BONUS: Gas masks as the ultimate face of modern horror
How a battlefield defence against chlorine gas became the icon of cold modernity, and what this face represents
In my absence I have been working on an extended project of original research, which I am now excited to start sharing with you. Over a series of articles I aim to explain my theories about why Western masking traditions and the Western face is so different from other cultures. Using horror masks as the focus, we will explore together the metaphysics of the European face and mask, skin and pain, horror, the sublime, identity and the self - starting with Greek serenity and culminating in digital AI horror. I truly believe that this is a new contribution to the way we think about the face and the function of horror as a genre. I sincerely hope you enjoy.
A “secret” memo by Canadian Headquarters was more frank, reporting that “These men must be warned that they may expect to experience not only slight discomfort but very serious discomfort in some cases almost amounting to a feeling of suffocation.”
The solution, as espoused by the High Command, was to avoid movement.
-Through Clouded Eyes: Gas Masks and the Canadian Corps in the First World War (1998) Tim Cook
The Horrible Mask
Invented under extreme duress during the 1914-18 Great War, after centuries of slow prototypes, the gas mask suddenly appeared amid clouds of chlorine, lachrymatory agents and mustard gas. With its alien goggles, protruding mouth-parts, tubes and anonymising effect, the generic gas mask quickly became a symbol of all that was wrong with modern warfare. In the century since, the gas mask has been used in BDSM, protest movements, art pieces, industry, agriculture, theatre, aesthetics and fashion design, cinema and satire. It remains an instantly identifiable silhouette, and, despite the former list, has maintained its latent power to disturb, unnerve and horrify. An ecstasy of fumbling. Welcome to our first bonus piece in this series on masks, faces and horror - the gas mask as the ultimate symbol of modern terror!
Major Andrew McNaughton remembered the Algerians streaming past him, “their eyeballs showing white, and coughing their lungs out — they literally were coughing their lungs out; glue was coming out of their mouths. It was a very disturbing, very disturbing sight.”
-McNaughton Volume I (1968) John Swettenham
The Origins of Gas Masks and WW1
The 18th century saw the invention of enclosed diving suits (Charles C.-J. Le Roux) and respirators made from long tubes (Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier). In the 1790s Alexander von Humboldt designed an advanced respirator for Prussian miners, the Respirationsmaschine - followed swiftly by early firefighting masks, then the mobile Haslett Lung Protector in 1848. Between then and 1900, chemists like Stenhouse, Tyndall and Barton innovated with more sophisticated filters, eye-pieces, rubber tubes and face shields. At the turn of the century, specialist European workers deep underground or enveloped in arsenic could be confident enough in their safety equipment to put their lives in its hands.
Despite this, the 22nd of April 1915 caught Britain, France and her allies by surprise. At Ypres, southwest Belgium, German forces briefly swallowed the sun with a 10km wide cloud, composed of 160 tons of chlorine gas. This sickly green miasma of death wafted over the French and Algerian Territorial Divisions, who had no idea what was happening. Within moments soldiers were tearing at their throats, the chlorine reacting with the wet linings of their lungs, generating hydrochloric acid. Men asphyxiated where they fell, suffocating as the contents of their bronchi frothed and burbled up onto the mud. Within days Allied forces had ordered their forces to douse cotton pads with sodium bicarbonate, water or urine and hold them over their faces, or stuff them into their mouths. The next few years saw rapid innovations in respiratory-goggle masks adapted for mass use on the battlefield. Cloth masks became initially standardised (Black Veil), then replaced with a sack saturated in chemicals (Hypo & P/PH Helmet) - the idea being that soldiers could just breathe through the cloth weaving and exhale via a metal valve held in the mouth. In 1916 the Small Box Respirator modelled the now familiar idea of inhaled air being filtered through a structure designed to catch and neutralise poisonous compounds.
Each step in this evolution was an agonising trial for the men at the front. Cloths had to be constantly wet, eye pieces fogged up instantly or cracked, sodium phenolate flannel burned when the skin sweated, saliva saturated their faces and chests when mouthpieces had to be gripped by the teeth, nose clips had to be worn - forcing the men to constantly gasp into tubes. All the while battle continued to rage, shrapnel explode and enemies loom up through the smoke. Movement was almost impossible when breathing was so laborious, and early masks were a choice between inhaling poison and suffocating as carbon dioxide levels spiked. The psychological effect of having to don them while hands trembled and straps got caught was unbearable, and panic often ensued even when they were safely hooded - the claustrophobia and loss of sense input might push a frightened man into a complete frenzy, tearing off the hated mask, screaming even as the fog of Phobos descended. Invisible phosgene mixed with chlorine, a wave of chloropicrin inducing vomiting, a third round of bis 2-chloroethyl sulfide - could you survive this while fixing bayonets, the enemy stalking across no-man’s land?
WW1 Madness: Berserker Trench Raids & Gas Attacks in the Tunnels
World War One already summons to mind post-apocalyptic wastelands of mud, craters and callous death, but there were many more strange and terrifying aspects that get far less attention. Trench warfare might be despicable to imagine, but what if your platoon was ambushed during the night by a masked gang? One wearing metal plate armour, cloaks and furs, armed with nail-studded clubs, medieval flails and spiked knuckledusters? As above, so below - the extensive, mind-boggling expanses of tunnel systems below the battlefields were filled with caged birds and skirmish parties stabbing each other in the pitch black, injections of chlorine gas and acrid smoke.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Grey Goose Chronicles to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.