northeast corner of the
village.

I went to the battalion headquarters and ordered out the orderlies,
and in a few minutes the French troops began streaming back without
arms or accoutrements. To my horror I found that they were Turcos and
not the regular French troops which we had thought were holding that
part of the line. Lieutenant Dansereau spoke French to them, but many
pretended they did not understand.

Almost immediately the bombardment of St. Julien became fiercer and
the number of Turcos coming back greater. We hurriedly gathered as
many as were armed of them together and sent them up to assist our
companies in the St. Julien trenches. By this time the rifle fire was
very intense and the gas so thick that it choked us, so I ordered
every man to go to the trenches. I sent messengers to General Turner,
V.C., to inform him of conditions and where we were.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BATTLE OF ST. JULIEN

It did not take us very long to realize that a great disaster had
befallen our gallant Allies who held the northern face of the salient.
The Turcos in broken French explained that the Germans had sent
asphyxiating gas from their trenches, and that the gas had killed one
quarter of their men. For weeks we had been warned that the Germans
were going to use asphyxiating gasses against us, but no one had ever
dreamed that they would be so inhuman as to use gas that would kill,
but they had done so, for the Turcos told us that many of their men
had fallen dead where they stood.

The gas used was chlorine gas which is one of the by-products of the
process whereby common salt is turned into soda, salt being a
combination of soda and chlorine. When the salt is heated along with
an acid the chlorine gas is liberated, the soda remaining. This soda
is used in manufacturing soap. The chlorine is generally combined with
lime to make chloride of lime or bleaching powder. In the chemical
works of Germany the amalgamation of chlorine and lime was omitted,
the chlorine being liquified under pressure in tanks. This liquid
chlorine was a cheap preparation used largely for bleaching linens and
cloth of various kinds manufactured in the districts in which we were
fighting. The bleacheries were silent and there was no longer any use
in the cloth industry for the German chlorine gas, so the Germans
having plenty of it on hand no doubt decided to use it against the
Allies.

We had staid a trifle too long in the village of St.