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  Barbed Wire

  It’s the best fence in the world.

  As light as air.

  Stonger than whisky. Cheaper than dust.

  All in steel and several miles long.

  The cattle haven’t been born can get through it.

  Gentlemen, take up the challenge and bring your cows.

  — John Warne Gates, barbed-wire merchant, Texas, 1870s

  It was 1874. On a farm in Illinois a farmer was concerned about his recent loss of cattle. He wanted to protect his herd by keeping his cattle in and marauding wild animals out. He would like to let them graze in distant pastures without concern. He sat in the long evenings twisting wire and then twisting small, sharp pieces of wire onto a longer length of wire. His excitement in his invention lessened when the small barbs loosened and slipped down the wire. He tried again. He pricked his forefinger with a barb and stopped for a moment to suck out the possible infection. Finally, he took a second length of wire and twisted it around the first, keeping the sharp barbs in place.

  J.F. Glidden had invented what would become an icon of the Midwest landscape and of the Canadian prairies as it undulated across the land, held taut by the upright fence posts. The prairie fence withstood the winds of summer and cast long shadows across the snow-white fields of winter. It would be the subject matter of art and song. As he worked the wire — forming and reforming — until it served his purpose, he could not have dreamed of the uses barbed wire would be put to just 40 years later. In those still, starlit evenings, the excitement of settling the West filled his thoughts, not the noise of bombardments where artillery fire smashed against the wire, deafening soldiers and blasting craters in the verdant fields of Belgium and France.

  He could not have imagined that the wire developed to protect his cattle from harm would be used to catch and hang up human beings in its barbs, to hang them up as human targets for the gunfire of the enemy and sometimes that of their own comrades. When the searing prairie winds caught the tumbleweed and blew it against his fence, clasping it there through winter and summer, he would have been hard-pressed to see in its form the figure of a soldier soon to be caught just as firmly in the barbs on another continent. Barbs, sometimes a finger thick, were meant to maim — wires, not strung in an orderly manner, but criss-crossing one another, sometimes in coiled masses 40 feet wide, turning back on itself like a maze that seemed to have no beginning or end — a maze from which there was no escape. Wire strung across a no man’s land as far as the eye could see, which had to be repaired after nightfall, and was often found uncut when the soldiers went “over the top.”

  J.F. Glidden would have shuddered at the thought of his invention becoming a symbol of a war that would last four years and claim the lives of approximately 19 million people and wound many more.

  Wire-cutters in no man’s land had one of the most dangerous jobs.

  Courtesy of the Granfield Collection.

  Gas

  “Piss on your handkerchief. Piss on your undershirt. Piss on any rag you can find!” The command echoed up and down the Canadian lines. The most available rag was often the one the soldier used to clean his gun. A Canadian medical doctor, who was also a chemist, recognizing the smell of chlorine and knowing that uric acid would crystallize the chlorine, advised this to the infantry.

  On the morning of April 22, 1915, Ypres was lit by the rising sun, its spires throwing shadows across the quiet square. The country surrounding the town rose slightly on the edges like an upside-down Frisbee, the 40- to 60-metre rise giving the Germans both a visual advantage and a direct line for artillery fire into the enemy’s trenches. Reconnaissance reports of activity in German trenches seeped through, so the Allied forces were watchful. Coupled with rumours from a German deserter that his countrymen intended to release a special weapon, these reports raised the level of tension in the trenches.

  The 1st Canadian Division, recently arrived from England, received orders on April 22, 1915, to move into the trenches northeast of Ypres. The fighting around Ypres during 1914 had created a bulge (or salient) in the British line that protruded into German-held territory. French colonial forces defended the north arm of this bulge, Canadians the northeast portion, and Britons the east and south. Because of this bulge, the German forces could cut off the Allied front if they were to gain access on either side.

  Though the soldiers had seen the realities of trench warfare, they were unprepared for what greeted them in the Ypres Salient. Here the trenches were not only poorly constructed, with inadequate parapets for protection, but they had no traverses, or bends in their construction, to prevent being directly fired upon from the German trenches. The soldiers were also ill-prepared for the sight of decomposing bodies left lying in the surrounding battlefields and trenches.

  The French trenches, built in the shape of half moons, were not connected to one another. Canadian troops, when they arrived, worked desperately against time to make the trenches safer. First they dug deeper and sandbagged them, then they spread barbed wire in front and prepared Gravenstafel Ridge, which lay behind the present line, as a secondary position in case they needed to fall back. The 2nd Brigade commander, Arthur Currie, decided it would be important to have a fallback position on the highest ground possible. This was known as Locality C.

  By late afternoon the shadows had shifted east of the town, but they were invisible to the soldiers as flames leapt up against the setting sun. A gentle breeze fanned the fire’s intensity. All day the German bombardment of Ypres had shattered houses and further damaged the Cloth Hall in the Market Square and the Cathedral of St. Martin behind it.

  At precisely 5:00 p.m., the German soldiers opened up the valves on bottles of deadly chlorine gas. It flowed quickly through the lead pipes they had laid over the breastworks of the front-line fire trench. Within ten minutes, the hissing cylinders were empty.

  IN THE TRENCHES

  Poison Gas

  The development in the use of poison gases led to both phosgene and mustard gas being used. Phosgene was especially potent as its impact was frequently felt only 48 hours after it had been inhaled, and by then it had already bedded itself in the respiratory organs of the body and little could be done to eradicate it. Also, it was much less apparent that someone had inhaled phosgene, as it did not cause as much violent coughing. By the time that phosgene had got into a person's bodily system, it was too late.

  Mustard gas was first used by the Germans against the Russians at Riga in September 1917. This gas caused both internal and external blisters on the victim within hours of being exposed to it. Such damage to the lungs and other internal organs was very painful and occasionally fatal. Many who did survive were blinded by the gas.

  Toward the French colonial lines, luminous yellow/green clouds carried a stench different from the putrid trenches, different from the burning of bricks and mortar. The clouds crept stealthily, carried forward by a light breeze. They rolled over the ground, and seemed to gather momentum as they advanced. Soldiers were blinded, their throats were burned; they coughed and vomited.

  This new intruder was invincible — resistant to artillery fire and bayonets, impervious to barbed wire, ominous in its onslaught. At first the French forces fought on, but they finally had to turn and flee from this enemy they could neither identify nor combat. This left approximately 12 kilometres of the front line unprotected. Because of the salient, it would now be possible for the German forces to advance through this unprotected front, essentially cutting off the Canadians.

  An hour later, the Canadian infantry were commanded to move into the flank vacated by the French forces — having little idea what lay ahead.

  At the same time, the Germans were moving south, short of reserves and unaware that their way was open right into Ypres. At midnight, the 10th and 16th Battalions attacked the German positions in Kitchener’s Woods, near St. Julien, and held the position.

  The Canadian St. Julien Memorial, located at Vancouver Corner, Ypres Salient, Bel
gium. Also known as “The Brooding Soldier,” it commemorates the sacrifice of the Canadian 1st Division, in action April 22–24, 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres. Some 2,000 Canadians were killed, wounded, or reported missing in action during the battle.

  Wikimedia Commons.

  The introduction to The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie: Diaries, Letters, and Report to the Ministry, 1917–1933 states:

  Confusion reigned in the Canadian and British lines…. Currie appears to have acted calmly and coolly under pressure. He deployed his battalions to tactically important ground and managed to hold off the German advance. Two days later, the Germans unleashed a second cloud of gas, this time against the Canadians. The German assault came close to breaking the Canadian line, opening up gaps between the 2nd and 3rd Brigade. Currie requested British reinforcements, but received inconclusive responses. After instructing the commander of the 8th Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Louis Lipsett, to withdraw if he deemed it necessary, Currie went back to the lines of General Headquarters to personally find and muster the reinforcements needed to plug the gaps. Although these were the actions of an unconventional commander (he probably should never have left his headquarters), they demonstrated that Currie trusted his subordinate commanders and was willing to take the personal action to protect the men under his command. The next day the German attacks were renewed but the Canadians again held their ground, and the British and French forces were able to counter-attack or reinforce the wavering line that the Canadians had held against all odds.

  In his gas course notebook, Jim writes:

  August 13, 1916

  Care of Helmet

  a) Helmets will stand two gas attacks

  b) See that helmet is properly folded

  c) Regularly Inspected — once every week, daily during gas alert

  d) Replaced immediately after gas attack if worn in gas, also after they have been rolled up on chest for twenty-eight days and nights and after they have been worn in shell gases twenty four hours

  e) Never dry helmet if wet or breathe into it unnecessarily because this destroys the chemicals

  f) Eye pieces should be treated once a week with “Glasso”

  Throughout April, the Germans launched a “hate shoot” against Ypres, leaving it in shambles, but undefeated. Saving Ypres from German occupation became a rallying point for the Allied forces.

  WORDS OF WAR

  Dulce et Decorum est

  Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

  And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

  Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

  Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

  Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

  Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,

  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

  And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…

  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

  In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

  He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

  If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

  Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

  If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —

  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

  To children ardent for some desperate glory,

  The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

  Pro patria mori.*

  — Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)

  *The last two lines translate from the Latin as “It is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country.”

  Airplanes

  Although trenches were a new development, tanks a new invention, and gas a surprise, possibly the greatest advancement in technological warfare in the First World War was in the air.

  Only 11 years after the Wright Brothers made their first successfully controlled flight, visionaries realized that the airplane would become an integral part of war, while others still saw its use as for reconnaissance only.

  At the beginning of the war, hot air balloons (eyes in the sky) equipped with a powered winch that could bring them down quickly, if necessary, provided a means of spying on the enemy. Messages dropped from these balloons or from light aircraft informed the artillery below of enemy movements so the artillery could make corrections to the firing battery. But balloons were very vulnerable to artillery fire. Carrier pigeons were also used to transport information over long distances.

  “The Best Noose of the War,” by cartoonist Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, a young Scotsman who fought at the front during the First World War.

  In order to save weight, the earliest flights of the war carried only a pilot. By September 1914, developments in wireless transmission allowed observers to identify the enemy’s position and approaching planes and then to inform the artillery. Radio transmitters, however, weighed 75 pounds and occupied one of the two available seats in a plane; thus, each pilot had the stress of having to navigate, fly, observe, and transmit results, all at the same time.

  The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was, for the first time, able to take aerial photographs. The camera was usually fixed to the side of the aircraft or operated through a floor-mounted aperture.

  The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was made up of men of courage, men who knew that their chance of survival was slim if their flimsy planes went down — parachutes were not provided at the time. By the end of the war, the Wright Brothers may have been hard-pressed to recognize their invention of 1903.

  Until machine guns were mounted onto the planes, pilots carried a pistol, and sometimes a rifle, to shoot at enemy aircraft. Some were known to carry small grenades or bombs to drop over the side, onto the enemy below. One of the more daring RFC missions was to deliver spies behind enemy lines and supply them with carrier pigeons to transport messages back to base.

  Machine-gun fire caused much damage to the wooden propellers of the aircraft, and this forced many pilots to crash-land their planes. A French pilot, Garros, solved this problem by adding wedges of steel to divert the bullets. It worked for a while, but when Garros’s plane crashed and he was captured before he was able to burn the plane, the Germans recovered it intact and proceeded to copy his design, adding a synchronizing gear in which the propeller was linked by a shaft to the trigger to block fire whenever they were both in line. This gear allowed the firing of a forward-facing gun through the propeller without striking the wooden blades — this revolutionary aircraft was the Fokker. This technology gave the German air force a temporary advantage and dominance of the skies in 1915. Known as the “Fokker Scourge,” this dominance would last nearly a year, until Allied aerial technology could catch up.

  Even knowing the hazards of flying and the possibility of instant death, 23,000 young Canadian men (most under the age of 25) joined and went into combat after approximately 30 hours of flight training. Of these, 1,388 were killed — many before they ever saw action. Because of the high death rate, by 1918 most of the pilots were between the ages of 18 and 21. The Royal Flying Corps drew men from across the British Empire; eventually nearly one-third were Canadian.

  On April 1, 1918, the Royal Flying Corps became the Royal Air Force (RAF).

  Tanks

  In his plans for the Battle on the Somme, July 1, 1916, General Douglas Haig pinned some of his hopes for success on the introduction of a new secret weapon being deve
loped by the British — the tank. However, moving the date of the offensive ahead meant that they had not yet produced enough of the new vehicles.

  A shipment of 49 tanks finally arrived in France in late August. They were introduced for the first time in a major battle that took place on September 15: the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. Lumbering like oxen at a mere 5.5 kilometres per hour across no man’s land, crushing barbed wire fencing in their path, the “monsters” raised terror in the German ranks. Many of the enemy soldiers turned and fled. The tanks were most effective in clearing out German snipers in ruined villages. By the end of the first day of fighting, the heavily fortified villages of Flers, Martinpuich, and Courcelette had been captured.

  In spite of the initial impact of the tanks, there were problems with them. Many became mired in the craters and uneven, muddy terrain of the battlefield, or suffered mechanical breakdowns. And many were hit and badly damaged by German artillery. In spite of these problems, with the help of the tank the Allies gained in seven days as much ground as they had between July 1 and September 14. This gain raised the morale of both generals and soldiers.

  Spurred on by the success of September 15, tanks were again employed successfully in the September 26 capture of Thiepval Ridge (a German vantage point overlooking the British front line).

  ON THE BATTLEFIELD

  Tank Warfare

  The first-ever appearance of tanks on a battlefield occurred during the Battle of the Somme as British troops attacked German positions along the five-mile front, advancing 2,000 yards with the tank support. The British-developed tanks, the Mark Is, featured two small side-cannons and four machine guns, and were operated by an eight-man crew. As the infantry advanced, individual tanks provided support by blasting and rolling over the German barbed wire, piercing the frontline defence, and then rolling along the length of the trench, raking the German soldiers with machine-gun fire. Initially called “land ships” by the British Army, they were referred to as “water-carriers” (later shortened to “tanks”) to preserve secrecy.