The First Battle of Ypres took place October 19 – November 22, 1914, prior to the Canadians' arrival on the battlefront.

By the time the Canadians arrived in the Ypres Salient in the spring of 1915, the devastation brought on by the war was on full display. The ancient city of Ypres, Belgium, had been flattened by German shellfire the previous October.

In the late afternoon of April 22, 1915, the German army took advantage of a favourable wind to release a cloud of chlorine gas. Soldiers of the 1st Canadian Division watched as the yellow-green cloud crept over the ground toward nearby French colonial troops. Chaos ensued as panicked soldiers inhaled the lethal chemical.

The Germans then advanced with their infantry. Lacking gas masks, the colonial soldiers retreated from their chemical-filled trenches, leaving a six-kilometre-long hole in the Entente front line. The Canadians rushed to create a new defensive line to stop the German assault. Throughout the night, they clashed with German troops who had moved with ease through the lines vacated by the French troops.

On the morning of April 24, nearly thirty-six hours after the initial attack, the Germans released a second wave of gas, this time directly against the Canadian lines. The Canadians improvised, breathing through urine-soaked cloth for limited protection against the gas. Fighting continued throughout the day and the Canadians struggled to hold their position. In only a few days, the Canadians had suffered more than six thousand casualties, of whom more than two thousand were killed.

This Second Battle of Ypres was a horrible introduction to war on the front, made even more hellish by the large-scale use of poison gas for the first time.

Although there was a Third Battle of Ypres in 1917, it is more often referred to as Passchendaele.

— Text by Joel Ralph