GERMANS KILLED BY THEIR OWN GAS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14448, 7 November 1917, Page 3

GERMANS KILLED BY THEIR OWN GAS.

RESERVOIRS BLOWN UP BY FRENCH.

PARIS, Sept. 5. It appears that the German asphyxiating ga9 installations m the region of Sonain and Tahure (Champagne), against which the French have been main*-ainittg a violent artillery fire, were quite out of the ordinary. Tlie French Staff had' learned that the work of assembling the machines, of a new and perfected model, was being pressed forward with .feverish J haste, although the enemy was at great pains to shroud the operation m secrecy. The employed were of immense capacity, much greater than any seen before m the front, and connected by means of underground pipes with a gigantic gasometer which had been tested m Germany for the first time during the past few months. Important modifications had been made m the general methods of installation with a view to increasing considerably the foroe and effects of the emanations.

Under the guidance of aeroplanes, the French batteries began, their attack on August 20 and continued it until a few days ago. From time to time terrifying explosions were heard, indicating the success of the French artillerymen's fire The raids oarried out by the French m the Souain-Tahure sector during the last few days have given the French Staff proof of the total destruction of the German's new gas installations. Within a large radius ho living enemies were visible, but heaps of corpses made the region an immense shambles. Prisoners taken from second-line trenches admit that after each explosion caused by the French shells the huge volumes of gas stored m the reservoirs spread over the German trenches, bringing panio and death to their ocoupanta. < French patrols have discovered trenches full of the swollen corpses of German soldiers, who thus fell victims to. their own chemists' inventions.