Attack Of The Deadmen - Blog Posts

Attack of the dead men 

Thanks for the prompt @flashfictionfridayofficial

Note: Given the prompt, it didn’t feel right spin things into a story completely of my own, so I decided instead to summarize a story that has firmly embedded itself into the back of my mind. I became aware of this story because someone showed me the song ‘Attack of the Dead Men’ by SABATON. While gruesome in nature, it presented me with pestering question of how people can drive themselves past impossible limitations while unprepared in the face of death. 

Warnings!!!: Discussion of warfare including the deployment and descriptive effects of weaponized Chlorine/Bromine Gas. 

Chlorine and bromine. While still dangerous, these chemicals have proven to be significanly useful tools for disinfection among other things. The result of their combination in a gasious form though? A toxic cloud that can devistate both humans and the environment, corroding tools and nature with almost instantanous effect.  What then of the human body? How might it react with living cells?

 For the 800 men guarding the Osowiec Fortress in 1915 without the protection of gas masks, those effects were almost completely fatal. Of the entire garrison only 100 soldiers survived due to their distance from the gas batteries. As the gas gradually dissipated and reinforcements arrived, the burned and dying survivors crawled up from their trenches like the living dead to attack the charging enemy. While coughing up their own lungs even as their organs were slowly being desolved by the resulting hydrochloric acid formed from the moister in their lungs and the chlorine gas, they stumbled towards the attackers without hesitation. The sight of their horrific forms was enough to cause bedlam in their enemies ranks, and paired with a concentrated artillery strike form the reinforcements, the soldiers were able to temporarily secure the garrison in the face of overwhelming odds. The victory was short lived however as the reinforcements were later forced to retreat from the garrison at a later date. It is a haunting story from a haunting time that can leave one to ponder the limits that the human will can force a broken body to ignore.