Gas and flame in modern warfare — A Closer Reading

The Chemist as Soldier

Auld introduces himself through the publisher’s note as a pre-war chemist and teacher who volunteered as a “Territorial” at the war’s outset. After the first gas attack, his expertise pulled him into the Gas Service, and he later earned the Military Cross after the Somme. This background shapes the book’s hybrid identity: it is neither pure memoir nor dry manual. Auld’s authority rests on having “been in touch with gas warfare from the beginning,” but he also presents himself as a witness to failure. The note that he was “wounded in an expedition into No Man’s Land to observe the effect of a British Gas attack” underscores a willingness to share risk. The text thus moves between the chemist’s precision—detailing cylinder densities “at the rate of three every two yards”—and the soldier’s rueful humor about men who “didn’t seem able to stop” a hissing air cylinder.

Anecdotes of Error and Adaptation

The excerpts contain several stories that illustrate the gap between doctrine and practice. A sentry, when asked what he would do in a gas attack, replies: “If any gas comes over it blows the horn and I call the platoon sergeant.” Another, told to “keep smelling for gas,” lies on the parapet sniffing audibly. Auld reports these without mockery, letting the absurdity speak. A more elaborate anecdote involves Australians carrying replacement air cylinders for Strombos Horns; when one cylinder accidentally turns on, an officer asks what they have, and the reply is: “Oh, hell! To put the wind up the boche, of course.” Auld then glosses the phrase for American readers, explaining it means “reduction of morale.” These episodes serve as cautionary tales but also reveal a system where soldiers improvise, misunderstand, and sometimes blunder into effectiveness.

The Last German Cloud Attack

Chapter VI describes the final German gas cloud attack against the British Front in August 1916, calling it “the greatest test to which our men had been put.” Auld notes the attack’s intensity: individual waves of only ten minutes, cylinders placed “at the rate of three every two yards,” and phosgene brought “to the maximum that can be used.” He adds that the Ypres salient was then a “quiet” sector where divisions “went to ‘rest’ and reorganise,” meaning the troops were largely fresh drafts who had “lost very heavily in officers.” The gas training standard had dropped. This passage, though technical, is also a tactical autopsy: it shows how a commander assesses enemy capability, terrain, and troop readiness. Auld does not describe the outcome, but the detail implies that the attack succeeded partly because of the defenders’ weakened state.

Auld’s book resists easy categorization. Readers expecting a dry field manual will find moments of dark humor; those seeking a memoir will encounter chemical tables and organizational notes. The excerpts suggest that the work’s value lies in this very friction—between the scientist’s need for precision and the soldier’s need to cope with chaos. Approach the text as a primary document of how one expert tried to translate front-line experience into usable knowledge, while acknowledging that the men he trained would always find their own ways to misunderstand.

Reading that 1918 manual, I kept lingering on the sentries sniffing for gas—men trusting their noses in the dark. It reminded me of The Navy as a Fighting Machine — Story, Setting & Ideas, where the sea demands a similar, quieter vigilance. Both books feel less like instructions and more like careful, human attempts to impose order on immense, careless forces. There is a sadness in their certainty.