OPCW Director-General laid a wreath at the Belgian Monument
Ieper is of special significance to the OPCW as the scene of the first large-scale use of poison gas as a weapon of war, on 22 April 1915. By the time the Great War ran its course more than 1 million soldiers on all sides had been exposed to chemical weapons, mainly mustard gas, of whom some 90,000 died agonizing deaths and countless others suffered lifelong afflictions like respiratory disease and failing eyesight. The special horror of their experience was immortalised by Wilfred Owen in his poem “Dulce et Decorum est”:
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.