Bodies of British and German troops were scattered during the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium in 1915 on the Western Front of World War I. British soldiers search and autopsy the bodies of British soldiers in the trenches of Zouave Wood.

　　　During the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium in 1915 on the Western Front of World War I, the bodies of British and German soldiers killed in action were scattered in the Ypres Salient. British soldiers search for and autopsy the bodies of British soldiers in the trenches of Zouave Woods. The British 6th Division stormed the German trenches at Zouave Woods. British troops counterattacked and found the bodies of men who had been killed and fallen in the Battle of Zouave Woods. The small forest west of the Sanctuary Forest in Ypres Gorge was called Zouave Wood. Zouave was the name of a soldier in the French army's Zouave regiment. The Germans called the stream running through the forest from the Menin road north Zouave.

　The village of Hooge, about 5 km east of Ypres, was located in the middle of the infamous salient in the early stages of World War I. The salient was relentlessly held by the British throughout the entire duration of the Battle of Ypres, and following the Second Battle of Ypres, fought from April 22 to May 25, 1915, the first German poison gas attack was executed and a new front reorganized. The southern Berwalde Ridge, the village of Husi, Zouave Wood, and the Sanctuary Forest entered the front line and became the eastern edge of the entire salient. With the forced withdrawal of the allied forces, the front line ran roughly north-south through the village of Houge.

　It was the center of many savage battles that continued unabated throughout the Battle of Ypres. The village of Hughe had been under continuous bombardment since the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914. The ridge had been occupied and recaptured five times since April 1915. Since the end of the Second Battle of Ypres and the German victory, which included the Berwalde Ridge and Hughe Castle, the British were at a distinct disadvantage. By the end of the battle, the British had retreated to a new front about three miles from Ypres and compressed the surrounding thrusts.

　The Germans created instant hell with huge chlorine poison gas jets of liquid flame fired across trench craters against the British troops. A massive poison gas attack by the Germans during the Second Battle of Ypres on the Western Front took the Allies by surprise. About 7,000 people injured by poison gas were transported by field ambulances and treated in casualty camps. In Britain, about 350 deaths from gas poisoning were recorded in May and June. Both sides developed gas weapons and countermeasures that changed the course of the poison gas war.