THE POISON FIELDS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2457, 10 May 1915, Page 6

THE POISON FIELDS

FUMES CAUSE FEARFUL SUFFERING BELGIAN COMMISSION'S REPORT m, London, May '/. , The Press Bureau states that the Belgian Commission reports that the Germans used nitrous vapours, and chlorine, sulphurous anhydrate and other undetermined gases. The !ow : lying cloud caused was of a dark greenish, turning yellow, and rising to a height of a hundred' metres. Men were seized with Vomiting and Mood-spitting, eyes and mouths were mado sore, and soma were stricken with a stupor lasting upwards of three hours. Germans are experimenting with the asphyxiation of dogs at Hasselt, Belgium. Thousands of respirators have been provided. Prisoners informed the Commission that immense quantities of gas bombs hava been distributed alone the trench front. The Commission thinks :t only right to lay before the world's conscience the facts of this new, premeditated crime. —("Times" and Sydney "Sun" Services.) A Chastly Spectacle. A correspondent who visited the gas victims found the patients propped up, their faces, arms, and hands shiny with a grey-black colour, their mouths open, and l with lead-glazed eyes, all swaying backwards and forwards struggling for breath. It was an appalling sightPractically nothing can be done for them beyond giving The gas fills the lungs with watery, frothy matter, gradually increasing until the lungs aro filled and tlie victims die of suffocation in a day or two. Hundreds die in the trenches, and half those reaching hospital succumb. It is without doubt the most awful form of scientific torture. (Rec. May 9, 5.10 p ni.) Paris, May 8. The Belgian Commission's report on the enemy's violation of international law deals with asphyxiating gas, 'There is every indication, it says, "that the Germans intend to use it generally. A prisoner stated that one battery of twenty retorts had been placed every forty metres alcng one part of the front. The Germans were furnished with elaborate masks and respirators, fitted with plugs saturated with neutralising liquid."