So it
seems certain now, though it is easy to prophesy after the event.
I went along the coast as far as Coxyde and Nieuport and saw secret
preparations for the coast offensive. We were building enormous gun
emplacements at Malo-les--Bains for long-range naval guns, camouflaged
in sand--dunes. Our men were being trained for fighting in the dunes.
Our artillery positions were mapped out.
"Three shots to one, sir," said Sir Henry Rawlinson to the King,
"that's the stuff to give them!"
But the Germans struck the first blow up there, not of importance to
the strategical position, but ghastly to two battalions of the 1st
Division, cut off on a spit of land at Lombartzyde and almost
annihilated under a fury of fire.
At this time the enemy was developing his use of a new poison-gas--
mustard gas--which raised blisters and burned men's bodies where the
vapor was condensed into a reddish powder and blinded them for a week
or more, if not forever, and turned their lungs to water.
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