LIQUID FLAKE AS A GERMAN WEAPON.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 33, 1 May 1917, Page 2

LIQUID FLAKE AS A GERMAN WEAPON.

- ■ V By W. G. Fitz-Gerald.

I "The chemist,” grim Bismarck used tft say with secret gloating, “keeps bis sword sheathed. Yet that sword will decide the greatest of wars.” Certainly German professors have sprung surprise after surprise upon bs all. Belgian prisoners who escaped told of the spectacled scientists they had seen trying mysterious devilries “on the dog” in the trenches near Hassell. Literally upon Flemish dogs, for the experiments were those with new asphyxiating shells filled with ammoniac saltpetre. And more formidable still, big cylinders of chlorine gas, such as overwhelmed our Canadians at the second battle of Ypres. German pioneers who handled these weapons under the chemist’s eye were masked and hooded weirdly, with strange copper gear upon their backs, and life-saving attendants with them bearing oxygen plants such as rescue parties use in our coal-mines after an explosion that fills the pit with poisonous reck. And these gas-warriors needed protection from the ghastly fumes they carried. For if the wind changed, their bottled death blew back into their own faces with frightful effect. How cunning the Germans have shown themselves in diabolic devices of war, without any regard for humanity or long accepted laws ! What man-traps they set in the abandoned trenches, what unlooked-for weapons they brought to bear for the first time in civilised war ! For example, giant guns of twentymile range, and aerial torpedoes thrown by mediaeval catapults and pneumatic tubes. "Vitriol and blazing pitch ; poisoned wells—even wild bees let loose from special hives on East African jangle paths. One of onr Lancashire lads had over a hundred stings removed ! Half crazed and blinded, what could the bravest marksman do when assailed by clouds of these winged foes ? And the confusion gave a fine chance to the German forces waiting in ambush near

ky. But of all the inventions of “Schrecklichkeit,” or frigbtfulness, perhaps the worst is the so-called flamenwerfer, or blazing fire-spray that burns men alive where they stand to arms in the trench. Beyond question, these incendiary jets did at first win irresistible way through our own lines, and those of the French. And as their afficacy fails, through countermeasures upon our part, the Germans improve the projectors, and try again in a new sector of the line.

It was north and south of Hooge that our men were first assailed with sheets of aerial flame. “By this means,” the Commander-in-Chief reported, “the enemy succeeded in penetrating our first line on a front of 600 yards.” Many of our men were dreadfully burned. A strange drizzle descended first—a mysterious rain of coal-tar and benzine, pumped through brazen nozzles by compressed air. Men’s uniforms were drenched. The Inflammable fluid clung to trench walls and sandbags ; it dripped into dug-outs and wetted all the props and woodwork. A few moments later came a shower of incendiary bombs, and with a roar the whole position flared up with inextinguishable blaze. The trenches were wholly untenable, yet oar lads still stood their ground. And now German pioneers of the incendiary corps advanced to complete the torrent of fire, till the defenders were like living torches, shooting to the last with sublime and selfless detopwination.

Tfcm’s nothing new under the sun. Alda to this attack was the famous "Greek lire” used at the siege of Osstaatinople age* ago, when the Tffi-k fii«t set foot in Europe. Nothin Quenched this mysterious element and the classic city owes its deliverance to tne novelty and terrors, as veil a e the military value of this un-looked-for arm. I- was either poured from the ramparts in huge boilers, or else blown from los« copper tubes that vast cloud* of flf-mci

as no tne latest type or German cylinders.

These now ignite the oil as it leaves the nozzles. The gear resembles a portable fire-extinguisher, and has a withering effect at a range of a hundred feet. In many places the works of both belligerents were still closer than this. The roaring, hissing sheet-blaze lasts nearly two minutes, and develops a heat so fierce that there is no facing it—even though one be untouched by the jet itself. Ac-

cording to instructions from tho Cor man General-stabler, or Hend-quav

Aprs’ Staff, the flamenwerfer is intended for close-quarter fighting in city streets, where the jets may be turned upon houses obstinately held. Two pioneers work the latest apparatus. One carries the steel reservoir on his back (when filled it weighs 2701b5.), and the other directs the nozzle on the enemy’s lines. The liquid spray is forced by air pressure into an ignition tube, and issues in narrow tongues of chemical flame, spreading as they go into vast palls, with immense masses of smoke. “I thought the world was coming to an end,” one of our soldiers told me who had come alive out of this Berlin-made inferno. “Over our heads was a mighty blaze a hundred feet high, and raining stuff that bit us to the bone. Why, a prairie fire was a boy’s bonfire to a scene like that ! The greatest hero amongst us could not face those blowpipes of Kultur, but gave ground like the newest greenhorn out from home.” • These “blowpipes” are continually improved. Later types throw a coaltar mixture by means of a pressuregauge of nitrogen and a wick which lights the stuff as it passes. The pumping pressure goes up to 200 atmospheres, and the range increases gradually till it reaches seventy yards or more. These new and powerful flame projectors are made by the Fiedler Company of Berlin. I was told in Paris that so long ago as 1908 Richard Fiedler took out a patent in France for military machines of this kind, which pumped out blazing liquids and produced enormous sheets of flame such as no troops could face. The patents were renewed in 1911, and the designs accompanying the invention showed behelmetted figuies at work with cylinder and spray, precisely as we and the French saw them at Hooge and Malancourt. The Germans take a perverted pride in these, “chemical arms.” And now the Pinsch Company promise them a new burning gas of great velocity and volume, which will surely clear those long desired and thus far over-costly roads to Calais and Paris ! But the German sees only his own side, as he did with the submarine which was to bring Britain to her knees in six weeks by sinking every ship in sight, and to starving out the most hated of all foes. Time and again our enemies, with wire-shears round their necks, have charged home after jets and projectors have done their withering work, expecting to see the very clay walls ablaze with inextinguishable fire, and all our men retreated. There was no sign of this, however. All was still —till a secret whistle blew, and hell broke loose with high explosive bomb, machine-gun rattle, and rifle fire that fairly mowed the cruel roasters, until survivors threw up grimy hands and. begged for the mercy they never showed themselves. “Weekly Telegraph.”