Battle of Loos

LHMA, FOULKES 6/6, Papers relating to the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915 and Sir John French s Dispatch (15 October 1915). 

By 19 September nearly 5500 cylinders, containing some 150 tons of chlorine, had been distributed along the British front. After four days and nights of a preliminary artillery bombardment, and an anxious watch of the weather, the first British gas attack was launched on 25 September 1915, so commencing the battle of Loos. 

Both sides learnt firom the battle of Loos. To counter the surprise effect of gas, improvements in anti-gas training and disdpline were realised as necessary as well as the introduction of more effident... 

This first attack was the beginning of escalation. The Allies were not slow to respond the first counterattack was on September 25, 1915 the Battle of Loos was a disaster because the winds blew the gas over the Allied lines and a portion of the demijohns, which had not been opened by the British soldiers who had not received the correct keys to do so, exploded under German bombs and released their gas into the British lines. 

Ethyliodoacetate ( SK ). Generally speaking, iodine has usually been more costly to acquire than chlorine or bromine. In World War I, however, England found its supplies of bromine running low, while having a temporary glut of iodine (imported from South America). Thus the invention of ethyliodoacetate, first used by the British at the battle of Loos in September 1915. When delivered by 4.2-inch howitzers and 4-inch Stokes mortars, alcohol was mixed with the compound to increase its volatility on the battlefield. 

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