The Second Battle of Ypres (April 22nd – May 25th, 1915) comprised the only major attack launched by the German forces on the Western Front in 1915,
The Second Battle of Ypres (April 22nd – May 25th, 1915) comprised the only major attack launched by the German forces on the Western Front in 1915, Eric von Falkenhayn preferring to concentrate German efforts against the Russians on the Eastern Front. Begun in April and used primarily as a means of diverting Allied attention from the Eastern Front, and as a means of testing the use of chlorine gas, it eventually concluded in failure in May. As a consequence of the failure of this attack the German army gave up its attempts to take the town, choosing instead to demolish it through constant bombardment. By the end of the war Ypres had been largely reduced to piles of rubble, the town's magnificent Cloth Hall a wreck (although rebuilt to the original designs in the 1950's). Second Ypres is generally remembered today as marking the first use of gas on the Western Front. Although introduced with minimal effect on the Russian Eastern Front at Bolimov by the Germans ea...