Gas Monument

In the little village of Steenstrat, a grave and august group of French, British and Belgian notables unveiled a monument last week to the 39,000 French and British victims of the first German gas attack.

"It is necessary," said black-bearded, unibrachial General Henri Joseph Etienne Gouraud, Military Governor of Paris, "to perpetuate the memory of those battles in which the enemy resorted for the first time to a procedure which the inscription upon this monument describes with justice as abominable."

While General Gouraud was discussing abominations in Belgium, a noted French journalist, M. Ernest Judet was disclosing in the Paris press some interesting facts about the first gas attack.

Eight days in advance, said M. Judet, the French army was warned by a German deserter who described the gas cylinders already in place in the German lines, and even produced one of the rudimentary gas masks which had been issued to the German troops. This information was brought to General Ferry of the French army, whose division was just about to move out of the line.

General Ferry warned the French and British on either side of him, reported the story to his corps commanders. He did not consider the story of sufficient importance to go over the heads of his superiors to the supreme command, nor did his neighbors to the right and left.

When the low yellow clouds of chlorine actually appeared the irate French General Staff pounced upon General Ferry, then in another part of the line, and removed him from his command.