Hugo Stoltzenberg for the first time on the Western Front. The first gas attack occurred against Canadian soldiers and also against a force of mostly colonial soldiers from French Africa known as French colonial troops. The gas used was Chlorine gas. Mustard gas, also called Yperite from the name of this city, was also used for the first time near Ypres in the autumn of 1917. Prior to that, Stoltzenberg had injured his eye in an incident involving a chlorine gas cylinder which exploded and blinded him in the left eye. After the end of World War I, Stoltzenberg participated in clearing
Mines in the Battle of Messines (1917) Second Army (General Sir Herbert Plumer), remarked to the press, "Gentlemen, I don’t know whether we are going to make history tomorrow, but at any rate we shall change geography". The Battle of Messines marked the zenith of mine warfare. On 10 August 1917, the Royal Engineers fired the last British deep mine of the war, at Givenchy-en-Gohelle near Arras. As part of allied operations in the Ypres Salient, British mining against the German-held salient at Wijtschate near Messines had begun in spring 1915, with diggings below the surface. The concept of a deep mining offensive was devised in September