http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-j7_2o0Zww...feature=related

AND

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBtgd5ccqOk...feature=related

Fascinating contemporary and modern film of Eastern Front 1914 - 1915. Part 2 is intriguing as it captures the site including modern film footage of Bolimow, Poland first place of use of chemical weapons. The film states that tear gas shells (18,000) were used but tear gas does NOT kill. Chlorine gas does if properly concentrated. Intriguingly if modern forensic pathology can determine if corpses buried in 1915 (film shows what appears to be a mass grave from WWI) it might be possible to determine what and the extent of the effect of any such chemical weapons used in January 1915 at Bolimow.

The term: "shackled to a corpse" refers to a German officer's description of the Austro-Hungarians by early 1915. Interesting how the Germans would have viewed AH from January 1915 afterwards.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

John
Toronto

I recorded all this series and as good as it may be, I sadly couldn't watch it. I found the narrator far too boring for my liking which is unfortunate for me as I'd really have to like have watched it.

Great Series I received it as a gift last year I enjoyed the emphasis on other theatres of the war in addition to the Western Front.

Very confusing information about this gas attack at Bomilov...some say completely ineffective, others imply a truly fatal attack with heavy losses.

Phil




In much the same way, I suspect, as the Germans viewed Italy from 1941.

Phil

An editorial lapse in the series probably accounts for the personal testimonials of the Polish civilian extensively used to document the fatal effects of this Jan 1915 gas attack as well as General Gourko's confusion at the time as to the dead who were not dead (to paraphrase the documentary). Traditionally the gas attack has been viewed as ineffective due to a) the wind blowing the wrong way and the intense cold.
What is really needed are at least two investigative techniques: archival searches in Russia and/or Polish local and military archives especially the medical officers reports for the units most effected (Russian) and a forensic archeological investigation into the contemporary locally buried Russian dead who are most likely to have died from the effects of such "gases."
John
Toronto

For many Germans - and, most certainly, the Kaiser - the Great War was a racial struggle. The bitter enmity between Teuton and Slav was fundamental. They spoke of the war in Darwinian terms. This was hard to reconcile with the fact that half of the Dual Monarchy's population was slavic, and was therefore fighting on the wrong side.

I wonder how Adolf Hitler, himself an Austrian, reflected on this !

Phil