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
Actions of 30 September – 4 October 1917 diary note that it had been an awful experience; he did not know what to do against the British. Erich Ludendorff the (Quartermaster-General of the German Army, equivalent to the British Chief of the General Staff) conferred on 29 September with (field marshal) Crown Prince Rupprecht the commander and (lieutenant-general) Hermann von Kuhl the chief of staff, of "Heeresgruppe Kronprinz Rupprecht von Bayern" (Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria), the 4th Army commander, General Sixt von Armin and the 4th Army chief of staff, (major-general) Fritz von Loßberg. The staff officers of the 4th Army (corps headquarters) agreed that defensive manoeuvres