Somewhere down the line, a dog starts barking
ferociously. You don't need any more warning than that,
as you and the four men you were playing chess with immediately rip at the canvas bag at
your sides holding your gas masks. In the fury to tear your gas mask over your
head and secure it in place, you knock over the worn and beaten chess board, sending the
pieces to the muddy floor. In a few moments, the dog's barking is muffled-
its owner must have finally fitted a mask to it after putting his own on in a hurry. That dog's lucky, a few months ago the few
dogs on the frontlines would be killed by incoming gas attacks. Thanks to their incredibly sensitive noses,
these war dogs are capable of sniffing out gas attacks a minute or two before the fog-like
haze settles over the front lines. Typically, the Germans blast the front with
artillery shells modified to release dangerous gases rather than explode on contact. On days like today though, when the wind is
blowing from east to west and is strong enough, they can release the gas from directly outside
their own trenches and have it blow across no man's land. The type of gas that might be delivered varied. Sometimes it’s largely harmless tear gas,
an irritant that served to suppress the enemy's ability to fight back effectively. This is typically followed by a massive assault
across no man's land though, and the effectiveness of gas masks in filtering the gas, as well
as its non-lethal properties, made it less and less appealing as the Great War ground
on. Germany would later claim that it began using
chemical weapons in a bid to secure quick victory, and therefore grant the world the
mercy of a short war with few casualties. Man's best intentions quickly went awry. Tear gas quickly made way for three deadlier
gases: mustard gas, phosgene, and chlorine gas. Chlorine gas could be easily spotted, if lookouts
were actually paying attention, as it moves across the battlefield like a sickly yellowish-greenish
cloud. During day attacks it gives plenty of warning,
and allows men to quickly don their protective gas masks. For that reason, the Germans- and the Allies-
quickly take to using the gas at night, where it can't be as easily spotted. Phosgene gas is chlorine gas's deadlier older
brother. It lacks the distinctive colorization of chlorine
gas, making it harder to spot, and even worse: symptoms would only set in a day or two after
being poisoned. All the warning you would get was the sudden
smell of wet, musty hay, and then a day or two later you'd be drowning in your own fluids. Ironically enough though, the gas you fear
the most is mustard gas- the most widely used chemical agent of the war. While Chlorine and Phosgene gas are deadly,
and could cause havoc on the body internally, there is a peace about knowing that if you
were exposed to them, you'd likely soon die. Mustard gas though doesn't come with such
a guarantee, and is perfectly survivable. Yet breathing it in would scar your lungs
for life, leaving you permanently short of breath. The giant blisters it produces on exposed
skin are not only plentiful and extremely painful, but could also disfigure men. And in the poor hygiene conditions of Europe's
trench war, these blisters could burst and become infected, leading to a protracted,
terribly slow death to infection- or amputations. Better to die relatively quickly then linger
on in agony. You don't know what kind of gas the germans
are launching today, but you do your best to protect as much of your skin as you can
anyways. You scramble, rifle in hand, to a pre-prepared
fighting position along the massive trench that has been your home for months. Each man has their own slit in the trench,
consisting of a slightly elevated position, from where they could comfortably stand and
fire at incoming soldiers. As you do your best to sight down the barrel
of your rifle, you scan the banks of gas clouds for human figures- gas attacks of this sort
are typically preludes to a massive attack. It's summer, and the gas mask is stiflingly
hot. Your eye holes fog up constantly, and you
have to try to breathe shallow to limit the fogging so you can actually see out of your
mask. The gas washing over you terrifies you, and
you're afraid to breathe at all now. The smallest compromise in your mask will
have you sucking in deadly air. You hope that your charcoal filter will continue
to filter properly, the constant humidity of the muddy trenches can seriously compromise
the effectiveness of filters. You yearn to rip the hot, muggy, uncomfortable
mask off your face, but you know that to do so would be to invite certain death. Instead, you'll sit and bear it for hours
on end, until at last the all-clear is called. That's of course if the Germans don't attack. And that's when you hear it, the tell tale
sound of hundreds of boots pounding the ground in front of you. There's no battlecry, no shouts from officers
rallying their men forward. The gas masks both sides are wearing make
such feats impossible. There's only the sudden roaring of hundreds
of rifles on both sides- mostly yours- like a freak thunderstorm sprung to life from out
of clear blue sky. Typically attacks are preempted by massive
artillery barrages that can last for a day or longer, and more than once you've had to
hunker down for days on end as metal death rained down all around you. This time though, the Germans have aimed for
a surprise attack, closely following the deadly banks of fogs they silently released into
the strong wind to cover their attack. You fire your rifle at the incoming horde
of enemy soldiers. The Germans are too busy crossing no man's
land to bother firing back. Everyone knows that the only hope for victory
is to cross no-man's land and dive into the enemy's trench, and once there victory becomes
a brutal hand-to-hand battle for survival. Prisoners are rarely taken, retreat is impossible. Tally too long in no-man's land or try to
retreat across it, and the machine guns will find you. A fact the Germans are currently discovering. You thank your lucky stars that the machine
gunners along your section of trench were quick to don their gas masks and are unaffected
by the deadly vapors. Of all the weapons of World War I, the machine
gun is most responsible for the deadly stalemate that runs the length of the European continent. Spitting out hundreds of rounds a minute,
the only way to silence it is to charge headlong into its withering fire. And yet just as effective as it is on the
defense, it is all but useless on the offense- the guns being far too bulky and difficult
to carry across no-man's land. Thus the Great War has devolved to suicidal
rush after suicidal rush, the machine gun's body count rising by the day. Now withering machine gun fire from several
positions strafes across the German advance. Men fall under its fire by the dozens, and
yet incredibly the charge continues. The constant barrage of rifle fire is shockingly
inaccurate, no surprise given the difficulty in accurately firing a rifle while wearing
a bulky gas mask, and in the rush across no-man's land it's machine guns that claim most victims. It's absolute lunacy, you think to yourself,
to continue charging forward, into the teeth of the big guns, even as you see dozens of
your fellow soldiers fall before them. Then again, what choice does a charging soldier
have? Retreating across no-man's land will leave
them just as vulnerable as charging across it. Once you're up and over the top, there's only
one way to live, and it's forward. The first Germans are coming over the trenches,
numbers too great even for the machine guns to overcome. Neither side needs much accuracy now in such
close quarters, and the hot, fetid and poisoned air in the trenches is now filled with acrid
gunpowder as well as deadly gas. The mixture creates a grayish fog that permeates
the scene, adding a surrealness to the brutal and often hand-to-hand combat that breaks
out all across the front. Men stab with bayonets or knives, their rifles
largely forgotten and too cumbersome for the close-in fighting. You can't tell time in the thick of the melee,
but your lungs are bursting with the exertion of frantic breathing through your gas mask. Fighting in such conditions, both sides can
barely manage more than a few minutes of intense combat before falling nearly completely exhausted. Entire sections of trench will unofficially
fall under enemy control briefly, both sides simply too tired to keep fighting and desperate
for a brief rest. The machine guns took too great a toll on
the incoming assault though, and the German's numbers are low. You spend the afternoon doing the grim work
of killing in close quarters, and in the narrow, tight confines of the stretches it is all
too often the work of a butcher killing men too exhausted to defend themselves anymore. Some will be taken prisoner after surrendering,
most simply won't. You push away the consequences of your actions
for now; those are for a living man to deal with, and right now there's no guarantee on
your life. The battle over, the grim work of removing
corpses must be attended to and quickly, the trenches must be prepared for a fresh attack
coming at any minute. For now, German and Allied corpses alike are
simply stashed in small cutaways along the trenches, as defensive fortifications are
fixed and manned, you and the rest of the exhausted survivors preparing for a possible
second wave. As the hours pass and night comes though,
it becomes clear that there's no stomach in the Germans for another attack. You're grateful, you've also no stomach for
more bloodshed today. At last the all clear signal is given for
the gas, and after half a day struggling to breathe through a mask caked with sweat and
blood, you rip the thing off. You thought you'd be careful before taking
that first breath, the fear of lingering gas still fresh in your mind- but you're so exhausted
that you greedily gulp down the fresh air, and despite the stench of gunpowder, the sickly-sweet
smell of the dead, and the slightly nauseating tinge of gas, that breath of air is sweeter
than any you've ever tasted in your life. The Germans might attack again at night, so
you can never truly afford to let your guard down, but whether they do or not, there are
basic housekeeping duties to be done that are necessary in the trenches. Disease is already rampant in the muddy, unsanitary
conditions of the trenches, there's little need to aid it along so you and a detail of
soldiers work to move the dead through the network of trenches connecting yours to those
at the rear. Somewhere back there a graves detail service
will separate the German soldiers from the Allied soldiers, and give as best a burial
as possible. By the time you're done, you're too exhausted
to even eat- but your work isn't done yet. Your life depends on two key pieces of equipment:
your mask and your rifle, and thus before you can even think of getting a few hours
of much-needed sleep, you set to the task of maintaining both. Your gas mask is relatively easy to maintain,
and you check it thoroughly for tears. You dry off the charcoal filter and do your
best to keep it free of mud and excess moisture. Your rifle though is a different affair, and
requires a complex breakdown of its components along with a thorough cleaning. Until you arrived at the front you had no
idea just how much of war is spent simply cleaning one's weapon. They certainly left that detail out of the
heroic war stories you grew up listening to. It's also important to tend to your feet though,
not an easy feat. As the war has dragged on, one of the greatest
sources of casualties is the dreaded 'trench foot'. The trenches of Europe are routinely filled
with water from runoff or rain, and your feet are constantly submerged in muddy, fetid water. The water rots away at the flesh, and if you
don't take enough care of them, you'll find yourself shipped back to the rear for a double
amputation of your feet. It's not easy, but you do your best to dry
them as often as possible. Exhausted by your post-battle maintenance
though, it's finally time to retire for a few hours of sleep. You head into a small slit cut into the back
of the trench, not much more than a hole in the earth that is your personal sleeping place. It's slightly elevated above the floor of
the trench, so at least most of the water runs out and down into the trench floor, but
while the French and Germans enjoy entire rooms cut into the earth, you don't get much
more than this- a simple hole. For you though, it is the height of luxury,
and as your heavy eyes close, it's not long before you're fast asleep. If you're still curious about what went down
in world wars, why not check out our other video: what happened to the millions of bodies
after huge world war battles? Or perhaps you'd rather watch this other one
instead? Either way you can't lose, so click now and
keep the watch party going!
