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Gas alert procedure became a routine for the front-line soldier. To warn of a gas attack, a bell would be rung, often made from a spent artillery shell. At the noisy batteries of the siege guns, a compressed air strombus horn was used, which could be heard nine miles (14 km) away. Notices would be posted on all approaches to an affected area ...
The Gas Attacks at Hulluch were two German cloud gas attacks on British troops during World War I, from 27 to 29 April 1916, near the village of Hulluch, 1 mi (1.6 km) north of Loos in northern France. The gas attacks were part of an engagement between divisions of the II Royal Bavarian Corps and divisions of the British I Corps.
The battle was the British part of the Third Battle of Artois, a Franco-British offensive (known to the Germans as the Herbstschlacht (Autumn Battle). Field Marshal Sir John French and Douglas Haig (GOC First Army), regarded the ground south of La Bassée Canal, which was overlooked by German-held slag heaps and colliery towers, as unsuitable for an attack, particularly given the discovery in ...
The French response included establishing the "Supreme Command of Saharan Territories" (spanning Algeria and AOF) on January 12, 1917, under General Laperrine, [118] and organizing military columns. While the siege of Agadez was lifted on March 3, 1917, guerrilla warfare persisted in the mountains until February 14–19, 1918, when Khoassen was ...
Fort Douaumont (French: Fort de Douaumont) was the largest and highest fort on the ring of 19 large defensive works which had protected the city of Verdun, France, since the 1890s. By 1915, the French General Staff had concluded that even the best-protected forts of Verdun could not withstand bombardments from the German 420 mm (16.5 in) Gamma ...
American soldiers wearing M2 gas masks in a frontline trench (1919 postcard image) The M2 gas mask was a French-made gas mask used by French, British and American forces from April 1916 to August 1918 during World War I. [1] The M2 was fabricated in large quantities, with about 29,300,000 being made during the war. [2]
French infantry pushing through enemy barbed wire, 1915. During World War I, France was one of the Triple Entente powers allied against the Central Powers.Although fighting occurred worldwide, the bulk of the French Army's operations occurred in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Alsace-Lorraine along what came to be known as the Western Front, which consisted mainly of trench warfare.
After suffering 196,000 British and 70,351 French losses on the Somme, against an estimated 200,000 German casualties (actually 243,129) by the end of August, the mid-September attack was the last opportunity for a big combined effort by the French and British in 1916. Terraine wrote that it was absurd to think that a possibly decisive weapon ...