Tickle in the Journal ofHazardous Materials.
That is a fairly prosaic namefor a journal, isn't it?
So, Dr.

(38:08):
Tickle has looked at uh how gasforms on a slope, and what you
get is a wedge.
So, Harbor, Fritz Harbor's son,absolutely got it right in that
gas moves down a slope, but windcan push it, but you don't
necessarily need wind.
So, when we are hearing ofpeople saying, Well, you know,

(38:30):
there was no wind, and why wouldthey release it?
If they knew they had a slope,then the gas is gonna flow.
That's my point here.
Without either of those, it'snot gonna go anywhere.
So there's a spoiler alert here.
I'm gonna tell you a bit of allof those when it comes to the
battle of loose, and what we geton a really steep slope, alone,
a big wedge.
So you'd probably be better offtaking releasing your gas on a

(38:53):
big old slope.
And there was some discussionabout gas being used at
Gallipoli, it wasn't, but itcould have been, and if it could
have it had been, it probablywould have been devastating.
I can tell you that because ofthis concept.
Roll it down, Anzac, and awayyou go.
So the steeper the slope anzacwould have been good, faster the

(39:13):
gas.
Um, and obviously it getsdiluted.
Okay, so you're getting mypoint, I think.
So, oh, I forgot about this one.
Even more science.
This is what we call in sciencewiggly line science, a graph.
Don't ask me what it means, itjust looked good.
But what we're looking at is themaximum gas travel, which is the

(39:35):
MDD, maximum downwind distance,is affected by what's known as
roughness.
And when we're talking aboutroughness, we are talking about
the L front line and how thatfront line affects the flow of
the gas.
Okay, so yeah, we can haveconstant wind helping, but this

(39:55):
is a risky business.
So if you're releasing gas withno slope and you're releasing
it, hoping you've got wind, andyou've got a load of other stuff
in the way, such as trenches,such as um heaps of waste, then
you're gonna find somechallenges.
So let's look at some examples.

(40:15):
If you had solid barriers in theway of gas, that's going to
increase the concentration.
You're also going to have porousbarriers, i.e., barbed wire,
that's going to cause moreturbulence.
And you're also going to findthe challenge of valleys, which
is going to increase theconcentration.
So it's very different.
Some men could survive dependingon where they were on that
landscape, which is reallyfascinating.

(40:36):
So we can see gas concentration,uh, we can see gas turbulence,
we can see shell holes, all thethings that we know to be the
case.
But these lads at that timewould not have known it.
How many of them had worked inthe chemical industry?
Quite a lot of those chemicalindustry guys were working in
the Royal Engineers andreleasing the gas.
So, pressurized release, you letit out of your uh barrel or in

(41:01):
our case cylinders, windvelocity, yeah, the speed of the
wind, but the slope or the shapeof that landscape is going to
affect your gas.
Uh, it's going to go up into theair, it's going to pull out of
the ground, and therefore,although it rolls as a wedge,
it's affected by all thesebarriers, so it decreases in
concentration.
So, what you're hearing from meis that gas is not a perfect

(41:24):
weapon, i.e., is it gonna killor maim or wound or injure?
Well, to a certain extent, butit depends very much on
circumstance.
Okay, so sorry, you can comeback from your tea now, um,
taking a wee whatever you'redoing, it's fine.
So, we're back now with Luz, thefirst British gas attack, and

(41:45):
this is an amazing image.
Uh, I don't know if you've everread um The Big Push by Patrick
McGill, uh, who was present,London Irish Rifles, really
worth reading.
Um, it's overshadowed by thesun.
So we weren't thinking aboutLuce.
So he's he's pointing out thatthe Germans are saying, We know
you're gonna do this.
When is it coming off?
Well, waiting, come on, lads,let's do this.

(42:06):
Whether they knew there was gascoming is another matter.
So then the absolute winner ofmustache, in my view, of course,
is gonna be Kitchener.
Um, and uh also the fact thathe's got a slight turn in one of
his eyes means it's even morescary when you look at him
because he's following youaround.
But Kitchener is telling youthat whatever you think of the

(42:29):
landscape, we need to play ourpart because remember, Kitchener
raised Kitchener's army on thebasis of doing its bit for
Europe, it was making sure itmet with uh the you know the
needs of the many.
So that was what he's trying todo.
So help France in theiroffensive, even though there's
going to be heavy losses.
This is what Kitchener issaying.

(42:51):
Uh old uh field marshal French,who really was irritated by
Kitchener turning up in hisuniform.
If you've got a uniform, wearit, come on.
Uh, that's he's not happy withthat.
So, but he knew that he had todo this, so he's saying the
first army will attack with allits resources south of the Basse
Canal.
That's what the plan is, andtherefore, Haig uh, who had

(43:14):
surveyed the land and said, nowthis is bad, he has to fight in
this area, and he picks,therefore, gas as a means of
filling in the gaps between theartillery pieces and to deliver
a weapon which is not justmulti-arm, if you like, not just
artillery, but also gas.

(43:35):
Uh, and we can see that littleheart um opinions differ on
little heart, but basically,little heart again is putting
the the point that thisill-fated battle was against the
opinion of Haig, but he had tocarry it out, he had to carry
out his orders.
So, if we look at the order ofbattle, uh, we can see the first
army in some senses, uh, interms of the assault corps, um,

(43:59):
and that's really the firstcorps and the fourth corps.
Um, there's also a subsidiaryattack at Aubert Ridge, which is
the Indian Corps, the 7th MiirutDivision, uh Pietra in Aubert.
So uh that will come into ourconsideration in a moment.
And in reserve, and this is whatput paid to Sir John French, the

(44:21):
uh 11th Corps uh in reserve atLillier.
And I'm having got time to talkabout that because we're
concentrating on the gas thing,but really it was that uh and
the guards division, um, thefact that he deployed them late
in the game that really put paidto French.
So we can look at the thebattlefield as we see it, the
Battle of Leurs.
We can see where the most ofthose divisions are deployed,

(44:44):
and a huge number of those areactually Scots.
So 9th Division, 15th Division,uh Scots, and they are, of
course, uh, particularly 15thDivision, uh they are
Kitchener's men as well as uhregulars and others.
Uh, north of the La Basse uhcanal, uh, you're going to see

(45:05):
the deployment of a number ofattacks intended to be
subsidiary, to assist, and ifthere's a chance they break
through, so be it.
And that, of course, is uh theuh Indian Corps.
So 21st to 24th of September, wesee the bombardment.
Um, it's 10 times that of NeufChappelle, but only actually 336

(45:29):
more guns.
So we're looking at 871 guns,and we know if you look at like
Robin Pryor uh and his work atPasschendale, we know that the
concentration of guns per unitmeter is really important if
you're gonna break through.
So, two-thirds of these werenaturally field guns because
that's what the army wasdeployed in, and most of those

(45:50):
are going to have uh shrapnel aswell as high explosive.
And this is uh well rehearsedview, of course, that uh there
were a thousand rounds per gun,that's all they had, um, can
easily be pooped off, and 30% ofthem are duds, which again is
down to the desire tomanufacture more of these

(46:11):
weapons, but of course, theinability to do so and therefore
purchase elsewhere.
Uh, shrapnel was not adequate inwire cutting, it's a very, very
technical business having thisstorm of steel uh to create the
wire cutting.
So the gas assault was somethingthat certainly Haig uh fell
upon.

(46:31):
Wow, we can do this, we cancreate the opportunity, and it
was that that persuaded him thatyes, we can win this battle with
the use of gas, having seen whatthe Germans could do.
So we can see early on this uhthere are lots of postcards from
uh the Daily Mail series of thepsalm, and we can see of kind of

(46:51):
similar kind of pictures.
But we're looking here at anearlier issue of these.
Um, and this is of course theBattle of Luce.
So you can see the strength ofthe German uh barbed wire.
So once again, Philip Gibbs isas a war correspondent, not in
the front line, he's sitting ona or standing on a slug heap

(47:12):
seeing this sort of incrediblepounding away, but is it doing
its job?
It's not really cutting thewire.
So the gas attack.
It's crazy to think, but uh theroyal engineers had to bring the
accessory, as it was called,into the trenches and set them

(47:33):
up.
So gas was sanctioned aftersecond deep.
As soon as the Germans hadcarried it out, the British said
thanks a lot, and the Frenchwill do it too.
Why not?
So um the British were on theback foot, they had to go to
experts in Imperial College whosaid, Yeah, we can produce
chlorine gas, the only one wecould really produce at this

(47:53):
stage in the war.
And so these were in cylinders,um, about 5,000 plus cylinders,
or Rogers as they were called.
Uh, so the accessory, uh, gasreleased from cylinders known as
Rogers.
All of this kind of boy's ownstuff is to stop a soldier
saying, I'm gonna bring the gasup.
Um, now we're gonna bring theaccessory up, and it's gonna be

(48:15):
in a Rogers, meaning, you know,something that's clearly not a
cylinder.
So 140 tons of chlorine gas.
And the idea was this would besufficient to overcome what was
felt to be the effectiveness ofthe German masks.
As mentioned, the German masksor any mask are going to be
countering the use of gases aslong as they're worn properly,

(48:36):
they will do that.
But after a while, they becomesaturated, uh, cap or capable,
incapable of holding on.
And so that was the intention.
The problem was that therewasn't, there weren't enough,
uh, there wasn't enough gasproduced, and also you can see
this real Heath Robinsonparaphernalia of pipes and
cylinders and what have you.
And so a lot of the specialcompanies awore these brassards

(48:59):
here.
You can see the stripes there,the officer won, which is the
green and black, um, from the47th division, and you can see
also uh this sort of strangestripe thing.
These are indicating that thesemen are allowed to be in the
trench, they're not going to goover the top, they're in the
trench, releasing that.
You can see the spanner on theground here.
The spanners didn't necessarilyfit the cylinders.

(49:20):
This is something that RobertGray's love him or hate him.
I think his book's fantastic,but um, he he would say this is
you know bloody balls up becausethey they could not um fit this,
so there was a lot of faffingabout with this kind of stuff.
What is crazy is the idea was wewould the British didn't have
enough gas cylinders or gas, buttell you what, we'll use smoke

(49:42):
candles, um, kind of flares, ifyou like, which would make up
the density of the cloud.
It's not gonna kill anybody, butit's gonna look like it's gas,
so the guys are gonna run away.
That's the idea behind it.
So, this is from uh Gail, whohas there's a diary in the
Imperial War Museum.

(50:02):
You can see again, he was in theuh in the Royal Engineers, as
far as I'm aware.
You can see the gas cylindersplaced in uh see how this pipe
is put over the parapet andreleased, and you can see how
the smoke candle in front isalso there, and so we can see
the pipe, you see the smokecandles.
This is exactly on uh the 25thof the 9th, 1915.

(50:25):
Um, um behind me, I have areplica of one of these.
Um, so this is a replica.
Um, so I know this is theatrics,but hey, what the hell?
So you can imagine how difficultit is to fight never mind talk
uh with one of these things on.
Uh, I do have an original behindme, but already it's steaming up

(50:47):
in here, and uh, I'd have tohold so uh that's hopefully not
disrespectful, but the principlebehind this is showing how
difficult this thing was madeout of flannel.
It was disgusting because it wasactually soaked in uh
phenolhexamine, which I think isused in the uh in the uh

(51:09):
photography business.
But anyway, there we go.
So the cylinders are placedthere, variety of different
pipes and and uh connections,really difficult.
The smoke is there to give animpression of the cloud.
But we already heard what'sgoing to happen to this gas as
it flows.
So there you go, there's thegoggle-eyed bugger with the tit.
The really important thing aboutthis is I would have been dead,

(51:31):
or at least incapacitatedbecause I didn't tuck that in my
tunic.
Yeah, you have to tuck it in atunic, you have to seal it up,
you have to breathe uh inthrough the bag and out through
this pipe.
And of course, those eye holesare not going to really help
you.
It's hardly surprising that themen, when they attacked, these
drawings are absolutelyhorrific.
You see the variety of differenttypes of grenades, but uh

(51:55):
there's no joking matter this uhattacking with these things on
because you can just imagine howclaustrophobic it was running
into this gas cloud.
So, you know, many men could notstand it, took it off, and were
of course incapacitated by gas.
So that was the idea behind it.
Um, a lot of discussion aboutHaig and his decision to go.

(52:18):
As I've said, if you are ageneral, you're committed to
this, and the only way thatyou're going to allow your uh
battle to succeed is to use aparticular weapon, and you
cannot use it, you can't call itoff uh because these guys are
ready to go, so you have to takea chance.
So, what they were hoping wasthat the the wind would have

(52:41):
something to play for, and Ithink what we can see here is
the chief flatulence flatulenceofficer, wind um officer, if you
like, officer commanding.
He he was there to measure windspeed and direction, and um,
really what it was all about wasthinking about wind direction
and velocity.
The sense was early on.

(53:04):
Maybe this is not gonna work,but we're gonna go anyway.
Uh, there was some someopportunity provided by wind.
Uh, a cigarette, I think, um,was lit and there were puffs
moving.
So, yeah, let's go.
So, uh, obviously, it didn'ttake long for the recriminations
to to come uh back, so therewere errors at um at least.

(53:27):
We can see not only the gasattack but also the reserves
thing that's the paid to French.
Um, you can see this idea of thenot like soldiers but like
devils.
You can understand that with ahorrific um smoke helmet, and a
case again the sense of theBritish using us, repaying the
Germans in their own coin.
So, again, we're back to ourfamous photograph.

(53:48):
So 550, we're looking atartillery bombardment, and the
gas and smoke were released andfor zero hours at 630.
So the gas readily and steadilymoved over the German lines.
The men engaged with their smokeuh helmets um tucked into their
tunics, one would hope, would goover the top.

(54:10):
Now, I gave this talk just a fewdays ago in Dundee, and I'll be
perfectly honest, my book, whichuh little guide here, which I
can I can talk about a littlebit too, does not mention um the
fourth Black Watch at all.
Um, and it's it's only when yourealize that the main battle

(54:30):
south of the La Basse uh canal,and you know what we expect to
be loose, was spacked up byother um smaller engagements
like the one at Aubert Ridge.
So here we these are men of theDundees owned, these are
territorials.
The territorials were major inum in Scotland.

(54:51):
So I've just heard Hugh Strawntalking about this and how it
was a particularly large effortin joining the territorial
highlanders, and so these areofficers of the Fourth Black
Watch here, and what they'd beenmauled at Neuf Chapelle, they
started out with around 700 menby the end of that battle.

(55:11):
They had 430 effectives, so 430effectives in the um Marut
division uh in this battalionwho were going to go over to the
top uh in a frontal assault.
So, what was going to happen wasthere was going to be a mine
explosion, which didn't do much,but you know, was there to uh
confuse the Germans, artilleryas far as it could, and the

(55:34):
sense of this release of somelevel of gas, and you can see
smoke balls, candles, and so onand so forth.
But what all this did was createit more than impossible to see
just a few yards.
So these men ran into uh theGerman front line and were
moaned down.

(55:55):
There's no doubt about this.
So we'll talk about that later.
So here we can see in Aubertwhere there is a slight
gradient, but in the wrongdirection.
So they are they are attackinguh in the wrong direction, and
of course, i.e., up the slope,it's not going to help them,
it's gonna stay put.
So uh I just wanted to pointthat out because it's really

(56:17):
significant to show you that theBattle of Luz uh has these small
events which had major impacts.
So if you think about uh thefirst core, you can see the the
point here.
Ian Hay, who wrote, of course,or John Beath, uh who wrote the
first hundred thousand amazinguh propagandic book, but even so
incredible book about theraising of Kitchener's men.

(56:38):
And we can see here hisdescription of the Honesolon
doubt, this sort of great massof trenches.
So, what we can look at is thegas at 550 in the first core
front at uh was was actuallyflowing towards the lines, but
seemed to halt at the LabasseCanal.
And this is means that as it'shalting, the uh the attacking

(57:00):
men are moving into the gasthemselves, not expecting it.
So, what we see is the seventhdivision pushes up to the first
line, but the second division isheld by the wire.
So the vagaries of thatlandscape are really affecting
uh the nature of the battle, andof course, the Hohenzoller, no
doubt, uh, was reached, but itwas again, although we were

(57:20):
bombing down those trenches, itwas really difficult to carry.
So there we there we have it.
You know, we can see the senseof this attack.
What we can see is the seconddivision is held up by a gas
failure.
Uh now I'm going to test youhere.
So the gas is flowing through anarea where we have a village and

(57:42):
brick stacks.
So you would say, aha, we'retalking about surface roughness,
aren't we?
We're looking at a gas beingheld up by that, and also low.
This is a La Basse Canal.
There's no gradient to talkabout.
We look at uh the middle part,the ninth division, we start to

(58:02):
see there is actually a bit of agradient.
There are fewer of those uhareas.
You can see the quarry there,which of course would have been
filled with gas, but we can seethat there's some sense of the
gas moving, and we're seeing uhas we look down here in the
grenade uh sparer and all ofthat, we're starting to see some
sense of the gas moving, and wecan see how there the quarries

(58:25):
were taken, and probably becausethe gas was moving alongside
this and the driver, the menclearly the Hohenzoller doubt is
going to remain.
Remember, its duty is to breakup the attack.
So we can see how uh the bomberswere bombing along this, the
Sherrod Foresters uh and otherswho were bombing along these

(58:48):
trenches using the SAPs.
Uh, but clearly, you know,again, Hohenzoller doubt was a
formidable, formidable uh thingto crack.
If we look a bit further south,we're looking in the fourth core
front.
The gas is flowing towards thelines in the 47th division, the
London Division, but halts onthe grenade spur, that's because
it can't go over the spur.

(59:09):
Okay, so this causes British gascasualties as it concentrates,
and the British are goingthrough this, and uh it's
getting concentrated in front ofthem.
So, yeah, they they push on.
Um, although the first divisionis held up on that spur, we can
see the 47th, the London, and15th Scottish are moving forward
again.
The vagaries of this battlefieldis assisting, and Luce is

(59:33):
captured by this sort of verveof the Scots from the 15th and
the Londoners, too.
If you think about theLondoners, um, we think about if
we think about footballs and wethink about uh trench warfare,
we think about Neville and wethink about the Some.
But uh newsflash, there was oneearlier than that, it was the
Battle of Luce, and so we'relooking again at Patrick McGill.

(59:56):
This is the the actual football,so not like uh some of The
disputed footballs from uhNeville, but this is the actual
football of one of them that washanging on the old barbed wire
um and was kicked forward.
So Patrick McGill in the LondonIrish Rifles.
Um, again, I said, What are thechances in the game?

(01:00:16):
Well, the chances werechallenging.
So, again, these images, uh, youcan see these guys are rolling
the gas huts on the top of theirheads.
It shows you that if this isaccurate, the gas is dissipated,
or at least you'd hoped it wouldbe.
But this is the challenge ofengaging with this.
So, if you look at the CameronHighlanders in the 15th, uh, we

(01:00:38):
can see how they're movingtowards the the village of Lust
where the machine guns areraking the streets, the bayonet
fighting.
Remember that Lust is going tobe built into using Stelling's
bow into the front line andmaking sure it was a fortress in
its own right.
So, let's look at the the pointhere.
So, there's the grenade spur,and we can see um how the men is

(01:01:01):
going to be challenging if thegas is pooling on this side.
But as soon as it's flowing downthe slope, I mean it makes it
sound like it's a huge hill, butit isn't.
But there is a slope for sure.
That is allowing the gas,whether there is any need for
wind or not, the the gas wasflowing down into loose.
And of course, what we see hereis that would also happen from

(01:01:24):
double crassier, you know.
Once again, with surfaceroughness, you know, the gas
would flow downwards, and ofcourse, the men swept past um
the tower bridge and up hill 70,where they milled about like a
bank holiday crowd because theyare inexperienced soldiers, they
had breasted the German frontline and had gone on behind

(01:01:47):
that.
What do we do now, lads?
Um, it meant that it wasunconsolidated.
What you need is you need to bea big lad with a kilt and a pipe
in set of pipes, uh, that'll dothe job for you.
So, joking apart, Piper Laidlawof the Kings and Scottish
Borderers, he pipes the menforward in many ways.
You know, the point is that theScots are being held up by their

(01:02:08):
own gas.
This is the challenge, but uhLaidlaw was no man to uh sit
around with that, and of course,deservedly being awarded the
Victoria Cross for his actions.
So, what we're looking at thenis the first division is held
up.
We know why, because it's a lowland, there's not much in terms

(01:02:29):
of topography, and there's notmuch really in terms of uh
things which are going to holdthe gas in position.
Uh, what we see is the grenadespur, which is the gas has to go
over that, and of course, manyof those Scots had difficulties
with that, but they were ablewith the 47th Londoners and the

(01:02:49):
15th Scots were able to justtake once the gas moved down
into and the area of Luz andtaking Tower Bridge, of course,
had the capability.
So, what we're looking at iswhether or not the gas is any
good.
Uh, I'm gonna have to move youguys because I can't see that.
Um, so what we see here is wasit any good?

(01:03:14):
Well, the gas refused to budgein the north.
Um, that's because of the lowground, it sticks on the plateau
in the middle, the gas attackstutters because again, there's
nothing to drive it, no wind.
And in the south, the valley isallowing the gas to flow down in
the absence of wind.
So if we go back to my science,told you, well, I didn't tell

(01:03:34):
you it was going to be a test,but here it is.
Um, so here we go.
Then the distance it can travelis affected by the density of
the gas, the dispersal of thegas, and the surface of the gas.
We talked about that thetrenches, the hills, the town,
all that's gonna affect it.
It's gonna pool in low areas.
So around La Basse, that'swhat's gonna happen, and it's
gonna stick on the gas plateau.

(01:03:56):
Lack of momentum where there'sno slopes on the plateau.
But when we're looking into thevalley, we get that wedge, okay,
and that wedge allows the gas toflow down, roll down, whether
there's any wind or not.
So this might seem a bit of anarcane, you know, small point,
but it does show you howcomplex, even just the small
battlefield becomes when yourelease gas.

(01:04:17):
It's not just open attaps andaway we go.
The gas is already dissipatingand the gas is not necessarily
moving.
So we can see uh the position ofthe maximum advance, we can see
how the Holland Zullen Dow is amajor, major point of
contention, it cannot be brokenin that sense.

(01:04:39):
So at this stage in the war, sowe can see how it holds the
north of that.
The gas has not moved in anylocation down further to the
south.
Again, we can see uh how gas hasassisted, but the failure to
consolidate Hill 70 again withthe Germans building that into
their front line, as it wasthen, meant that this was the

(01:05:00):
maximum advance that could havebeen achieved.
Oops, okay.
So uh the battle held on to the13th of October when, of course,
that was it.
Um, there's there was no goingforward.
So the maximum advance thatwe're seeing it ran out of
momentum because of the strengthof the German Stalin's bow, the
open landscape, the failure ofthe gas move uniformly, and of

(01:05:22):
course, something that I haven'thad time to talk about French's
poor command choices, hedginghis bets, bringing in and really
making uh a mockery out of theabout the divisions that were
deployed, these new army men whowere really castigated for their
inability to take this, and yetthey had to march for miles

(01:05:42):
overnight.
It's just absolutely horrific.
The gains were minimal, but fromthis point on, gas warfare would
evolve.
There would be new ways ofdelivering it.
So cloud gas was not the way ofdoing it.
You would use Stokes mortars,for example, you would use
Livens projectors, you would useeven uh delivery, believe it or
not, on railway carriages and soon, using the terrain and using

(01:06:06):
gas, and gas becomes part of theartillery shells.
So it becomes a weapon of war,yes, but not in the manner that
was expected.
Um, yeah, so both allies gainedexperience, but probably uh as
at this point, and this is againa little hard, it was the
Germans who were benefiting atthis point, but no, needless to

(01:06:28):
say, the British Army did learnfrom this for sure.
The casualties were prettyhorrific.
A lot of officers, quite a lotof senior officers, which brings
the lie to the fact that seniorofficers were nowhere near the
front line.
That is just nonsense in in manyways, and so many uh commanders,
um, divisional commanders.

(01:06:50):
You see, 35 senior officerskilled 20,000 German casualties.
And if you look at Dundee'sshare of the sacrifice, a phrase
used, uh, it's absolutelyincredible.
This uh book I've only justrecently come across, The
Haunting Years.
And if you've come across thatpoll, if you haven't, it's one
for your old front line, I wouldsay, because it's incredible.

(01:07:10):
Um, and what this is showing,remember they were really uh hit
hard an F Chappelle and leftafter an F Chappelle 130 of the
men were priority were killed,and 19 out of 20 officers were

(01:07:31):
killed or wounded.
So there we have it.
So um thanks for coming along.
Uh always a pleasure to chatwith with you and to support
Paul's frontline.
I listen to it regularly whenI'm uh on my travels.
Um I I hear none better, I haveto tell you.

(01:07:53):
So thank you for that.
I'll stop sharing.
Happy to take any questions, butdon't ask me any hard signed
stuff because I've you know I'mrun out of that.
No, I'm joking.
And you can ask what you like.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:04):
Thank you, Peter.
That was absolutely fantastic.
Uh you know, on the eve of thebattle, it's kind of really good
to uh to hear some somedifferent perspectives on it.
And I mean, you know, you and I,and many people here present,
have seen the historiography ofthe first world war change and
change again, really, over theyears.
And I kind of think thatlandscape might be moving into

(01:08:25):
having its its its moment,really, in terms of our
understanding of the first worldwar, because it's something I
think that's been missing forall too many studies, really,
isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:34):
Yeah, absolutely, 100%.
I mean, I think it's you knowit's beneficial to be able to
think it's okay for me because Ihave those those sides.
But I think, as you've said,Paul, the historiography is
changing, people are looking atall manner of different ways of
considering this, and uh onething though that's I'm always
aware of and have been eversince I was that eight-year-old,
is the fascination with trenchwarfare and how those men could

(01:08:57):
actually have stepped out ofthose trenches and moved towards
the enemy.
It's just beyond mycomprehension.
I don't think I'll everunderstand that.
Um, and I think you know thatone of the first books I bought
on that uh was in when I was a13-year-old, and I still have it
with me today.
It still allows me to try andchallenge that.

(01:09:18):
So I think I think we arethinking about trench warfare in
many, many different ways.
Um, and I think every waycombined, all of the experience
we have in this virtual roomagain will will probably combine
to make a really fascinatingview on what we perceive uh to
be trench warfare in that oldfront line.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:42):
You've been listening to an episode of the
Old Frontline with me, militaryhistorian Paul Reed.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcore, you can follow the
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(01:10:03):
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