Note 4 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The French troops, largely made up of Turcos and Zouaves, surged wildly back over the canal and through the village of Vlamertinghe just at dark. The Canadian reserve battalions (of the 1st Brigade) were amazed at the anguished faces of many of the French soldiers, twisted and distorted by pain, who were gasping for breath and vainly trying to gain relief by vomiting. Traffic in the main streets of the village was demoralised, and gun-carriages and ammunition wagons added to the confusion.
The chaos in the main streets of the village was such that any coherent movement of troops was, for the moment, impossible; gun-carriages and ammunition wagons were inextricably mixed, while galloping gun-teams without their guns were careering wildly in all directions. When order had been to some extent restored, Staff Officers learned from fugitives who were in a condition to speak that the Algerians had left thousands of their comrades dead and dying along the four-mile gap in our Ally's lines through which the Germans were pouring behind their gas.