WAR

EXTRAS

The Aegis Daily

No. 4,099

Liverpool, England, Monday, June 21, 1915

WAR
EXTRAS
One Halfpenny

Mysterious Gas
Masks Appear on
British Heads
Third Battle of Lemberg
Commences
On June 20, the German XLI Reserve
corps and Austrian VI corps launched
an attack on Lemberg, the AustroHungarian for tress that was
conquered by the Russians in the
First Battle of Lemberg in 1914, thus
starting the now called Third Battle of
Lemberg. Things seemed pretty
desperate for the two tired Russian
corps (VIII and XVIII) under General
Brusilov, as they were extremely
w o r n o u t f r o m fi g h t i n g i n t h e
Carpathians since the winter and was
significantly under strength. Not only
that, the advancing armies were also
fresh and outnumbered the Russians
greatly. The battle would obviously be
short-lived and hopeless; and if
Brusilov was smart, he would pull
back his troops. It is a battle with no
hope of winning.

The Second Battle of Ypres (22

April25 May 1915) had been
d i s a s t r o u s fo r t h e A l l i e d
Powers after the Germans
unleashed their secret
weapon of poison gas, creating
a new type of warfare. Poison
gas is extremely dangerous and
kills by suffocation. The French
Algerian in the trenches at
Ypres died by the thousands,
after being smothered by the
g reen gas. Soldiers were
literally choking their
respiratory organs out. Thus,
to counter this chemical
warfare, Britain had to come
up with a method to protect
their soldiers from getting
killed. Their initial response
was to equip soldiers with
cotton mouth pads for
protection, and soon
afterwards the British added a
long cloth which was used to tie
the chemical-soaked mouth
pads into place. These pads
became known as Black Veil
Respirators. However, this

counter measure was highly

ineffective and resulted in its
obsoleteness and in the
invention of a better gas
mask the Hypo helmet,
i n v e n t e d b y D r. C l u n y
MacPherson. I got the idea for
making the helmet when I saw
a German soldier wearing some
sort of fabric bag over his head
during a gas attack. I thought
to myself, What a silly soldier,
but I realised how it might help
s o l d i e r s fe n d o f ga s e s i n
chemically affected area. I
thought Why not? I should try
developing some type of mask,
and thats how the Hypo
Helmet was created, said
MacPherson. Unlike the Black
Veil R espirator, the Hypo
Helmet covered the whole
head. The user could see
through a transparent mineral
visor called the Mica. It was
highly successful in preventing
soldiers from getting poisoned
by chlorine, the chemical that
was in poison gas. Not only

Losing the Second Battle of Artois

It was a pointless battle with no advantage for either side
J. Richard
On June 18, 1915, the
bloody Second Battle of
Artois had finally ceased,
l e av i n g a d e v a s t a t i n g
aftermath for the Allied
Powers, especially for the
French. It had been
reported that there had
been at least 102,000
French casualties, of which
35,000 were killed. For the
British, there were about
32,000 casualties. These
were
pernicious
r e p e r c u s s i o n s fo r t h e

Allied Powers, as no major

strategic gain was
obtained, and all those
lives had died in vain. The
battle at Artois had been
one of the most brutal, nowin battles so far in this
war. However, there were
rumors that the British
were not giving up and
were planning to invade
Artois once more.
Hopefully, there would be
not as much casualties.

SS Dulcie Sunken by
U-Boat
The SS Dulcie, a British cargo
ship had been torpedoed by a
German U-Boat on June 19, a
couple days ago. The ship was
sunk in the North Sea, 6
nautical miles east of
Aldeburgh, Suffolk. However,
thankfully, only one death had
been reported.

that, the mask was extremely

versatile and simple to use:
The Hypo Helmet is quite a
simple device. Its made up of
fabric soaked in an antichlorine solution, MacPherson
said. However, the downfalls of
the Hypo Helmet were its Mica
visors, which were quite fragile
and easy to break, and its
soaked fabric which could only
protect soldiers from chlorine
gases. Soldiers would also have
a hard time to breathe through
that chemically laced fabric,
but I guess its better than
dying, one Indian soldier said.
Overall, however, the Hypo
H e l m e t c e r t a i n ly w a s a n
upgrade in terms of protection
for the brave soldiers fighting
in the front lines. Without it,
probably more men would have
died. Production of the Hypo
Helmet has begun, after
several
months
of
development; and now, almost
every Allied soldier is wearing
it.

Recent War Loans Receive Heavy

Criticism
The 1915 war loans
issued on June 9
received heavy
criticism for its
increased interest rate
of 4.5%. The previous
war bond having an
interest rate of 3.5%
was considerably less
than the current one,
thus creating many
protests to its creator,
Chancellor of the
Exchequer R eginald
McKenna. One of the
protestors was
McKennas predecessor
David Lloyd George
himself. Most of the

protests came from

banks all over Britain.
This was due to the fact
that McKenna did not
consult them before
launching this loan, as
he did for the first war
loan in 1914. They felt
snubbed by the lack of
consultation and
worried about the
loans effect on their
depositors
and
customers. However,
the banks decided to
act patriotically and to
negotiate on McKennas
terms.