Since then events have moved
so rapidly and the situation has moved so frequently that it is
difficult to give a consecutive and clear story of what happened, but
the following account represents as nearly as can be the general course
of events. The details of the gas apparatus employed by them are given
separately, as also those of the asphyxiating grenades, bombs, and
shells of which they have been throwing hundreds.
At some time between 4 and 5 P.M. the Germans started operations by
releasing gases with the result that a cloud of poisonous vapor rolled
swiftly before the wind from their trenches toward those of the French
west of Langemarck, held by a portion of the French Colonial Division.
Allowing sufficient time for the fumes to take full effect on the troops
facing them, the Germans charged forward over the practically
unresisting enemy in their immediate front, and, penetrating through the
gap thus created, pressed on silently and swiftly to the south and west.
By their sudden irruption they were able to overrun and surprise a large
proportion of the French troops billeted behind the front line in this
area and to bring some of the French guns as well as our own under a hot
rifle fire at close range.
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