On a scale of 1 to 10, how nightmarish was it to be gas attacked in the Western Front of WW1?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how nightmarish was it to be gas attacked in the Western Front of WW1?

12

Go on...

You tell me

Brutal af.
Those masks were also really claustrophobic iirc

9

(OP)
If we are talking mustard gas then
>been in this trench for a while now
>bombardment last night left some of us sick
>my skin is blistering again past scars never healed
>pus again
>Timmy is coughing blood again, damn it
>my eyes are swollen, I can barely see the letters I'm writing to you
>it hurts to breathe
>today I coughed out a clot of bloody snot too, like timmy
>my eyes are now shut and my skin burns and rots
>I can't breathe

instead of answering via scale ill let you decide by this poem

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

note: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori means "it is sweet a right to die for your country"

it was kc tier

It was so bad that the western world decided to become pussified.

literally Hitler/10

I prefer that kind of gas if you catch my drift

Beyond nightmarish

this
play Verdun

Wilfred Owen was a God tier poet dood

cannae/10

Depends on whether they hit you or miss you.

With mustard gas the effects did not become apparent for up to twelve hours. But then it began to rot the body, within and without. The skin blistered, the eyes became extremely painful and nausea and vomiting began. Worse, the gas attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. The pain was almost beyond endurance and most men had to be strapped to their beds. Death took up to four or five weeks. -John Ellis, Eye Deep in Hell, pp. 66-7

11

Your only defense against a gas attack was putting on your gas mask. The only way you'd know when to put it on is if you saw the gas coming, or smelled it.

However, there was a certain type of gas that was invisible and had no smell, and it quickly induced vomiting. So sometimes that gas would come, without warning, and cause you to start puking uncontrollably. Then, before you can stop puking long enough to put your mask on, the real gas attack would come, and suffocate you while your lungs melted and your skin warped into sizzling leather. There was nothing you could really do to save yourself.

There's a reason chemical weapons are banned.

Delete this so i can post it

wud inhale 9/11

>British figures, which were accurately maintained from 1916, recorded that only 3% of gas casualties were fatal, 2% were permanently invalid and 70% were fit for duty again within six weeks.
>less than 100k soldiers from all nations combined died from gas attacks over the course of the entire war

I doubt it would be too high on the long list of your rational concerns. Its only real value was psychological, because it's more spooky to be killed by vapors in the air than it is to be killed by bullets and artillery shells.

jesus christ