One hundred years ago today, on April 22, 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, German troops unleashed a horrifying new weapon: chlorine gas.
The Canadian War Museum’s exhibition, Fighting in Flanders – Gas. Mud. Memory., examines the introduction of chemical warfare, the Allied search for ways to protect the soldiers against it, and the story of a doctor from Montreal who was among the first to identify the poison after the inaugural attack.
Dr. Mélanie Morin-Pelletier, a First World War historian and curator of this exhibition, said: “That first devastating chlorine gas attack 100 years ago launched a chemical arms race, as well as a parallel race to protect soldiers against asphyxiation, damaged lungs, blindness and burns.”
Read more in the Canadian War Museum’s newsletter.
The exhibition, Fighting in Flanders – Gas. Mud. Memory., is open until April 26.
