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{{Short description|none}}
{{Short description|First large-scale use of chemical weapons leading to their banning}}{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2018}}
[[File:British 55th Division gas casualties 10 April 1918.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|British troops blinded by poison gas during the [[Battle of Estaires]], 1918]]
[[File:Flanders WWI gas attack.jpg|thumb|A French gas attack on German trenches in [[Flanders]], Belgium (1917).]]

The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large scale use of [[chemical weapon]]s was during [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World|author=Adrienne Mayor|date=29 September 2003|publisher=[[Overlook Books]]|isbn=1-58567-348-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=CBRN Protection: Managing the Threat of Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear Weapons|author=Andre Richardt|date=26 December 2012|publisher=[[Wiley-VCH]]|isbn=978-3-527-32413-2}}</ref> They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as [[tear gas]], to lethal agents like [[phosgene]], [[chlorine]], and [[sulfur mustard|mustard gas]]. This [[chemical warfare]] was a major component of the first [[World war|global war]] and first [[total war]] of the 20th century. The killing capacity of gas was limited, with about ninety thousand fatalities from a total of 1.3 million casualties caused by [[gas attack]]s. Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as [[gas mask]]s. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of [[high explosives]], gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of [[World War I]] as "the chemist's war" and also the era where [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] were created.<ref>{{Cite web
The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large-scale use of [[chemical weapon]]s was during [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World|author=Adrienne Mayor|year=2003|publisher=[[Overlook Books]]|isbn=1-58567-348-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=CBRN Protection: Managing the Threat of Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear Weapons|author=Andre Richardt|date=2012|publisher=[[Wiley-VCH]]|isbn=978-3-527-32413-2}}</ref> They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as [[tear gas]], to lethal agents like [[phosgene]], [[chlorine]], and [[sulfur mustard|mustard gas]]. These chemical weapons caused medical problems.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Weisberger |first=Mindy |date=April 6, 2017 |title=World War I Unleashed Chemical Weapons and Changed Modern Warfare |url=https://www.livescience.com/58569-chemical-weapons-world-war-one.html |access-date=April 15, 2024 |website=livescience}}</ref> This [[chemical warfare]] was a major component of the first [[World war|global war]] and first [[total war]] of the 20th century. [[Gas attack]] left a strong psychological impact, and estimates go up to about 90,000 fatalities and a total of about 1.3 million casualties. However, this would amount to only 3-3.5% of overall casualties, and gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as [[WWI gas mask|gas mask]]s. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of [[high explosives]], gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war" and also the era where [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] were created.<ref>{{Cite web
| last=Reddy | first=Chris | date=2 April 2007
| last=Reddy | first=Chris | date=2 April 2007
| url=http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7342&tid=282&cid=25749
| url=http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7342&tid=282&cid=25749
| title=The Growing Menace of Chemical War
| title=The Growing Menace of Chemical War
| publisher=Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
| publisher=Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
| accessdate=30 July 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Saffo |first=Paul |year=2000 |url=http://www.tnty.com/press/transcripts/sftech-saffo.html |title=Paul Saffo presentation |publisher=Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |accessdate=30 July 2007 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927212208/http://www.tnty.com/press/transcripts/sftech-saffo.html |archivedate=27 September 2007 }}</ref>
| access-date=30 July 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Saffo |first=Paul |year=2000 |url=http://www.tnty.com/press/transcripts/sftech-saffo.html |title=Paul Saffo presentation |publisher=Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |access-date=30 July 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927212208/http://www.tnty.com/press/transcripts/sftech-saffo.html |archive-date=27 September 2007 }}</ref>


The use of [[poison gas]] by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted [[war crime]]s as its use violated the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907#Hague Convention of 1899|1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases]] and the [[Hague Convention of 1907|1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare]], which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir|author=Telford Taylor|date=1 November 1993|publisher=[[Little, Brown and Company]]|isbn=0-316-83400-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Cornerstones of Security: Arms Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era|author1=Thomas Graham |author2=Damien J. Lavera |date=May 2003|pages=7–9|publisher=[[University of Washington Press]]|isbn=0-295-98296-9}}</ref> Widespread horror and public revulsion at the use of gas and its consequences led to far less use of chemical weapons by combatants [[Chemical warfare#World War II|during World War II]].
The use of [[poison gas]] by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted [[war crime]]s as its use violated the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907#Hague Convention of 1899|1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases]] and the [[Hague Convention of 1907|1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare]], which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir|author=Telford Taylor|year=1993|publisher=[[Little, Brown and Company]]|isbn=0-316-83400-9|url=https://archive.org/details/anatomyofnuremb00tayl}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Cornerstones of Security: Arms Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era|author1=Thomas Graham |author2=Damien J. Lavera |date=2003|pages=7–9|publisher=[[University of Washington Press]]|isbn=0-295-98296-9}}</ref> Widespread horror and public revulsion at the use of gas and its consequences led to far less use of chemical weapons by combatants during World War II.


==History of poison gas in World War I==
==Use of poison gas==
{{See also|Weapons of World War I}}
{{Further|Technology during World War I}}


===1914: Tear gas===
===1914: Tear gas===
The most frequently used chemicals during World War I were [[Tear gas|tear-inducing irritants]] rather than fatal or disabling poisons. During [[World War I]], the French army was the first to employ tear gas, using 26&nbsp;mm [[grenade]]s filled with [[ethyl bromoacetate]] in August 1914. The small quantities of gas delivered, roughly 19&nbsp;cm³ per cartridge, were not even detected by the Germans. The stocks were rapidly consumed and by November a new order was placed by the French military. As [[bromine]] was scarce among the Entente allies, the active ingredient was changed to [[chloroacetone]].<ref>{{Cite book
The most frequently used chemicals during World War I were [[Tear gas|tear-inducing irritants]] rather than fatal or disabling poison. During [[World War I]], the [[French Army in World War I|French Army]] was the first to employ tear gas, using 26&nbsp;mm [[grenade]]s filled with [[ethyl bromoacetate]] in August 1914. The small quantities of gas delivered, roughly {{Cvt|19|cm3}} per cartridge, were not even detected by the Germans. The stocks were rapidly consumed and by November a new order was placed by the French military. As [[bromine]] was scarce among the [[Triple Entente|Entente]] allies, the active ingredient was changed to [[chloroacetone]].<ref>{{Cite book
| first=Ludwig Fritz | last=Haber | year=1986
| first=Ludwig Fritz | last=Haber | year=1986
| title=The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War
| title=The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War
Line 26: Line 28:
| url=http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS58603
| url=http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS58603
| title=Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience, 1917–1918
| title=Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience, 1917–1918
| journal=Leaveanworth Papers
| issue = 10
| publisher=US Army Command and General Staff College
| publisher=US Army Command and General Staff College
}}</ref>
| postscript=<!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. -->{{inconsistent citations}} }}</ref>
None of the combatants considered the use of tear gas to be in conflict with the Hague Treaty of 1899, which specifically prohibited the launching of projectiles containing [[asphyxia]]ting or poisonous gas.<ref>{{Cite book
None of the combatants considered the use of tear gas to be in conflict with the Hague Treaty of 1899, which specifically prohibited the launching of projectiles containing [[asphyxia]]ting or poisonous gas.<ref>{{Cite book
| first=L. B. | last=Taylor |author2=Taylor, C. L.
| first=L. B. | last=Taylor |author2=Taylor, C. L.
Line 35: Line 39:


===1915: Large-scale use and lethal gases===
===1915: Large-scale use and lethal gases===
[[File:Russian Red Cross nurses tending gassed Russians brought in direct from trenches on stretchers 1915.jpg|thumb|alt=People laid out on stretchers|Russian Red Cross nurses tend to gassed Russians brought from the front lines, 1915]]
The first instance of large-scale use of gas as a weapon was on 31 January 1915, when Germany fired 18,000 [[artillery]] shells containing liquid [[xylyl bromide]] tear gas on [[Imperial Russian Army|Russian positions]] on the [[Rawka River]], west of [[Warsaw]] during the [[Battle of Bolimov]]. Instead of vaporizing, the chemical froze and failed to have the desired effect.<ref name="heller84"/>


The first instance of large-scale use of gas as a weapon was on 31 January 1915, when Germany fired 18,000 [[artillery]] shells containing liquid [[xylyl bromide]] tear gas on [[Imperial Russian Army|Russian positions]] on the [[Rawka River]], west of [[Warsaw]] during the [[Battle of Bolimov]]. Instead of vaporizing, the chemical froze and failed to have the desired effect.<ref name="heller84" />
The first killing agent was [[chlorine]], used by the German military.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Van der Kloot |first1=W. |title=April 1915: Five Future Nobel Prize-winners inaugurate weapons of mass destruction and the academic-industrial-military complex |journal=[[Notes and Records]] |date=2004 |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=149–160 |url=http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/58/2/149}}</ref> Chlorine is a powerful irritant that can inflict damage to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. At high concentrations and prolonged exposure it can cause death by [[asphyxia]]tion.<ref>{{Cite book

The first killing agent was [[chlorine]], used by the German military.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Van der Kloot |first1=W. |s2cid=145243958 |title=April 1915: Five Future Nobel Prize-winners inaugurate weapons of mass destruction and the academic-industrial-military complex |journal=[[Notes and Records]] |date=2004 |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=149–260 |doi=10.1098/rsnr.2004.0053 }}</ref> Chlorine is a powerful irritant that can inflict damage to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. At high concentrations and prolonged exposure it can cause death by [[asphyxia]]tion.<ref>{{Cite book
|author1=Romano, James A. |author2=Lukey, Brian J. |author3=Salem, Harry | title=Chemical warfare agents: chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and therapeutics | edition=2nd | page=5
|author1=Romano, James A. |author2=Lukey, Brian J. |author3=Salem, Harry | title=Chemical warfare agents: chemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and therapeutics | edition=2nd | page=5
| publisher=CRC Press | year=2007 | isbn=1-4200-4661-6 }}</ref> German chemical companies [[BASF]], [[Hoechst AG|Hoechst]] and [[Bayer]] (which formed the [[IG Farben]] conglomerate in 1925) had been making chlorine as a by-product of their dye manufacturing.<ref>{{Cite web
| publisher=CRC Press | year=2007 | isbn=978-1-4200-4661-8 }}</ref> German chemical companies [[BASF]], [[Hoechst AG|Hoechst]] and [[Bayer]] (which formed the [[IG Farben]] conglomerate in 1925) had been making chlorine as a by-product of their dye manufacturing.<ref>{{Cite web
|author1=Legg, J. |author2=Parker, G. | year=2002
|author1=Legg, J. |author2=Parker, G. | year=2002
| url=http://www.greatwar.co.uk/westfront/ypsalient/secondypres/prelude/gasdev.htm
| url=http://www.greatwar.co.uk/westfront/ypsalient/secondypres/prelude/gasdev.htm
| title=The Germans develop a new weapon: the gas cloud
| title=The Germans develop a new weapon: the gas cloud
| publisher=The Great War | accessdate=6 August 2007 }}</ref> In cooperation with [[Fritz Haber]] of the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute]] for Chemistry in [[Berlin]], they began developing methods of discharging chlorine gas against enemy [[trench]]es.<ref name="Haber">{{cite web|title=Fritz Haber|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/fritz-haber|website=Science History Institute|accessdate=20 March 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book
| publisher=The Great War | access-date=6 August 2007 }}</ref> In cooperation with [[Fritz Haber]] of the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute]] for Chemistry in [[Berlin]], they began developing methods of discharging chlorine gas against enemy [[trench]]es.<ref name="Haber">{{cite web|title=Fritz Haber|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/fritz-haber|website=Science History Institute|access-date=20 March 2018|date=June 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | first=Werner | last=Abelshauser | year=2003 | title=German Industry and Global Enterprise, BASF: The History of a Company | publisher=Cambridge University Press | isbn=0-521-82726-4 | url=https://archive.org/details/germanindustrygl00wern }}</ref>
| first=Werner | last=Abelshauser | year=2003
| title=German Industry and Global Enterprise, BASF: The History of a Company
| publisher=Cambridge University Press
| isbn=0-521-82726-4 }}</ref>


It may appear from a fieldpost letter of Major Karl von Zingler that the first chlorine gas attack by German forces took place before 2 January 1915: "In other war theatres it does not go better and it has been said that our Chlorine is very effective. 140 English officers have been killed. This is a horrible weapon&nbsp;...".<ref>{{Cite journal | last=Aksulu | first=N. Melek | title=Die Feldpostbriefe Karl v. Zinglers aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg | journal=Nobilitas, Zeitschrift für deutsche Adelsforschung Folge | date=May 2006 | volume=IX | issue=41 | page=57 | url=http://perweb.firat.edu.tr/personel/yayinlar/fua_241/241_26862.pdf | accessdate=28 December 2008 | format=PDF | quote=Rousselare 2 Januar 15&nbsp;... Auf anderen Kriegsschauplätzen ist es ja auch nicht besser und die Wirkung von unserem Chlor soll ja sehr gut sein. Es sollen 140 englische Offiziere erledigt worden sein. Es ist doch eine furchtbare Waffe&nbsp;... | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090305060856/http://perweb.firat.edu.tr/personel/yayinlar/fua_241/241_26862.pdf | archivedate=5 March 2009 | df= }}</ref> This letter must be discounted as evidence for early German use of chlorine, however, because the date "2 January 1915" may have been hastily scribbled instead of the intended "2 January 1916," the sort of common typographical error that everyone makes at the beginning of a new year. The deaths of so many English officers from gas at this time would certainly have been met with outrage, but a recent, extensive study of British reactions to chemical warfare says nothing of this supposed attack.<ref>{{Cite book
It may appear from a ''feldpost'' letter of Major Karl von Zingler that the first chlorine gas attack by German forces took place before 2 January 1915: "In other war theatres it does not go better and it has been said that our Chlorine is very effective. 140 English officers have been killed. This is a horrible weapon&nbsp;...".<ref>{{Cite journal | last=Aksulu | first=N. Melek | title=Die Feldpostbriefe Karl v. Zinglers aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg | journal=Nobilitas, Zeitschrift für deutsche Adelsforschung | date=May 2006 | volume=IX | issue=41 | page=57 | url=http://perweb.firat.edu.tr/personel/yayinlar/fua_241/241_26862.pdf | access-date=28 December 2008 | quote=Rousselare 2 Januar 15&nbsp;... Auf anderen Kriegsschauplätzen ist es ja auch nicht besser und die Wirkung von unserem Chlor soll ja sehr gut sein. Es sollen 140 englische Offiziere erledigt worden sein. Es ist doch eine furchtbare Waffe&nbsp;... | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090305060856/http://perweb.firat.edu.tr/personel/yayinlar/fua_241/241_26862.pdf | archive-date=5 March 2009 }}</ref> This letter must be discounted as evidence for early German use of chlorine, however, because the date "2 January 1915" may have been hastily scribbled instead of the intended "2 January 1916," the sort of common typographical error that is often made at the beginning of a new year. The deaths of so many English officers from gas at this time would certainly have been met with outrage, but a recent, extensive study of British reactions to chemical warfare says nothing of this supposed attack.<ref>{{Cite book
| first=Marion | last=Girard | year=2008
| first=Marion | last=Girard | year=2008
| title=A Strange and Formidable Weapon: British Responses to World War I Poison Gas
| title=A Strange and Formidable Weapon: British Responses to World War I Poison Gas
| publisher=University of Nebraska Press
| publisher=University of Nebraska Press
| isbn=978-0-8032-2223-6 }}</ref> Perhaps this letter was referring to the chlorine-phosgene attack on British troops at [[Wieltje]] near Ypres, on 19 December 1915 (see below).
| isbn=978-0-8032-2223-6 }}</ref> Perhaps this letter was referring to the chlorine-phosgene attack on British troops at [[Wieltje]] near Ypres, on 19 December 1915 (see below).


By 22 April 1915, the German Army had 168 [[ton]]s of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders from [[Langemark-Poelkapelle|Langemark–Poelkapelle]], north of [[Ypres]]. At 17:30, in a slight easterly breeze, the liquid chlorine was siphoned from the tanks, producing gas which formed a grey-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops from [[Martinique]], as well as the 1st [[Tirailleurs]] and the 2nd [[Zouaves]] from Algeria.<ref>General R. Hure, page 283, ''L'Armee d'Afrique 1830-1962'', Charles-Lavauzelle 1972</ref> Faced with an unfamiliar threat these troops broke ranks, abandoning their trenches and creating an 8,000-yard (7&nbsp;km) gap in the Allied line. The German infantry were also wary of the gas and, lacking reinforcements, failed to exploit the break before the [[1st Canadian Division]] and assorted French troops reformed the line in scattered, hastily prepared positions {{convert|1000|–|3000|yd|m}} apart.<ref name="heller84" /> The Entente governments claimed the attack was a flagrant violation of international law but Germany argued that the Hague treaty had only banned chemical shells, rather than the use of gas projectors.<ref>{{Cite book
By 22 April 1915, the [[German Army in World War I|German Army]] had 167 [[ton]]s of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders from [[Langemark-Poelkapelle]], north of [[Ypres]]. At 17:30, in a slight easterly breeze, the liquid chlorine was siphoned from the tanks, producing gas which formed a grey-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops from [[Martinique]], as well as the 1st [[Tirailleurs]] and the 2nd [[Zouaves]] from Algeria.<ref>General R. Hure, ''L'Armee d'Afrique 1830–1962'', Charles-Lavauzelle, 1972, p. 283.</ref> Faced with an unfamiliar threat these troops broke ranks, abandoning their trenches and creating an 8,000-yard (7&nbsp;km) gap in the Allied line. The German infantry were also wary of the gas and, lacking reinforcements, failed to exploit the break before the [[1st Canadian Division]] and assorted French troops reformed the line in scattered, hastily prepared positions {{convert|1000|–|3000|yd|m}} apart.<ref name="heller84" /> The Entente governments claimed the attack was a flagrant violation of international law but Germany argued that the Hague treaty had only banned chemical shells, rather than the use of gas projectors.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Jonathan B. | last=Tucker | year=2006 | title=War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Queda | publisher=Pantheon Books | isbn=0-375-42229-3 | url=https://archive.org/details/warofnerveschemi00tuck }}</ref>
| first=Jonathan B. | last=Tucker | year=2006
| title=War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Queda
| publisher=Pantheon Books | isbn=0-375-42229-3 }}</ref>


In what became the [[Second Battle of Ypres]], the Germans used gas on three more occasions; on 24 April against the 1st Canadian Division,<ref>{{Cite web
In what became the [[Second Battle of Ypres]], the Germans used gas on three more occasions; on 24 April against the 1st Canadian Division,<ref>{{Cite web
| author=Staff | date=29 July 2004
| author=Staff
| date=29 July 2004
| url=http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/firstwar/canada/Canada4
| url=http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/firstwar/canada/Canada4
| title=On the Western Front, Ypres 1915
| title=On the Western Front: Ypres 1915
| publisher=Veteran Affairs Canada
| publisher=Veteran Affairs Canada
| access-date=8 April 2008
| accessdate=8 April 2008 }}</ref> on 2 May near Mouse Trap Farm and on 5 May against the British at [[Battle of Hill 60 (Western Front)|Hill 60]].<ref>{{Cite book
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081206024237/http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history%2Ffirstwar%2Fcanada%2FCanada4
| archive-date=6 December 2008
| url-status=dead
}}</ref> on 2 May near Mouse Trap Farm and on 5 May against the British at [[Battle of Hill 60 (Western Front)|Hill 60]].<ref>{{Cite book
| first=Victor | last=Lefebure |author2=Wilson, Henry
| first=Victor | last=Lefebure |author2=Wilson, Henry
| title=The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War
| title=The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War
| year=2004 | publisher=Kessinger Publishing | isbn=1-4179-3546-4 }}</ref> The British Official History stated that at Hill 60, "90 men died from gas poisoning in the trenches or before they could be got to a dressing station; of the 207 brought to the nearest dressing stations, 46 died almost immediately and 12 after long suffering."<ref>Edmonds and Wynne (1927): p. 289.</ref>
| year=2004 | publisher=Kessinger Publishing | isbn=1-4179-3546-4 }}</ref> The British Official History stated that at Hill 60, "90 men died from gas poisoning in the trenches or before they could be got to a dressing station; of the 207 brought to the nearest dressing stations, 46 died almost immediately and 12 after long suffering."<ref>Edmonds and Wynne (1927): p. 289.</ref>


On 6 August, German troops used chlorine gas against Russian troops defending the [[Osowiec Fortress|Fortress of Osowiec]]. Surviving defenders drove back the attack and retained the fortress.
On 6 August, German troops under Field Marshal [[Paul von Hindenburg]] used chlorine gas against Russian troops defending [[Osowiec Fortress]]. Surviving defenders drove back the attack and retained the fortress. The event would later be called the [[Attack of the Dead Men]].


Germany used chemical weapons on the eastern front in an attack at [[Rawka]], south of Warsaw. The Russian army took 9,000 casualties, with more than 1,000 fatalities. In response, the artillery branch of the Russian army organised a commission to study the delivery of poison gas in shells.<ref name="sic15">{{Cite journal
Germany used chemical weapons on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]] in an attack at [[Rawka (river)]], west of Warsaw. The [[Imperial Russian Army|Russian Army]] took 9,000 casualties, with more than 1,000 fatalities. In response, the artillery branch of the Russian Army organised a commission to study the delivery of poison gas in shells.<ref name="sic15">{{Cite journal |last=Kojevnikov |first=A. |date=June 2002 | title=The Great War, the Russian Civil War, and the Invention of Big Science |journal=Science in Context |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=239–275 | url=https://www.history.ubc.ca/documents/BigScience2002.pdf |pmid=12467271 |doi=10.1017/S0269889702000443 |s2cid=23740816 |access-date=11 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120613102624/https://www.history.ubc.ca/documents/BigScience2002.pdf |archive-date=13 June 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
| last=Kojevnikov | first=A. |date=June 2002
| title=The Great War, the Russian Civil War, and the Invention of Big Science
| journal=Science in Context
| volume=15 | issue=2 | pages=239–275
| url=https://www.history.ubc.ca/documents/BigScience2002.pdf
|format=PDF
| pmid=12467271
| doi=10.1017/S0269889702000443}}</ref>


====Effectiveness and countermeasures====
====Effectiveness and countermeasures====
[[File:Nach Gasangriff 1917.jpg|thumb|British emplacement after German gas attack (probably phosgene)]]
[[File:Nach Gasangriff 1917.jpg|thumb|British emplacement after German gas attack (probably phosgene)]]

It quickly became evident that the men who stayed in their places suffered less than those who ran away, as any movement worsened the effects of the gas, and that those who stood up on the fire step suffered less—indeed they often escaped any serious effects—than those who lay down or sat at the bottom of a trench. Men who stood on the parapet suffered least, as the gas was denser near the ground. The worst sufferers were the wounded lying on the ground, or on stretchers, and the men who moved back with the cloud.<ref>Edmonds and Wynne (1927): pp.&nbsp;177–8.</ref> Chlorine was less effective as a weapon than the Germans had hoped, particularly as soon as simple countermeasures were introduced. The gas produced a visible greenish cloud and strong odour, making it easy to detect. It was water-soluble, so the simple expedient of covering the mouth and nose with a damp cloth was effective at reducing the effect of the gas. It was thought to be even more effective to use [[urine]] rather than water, as it was known at the time that chlorine reacted with [[urea]] (present in urine) to form dichloro urea.<ref>For example, see: {{Cite journal
It quickly became evident that the men who stayed in their places suffered less than those who ran away, as any movement worsened the effects of the gas, and that those who stood up on the fire step suffered less—indeed they often escaped any serious effects—than those who lay down or sat at the bottom of a trench. Men who stood on the parapet suffered least, as the gas was denser near the ground. The worst sufferers were the wounded lying on the ground, or on stretchers, and the men who moved back with the cloud.<ref>Edmonds and Wynne (1927): pp.&nbsp;177–178.</ref> Chlorine was less effective as a weapon than the Germans had hoped, particularly as soon as simple countermeasures were introduced. The gas produced a visible greenish cloud and strong odour, making it easy to detect. It was water-soluble, so the simple expedient of covering the mouth and nose with a damp cloth was effective at reducing the effect of the gas. It was thought to be even more effective to use [[urine]] rather than water, as it was known at the time that chlorine reacted with [[urea]] (present in urine) to form dichloro urea.<ref>For example, see: {{Cite journal
| last=Chattaway | first=Frederick Daniel
| last=Chattaway | first=Frederick Daniel
| date=22 December 1908
| date=22 December 1908
Line 91: Line 88:
| volume=81
| volume=81
| issue=549 | pages=381–388 | doi=10.1098/rspa.1908.0094
| issue=549 | pages=381–388 | doi=10.1098/rspa.1908.0094
| jstor=93011| bibcode=1908RSPSA..81..381C}}</ref>
| jstor=93011| bibcode=1908RSPSA..81..381C| doi-access=free}}</ref>


Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying [[Biological tissue|tissue]] in the lungs, likely through the formation of [[hypochlorous acid#Formation, stability and reactions|hypochlorous and hydrochloric acids]] when dissolved in the water in the lungs.<ref>{{Cite web
Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying [[Biological tissue|tissue]] in the lungs, likely through the formation of [[hypochlorous acid#Formation, stability and reactions|hypochlorous and hydrochloric acids]] when dissolved in the water in the lungs.<ref>{{Cite web
Line 97: Line 94:
| url=http://www.ucc.ie/academic/chem/dolchem/html/elem/elem017.html
| url=http://www.ucc.ie/academic/chem/dolchem/html/elem/elem017.html
| title=Chlorine | publisher=University College Cork
| title=Chlorine | publisher=University College Cork
| accessdate=2 August 2007 }}</ref> Despite its limitations, chlorine was an effective psychological weapon—the sight of an oncoming cloud of the gas was a continual source of dread for the infantry.<ref>{{Cite journal|author1=Jones, E. |author2=Everitt, B. |author3=Ironside, S. |author4=Palmer, I. |author5=Wessely, S. | title=Psychological effects of chemical weapons: a follow-up study of First World War veterans
| access-date=2 August 2007 }}</ref> Despite its limitations, chlorine was an effective psychological weapon—the sight of an oncoming cloud of the gas was a continual source of dread for the infantry.<ref>{{Cite journal|author1=Jones, E. |author2=Everitt, B. |author3=Ironside, S. |author4=Palmer, I. |author5=Wessely, S. | title=Psychological effects of chemical weapons: a follow-up study of First World War veterans
| journal=Psychological Medicine | volume=38 | issue=10
| journal=Psychological Medicine | volume=38 | issue=10
| pages=1419–1426 | pmid=18237455| year=2008| doi=10.1017/S003329170800278X|s2cid=2448895 }}</ref>
| pages=1419–26 | accessdate=29 April 2009 | url=http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/pgme/abstract.00006826-200810000-00006.htm;jsessionid=J4CcpQClqQYW79kH6ppPpL990J8hvLnDzY4D6MCnvB5JG1RPCFsM!928310026!181195629!8091!-1
| pmid=18237455| year=2008| doi=10.1017/S003329170800278X}}</ref>


[[File:A sentry watching for any sign of gas attacks. He is squatting beside a notice which reads, 'gas gong'. The gong appears to be a large metal drum, like an oil drum. The drumstick is hanging from a (4687961895).jpg|thumb|right|A sentry stands watch next to a "gas gong".]]
Countermeasures were quickly introduced in response to the use of chlorine. The Germans issued their troops with small gauze pads filled with cotton waste, and bottles of a [[Sodium bicarbonate|bicarbonate]] solution with which to dampen the pads. Immediately following the use of chlorine gas by the Germans, instructions were sent to British and French troops to hold wet handkerchiefs or cloths over their mouths. Simple pad respirators similar to those issued to German troops were soon proposed by Lieutenant-Colonel N. C. Ferguson, the Assistant Director Medical Services of the [[28th Division (United Kingdom)|28th Division]]. These pads were intended to be used damp, preferably dipped into a solution of bicarbonate kept in buckets for that purpose; other liquids were also used. Because such pads could not be expected to arrive at the front for several days, army divisions set about making them for themselves. Locally available muslin, flannel and gauze were used, officers were sent to [[Paris]] to buy more and local French women were employed making up rudimentary pads with string ties. Other units used lint bandages manufactured in the convent at [[Poperinge]]. Pad respirators were sent up with rations to British troops in the line as early as the evening of 24 April.<ref name=ew217/>


Countermeasures were quickly introduced in response to the use of chlorine. The Germans issued their troops with small gauze pads filled with cotton waste, and bottles of a [[Sodium bicarbonate|bicarbonate]] solution with which to dampen the pads. Immediately following the use of chlorine gas by the Germans, instructions were sent to British and French troops to hold wet handkerchiefs or cloths over their mouths. Simple pad respirators similar to those issued to German troops were soon proposed by Lieutenant-Colonel N. C. Ferguson, the Assistant Director Medical Services of the [[28th Division (United Kingdom)|28th Division]]. These pads were intended to be used damp, preferably dipped into a solution of bicarbonate kept in buckets for that purpose; other liquids were also used. Because such pads could not be expected to arrive at the front for several days, army divisions set about making them for themselves. Locally available muslin, flannel and gauze were used, officers were sent to [[Paris]] to buy more and local French women were employed making up rudimentary pads with string ties. Other units used lint bandages manufactured in the convent at [[Poperinge]]. Pad respirators were sent up with rations to British troops in the line as early as the evening of 24 April.<ref name="ew217" />
In Britain the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' newspaper encouraged women to manufacture cotton pads, and within one month a variety of pad respirators were available to British and French troops, along with motoring goggles to protect the eyes. The response was enormous and a million gas masks were produced in a day. The ''Mail'''s design was useless when dry and caused suffocation when wet—the respirator was responsible for the deaths of scores of men. By 6 July 1915, the entire British army was equipped with the more effective "[[Hypo helmet|smoke helmet]]" designed by Major [[Cluny MacPherson]], [[Royal Newfoundland Regiment|Newfoundland Regiment]], which was a flannel bag with a celluloid window, which entirely covered the head. The race was then on between the introduction of new and more effective poison gases and the production of effective countermeasures, which marked gas warfare until the armistice in November 1918.<ref name=ew217>Edmonds and Wynne (1927): p. 217.</ref>


In Britain the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' newspaper encouraged women to manufacture cotton pads, and within one month a variety of pad respirators were available to British and French troops, along with motoring goggles to protect the eyes. The response was enormous and a million gas masks were produced in a day. The ''Mail''{{'}}s design was useless when dry and caused suffocation when wet—the respirator was responsible for the deaths of scores of men.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}} By 6 July 1915, the entire British army was equipped with the more effective "[[Hypo helmet|smoke helmet]]" designed by Major [[Cluny Macpherson (physician)|Cluny MacPherson]], [[Royal Newfoundland Regiment|Newfoundland Regiment]], which was a flannel bag with a celluloid window, which entirely covered the head. The race was then on between the introduction of new and more effective poison gases and the production of effective countermeasures, which marked gas warfare until the armistice in November 1918.<ref name="ew217">Edmonds and Wynne (1927): p. 217.</ref>
====British gas attacks====
[[File:British infantry advancing at Loos 25 September 1915.jpg|thumb|right|British infantry advancing through gas at [[Battle of Loos|Loos]], 25 September 1915]]
[[File:World War I, British soccer team with gas masks, 1916.jpg|thumb|right|Football team of British soldiers with gas masks, Western front, 1916]]
[[File:Englische Gasbomben.jpg|thumb|right|A British gas bomb from 1915]]


====British gas attacks====
The British expressed outrage at Germany's use of poison gas at Ypres and responded by developing their own gas warfare capability. The commander of [[II Corps (United Kingdom)|II Corps]], [[Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet|Lieutenant General Sir Charles Ferguson]], said of gas:
The British expressed outrage at Germany's use of poison gas at Ypres and responded by developing their own gas warfare capability. The commander of [[II Corps (United Kingdom)|II Corps]], [[Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet|Lieutenant General Sir Charles Ferguson]], said of gas:


{{Quote |It is a cowardly form of warfare which does not commend itself to me or other English soldiers&nbsp;... We cannot win this war unless we kill or incapacitate more of our enemies than they do of us, and if this can only be done by our copying the enemy in his choice of weapons, we must not refuse to do so.<ref>{{Cite book
{{Blockquote |It is a cowardly form of warfare which does not commend itself to me or other English soldiers&nbsp;... We cannot win this war unless we kill or incapacitate more of our enemies than they do of us, and if this can only be done by our copying the enemy in his choice of weapons, we must not refuse to do so.<ref>{{Cite book
| author=Cook, Tim
| author=Cook, Tim
| year=1999
| year=1999
| title=No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War
| title=No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War
| publisher=UBC Press
| publisher=UBC Press
| pages=37 | isbn=0-7748-0740-7}}</ref>}}
| page=37 | isbn=0-7748-0740-7}}</ref>}}


The first use of gas by the British was at the [[Battle of Loos]], 25 September 1915, but the attempt was a disaster. Chlorine, codenamed ''Red Star'', was the agent to be used (140 tons arrayed in 5,100 cylinders), and the attack was dependent on a favourable wind. On this occasion the wind proved fickle, and the gas either lingered in [[no man's land]] or, in places, blew back on the British trenches.<ref name= "heller84" /> This was compounded when the gas could not be released from all the British canisters because the wrong turning keys were sent with them. Subsequent retaliatory German shelling hit some of those unused full cylinders, releasing gas among the British troops.<ref>{{Cite journal | publisher = First World War | work = Weaponry | url = http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/gas.htm | title = Gas | postscript = <!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. -->{{inconsistent citations}}}}.</ref> Exacerbating the situation were the primitive flannel gas masks distributed to the British. The masks got hot, and the small eye-pieces misted over, reducing visibility. Some of the troops lifted the masks to get fresh air, causing them to be gassed.<ref>{{cite book
The first use of gas by the British was at the [[Battle of Loos]], 25 September 1915, but the attempt was a disaster. Chlorine, codenamed ''Red Star'', was the agent to be used (140 tons arrayed in 5,100 cylinders), and the attack was dependent on a favourable wind. On this occasion the wind proved fickle, and the gas either lingered in [[no man's land]] or, in places, blew back on the British trenches.<ref name="heller84" /> This was compounded when the gas could not be released from all the British canisters because the wrong turning keys were sent with them. Subsequent retaliatory German shelling hit some of those unused full cylinders, releasing gas among the British troops.<ref>{{Cite journal | publisher = First World War | journal = Weaponry | url = http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/gas.htm | title = Gas }}</ref> Exacerbating the situation were the primitive flannel gas masks distributed to the British. The masks got hot, and the small eye-pieces misted over, reducing visibility. Some of the troops lifted the masks to get fresh air, causing them to be gassed.<ref>{{cite book
| first=Philip | last=Warner | year=2000
| first=Philip | last=Warner | year=2000
| title=The Battle of Loos | page=37
| title=The Battle of Loos | page=37
Line 126: Line 120:
| publisher=Wordsworth Editions | isbn=1-84022-229-8
| publisher=Wordsworth Editions | isbn=1-84022-229-8
| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OClz6xxwgCUC&pg=PA37 }}</ref>
| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OClz6xxwgCUC&pg=PA37 }}</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="135px">
File:British infantry advancing at Loos 25 September 1915.jpg|British infantry advancing through gas at [[Battle of Loos|Loos]], 25 September 1915
File:World War I, British soccer team with gas masks, 1916.jpg|Football team of British soldiers with gas masks, Western front, 1916
File:Englische Gasbomben.jpg|A British gas bomb from 1915
</gallery>


===1915: More deadly gases===
===1915: More deadly gases===
[[File:American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee, "An Atlas of Gas Poisoning" plate I.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Plate I, Microscopic section of human lung from phosgene shell poisoning, American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee, ''An Atlas of Gas Poisoning'', 1918]]
[[File:American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee, "An Atlas of Gas Poisoning" plate I (square).jpg|thumb|Microscopic section of human lung from phosgene shell poisoning from ''An Atlas of Gas Poisoning'', 1918]]


The deficiencies of chlorine were overcome with the introduction of [[phosgene]], which was prepared by a group of French chemists led by [[Victor Grignard]] and first used by France in 1915.<ref>{{Cite book
The deficiencies of chlorine were overcome with the introduction of [[phosgene]], which was prepared by a group of French chemists led by [[Victor Grignard]] and first used by France in 1915.<ref>{{Cite book
| first=Mary Jo | last=Nye | year=1999 | page=193
| first=Mary Jo | last=Nye | year=1999 | page=193
| title=Before big science: the pursuit of modern chemistry and physics, 1800–1940 | publisher=Harvard University Press
| title=Before big science: the pursuit of modern chemistry and physics, 1800–1940 | publisher=Harvard University Press
| isbn=0-674-06382-1 }}</ref> Colourless and having an odour likened to "mouldy hay," phosgene was difficult to detect, making it a more effective weapon. Phosgene was sometimes used on its own, but was more often used mixed with an equal volume of chlorine, with the chlorine helping to spread the denser phosgene.<ref name="cbwinfo">{{Cite web | author=Staff | year=2004 | url=http://cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Pulmonary/CG.shtml | title=Choking Agent: CG | publisher=CBWInfo | accessdate=30 July 2007 | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814054640/http://cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Pulmonary/CG.shtml | archivedate=14 August 2007 | df= }}</ref> The Allies called this combination ''White Star'' after the marking painted on shells containing the mixture.<ref>{{Cite book
| isbn=0-674-06382-1 }}</ref> Colourless and having an odour likened to "mouldy hay," phosgene was difficult to detect, making it a more effective weapon. Phosgene was sometimes used on its own, but was more often used mixed with an equal volume of chlorine, with the chlorine helping to spread the denser phosgene.<ref name="cbwinfo">{{Cite web | author=Staff | year=2004 | url=http://cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Pulmonary/CG.shtml | title=Choking Agent: CG | publisher=CBWInfo | access-date=30 July 2007 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814054640/http://cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Pulmonary/CG.shtml | archive-date=14 August 2007 }}</ref> The Allies called this combination ''White Star'' after the marking painted on shells containing the mixture.<ref>{{Cite book
| author=Kiester, Edwin | title=An Incomplete History of World War I
| author=Kiester, Edwin | title=An Incomplete History of World War I
| page=74 | volume=1 | publisher=Murdoch Books | year=2007
| page=74 | volume=1 | publisher=Murdoch Books | year=2007
| isbn=978-1-74045-970-9 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> German phosgene came in the form of diphosgene, codenamed ''Grün Kreuz'' (Green cross). This was less effective than its allied counterpart, being less toxic and slower to evaporate, but was easier to handle in shell manufacture early in the war.{{sfn|Haber|2002|pp=86-87}}
| isbn=1-74045-970-9 |display-authors=etal}}</ref>


Phosgene was a potent killing agent, deadlier than chlorine. It had a potential drawback in that some of the symptoms of exposure took 24 hours or more to manifest. This meant that the victims were initially still capable of putting up a fight; this could also mean that apparently fit troops would be incapacitated by the effects of the gas on the following day.<ref>{{Cite web | author=Staff | date=22 February 2006 | url=http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/phosgene/basics/facts.asp | title=Facts About Phosgene | publisher=CDC | accessdate=23 May 2008 | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20030417022453/http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/phosgene/basics/facts.asp | archivedate=17 April 2003 | df= }}</ref>
Phosgene was a potent killing agent, deadlier than chlorine. It had a potential drawback in that some of the symptoms of exposure took 24 hours or more to manifest. This meant that the victims were initially still capable of putting up a fight; this could also mean that apparently fit troops would be incapacitated by the effects of the gas on the following day.<ref>{{Cite web | author=Staff | date=22 February 2006 | url=http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/phosgene/basics/facts.asp | title=Facts About Phosgene | publisher=CDC | access-date=23 May 2008 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030417022453/http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/phosgene/basics/facts.asp | archive-date=17 April 2003 }}</ref>


In the first combined chlorine–phosgene attack by Germany, against British troops at [[Wieltje]] near Ypres, Belgium on 19 December 1915, 88 tons of the gas were released from cylinders causing 1069 casualties and 69 deaths.<ref name="cbwinfo"/> The British P gas helmet, issued at the time, was impregnated with [[sodium phenolate]] and partially effective against phosgene. The modified [[PH helmet|PH Gas Helmet]], which was impregnated with phenate hexamine and [[hexamethylene tetramine]] (urotropine) to improve the protection against phosgene, was issued in January 1916.<ref name="cbwinfo"/><ref>{{Cite book
In the first combined chlorine–phosgene attack by Germany, against British troops at [[Wieltje]] near Ypres, Belgium on 19 December 1915, 88 tons of the gas were released from cylinders causing 1069 casualties and 69 deaths.<ref name="cbwinfo" /> The British P gas helmet, issued at the time, was impregnated with [[sodium phenolate]] and partially effective against phosgene. The modified [[PH helmet|PH Gas Helmet]], which was impregnated with phenate hexamine and [[hexamethylene tetramine]] (urotropine) to improve the protection against phosgene, was issued in January 1916.<ref name="cbwinfo" /><ref>{{Cite book
| first=Ludwig Fritz | last=Haber | year=1986
| first=Ludwig Fritz | last=Haber | year=1986
| title=The poisonous cloud: chemical warfare in the First World War | page=70 | publisher=Oxford University Press
| title=The poisonous cloud: chemical warfare in the First World War | page=70 | publisher=Oxford University Press
| isbn=0-19-858142-4 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book
| isbn=0-19-858142-4 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book
| first=Pradyot | last=Patnaik | year=2007
| first=Pradyot | last=Patnaik | year=2007
| title=A comprehensive guide to the hazardous properties of chemical substances | page=85 | edition=3rd
| title=A comprehensive guide to the hazardous properties of chemical substances | page=85 | edition=3rd
| publisher=Wiley-Interscience | isbn=0-471-71458-5 }}</ref>
| publisher=Wiley-Interscience | isbn=978-0-471-71458-3 }}</ref>

Around 36,600 tons of phosgene were manufactured during the war, out of a total of 190,000 tons for all [[chemical weapon]]s, making it second only to chlorine (93,800 tons) in the quantity manufactured:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mitretek.org/mission/envene/chemical/history/ww1.html |title=A Short History of Chemical Warfare During World War I |access-date=18 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19991023051711/http://www.mitretek.org/mission/envene/chemical/history/ww1.html |archive-date=23 October 1999 }}</ref>


Around 36,600 tons of phosgene were manufactured during the war, out of a total of 190,000 tons for all [[chemical weapon]]s, making it second only to chlorine (93,800 tons) in the quantity manufactured:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mitretek.org/mission/envene/chemical/history/ww1.html |title=A SHORT HISTORY OF CHEMICAL WARFARE DURING WORLD WAR I |accessdate=18 September 2013 |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/19991023051711/http://www.mitretek.org/mission/envene/chemical/history/ww1.html |archivedate=23 October 1999 |df= }}</ref>
* Germany 18,100 tons
* Germany 18,100 tons
* France 15,700 tons
* France 15,700 tons
Line 154: Line 155:
* United States 1,400 tons (also used French stocks)
* United States 1,400 tons (also used French stocks)


===1916: Austrian use===
Phosgene was never as notorious in public consciousness as mustard gas, but it killed far more people, about 85% of the 90,000 deaths caused by chemical weapons during World War I.

===1916: Austrian use ===
[[File:WWI - Monte San Michele - 29th June 1916 Italian casualties after a gas attack.jpg|thumb|right|Italian dead after the Austrian gas attack on Monte San Michele]]
[[File:WWI - Monte San Michele - 29th June 1916 Italian casualties after a gas attack.jpg|thumb|right|Italian dead after the Austrian gas attack on Monte San Michele]]

On 29 June 1916, Austrian forces attacked the Italian lines on Monte San Michele with a mix of [[phosgene]] and [[chlorine]] gas.<ref>Rauchensteiner, Manfried, ''The First World War and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918'' (Vienna, Austria: Böhlau Verlag, 2014), [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZEpLBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA543#v=onepage&q&f=false pp. 543-544.]</ref> Thousands of Italian soldiers died in this first chemical weapons attack on the [[Italian Front (World War I)|Italian Front]].
On 29 June 1916, the [[Austro-Hungarian Army]] attacked the [[Royal Italian Army]]'s [[Brigade "Ferrara"]] on [[Monte San Michele]] with a mix of [[phosgene]] and [[chlorine]] gas.<ref>Rauchensteiner, Manfried, ''The First World War and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914–1918'' (Vienna, Austria: Böhlau Verlag, 2014), [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZEpLBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA543 pp. 543–544.]</ref> Thousands of Italian soldiers died in this first chemical weapons attack on the [[Italian Front (World War I)|Italian Front]].


===1917: Mustard gas===
===1917: Mustard gas===
[[File:American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee, "An Atlas of Gas Poisoning" plate X.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Plate X, Microscopic section of human lung from mustard gas poisoning, American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee, ''An Atlas of Gas Poisoning'', 1918]]
[[File:American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee, "An Atlas of Gas Poisoning" plate X (square).jpg|thumb|Microscopic section of human lung from mustard gas poisoning from ''An Atlas of Gas Poisoning'', 1918]]


The most widely reported and, perhaps, the most effective chemical agent of the First World War was [[sulfur mustard]], known as "mustard gas". It is a volatile oily liquid. It was introduced as a [[vesicant]] by Germany in July 1917 prior to the [[Third Battle of Ypres]].<ref name="heller84" /> The Germans marked their shells yellow for mustard gas and green for chlorine and phosgene; hence they called the new gas ''Yellow Cross''. It was known to the British as ''HS'' (''Hun Stuff''), and the French called it ''Yperite'' (named after [[Ypres]]).<ref>{{Cite book
The most widely reported chemical agent of the First World War was [[mustard gas]]. Despite the name it is not a gas but a volatile oily liquid, and is [[Dispersion (chemistry)|dispersed]] as a fine mist of liquid droplets.<ref name="acs">{{Cite journal |last=Tinnesand |first=Michael |date=April 2005 |title=Mustard Gas |url=https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/gc-mustard-gas-personal-safety-and-natl-security.pdf |journal=ChemMatters |via=American Chemical Society}}</ref> It was introduced as a [[vesicant]] by Germany on July 12, 1917, weeks prior to the [[Third Battle of Ypres]].<ref name="heller84" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Fries |first1=Amos A. (Amos Alfred) |url=http://archive.org/details/chemicwar00frierich |title=Chemical Warfare |last2=West |first2=Clarence J. (Clarence Jay) |date=1921 |publisher=New York [etc.] McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc. |others=University of California Libraries |pages=176}}</ref> The Germans marked their shells yellow for mustard gas and green for chlorine and phosgene; hence they called the new gas ''Yellow Cross''. It was known to the British as ''HS'' (''Hun Stuff''), and the French called it ''Yperite'' (named after [[Ypres]]).<ref>{{Cite book
| first=Steven L. | last=Hoenig | year=2002
| first=Steven L.
| last=Hoenig
| year=2002
| title=Handbook of Chemical Warfare and Terrorism
| title=Handbook of Chemical Warfare and Terrorism
| publisher=Greenwood Press
| publisher=Greenwood Press
| location=Westport, Connecticut
| location=Westport, Connecticut
| isbn=0-313-32407-7 }}</ref>
| isbn=0-313-32407-7
| url=https://archive.org/details/handbookofchemic0000hoen
}}</ref>


[[File:mustard gas burns.jpg|thumb|left|A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, 1917/1918]]
[[File:mustard gas burns.jpg|thumb|left|A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, 1917/1918]]

Mustard gas is not an effective killing agent (though in high enough doses it is fatal) but can be used to harass and disable the enemy and pollute the battlefield. Delivered in artillery shells, mustard gas was heavier than air, and it settled to the ground as an oily liquid. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several days, weeks, or even months, depending on the weather conditions.<ref>{{Cite web
Mustard gas is not an effective killing agent (though in high enough doses it is fatal) but can be used to harass and disable the enemy and pollute the battlefield. Delivered in artillery shells, mustard gas was heavier than air, and it settled to the ground as an oily liquid. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several days, weeks, or even months, depending on the weather conditions.<ref>{{Cite web
|author=Staff
|author=Staff
|date=22 February 2006
|date=22 February 2006
|url=http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sulfurmustard/basics/facts.asp
|url=http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sulfurmustard/basics/facts.asp
|title=Facts About Sulfur Mustard
|title=Facts About Sulfur Mustard
|publisher=Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
|publisher=Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
|accessdate=10 August 2006
|access-date=10 August 2006
|url-status=dead
|deadurl=yes
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060809143200/http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sulfurmustard/basics/facts.asp
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060809143200/http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sulfurmustard/basics/facts.asp
|archivedate=9 August 2006
|archive-date=9 August 2006
|df=
}}</ref>
}}</ref>


Line 188: Line 192:
| title=Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare
| title=Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare
| publisher=Office of The Surgeon General, Department of the Army, United States of America
| publisher=Office of The Surgeon General, Department of the Army, United States of America
| url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1997/cwbw/
| chapter-url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1997/cwbw/
| accessdate=8 August 2007 |isbn=99973-209-1-3|oclc=489185423|lccn=97022242}}</ref>
| access-date=8 August 2007 |isbn=99973-209-1-3|oclc=489185423|lccn=97022242}}</ref>


One nurse, [[Vera Brittain]], wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."<ref>{{Cite book
One nurse, [[Vera Brittain]], wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."<ref>{{Cite book
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| isbn=0-14-012251-6 }}</ref>
| isbn=0-14-012251-6 }}</ref>


The polluting nature of mustard gas meant that it was not always suitable for supporting an attack as the assaulting infantry would be exposed to the gas when they advanced. When Germany launched [[Operation Michael|Operation ''Michael'']] on 21 March 1918, they saturated the [[Flesquières]] [[salient (military)|salient]] with mustard gas instead of attacking it directly, believing that the harassing effect of the gas, coupled with threats to the salient's flanks, would make the British position untenable.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}}
The polluting nature of mustard gas meant that it was not always suitable for supporting an attack as the assaulting infantry would be exposed to the gas when they advanced. When Germany launched [[Operation Michael]] on 21 March 1918, they saturated the [[Flesquières]] [[salient (military)|salient]] with mustard gas instead of attacking it directly, believing that the harassing effect of the gas, coupled with threats to the salient's flanks, would make the British position untenable.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-03-21 |title=German Spring Offensives 1918 |url=http://www.eastsussexww1.org.uk/index.php? |access-date=2023-02-28 |website=WW1 East Sussex |language=en-US}}</ref>


Gas never reproduced the dramatic success of 22 April 1915; it became a standard weapon which, combined with conventional artillery, was used to support most attacks in the later stages of the war. Gas was employed primarily on the Western Front—the static, confined [[trench warfare|trench system]] was ideal for achieving an effective concentration. Germany also used gas against Russia on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]], where the lack of effective countermeasures resulted in deaths of over 56,000 Russians,<ref name="duffy2000">{{Cite web
Gas never reproduced the dramatic success of 22 April 1915; it became a standard weapon which, combined with conventional artillery, was used to support most attacks in the later stages of the war. Gas was employed primarily on the Western Front—the static, confined [[trench warfare|trench system]] was ideal for achieving an effective concentration. Germany also used gas against Russia on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]], where the lack of effective countermeasures resulted in deaths of over 56,000 Russians,<ref name="duffy2000">{{Cite web
| first=Michael | last=Duffy | date=22 August 2009
| first=Michael | last=Duffy | date=22 August 2009
| title=Weapons of War - Poison Gas
| title=Weapons of War Poison Gas
| work=firstworldwar.com
| work=firstworldwar.com
| url=http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/gas.htm
| url=http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/gas.htm
| accessdate=25 October 2009 }}</ref> while Britain experimented with gas in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] during the [[Second Battle of Gaza]].<ref>{{Cite book
| access-date=25 October 2009 }}</ref> while Britain experimented with gas in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] during the [[Second Battle of Gaza]].<ref>{{Cite book
|author1=Dolev, Eran |author2=Lillywhite, Louis | title=Allenby's military medicine: life and death in World War I Palestine | publisher=I. B. Tauris | year=2007
|author1=Dolev, Eran |author2=Lillywhite, Louis | title=Allenby's military medicine: life and death in World War I Palestine | publisher=I. B. Tauris | year=2007
| pages=37–38 | isbn=1-84511-290-3 }}</ref> Russia began manufacturing chlorine gas in 1916, with phosgene being produced later in the year. Most of the manufactured gas was never used.<ref name="sic15" />
| pages=37–38 | isbn=978-1-84511-290-5 }}</ref> Russia began manufacturing chlorine gas in 1916, with phosgene being produced later in the year. Most of the manufactured gas was never used.<ref name="sic15" />


[[File:Surrounded by invisible death (2866724033).jpg|thumb|Australian gunners of the 55th Siege Battery working during a gas attack, 1917]]
The British Army first used mustard gas in November 1917 at [[Cambrai]], after their armies had captured a stockpile of German mustard gas shells. It took the British more than a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon, with production of the chemicals centred on [[Avonmouth Docks]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Port of Bristol, 1848-1884|author=Edited by David Large}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bristolpast.co.uk/#/avonmouth/4546933962|title=Photographic Archive of Avonmouth Bristol BS11|publisher=BristolPast.co.uk|accessdate=12 May 2014}}</ref> (The only option available to the British was the Despretz–Niemann–Guthrie process). This was used first in September 1918 during the breaking of the [[Hindenburg Line]] with the [[Hundred Days' Offensive]].

The British Army first used mustard gas in November 1917 at [[Cambrai]], after their armies had captured a stockpile of German mustard gas shells. It took the British more than a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon, with production of the chemicals centred on [[Avonmouth Docks]].<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Large |editor-first=David |title=The Port of Bristol, 1848–1884}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bristolpast.co.uk/#/avonmouth/4546933962|title=Photographic Archive of Avonmouth Bristol BS11|publisher=BristolPast.co.uk|access-date=12 May 2014}}</ref> (The only option available to the British was the Despretz–Niemann–Guthrie process.) This was used first in September 1918 during the breaking of the [[Hindenburg Line]] with the [[Hundred Days' Offensive]].


The Allies mounted more gas attacks than the Germans in 1917 and 1918 because of a marked increase in production of gas from the Allied nations. Germany was unable to keep up with this pace despite creating various new gases for use in battle, mostly as a result of very costly methods of production. Entry into the war by the United States allowed the Allies to increase mustard gas production far more than Germany.<ref>{{Cite book
The Allies mounted more gas attacks than the Germans in 1917 and 1918 because of a marked increase in production of gas from the Allied nations. Germany was unable to keep up with this pace despite creating various new gases for use in battle, mostly as a result of very costly methods of production. Entry into the war by the United States allowed the Allies to increase mustard gas production far more than Germany.<ref>{{Cite book
Line 216: Line 222:
| title=The Armies of Industry: Our Nation's Manufacture of Munitions for a World in Arms, 1917–1918
| title=The Armies of Industry: Our Nation's Manufacture of Munitions for a World in Arms, 1917–1918
| publisher=Yale University Press | pages=491, 500
| publisher=Yale University Press | pages=491, 500
| volume=5 | url=https://books.google.com/?id=xgFNAAAAMAAJ | accessdate=8 December 2008
| volume=5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xgFNAAAAMAAJ | access-date=8 December 2008
| isbn=1-60105-114-X }}</ref><ref name="Gross">{{cite journal|last1=Gross|first1=Daniel A.|title=Chemical Warfare: From the European Battlefield to the American Laboratory|journal=Distillations|date=Spring 2015|volume=1|issue=1|pages=16–23|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/chemical-warfare-from-the-european-battlefield-to-the-american-laboratory|accessdate=20 March 2018}}</ref> Also the prevailing [[wind]] on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] was blowing from west to east,<ref>{{Cite book
| isbn=1-60105-114-X }}</ref><ref name="Gross">{{cite journal |last1=Gross |first1=Daniel A. |title=Chemical Warfare: From the European Battlefield to the American Laboratory |journal=Distillations |date=Spring 2015 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=16–23 |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/chemical-warfare-from-the-european-battlefield-to-the-american-laboratory |access-date=20 March 2018}}</ref> Also the prevailing [[wind]] on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] was blowing from west to east,<ref>{{Cite book
| author=Lockwood, John C. |editor1=Hewitt, C. N. |editor2=Jackson, A. V. | year=2003 | chapter=Chapter 3. The Earth's Climates
| author=Lockwood, John C. |editor1=Hewitt, C. N. |editor2=Jackson, A. V. | year=2003 | chapter=Chapter 3. The Earth's Climates
| title=Handbook of Atmospheric Science: Principles and Applications
| title=Handbook of Atmospheric Science: Principles and Applications
| publisher=Blackwell Publishing
| publisher=Blackwell Publishing
| pages=72–74 | isbn=0-632-05286-4 }}</ref> which meant the British more frequently had favourable conditions for a gas release than did the Germans.
| pages=72–74 | isbn=0-632-05286-4 }}</ref> which meant the Allies more frequently had favourable conditions for a gas release than did the Germans.


When the United States entered the war, it was already mobilizing resources from academic, industry and military sectors for research and development into poison gas. A Subcommittee on Noxious Gases was created by the National Research Committee, a major research centre was established at [[Camp American University]], and the 1st Gas Regiment was recruited.<ref name="Gross"/> The 1st Gas Regiment eventually served in France, where it used phosgene gas in several attacks.<ref name="Addison">{{cite book|last1=Addison|first1=James Thayer|title=The story of the First gas regiment|date=1919|publisher=Houghton Mifflin company|location=Boston and New York|url=https://archive.org/details/storyoffirstgasr01addi|pages=50, 146, 158, 168|accessdate=14 April 2017}}</ref><ref name="Gross"/> The Artillery used mustard gas with significant effect during the [[Meuse-Argonne Offensive|Meuse Argonne Offensive]] on at least three occasions.<ref>Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1919, pages 4386-87</ref> The United States began large-scale production of an improved vesicant gas known as [[Lewisite]], for use in an offensive planned for early 1919. By the time of the [[First Armistice at Compiègne|armistice on 11 November]], a plant near [[Willoughby, Ohio]] was producing 10 tons per day of the substance, for a total of about 150 tons. It is uncertain what effect this new chemical would have had on the battlefield, as it degrades in moist conditions.<ref>{{cite book
When the United States entered the war, it was already mobilizing resources from academic, industry and military sectors for research and development into poison gas. A Subcommittee on Noxious Gases was created by the National Research Committee, a major research centre was established at [[Camp American University]], and the 1st Gas Regiment was recruited.<ref name="Gross" /> The 1st Gas Regiment eventually served in France, where it used phosgene gas in several attacks.<ref name="Addison">{{cite book |last1=Addison |first1=James Thayer |title=The Story of the First Gas Regiment |date=1919 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company |location=Boston and New York |url=https://archive.org/details/storyoffirstgasr01addi |pages=[https://archive.org/details/storyoffirstgasr01addi/page/50 50], 146, 158, 168|access-date=14 April 2017}}</ref><ref name="Gross" /> The Artillery used mustard gas with significant effect during the [[Meuse-Argonne Offensive]] on at least three occasions.<ref>''Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1919'', pp. 4386–4387</ref> The United States began large-scale production of an improved vesicant gas known as [[Lewisite]], for use in an offensive planned for early 1919. By the time of the [[First Armistice at Compiègne|armistice on 11 November]], a plant near [[Willoughby, Ohio]] was producing 10 tons per day of the substance, for a total of about 150 tons. It is uncertain what effect this new chemical would have had on the battlefield, as it degrades in moist conditions.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents, Second Edition
|title=Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents, Second Edition
|author=D. Hank Ellison
|author=D. Hank Ellison
|date=24 August 2007
|date=2007
|page=456
|page=456
|publisher=[[CRC Press]]
|publisher=[[CRC Press]]
|isbn=0-8493-1434-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
|isbn=978-0-8493-1434-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
|last=Hershberg
|last=Hershberg
|first=James G.
|first=James G.
|title=James B. Conant : Harvard to Hiroshima and the making of the nuclear age
|title=James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age
|year=1993|publisher=Stanford University Press
|year=1993 |publisher=Stanford University Press
|location=Stanford, Cal.
|location=Stanford, CA
|isbn=0-8047-2619-1
|isbn=0-8047-2619-1
|page=47}}</ref>
|page=47}}</ref>


===Post-war===
== Post-war ==
By the end of the war, chemical weapons had lost much of their effectiveness against well trained and equipped troops. At that time, chemical weapon agents inflicted an estimated 1.3 million casualties.<ref>Schneider, Barry R. (28 February 1999). ''Future War and Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC''. Praeger, p. 84; {{ISBN|0-275-96278-4}}</ref>
By the end of the war, chemical weapons had lost much of their effectiveness against well trained and equipped troops. By that time, chemical weapon agents had inflicted an estimated 1.3 million casualties.<ref>Schneider, Barry R. (1999). ''Future War and Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC''. Praeger. p. 84. {{ISBN|0-275-96278-4}}.</ref>


Nevertheless, in the following years, chemical weapons were used in several, mainly colonial, wars where one side had an advantage in equipment over the other. The British used poison gas, possibly [[adamsite]], against [[Russian Civil War|Russian revolutionary]] troops beginning on 27 August 1919<ref name="Churchill">{{cite news|title=Winston Churchill's shocking use of chemical weapons|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weapons|accessdate=17 April 2017|work=The Guardian|date=1 September 2013}}</ref> and [[Alleged British use of gas in Mesopotamia in 1920|contemplated using]] chemical weapons against Iraqi insurgents in the 1920s; Bolshevik troops used poison gas to suppress the [[Tambov Rebellion]] in 1920, Spain used chemical weapons in Morocco against [[Rif]] tribesmen throughout the 1920s<ref name="HD.shtml">{{cite web|year=2005 |url=http://www.cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Blister/HD.shtml |title=Blister Agent: Sulfur Mustard (H, HD, HS) |publisher=CBWInfo |accessdate=30 July 2007 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070724063602/http://www.cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Blister/HD.shtml |archivedate=24 July 2007 |df= }}</ref> and Italy used mustard gas in Libya in 1930 and again during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1936.<ref name="rosenheck03">{{cite news |first=Dan |last=Rosenheck |title=WMDs: the biggest lie of all |work=New Statesman |date=25 August 2003 |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200308250011 |accessdate=30 July 2007}}</ref> In 1925, a Chinese [[warlord]], [[Zhang Zuolin]], contracted a German company to build him a mustard gas plant in [[Shenyang]],<ref name="HD.shtml" /> which was completed in 1927.
Nevertheless, in the following years, chemical weapons were used in several, mainly colonial, wars where one side had an advantage in equipment over the other. The British used poison gas, possibly [[adamsite]], against [[Russian Civil War|Russian revolutionary]] troops beginning on 27 August 1919<ref name="Churchill">{{cite news|title=Winston Churchill's shocking use of chemical weapons|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weapons|access-date=17 April 2017|work=The Guardian|date=1 September 2013}}</ref> and [[Alleged British use of gas in Mesopotamia in 1920|contemplated using]] chemical weapons against Iraqi insurgents in the 1920s; Bolshevik troops used poison gas to suppress the [[Tambov Rebellion]] in 1920, Spain used chemical weapons in Morocco against [[Rif]] tribesmen throughout the 1920s<ref name="HD.shtml">{{cite web|year=2005 |url=http://www.cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Blister/HD.shtml |title=Blister Agent: Sulfur Mustard (H, HD, HS) |publisher=CBWInfo |access-date=30 July 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070724063602/http://www.cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Blister/HD.shtml |archive-date=24 July 2007 }}</ref> and Italy used mustard gas in Libya in 1930 and again during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1936.<ref name="rosenheck03">{{cite news |first=Dan |last=Rosenheck |title=WMDs: the biggest lie of all |work=New Statesman |date=25 August 2003 |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200308250011 |access-date=30 July 2007}}</ref> In 1925, a Chinese [[warlord]], [[Zhang Zuolin]], contracted a German company to build him a mustard gas plant in [[Shenyang]],<ref name="HD.shtml" /> which was completed in 1927.


Public opinion had by then turned against the use of such weapons which led to the [[Geneva Protocol]], an updated and extensive prohibition of poison weapons. The Protocol, which was signed by most First World War combatants in 1925, bans the use (but not the stockpiling) of lethal gas and bacteriological weapons. Most countries that signed ratified it within around five years; a few took much longer – Brazil, Japan, Uruguay, and the United States did not do so until the 1970s, and Nicaragua ratified it in 1990.<ref>{{cite web |year=2005 |url=http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/cbw_research_doc/cbw_historical/cbw-hist-geneva-parties.html|title=High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Protocol |publisher=Stockholm International Peace Research Institute |accessdate=30 July 2007 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711062700/http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/cbw_research_doc/cbw_historical/cbw-hist-geneva-parties.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archivedate=11 July 2007}}</ref> The signatory nations agreed not to use poison gas in the future, stating "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world."<ref>{{cite web |author=Third Geneva Convention |date=17 June 1925 |url=http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1918p/bactpois.html |title=Text of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention |publisher=Brigham Young University |accessdate=4 August 2007}}</ref>
Public opinion had by then turned against the use of such weapons which led to the [[Geneva Protocol]], an updated and extensive prohibition of poison weapons. The Protocol, which was signed by most First World War combatants in 1925, bans the use (but not the stockpiling or production) of lethal gas and bacteriological weapons among signatories in international armed conflicts.<ref name="GP">{{cite web|url=https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/protocol-prohibition-use-war-asphyxiating-poisonous-or-other-gasses-and-bacteriological-methods-warfare-geneva-protocol|title=Geneva Protocol: Protocol For the Prohibition of the Use In War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases, And of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (Geneva Protocol)|publisher=[[Nuclear Threat Initiative]]}}</ref> Most countries that signed ratified it within around five years; a few took much longer—Brazil, Japan, Uruguay, and the United States did not do so until the 1970s, and Nicaragua ratified it in 1990.<ref>{{cite web |year=2005 |url=http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/cbw_research_doc/cbw_historical/cbw-hist-geneva-parties.html|title=High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Protocol |publisher=Stockholm International Peace Research Institute |access-date=30 July 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711062700/http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/cbw_research_doc/cbw_historical/cbw-hist-geneva-parties.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=11 July 2007}}</ref> The signatory nations agreed not to use poison gas against each other in the future, both stating "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world" and "the High Contracting Parties ... agree to be bound ''as between themselves'' according to the terms of this declaration."<ref>{{cite web |author=Third Geneva Convention |date=17 June 1925 |url=http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1918p/bactpois.html |title=Text of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention |publisher=Brigham Young University |access-date=4 August 2007}}</ref>


Chemical weapons have been used in at least a dozen wars since the end of the First World War;<ref name="rosenheck03" /> they were not used in combat on a large scale until Iraq used mustard gas and the more deadly nerve agents in the [[Halabja chemical attack]] near the end of the 8-year [[Iran–Iraq War]]. The full conflict's use of such weaponry killed around 20,000 Iranian troops (and injured another 80,000), around a quarter of the number of deaths caused by chemical weapons during the First World War.<ref>{{cite news |first=Farnaz |last=Fassihi |date=27 October 2002 |title=In Iran, grim reminders of Saddam's arsenal |work=The Star-Ledger |url=http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?/specialprojects/mideaststories/me1209.html |accessdate=30 July 2007}}</ref>
Chemical weapons have been used in at least a dozen wars since the end of the First World War;<ref name="rosenheck03" /> they were not used in combat on a large scale until Iraq used mustard gas and the more deadly nerve agents in the [[Halabja chemical attack]] near the end of the eight-year [[Iran–Iraq War]]. The full conflict's use of such weaponry killed around 20,000 Iranian troops (and injured another 80,000), around a quarter of the number of deaths caused by chemical weapons during the First World War.<ref>{{cite news |first=Farnaz |last=Fassihi |date=27 October 2002 |title=In Iran, grim reminders of Saddam's arsenal |work=The Star-Ledger |url=http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?/specialprojects/mideaststories/me1209.html |access-date=30 July 2007 |archive-date=13 December 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213061050/http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?%2Fspecialprojects%2Fmideaststories%2Fme1209.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>


====Effect on World War II====
=== The Geneva Protocol, 1925 ===
[[File:Soviet chemical weapons canisters from a stockpile in Albania.jpg|thumb|Chemical weapons canister and stockpile.<ref>{{Cite web |title=File:Soviet chemical weapons canisters from a stockpile in Albania.jpg - Wikipedia |date=30 November 2006 |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soviet_chemical_weapons_canisters_from_a_stockpile_in_Albania.jpg |access-date=2022-08-02 |publisher=commons.wikimedia.org |language=en}}</ref>]]
All major combatants stockpiled chemical weapons during the [[Second World War]], but the only reports of its use in the conflict were the Japanese use of relatively small amounts of mustard gas and [[lewisite]] in China,<ref>{{cite web |year=2003 |url=http://co.pinal.az.us/PubHealth/BDPR/history/history_b.asp |title=History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: 1901–1939 A.D |publisher=Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response, Pinal County |accessdate=30 July 2007 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014111921/http://co.pinal.az.us/PubHealth/BDPR/history/history_b.asp |archivedate=14 October 2007 |df= }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0208/timeline.chemical.weapons/content.3.html |title=1930s |publisher=CNN|accessdate=30 July 2007 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071123153113/http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0208/timeline.chemical.weapons/content.3.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archivedate=23 November 2007}}</ref> Italy's use of gas in Ethiopia (in what is more often considered to be the [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War]]), and very rare occurrences in Europe (for example some mustard gas bombs were dropped on Warsaw on 3 September 1939, which Germany acknowledged in 1942 but indicated had been accidental).<ref name="HD.shtml" /> Mustard gas was the agent of choice, with the British stockpiling 40,719 tons, the Soviets 77,400 tons, the Americans over 87,000 tons and the Germans 27,597 tons.<ref name="HD.shtml" /> The destruction of an American cargo ship containing mustard gas led to many [[Air Raid on Bari|casualties in Bari, Italy]], in December 1943.


The [[Geneva Protocol]], signed by 132 nations on June 17, 1925, was a treaty established to ban the use of chemical and biological weapons among signatories in international armed conflicts.<ref name="GP"/> As stated by Coupland and Leins, "it was fostered in part by a 1918 appeal in which the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) described the use of poisonous gas against soldiers as a barbarous invention which science is bringing to perfection".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Robin Coupland |first=Kobi-Renée Leins |date=2005-07-20 |title=Science and Prohibited Weapons – ICRC |url=https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/weapons-biotechnology-200705.htm |access-date=2022-08-01 |website=Science Magazine |language=en-us}}</ref> Chemical warfare agents that contained bromine, nitroaromatic, and chlorine were dismantled and destroyed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haas |first=Rainer |date=1999-03-01 |title=Destruction of chemical weapons – Technologies and practical aspects |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02987115 |journal=Environmental Science and Pollution Research |language=en |volume=6 |issue=1 |page=19 |doi=10.1007/BF02987115 |pmid=19005858 |bibcode=1999ESPR....6...19H |s2cid=185978 |issn=1614-7499}}</ref> The destruction and disposal of the chemicals did not consider the long-term and adverse impacts on the environment.
In both Axis and Allied nations, children in school were taught to wear gas masks in case of gas attack. Germany developed the poison gases [[tabun (nerve agent)|tabun]], [[sarin]], and [[soman]] during the war, and used [[Zyklon B]] in their [[extermination camp]]s. Neither Germany nor the Allied nations used any of their war gases in combat, despite maintaining large stockpiles and occasional calls for their use.<ref group="nb">The US reportedly had about 135,000 tons of chemical warfare agents during WW II; Germany had 70,000 tons, Britain 40,000 and Japan 7,500 tons. The German [[nerve gas]]es were deadlier than the old-style suffocants (chlorine, phosgene) and blistering agents (mustard gas) in Allied stockpiles. [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]], and several American Generals reportedly called for their use against Germany and Japan, respectively (Weber, 1985).</ref> Poison gas played an important [[Gas chamber#Nazi Germany|role in the Holocaust]].


The Protocol does not ban the stockpilling or production of chemical weapons<ref>{{Cite web |title=Arms Control and Disarmament |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/disarmament |access-date=2022-08-01 |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia}}</ref> as well as the use of such weaponry against non-ratifying states and in internal disturbances or conflicts, and permits reservations that allow signatories to adopt the policy of [[no first use]].<ref name="GP"/> As a result, the [[Chemical Weapons Convention]] (CWC) was drafted in 1993, which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. Despite there being an international ban on chemical warfare, the CWC "allows domestic law enforcement agencies of the signing countries to use chemical weapons on their citizens".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chen |first=Alexandra |date=2022-01-19 |title=Chemical Weapons and their Unforeseen Impact on Health and the Environment |url=https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjteil/vol12/iss1/1 |journal=Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law |volume=12 |issue=1}}</ref>
Britain made plans to use mustard gas on the landing beaches in the event of an [[Operation Sea Lion|invasion of the United Kingdom]] in 1940.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/sixty-secret-mustard-gas-sites-uncovered-1335343.html|title=Sixty secret mustard gas sites uncovered|accessdate=18 August 2013 |location=London|work=The Independent|first=Christopher|last=Bellamy|date=4 June 1996}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.britarch.ac.uk/projects/dob/crom2b.html|title=Chemical Weapons against Invasion |publisher=Council for British Archaeology |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070709113825/http://www.britarch.ac.uk/projects/dob/crom2b.html| archivedate=9 July 2007 |accessdate=30 July 2007}}</ref> The United States considered using gas to support their [[Operation Downfall|planned invasion of Japan]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Barton J. |last=Bernstein |date=August–September 1985 |title=Why We Didn't Use Poison Gas in World War II |journal=American Heritage |volume=36 |issue=5 |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/5/1985_5_40.shtml |accessdate=29 April 2009 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929120950/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/5/1985_5_40.shtml |archivedate=29 September 2007 |df= }}</ref>

=== Effect on World War II ===
All major combatants stockpiled chemical weapons during the [[Second World War]], but the only reports of its use in the conflict were the Japanese use of relatively small amounts of mustard gas and [[lewisite]] in China,<ref>{{cite web |year=2003 |url=http://co.pinal.az.us/PubHealth/BDPR/history/history_b.asp |title=History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: 1901–1939 A.D |publisher=Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response, Pinal County |access-date=30 July 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014111921/http://co.pinal.az.us/PubHealth/BDPR/history/history_b.asp |archive-date=14 October 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0208/timeline.chemical.weapons/content.3.html |title=1930s |publisher=CNN |access-date=30 July 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071123153113/http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0208/timeline.chemical.weapons/content.3.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=23 November 2007}}</ref> Italy's use of gas in Ethiopia (in what is more often considered to be the [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War]]), and very rare occurrences in Europe (for example some mustard gas bombs were dropped on Warsaw on 3 September 1939, which Germany acknowledged in 1942 but indicated had been accidental).<ref name="HD.shtml" /> Mustard gas was the agent of choice, with the British stockpiling 40,719 tons, the Soviets 77,400 tons, the Americans over 87,000 tons and the Germans 27,597 tons.<ref name="HD.shtml" /> The destruction of an American cargo ship containing mustard gas led to many [[Air Raid on Bari|casualties in Bari, Italy]], in December 1943.

In both Axis and Allied nations, children in school were taught to wear gas masks in case of gas attack. Germany developed the poison gases [[tabun (nerve agent)|tabun]], [[sarin]], and [[soman]] during the war, and used [[Zyklon B]] in their [[extermination camp]]s. Neither Germany nor the Allied nations used any of their war gases in combat, despite maintaining large stockpiles and occasional calls for their use.<ref group="nb">The US reportedly had about 135,000 tons of chemical warfare agents during WW II; Germany had 70,000 tons, Britain 40,000 and Japan 7,500 tons. The German [[nerve gas]]es were deadlier than the old-style suffocants (chlorine, phosgene) and blistering agents (mustard gas) in Allied stockpiles. [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] and several American generals reportedly called for their use against Germany and Japan, respectively (Weber, 1985).{{Full citation needed|date=March 2023}}</ref> Poison gas played an important [[Gas chamber#Germany|role in the Holocaust]].

Britain made plans to use mustard gas on the landing beaches in the event of an [[Operation Sea Lion|invasion of the United Kingdom]] in 1940.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/sixty-secret-mustard-gas-sites-uncovered-1335343.html |title=Sixty secret mustard gas sites uncovered |access-date=18 August 2013 |location=London |work=The Independent |first=Christopher |last=Bellamy |date=4 June 1996}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.britarch.ac.uk/projects/dob/crom2b.html|title=Chemical Weapons against Invasion |publisher=Council for British Archaeology |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070709113825/http://www.britarch.ac.uk/projects/dob/crom2b.html| archive-date=9 July 2007 |access-date=30 July 2007}}</ref> The United States considered using gas to support their [[Operation Downfall|planned invasion of Japan]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Barton J. |last=Bernstein |date=August–September 1985 |title=Why We Didn't Use Poison Gas in World War II |journal=American Heritage |volume=36 |issue=5 |pages=40–45 |pmid=11616497 |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/5/1985_5_40.shtml |access-date=29 April 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929120950/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/5/1985_5_40.shtml |archive-date=29 September 2007 }}</ref>


==Casualties==
==Casualties==
[[File:Sargent, John Singer (RA) - Gassed - Google Art Project.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.3|[[John Singer Sargent]]'s 1918 painting ''[[Gassed (painting)|Gassed]]'']]
The contribution of gas weapons to the total casualty figures was relatively minor. British figures, which were accurately maintained from 1916, recorded that 3% of gas casualties were fatal, 2% were permanently invalid and 70% were fit for duty again within six weeks.{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}}

A range of authors have attempted to estimate the casualties from chemical weapons in WWI. This is hampered by incomplete data. British casualties were best recorded, while estimates of gas casualties amongst Russians on the Eastern front have been described as "pure guesswork", a major issue as it is often claimed that a large proportion of casualties occurred there. A commonly used estimate claims 90,000 fatalities and 1.3 million casualties. Of this, 26,600 deaths and 652,000 casualties come from the UK, France, Germany and the US where more dependable data exists. Of the rest, historian L. F. Haber suggests the usual estimates are likely too high, but concedes "we shall never know".{{sfn|Haber|2002|pp=239-245}}

It is generally agreed that the contribution of gas weapons to the total casualty figures was relatively minor. British figures, which were accurately maintained from 1916, recorded that 3% of gas casualties were fatal, 2% were permanently invalid and 70% were fit for duty again within six weeks.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Medical aspects of biological warfare|last=Dembek|first=Z. F.|publisher=Borden Institute, Walter Reed Army Medical Center|year=2007|isbn=978-0160797316|location=Washington, DC|pages=300–301}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|It was remarked as a joke that if someone yelled 'Gas', everyone in France would put on a mask.&nbsp;... Gas shock was as frequent as [[shell shock]].|H. Allen, ''Towards the Flame'', 1934}}


{{Poem quote|
{{Quote|It was remarked as a joke that if someone yelled 'Gas', everyone in France would put on a mask.&nbsp;... Gas shock was as frequent as [[shell shock]].|H. Allen, ''Towards the Flame'', 1934}}
[[File:Sargent, John Singer (RA) - Gassed - Google Art Project.jpg|right|thumb|[[John Singer Sargent]]'s 1918 painting ''[[Gassed (painting)|Gassed]]'']]
{{Quote|<poem>
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
Line 268: Line 285:
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
</poem>
|[[Wilfred Owen]], "[[Dulce et Decorum est]]", 1917}}
|[[Wilfred Owen]], "[[Dulce et Decorum est]]", 1917}}


Line 280: Line 296:


{| class="wikitable floatright"
{| class="wikitable floatright"
|+Estimated gas casualties<ref name="duffy2000" />
|+Estimated gas casualties<ref name="duffy2000" />{{sfn|Haber|2002|pp=239-245}}
|-
|-
! Nation
! Nation
Line 286: Line 302:
! Total <br>(Fatal & non-fatal)
! Total <br>(Fatal & non-fatal)
|-
|-
| '''More reliable data:'''
| [[Russian Empire|Russia]]
|align=right| 56,000
|align=right| 419,340
|-
|-
| Germany
| Germany
|align=right| 9,000
| align="right" | 9,000
|align=right| 200,000
| align="right" | 200,000
|-
|-
| France
| France
|align=right| 8,000
| align="right" | 8,000
|align=right| 190,000
| align="right" | 190,000
|-
|-
| [[British Empire]] <br>(includes Canada)
| [[British Empire]] <br>(includes Canada)
|align=right| 8,109
| align="right" | 8,109
|align=right| 188,706
| align="right" | 188,706
|-
| [[Austria-Hungary]]
|align=right| 3,000
|align=right| 100,000
|-
|-
| United States
| United States
|align=right| 1,462
| align="right" | 1,462
|align=right| 72,807
| align="right" | 72,807
|-
| '''Less reliable data:'''
|-
| [[Russian Empire|Russia]]
| align="right" | 56,000
| align="right" | 419,340
|-
| [[Austria-Hungary]]
| align="right" | 3,000
| align="right" | 100,000
|-
|-
| Italy
| Italy
|align=right| 4,627
| align="right" | 4,627
|align=right| 60,000
| align="right" | 60,000
|-
|-
| Total
| Others
|align=right| 90,198
| align="right" | 1,000
|align=right| 1,230,853
| align="right" | 10,000
|}
|}


Mustard gas was a source of extreme dread. In ''The Anatomy of Courage'' (1945), [[Charles McMoran Wilson, 1st Baron Moran|Lord Moran]], who had been a medical officer during the war, wrote:
Mustard gas was a source of extreme dread. In ''The Anatomy of Courage'' (1945), [[Charles McMoran Wilson, 1st Baron Moran|Lord Moran]], who had been a medical officer during the war, wrote:

{{quote|After July 1917 gas partly usurped the role of high explosive in bringing to head a natural unfitness for war. The gassed men were an expression of trench fatigue, a menace when the manhood of the nation had been picked over.<ref>{{Cite book
{{Blockquote|After July 1917 gas partly usurped the role of high explosive in bringing to head a natural unfitness for war. The gassed men were an expression of trench fatigue, a menace when the manhood of the nation had been picked over.<ref>{{Cite book
| author=Wilson, Charles McMoran (Lord Moran)
| author=Wilson, Charles McMoran (Lord Moran)
| authorlink=Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran
| author-link=Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran
| year=1945 | title=The Anatomy of Courage
| year=1945 | title=The Anatomy of Courage
| edition=1st | publisher=Constable
| edition=1st | publisher=Constable
| location=London }}</ref>}}
| location=London }}</ref>}}


Mustard gas did not need to be inhaled to be effective — any contact with skin was sufficient. Exposure to 0.1 [[parts per million|ppm]] was enough to cause massive [[blister]]s. Higher concentrations could burn flesh to the bone. It was particularly effective against the soft skin of the eyes, nose, armpits and groin, since it dissolved in the natural moisture of those areas. Typical exposure would result in swelling of the [[conjunctiva]] and eyelids, forcing them closed and rendering the victim temporarily blind. Where it contacted the skin, moist red patches would immediately appear which after 24 hours would have formed into blisters. Other symptoms included severe headache, elevated pulse and temperature (fever), and [[pneumonia]] (from blistering in the lungs).
Mustard gas did not need to be inhaled to be effective—any contact with skin was sufficient. Exposure to 0.1 [[parts per million|ppm]] was enough to cause massive [[blister]]s. Higher concentrations could burn flesh to the bone. It was particularly effective against the soft skin of the eyes, nose, armpits and groin, since it dissolved in the natural moisture of those areas. Typical exposure would result in swelling of the [[conjunctiva]] and eyelids, forcing them closed and rendering the victim temporarily blind. Where it contacted the skin, moist red patches would immediately appear which after 24 hours would have formed into blisters. Other symptoms included severe headache, elevated pulse and temperature (fever), and [[pneumonia]] (from blistering in the lungs).


Many of those who survived a gas attack were scarred for life. Respiratory disease and failing eyesight were common post-war afflictions. Of the Canadians who, without any effective protection, had withstood the first chlorine attacks during Second Ypres, 60% of the casualties had to be repatriated and half of these were still unfit by the end of the war, over three years later.
Many of those who survived a gas attack were scarred for life. Respiratory disease and failing eyesight were common post-war afflictions. Of the Canadians who, without any effective protection, had withstood the first chlorine attacks during Second Ypres, 60% of the casualties had to be repatriated and half of these were still unfit by the end of the war, over three years later.
Line 333: Line 354:
Many of those who were fairly soon recorded as fit for service were left with scar tissue in their lungs. This tissue was susceptible to [[tuberculosis]] attack. It was from this that many of the 1918 casualties died, around the time of the Second World War, shortly before [[Sulfonamide (medicine)|sulfa drugs]] became widely available for its treatment.
Many of those who were fairly soon recorded as fit for service were left with scar tissue in their lungs. This tissue was susceptible to [[tuberculosis]] attack. It was from this that many of the 1918 casualties died, around the time of the Second World War, shortly before [[Sulfonamide (medicine)|sulfa drugs]] became widely available for its treatment.


===British casualties===
===British testimony===
{| class="wikitable floatright"
{| class="wikitable floatright"
|+ British forces gas casualties on the [[Western Front (WWI)|Western Front]]{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}
|+ British forces gas casualties on the [[Western Front (WWI)|Western Front]]{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}
Line 344: Line 365:
! Non-fatal
! Non-fatal
|-
|-
| April – <br>May 1915
| April–May 1915
| [[Chlorine]]
| [[Chlorine]]
|align=right| 350
| align="right" | 350
|align=right| 7,000
| align="right" | 7,000
|-
|-
| May 1915 – <br>June 1916
| May 1915 – June 1916
| [[Tear gas|Lachrymants]]
| [[Tear gas|Lachrymants]]
|align=right| 0
| align="right" | 0
|align=right| 0
| align="right" | 0
|-
|-
| December 1915 – <br>August 1916
| December 1915 – August 1916
| Chlorine
| Chlorine
|align=right| 1,013
| align="right" | 1,013
|align=right| 4,207
| align="right" | 4,207
|-
|-
| July 1916 – <br>July 1917
| July 1916 – July 1917
| Various
| Various
|align=right| 532
| align="right" | 532
|align=right| 8,806
| align="right" | 8,806
|-
|-
| July 1917 – <br>November 1918
| July 1917 – November 1918
| [[Mustard gas]]
| [[Mustard gas]]
|align=right| 4,086
| align="right" | 4,086
|align=right| 160,526
| align="right" | 160,526
|-
|-
| April 1915 – <br>November 1918
| April 1915 – November 1918
| Total
| Total
|align=right| 5,981
| align="right" | 5,981
|align=right| 180,539
| align="right" | 180,539
|}
|}


A British nurse treating mustard gas cases recorded:
A British nurse treating mustard gas cases recorded:


{{Quote|They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with a tent of propped-up sheets. Gas burns must be agonizing because usually the other cases do not complain even with the worst wounds but gas cases are invariably beyond endurance and they cannot help crying out.<ref>{{Cite book
{{Blockquote|They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with a tent of propped-up sheets. Gas burns must be agonizing because usually the other cases do not complain even with the worst wounds but gas cases are invariably beyond endurance and they cannot help crying out.<ref>{{Cite book
| first=Tim | last=Cook | year=1999
| first=Tim | last=Cook | year=1999
| title=No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War
| title=No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War
Line 384: Line 405:
A [[postmortem]] account from the British official medical history records one of the British casualties:
A [[postmortem]] account from the British official medical history records one of the British casualties:


:Case four. Aged 39 years. Gassed 29 July 1917. Admitted to casualty clearing station the same day. Died about ten days later. Brownish pigmentation present over large surfaces of the body. A white ring of skin where the wrist watch was. Marked superficial burning of the face and [[scrotum]]. The [[larynx]] much congested. The whole of the [[vertebrate trachea|trachea]] was covered by a yellow membrane. The [[bronchi]] contained abundant gas. The lungs fairly voluminous. The right lung showing extensive collapse at the base. Liver congested and fatty. Stomach showed numerous submucous haemorrhages. The brain substance was unduly wet and very congested.<ref>{{Cite book
<blockquote>Case four. Aged 39 years. Gassed 29 July 1917. Admitted to casualty clearing station the same day. Died about ten days later. Brownish pigmentation present over large surfaces of the body. A white ring of skin where the wrist watch was. Marked superficial burning of the face and [[scrotum]]. The [[larynx]] much congested. The whole of the [[vertebrate trachea|trachea]] was covered by a yellow membrane. The [[bronchi]] contained abundant gas. The lungs fairly voluminous. The right lung showing extensive collapse at the base. Liver congested and fatty. Stomach showed numerous submucous haemorrhages. The brain substance was unduly wet and very congested.<ref>{{Cite book |first1=T |last1=Harris |first2=J. |last2=Paxman |year=2002 |title=A higher form of killing: the secret history of chemical and biological warfare |publisher=Random House, Inc |isbn=0-8129-6653-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780812966534 }}</ref></blockquote>
| first1=T |last1=Harris |first2=J. |last2=Paxman | year=2002
| title=A higher form of killing: the secret history of chemical and biological warfare
| publisher=Random House, Inc| isbn=0-8129-6653-8 }}</ref>


===Civilian casualties===
===Civilian casualties===
The belligerents avoided deliberate attacks on civilians, but the distribution of gas cloud casualties was not only limited to the front. Nearby towns were at risk from winds blowing the poison gases through, with only the French taking special precautions in planning gas attacks. Later in the war, the British provided warnings and issued civilians working near the front with gas masks, leading to improved preparedness. Eventually, everyone within 8 kilometers of the front was to carry a respirator at all times. Regardless, a significant number would be exposed, with the most serious case in [[Armentières]] where lingering mustard gas residue from heavy German bombardment in July 1917 led to 675 civilian casualties (including 86 killed). Hundreds of shells rained down per minute, and while civilians had shelters and gas masks, the particular dangers of mustard gas was not yet known.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/story/109511|title=Gas Attack|website=Lives of the First World War|author=James Atkinson}}</ref> British and French records list a total of around 1325 civilian casualties, including over a hundred deaths from German gas weapons. This is an underestimate as smaller incidents of exposure have not been recorded, and there is no German record of civilian casualties from Allied weapons. In addition, around 4000 civilians working in chemical weapons production and [[Filling factories in the United Kingdom|shell filling]] in France, Britain and the United States were injured due to accidental exposure. Similar figures for Germany are not available, though it is known that there were a number of deaths. The British did not publicise incidents of civilians being gassed by Germans due to fears about the effect on morale at home.<ref name="Fitzgerald2008"/><ref>{{cite book|title=The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical warfare in the First World War|pages = 248–253|last1 = Haber|first1 = L. F.|year = 2002|isbn=9780191512315 }}</ref>
The distribution of gas cloud casualties was not limited to the front. Nearby towns were at risk from winds blowing the poison gases through. [[Civilians]] rarely had a warning system to alert their neighbours of the danger and often did not have access to effective gas masks. When the gas came to the towns it could easily get into houses through open windows and doors. An estimated 100,000-260,000 civilian casualties were caused by chemical weapons during the conflict and tens of thousands (along with [[military personnel]]) died from scarring of the lungs, skin damage, and cerebral damage in the years after the conflict ended. Many commanders on both sides knew that such weapons would cause major harm to civilians as wind would blow poison gases into nearby civilian towns but nonetheless continued to use them throughout the war. British [[Field marshal (United Kingdom)|Field Marshal]] [[Sir Douglas Haig]] wrote in his diary: "My officers and I were aware that such weapon would cause harm to women and children living in nearby towns, as strong winds were common on the battlefront. However, because the weapon was to be directed against the enemy, none of us were overly concerned at all."<ref>{{cite book |title=The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War |author=L. F. Haber |date=20 February 1986 |pages=106–108 |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |isbn=0-1985-8142-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Dew of Death: The Story of Lewisite, America's World War I Weapon of Mass |author=Joel A. Vilensky |date=20 February 1986 |pages=78–80 |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |isbn=0-2533-4612-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents, Second Edition |author=D. Hank Ellison |date=24 August 2007 |pages=567–570 |publisher=[[CRC Press]] |isbn=0-8493-1434-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World |author=Max Boot |date=16 August 2007 |pages=245–250 |publisher=Gotham |isbn=1-5924-0315-8}}</ref>


==Countermeasures==
==Countermeasures==
None of the First World War's combatants were prepared for the introduction of poison gas as a weapon. Once gas was introduced, development of gas protection began and the process continued for much of the war, producing a series of increasingly effective gas masks.<ref name="Gross" />
[[File:Smelling Case of War Gases, Clifton Park Museum.jpg|thumb|right|A Smelling Case to allow officers to identify the gas by smell and thus act appropriately for protection and treatment]]
None of the First World War's combatants were prepared for the introduction of poison gas as a weapon. Once gas was introduced, development of gas protection began and the process continued for much of the war producing a series of increasingly effective gas masks.<ref name="Gross"/>


Even at Second Ypres, Germany, still unsure of the weapon's effectiveness, only issued breathing masks to the engineers handling the gas. At Ypres a Canadian medical officer, who was also a chemist, quickly identified the gas as chlorine and recommended that the troops urinate on a cloth and hold it over their mouth and nose. The first official equipment issued was similarly crude; a pad of material, usually impregnated with a chemical, tied over the lower face. To protect the eyes from tear gas, soldiers were issued with gas goggles.
Even at Second Ypres, Germany, still unsure of the weapon's effectiveness, only issued breathing masks to the engineers handling the gas. At Ypres a Canadian medical officer, who was also a chemist, quickly identified the gas as chlorine and recommended that the troops urinate on a cloth and hold it over their mouth and nose, urine would be left to sit for a period so that the ammonia would activate, this would neutralize some of the chemicals in the chlorine gas, this action would allow them to delay the German advance at Ypres giving the allies time to reinforce the area when French and other colonial troops had retreated.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://thisiscanadiana.com/blogposts/2018/11/8/canadians-amp-the-poison-gas-of-flanders | title=Canadians & the Poison Gas of Flanders | date=8 November 2018 }}</ref> The first official equipment issued was similarly crude; a pad of material, usually impregnated with a chemical, tied over the lower face. To protect the eyes from tear gas, soldiers were issued with gas goggles.
[[File:Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks.jpg|thumb|left|British [[Vickers machine gun]] crew wearing PH gas helmets with exhaust tubes]]


The next advance was the introduction of the gas helmet — basically a bag placed over the head. The fabric of the bag was impregnated with a chemical to neutralize the gas — the chemical would wash out into the soldier's eyes whenever it rained. Eye-pieces, which were prone to fog up, were initially made from [[talc]]. When going into combat, gas helmets were typically worn rolled up on top of the head, to be pulled down and secured about the neck when the gas alarm was given. The first British version was the [[Hypo helmet]], the fabric of which was soaked in [[Sodium thiosulfate|sodium hyposulfite]] (commonly known as "hypo"). The British P gas helmet, partially effective against phosgene and with which all infantry were equipped with at [[Battle of Loos|Loos]], was impregnated with [[Phenol|sodium phenolate]]. A mouthpiece was added through which the wearer would breathe out to prevent [[carbon dioxide]] build-up. The [[adjutant]] of the 1/23rd Battalion, [[The London Regiment]], recalled his experience of the P helmet at Loos:
The next advance was the introduction of the gas helmet—basically a bag placed over the head. The fabric of the bag was impregnated with a chemical to neutralize the gas—the chemical would wash out into the soldier's eyes whenever it rained. Eye-pieces, which were prone to fog up, were initially made from [[talc]]. When going into combat, gas helmets were typically worn rolled up on top of the head, to be pulled down and secured about the neck when the gas alarm was given. The first British version was the [[hypo helmet]], the fabric of which was soaked in [[Sodium thiosulfate|sodium hyposulfite]] (commonly known as "hypo"). The British P gas helmet, partially effective against phosgene and with which all infantry were equipped with at [[Battle of Loos|Loos]], was impregnated with [[Sodium phenoxide|sodium phenolate]]. A mouthpiece was added through which the wearer would breathe out to prevent [[carbon dioxide]] build-up. The [[adjutant]] of the 1/23rd Battalion, [[London Regiment (1908–1938)|The London Regiment]], recalled his experience of the P helmet at Loos:


{{Quote|The goggles rapidly dimmed over, and the air came through in such suffocatingly small quantities as to demand a continuous exercise of will-power on the part of the wearers.<ref>{{Cite book
{{Blockquote|The goggles rapidly dimmed over, and the air came through in such suffocatingly small quantities as to demand a continuous exercise of will-power on the part of the wearers.<ref>{{Cite book
| author=Warner, Philip
| author=Warner, Philip
| year=2000
| year=2000
| title=The Battle of Loos
| title=The Battle of Loos
| publisher=Wordsworth Editions
| publisher=Wordsworth Editions
| pages=103 | isbn=1-84022-229-8 }}</ref>}}
| page=103 | isbn=1-84022-229-8 }}</ref>}}


A modified version of the P Helmet, called the PH Helmet, was issued in January 1916, and was impregnated with [[hexamethylenetetramine]] to improve the protection against phosgene.<ref name="cbwinfo"/>
A modified version of the P helmet, called the PH helmet, was issued in January 1916, and was impregnated with [[hexamethylenetetramine]] to improve protection against phosgene.<ref name="cbwinfo" />
[[File:Australian infantry small box respirators Ypres 1917.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Australian infantry wearing Small Box Respirators, [[Ypres]], September 1917]]


Self-contained box respirators represented the culmination of gas mask development during the First World War. Box respirators used a two-piece design; a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box [[filter (air)|filter]]. The box filter contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas, delivering clean air to the wearer. Separating the filter from the mask enabled a bulky but efficient filter to be supplied. Nevertheless, the first version, known as the [[Large Box Respirator]] (LBR) or "Harrison's Tower", was deemed too bulky — the box canister needed to be carried on the back. The LBR had no mask, just a mouthpiece and nose clip; separate gas goggles had to be worn. It continued to be issued to the artillery gun crews but the infantry were supplied with the "[[Small Box Respirator]]" (SBR).
Self-contained box respirators represented the culmination of gas mask development during the First World War. Box respirators used a two-piece design; a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box [[filter (air)|filter]]. The box filter contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas, delivering clean air to the wearer. Separating the filter from the mask enabled a bulky but efficient filter to be supplied. Nevertheless, the first version, known as the [[large box respirator]] (LBR) or "Harrison's Tower", was deemed too bulky—the box canister needed to be carried on the back. The LBR had no mask, just a mouthpiece and nose clip; separate gas goggles had to be worn. It continued to be issued to the artillery gun crews but the infantry were supplied with the "[[small box respirator]]" (SBR).


The Small Box Respirator featured a single-piece, close-fitting rubberized mask with eye-pieces. The box filter was compact and could be worn around the neck. The SBR could be readily upgraded as more effective filter technology was developed. The British-designed SBR was also adopted for use by the [[American Expeditionary Force]]. The SBR was the prized possession of the ordinary infantryman; when the British were forced to retreat during the German [[Spring Offensive]] of 1918, it was found that while some troops had discarded their rifles, hardly any had left behind their respirators.
The Small Box Respirator featured a single-piece, close-fitting rubberized mask with eye-pieces. The box filter was compact and could be worn around the neck. The SBR could be readily upgraded as more effective filter technology was developed. The British-designed SBR was also adopted for use by the [[American Expeditionary Force]]. The SBR was the prized possession of the ordinary infantryman; when the British were forced to retreat during the [[German spring offensive]] of 1918, it was found that while some troops had discarded their rifles, hardly any had left behind their respirators.


Horses and mules were important methods of transport that could be endangered if they came into close contact with gas. This was not so much of a problem until it became common to launch gas great distances. This caused researchers to develop masks that could be used on animals such as dogs, horses, mules, and even carrier pigeons.<ref name="Fitzgerald2008">{{cite journal|last=Fitzgerald|first=Gerard|title=Chemical Warfare and Medical Response During World War I|journal=American Journal of Public Health|date=April 2008|volume=98|issue=4|pages=611–625|doi=10.2105/AJPH.2007.11930|pmid=18356568|pmc=2376985}}</ref>
Horses and mules were important methods of transport that could be endangered if they came into close contact with gas. This was not so much of a problem until it became common to launch gas great distances. This caused researchers to develop masks that could be used on animals such as dogs, horses, mules, and even carrier pigeons.<ref name="Fitzgerald2008">{{cite journal |last=Fitzgerald |first=Gerard |title=Chemical Warfare and Medical Response During World War I |journal=American Journal of Public Health |date=April 2008 |volume=98 |issue=4 |pages=611–625 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.2007.11930 |pmid=18356568 |pmc=2376985}}</ref>


For mustard gas, which could cause severe damage by simply making contact with skin, no effective countermeasure was found during the war. The kilt-wearing Scottish regiments were especially vulnerable to mustard gas injuries due to their bare legs. At [[Nieuwpoort, Belgium|Nieuwpoort]] in [[Flanders]] some Scottish battalions took to wearing women's tights beneath the kilt as a form of protection.
For mustard gas, which could cause severe damage by simply making contact with skin, no effective countermeasure was found during the war. The kilt-wearing Scottish regiments were especially vulnerable to mustard gas injuries due to their bare legs. At [[Nieuwpoort, Belgium|Nieuwpoort]] in [[Flanders]] some Scottish battalions took to wearing women's tights beneath the kilt as a form of protection.


[[File:Gas alert Arthur Streeton.jpg|thumb|right|''Gas alert'' by [[Arthur Streeton]], 1918]]
Gas alert procedure became a routine for the front-line soldier. To warn of a gas attack, a bell would be rung, often made from a spent artillery shell. At the noisy [[artillery battery|batteries]] of the siege guns, a compressed air strombus horn was used, which could be heard nine miles (14&nbsp;km) away. Notices would be posted on all approaches to an affected area, warning people to take precautions.
Gas alert procedure became a routine for the front-line soldier. To warn of a gas attack, a bell would be rung, often made from a spent artillery shell. At the noisy [[artillery battery|batteries]] of the siege guns, a compressed air strombus horn was used, which could be heard nine miles (14&nbsp;km) away. Notices would be posted on all approaches to an affected area, warning people to take precautions.


Line 425: Line 439:


The effectiveness of all countermeasures is apparent. In 1915, when poison gas was relatively new, less than 3% of British gas casualties died. In 1916, the proportion of fatalities jumped to 17%. By 1918, the figure was back below 3%, though the total number of British gas casualties was now nine times the 1915 levels.
The effectiveness of all countermeasures is apparent. In 1915, when poison gas was relatively new, less than 3% of British gas casualties died. In 1916, the proportion of fatalities jumped to 17%. By 1918, the figure was back below 3%, though the total number of British gas casualties was now nine times the 1915 levels.

[[File:Various gas masks WWI.jpg|left|thumb|Various gas masks employed on the Western Front during the war]]
<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">
File:Smelling Case of War Gases, Clifton Park Museum.jpg|A smelling case to allow officers to identify the gas by smell and thus act appropriately for protection and treatment
File:Various gas masks WWI.jpg|Various gas masks employed on the Western Front during the war
File:Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks.jpg|British [[Vickers machine gun]] crew wearing PH gas helmets with exhaust tubes
File:Australian infantry small box respirators Ypres 1917.jpg|Australian infantry wearing small box respirators, [[Ypres]], September 1917
File:Gas alert Arthur Streeton.jpg|''Gas Alert'' by [[Arthur Streeton]], 1918
</gallery>


==Delivery systems==
==Delivery systems==
{{unreferenced section|date=January 2012}}
{{unreferenced section|date=January 2012}}
[[File:British gas attack at Montauban June 1916.jpg|thumb|right|upright|A British cylinder release at [[Montauban-de-Picardie|Montauban]] on the [[Somme (river)|Somme]], June 1916 part of the preparation for the [[Battle of the Somme (1916)|Battle of the Somme]].]]
[[File:British gas attack at Montauban June 1916.jpg|thumb|right|upright|A British cylinder release at [[Montauban-de-Picardie|Montauban]] on the [[Somme (river)|Somme]], June 1916 part of the preparation for the [[Battle of the Somme (1916)|Battle of the Somme]].]]


The first system employed for the mass delivery of gas involved releasing the [[gas cylinder]]s in a favourable wind such that it was carried over the enemy's trenches. The Hague Convention of 1899 prohibited the use of poisons gasses delivered by projectiles. The main advantage of this method was that it was relatively simple and, in suitable atmospheric conditions, produced a concentrated cloud capable of overwhelming the gas mask defences. The disadvantages of cylinder releases were numerous. First and foremost, delivery was at the mercy of the wind. If the wind was fickle, as was the case at [[Battle of Loos|Loos]], the gas could backfire, causing friendly casualties. Gas clouds gave plenty of warning, allowing the enemy time to protect themselves, though many soldiers found the sight of a creeping gas cloud unnerving. Gas clouds had limited penetration, only capable of affecting the front-line trenches before dissipating.
The first system employed for the mass delivery of gas involved releasing the [[gas cylinder]]s in a favourable wind such that it was carried over the enemy's trenches. The Hague Convention of 1899 prohibited the use of poison gasses delivered by projectiles. The main advantage of this method was that it was relatively simple and, in suitable atmospheric conditions, produced a concentrated cloud capable of overwhelming the gas mask defences. The disadvantages of cylinder releases were numerous. First and foremost, delivery was at the mercy of the wind. If the wind was fickle, as was the case at [[Battle of Loos|Loos]], the gas could backfire, causing friendly casualties. Gas clouds gave plenty of warning, allowing the enemy time to protect themselves, though many soldiers found the sight of a creeping gas cloud unnerving. Gas clouds had limited penetration, only capable of affecting the front-line trenches before dissipating.


Finally, the cylinders had to be emplaced at the very front of the trench system so that the gas was released directly over no man's land. This meant that the cylinders had to be manhandled through communication trenches, often clogged and sodden, and stored at the front where there was always the risk that cylinders would be prematurely breached during a bombardment. A leaking cylinder could issue a telltale wisp of gas that, if spotted, would be sure to attract shellfire.
Finally, the cylinders had to be emplaced at the very front of the trench system so that the gas was released directly over no man's land. This meant that the cylinders had to be manhandled through communication trenches, often clogged and sodden, and stored at the front where there was always the risk that cylinders would be prematurely breached during a bombardment. A leaking cylinder could issue a telltale wisp of gas that, if spotted, would be sure to attract shellfire.
Line 438: Line 459:
A British chlorine cylinder, known as an "oojah", weighed 190&nbsp;lb (86&nbsp;kg), of which 60&nbsp;lb (27&nbsp;kg) was chlorine gas, and required two men to carry. Phosgene gas was introduced later in a cylinder, known as a "mouse", that weighed 50&nbsp;lb (23&nbsp;kg).
A British chlorine cylinder, known as an "oojah", weighed 190&nbsp;lb (86&nbsp;kg), of which 60&nbsp;lb (27&nbsp;kg) was chlorine gas, and required two men to carry. Phosgene gas was introduced later in a cylinder, known as a "mouse", that weighed 50&nbsp;lb (23&nbsp;kg).


Delivering gas via artillery shell overcame many of the risks of dealing with gas in cylinders. The Germans, for example, used {{convert|5.9|in|mm|adj=on}} artillery shells. Gas shells were independent of the wind and increased the effective range of gas, making anywhere within reach of the guns vulnerable. Gas shells could be delivered without warning, especially the clear, nearly odourless phosgene — there are numerous accounts of gas shells, landing with a "plop" rather than exploding, being initially dismissed as dud [[high explosive|HE]] or [[shrapnel shell]]s, giving the gas time to work before the soldiers were alerted and took precautions.
Delivering gas via artillery shell overcame many of the risks of dealing with gas in cylinders. The Germans, for example, used {{convert|5.9|in|mm|adj=on}} artillery shells. Gas shells were independent of the wind and increased the effective range of gas, making anywhere within reach of the guns vulnerable. Gas shells could be delivered without warning, especially the clear, nearly odourless phosgene—there are numerous accounts of gas shells, landing with a "plop" rather than exploding, being initially dismissed as dud [[high explosive|HE]] or [[shrapnel shell]]s, giving the gas time to work before the soldiers were alerted and took precautions.


[[File:Livens gas projector loading.jpg|thumb|right|Loading a battery of [[Livens gas projector]]s]]
[[File:Livens gas projector loading.jpg|thumb|right|Loading a battery of [[Livens gas projector]]s]]
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==Unexploded weapons==
==Unexploded weapons==
[[File:LivensPhosgeneTank.jpg|left|thumb|Phosgene delivery system unearthed at the Somme, 2006]]
[[File:LivensPhosgeneTank.jpg|left|thumb|Phosgene delivery system unearthed at the Somme, 2006]]
Over {{convert|16000000|acre|km2}} of France had to be [[Zone Rouge|cordoned off]] at the end of the war because of unexploded ordnance. About 20% of the chemical shells were duds, and approximately 13 million of these munitions were left in place. This has been a serious problem in former battle areas from immediately after the end of the War until the present. Shells may be, for instance, uncovered when farmers plough their fields (termed the '[[iron harvest]]'), and are also regularly discovered when public works or construction work is done.<ref>{{Cite book
Over {{convert|16000000|acre|km2}} of France had to be [[Zone Rouge|cordoned off]] at the end of the war because of unexploded ordnance. About 20% of the chemical shells were duds, and approximately 13 million of these munitions were left in place. This has been a serious problem in former battle areas from immediately after the end of the War until the present. Shells may be, for instance, uncovered when farmers plough their fields (termed the '[[iron harvest]]'), and are also regularly discovered when public works or construction work is done.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Eric | last=Croddy | year=2002 | title=Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Comprehensive Survey for the Concerned Citizen | publisher=Springer | isbn=0-387-95076-1 | url=https://archive.org/details/chemicalbiologic00crod }}</ref> After the armistice, people sought unexploded weapons for their metal value, as well as preventing the danger that they posed to civilians. Toxic chemicals were emptied from shells, resulting in many deaths and health defects.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Freemantle |first=Michael |date=2018 |title=The great war clean-up |url=https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/the-great-war-clean-up/3009456.article |access-date= |website=Chemistry World |language=en}}</ref>
| first=Eric | last=Croddy | year=2002
| title=Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Comprehensive Survey for the Concerned Citizen
| publisher=Springer | isbn=0-387-95076-1 }}</ref>


Another difficulty is the current stringency of environmental legislation. In the past, a common method of getting rid of unexploded chemical ammunition was to detonate or dump it at sea; this is currently prohibited in most countries.<ref>{{Cite book
Another difficulty is the current stringency of environmental legislation. In the past, a common method of getting rid of unexploded chemical ammunition was to detonate or dump it at sea; this is currently prohibited in most countries.<ref>{{Cite book
|author1=Bothe, Michael |author2=Ronzitti, Natalino |author3=Rosas, Allan | title=The new Chemical Weapons Convention—implementation and prospects
|author1=Bothe, Michael |author2=Ronzitti, Natalino |author3=Rosas, Allan | title=The new Chemical Weapons Convention – implementation and prospects
| page=208 | publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
| page=208 | publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
| year=1998 | isbn=90-411-1099-2
| year=1998 | isbn=90-411-1099-2
| postscript=<!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. -->{{inconsistent citations}} }}</ref><ref group="nb">See the [[Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping from Ships and Aircraft]] and the [[Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter]].</ref>
}}</ref><ref group="nb">See the [[Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping from Ships and Aircraft]] and the [[Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter]].</ref>


The problems are especially acute in some northern regions of France. The French government no longer disposes of chemical weapons at sea. For this reason, piles of untreated chemical weapons accumulated. In 2001, it became evident that the pile stored at a depot in [[Vimy]] was unsafe; the inhabitants of the neighbouring town were evacuated, and the pile moved, using refrigerated trucks and under heavy guard, to a military camp in [[Suippes]].<ref>{{Cite web
The problems are especially acute in some northern regions of France. The French government no longer disposes of chemical weapons at sea. For this reason, piles of untreated chemical weapons accumulated. In 2001, it became evident that the pile stored at a depot in [[Vimy]] was unsafe; the inhabitants of the neighbouring town were evacuated, and the pile moved, using refrigerated trucks and under heavy guard, to a military camp in [[Suippes]].<ref>{{cite news
| author=J. C. | date=17 April 2001
| author=J. C. | date=17 April 2001
| url=http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2001-04-17/2001-04-17-242951
| url=http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2001-04-17/2001-04-17-242951
| title=Sécurité. Les 55 tonnes d'obus chimiques sont stockées au camp militaire de Suippes
| title=Sécurité. Les 55 tonnes d'obus chimiques sont stockées au camp militaire de Suippes
| publisher=L'Humanité | language=French
| newspaper=L'Humanité | language=fr
| accessdate=30 July 2007 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20060921234358/http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2001-04-17/2001-04-17-242951 <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archivedate = 21 September 2006}}</ref> The capacity of the plant is meant to be 25 tons per year (extensible to 80 tons at the beginning), for a lifetime of 30 years.<ref name="r00-4294.html">{{Cite web
| access-date=30 July 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060921234358/http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2001-04-17/2001-04-17-242951 <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 21 September 2006}}</ref> The capacity of the plant is meant to be 25 tons per year (extensible to 80 tons at the beginning), for a lifetime of 30 years.<ref name="r00-4294.html">{{Cite web
| author=J. C. | date=17 April 2001
| author=J. C. | date=17 April 2001
| url=http://www.senat.fr/rap/r00-429/r00-4294.html
| url=http://www.senat.fr/rap/r00-429/r00-4294.html
| title=Déminage
| title=Déminage
| publisher=Sénat | language=French
| publisher=Sénat | language=fr
| accessdate=30 July 2007 }}</ref>
| access-date=30 July 2007 }}</ref>


Germany has to deal with unexploded ammunition and polluted lands resulting from the explosion of an ammunition train in 1919.<ref name="r00-4294.html"/>
Germany has to deal with unexploded ammunition and polluted lands resulting from the explosion of an ammunition train in 1919.<ref name="r00-4294.html" />


Aside from unexploded shells, there have been claims that poison residues have remained in the local environment for an extended period, though this is unconfirmed; well known but unverified anecdotes claim that as late as the 1960s trees in the area retained enough mustard gas residue to injure farmers or construction workers who were clearing them.<ref>{{Cite news
Aside from unexploded shells, there have been claims that poison residues have remained in the local environment for an extended period, though this is unconfirmed; well known but unverified anecdotes claim that as late as the 1960s trees in the area retained enough mustard gas residue to injure farmers or construction workers who were clearing them.<ref>{{cite news
| first=Malcomb W. | last=Browne | date=22 March 1995
| first=Malcomb W. | last=Browne | date=22 March 1995
| publisher=The New York Times
| newspaper=The New York Times
| title=Terror in Tokyo: The Poison; Sarin Just One of Many Deadly Gases Terrorists Could Use | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/22/world/terror-tokyo-poison-sarin-just-one-many-deadly-gases-terrorists-could-use.html
| title=Terror in Tokyo: The Poison; Sarin Just One of Many Deadly Gases Terrorists Could Use | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/22/world/terror-tokyo-poison-sarin-just-one-many-deadly-gases-terrorists-could-use.html
| accessdate=29 April 2009 }}</ref>
| access-date=29 April 2009 }}</ref>

=== Disposal methods of chemical weapons ===
[[File:First Chemical weapons destroyed at JACADS.jpg|thumb|Chemical munition being destroyed at disposal facility, 1990.<ref>{{Cite web |title=File:First Chemical weapons destroyed at JACADS.jpg - Wikipedia |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Chemical_weapons_destroyed_at_JACADS.jpg |access-date=2022-08-02 |website=commons.wikimedia.org |date=30 June 1990 |language=en}}</ref>]]
After World War I, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and other nations had stockpiles of unfired weapons.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=Thouin |first1=Hugues |last2=Battaglia-Brunet |first2=Fabienne |last3=Norini |first3=Marie-Paule |last4=Le Forestier |first4=Lydie |last5=Charron |first5=Mickael |last6=Dupraz |first6=Sébastien |last7=Gautret |first7=Pascale |date=2018-06-15 |title=Influence of environmental changes on the biogeochemistry of arsenic in a soil polluted by the destruction of chemical weapons: A mesocosm study |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969718301955 |journal=Science of the Total Environment |language=en |volume=627 |pages=216–226 |doi=10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.158 |pmid=29426144 |bibcode=2018ScTEn.627..216T |s2cid=4486803 |issn=0048-9697}}</ref> It has been estimated that 125 million tons of toxic gases were used to manufacture bombs, grenades and shells.<ref name=":02"/> The remaining weapons were destroyed, dismantled, and disposed of in oceans and seas.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last1=Greenberg |first1=M. I. |last2=Sexton |first2=K. J. |last3=Vearrier |first3=D. |date=2016-02-07 |title=Sea-dumped chemical weapons: environmental risk, occupational hazard |url=https://doi.org/10.3109/15563650.2015.1121272 |journal=Clinical Toxicology |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=79–91 |doi=10.3109/15563650.2015.1121272 |issn=1556-3650 |pmid=26692048|s2cid=42603071 }}</ref> It was believed that the chemicals would be diluted when disposed of in the ocean, and therefore ocean and sea dumping was a "safe and convenient" practice.<ref name=":2" /> Hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical agents, such as sulphur mustard, cyanogen chloride and arsine oil, were disposed of at sea.<ref name=":2" /> Chemical weapons have since washed up on shorelines and been found by fishers, causing injuries and, in some cases, death. Other disposal methods included land burials and incineration. After World War 1, "chemical shells made up 35 percent of French and German ammunition supplies, 25 percent British and 20 percent American".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Weapons on Land – Poison Gas |url=https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/battles-and-fighting/weapons-on-land/poison-gas/ |access-date= |website=Canada and the First World War}}</ref> Weapons that contained chemicals such as bromine, chlorine and nitroaromatic were burned. The thermal destruction of chemical weapons negatively impacted the ecological environment of disposal sites.<ref name=":1" /> For example, in Verdun, France, the thermal destruction of weapons "resulted in severe metal contamination of upper 4–10 cm of topsoil" at the Place à Gas disposal site.<ref name=":1" />


==Gases used==
==Gases used==
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
|-
! Name
! Name
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| doi=10.1136/bmj.2.4109.736
| doi=10.1136/bmj.2.4109.736
| issue=4109
| issue=4109
| pmid=20782694}}</ref>
| pmid=20782694| pmc=2177982}}</ref>
| 1915
| 1915
| [[Lachrymatory agent|Lachrymatory]], toxic
| [[Lachrymatory agent|Lachrymatory]], toxic
Line 501: Line 523:
| [[Chlorine]]<ref name="bnyam13">{{Cite journal
| [[Chlorine]]<ref name="bnyam13">{{Cite journal
| first=Adelno | last=Gibson | pages=397–421
| first=Adelno | last=Gibson | pages=397–421
| title=Chemical Warfare as Developed During the World War—Probable Future Development
| title=Chemical Warfare as Developed During the World War – Probable Future Development
| journal=Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
| journal=Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
| volume=13 | issue=7 |date=July 1937
| volume=13 | issue=7 |date=July 1937
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| [[Phosgene]]<ref name="bnyam13" />
| [[Phosgene]]<ref name="bnyam13" />
| 1915
| 1915
| Irritant - Skin and [[mucous membrane]]s. Corrosive, toxic
| Irritant Skin and [[mucous membrane]]s. Corrosive, toxic
| Both
| Both
|-
|-
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| [[Chloromethyl chloroformate]]<ref name="bmj2" />
| [[Chloromethyl chloroformate]]<ref name="bmj2" />
| 1915
| 1915
| Irritant - Eyes, skin, lungs
| Irritant Eyes, skin, lungs
| Both
| Both
|-
|-
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| [[Tin(IV) chloride|Stannic chloride]]<ref name="bmj2" />
| [[Tin(IV) chloride|Stannic chloride]]<ref name="bmj2" />
| 1916
| 1916
| Severe irritant, causes asphyxiating
| Severe irritant, causes asphyxiation
| [[Allies of World War I|Allies]]
| [[Allies of World War I|Allies]]
|-
|-
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| 1916
| 1916
| Lachrymatory, toxic
| Lachrymatory, toxic
| Both
| Central Powers
|-
|-
| [[Hydrogen cyanide]]<ref name="bmj2" /> (Prussic acid)
| [[Hydrogen cyanide]]<ref name="bmj2" /> (Prussic acid)
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| [[Adamsite|Diphenylchloroarsine]]<ref name="bnyam13" /> (Diphenyl chlorasine)
| [[Adamsite|Diphenylchloroarsine]]<ref name="bnyam13" /> (Diphenyl chlorasine)
| 1917
| 1917
| Irritant/[[Sternutation|Sternutatory]] (causes sneezing)
| Irritant/[[Sneeze|Sternutatory]] (causes sneezing)
| Central Powers
| Central Powers
|-
|-
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==Long-term health effects==
==Long-term health effects==
[[File:British 55th Division gas casualties 10 April 1918.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|British troops blinded by poison gas during the [[Battle of Estaires]], 1918]]
Soldiers who claimed to have been exposed to chemical warfare have often presented with unusual medical conditions which has led to much controversy. The lack of information has left doctors, patients, and their families in the dark in terms of prognosis and treatment. Nerve agents such as sarin, tabun, and soman are believed to have the most significant long-term health effects.<ref>Glyn Volans, "Long-term effects of chemical weapons," The Lancet, 360, (December 2002): 36.</ref> Chronic fatigue and memory loss have been reported to last up to three years after exposure. In the years following World War One, there were many conferences held in attempts to abolish the use of chemical weapons all together, such as the [[Washington Naval Conference]] (1921–22), Geneva Conference (1923–25) and the [[World Disarmament Conference]] (1933). The United States was an original signatory of the [[Geneva Protocol]] in 1925, but the [[US Senate]] did not ratify it until 1975.
Soldiers who claimed to have been exposed to chemical warfare often presented unusual medical conditions which has led to much controversy. The lack of information left doctors, patients, and their families in the dark in terms of prognosis and treatment. Nerve agents such as sarin, tabun, and soman are believed to have had the most significant long-term health effects.<ref>Glyn Volans, "Long-term effects of chemical weapons," ''The Lancet'', 360, (December 2002): 36.</ref> Chronic fatigue and memory loss were reported to last up to three years after exposure. In the years following World War One, there were many conferences held in attempts to abolish the use of chemical weapons altogether, such as the [[Washington Naval Conference]] (1921–22), Geneva Conference (1923–25) and the [[World Disarmament Conference]] (1933). The United States was an original signatory of the [[Geneva Protocol]] in 1925, but the [[US Senate]] did not ratify it until 1975.


Although the health effects are generally chronic in nature, the exposures were generally acute. A positive correlation has been proven between exposure to mustard agents and skin cancers, other respiratory and skin conditions, leukemia, several eye conditions, bone marrow depression and subsequent immunosuppression, psychological disorders and sexual dysfunction.<ref>Mary Fox, Frank Curriero, Kathryn Kulbicki, Beth Resnick, Thomas Burke, "Evaluating the Community Health Legacy of WWI Chemical Weapons Testing," Journal of Community Health, 35, (18 November 2009): 96.</ref> Chemicals used in the production of chemical weapons have also left residues in the soil where the weapons were used. The chemicals that have been detected can cause cancer and can affect the brain, blood, liver, kidneys and skin.<ref>Mary Fox, Frank Curriero, Kathryn Kulbicki, Beth Resnick, Thomas Burke, "Evaluating the Community Health Legacy of WWI Chemical Weapons Testing," Journal of Community Health, 35, (18 November 2009): 96-97.</ref>
Although the health effects are generally chronic in nature, the exposures were generally acute. A positive correlation has been proven between exposure to mustard agents and skin cancers, other respiratory and skin conditions, leukemia, several eye conditions, bone marrow depression and subsequent immunosuppression, psychological disorders and sexual dysfunction.<ref>Mary Fox, Frank Curriero, Kathryn Kulbicki, Beth Resnick, Thomas Burke, "Evaluating the Community Health Legacy of WWI Chemical Weapons Testing," ''Journal of Community Health'', 35, (18 November 2009): 96.</ref> Chemicals used in the production of chemical weapons also left residues in the soil where the weapons were used. The chemicals that were detected can cause cancer and can affect the brain, blood, liver, kidneys and skin.<ref>Mary Fox, Frank Curriero, Kathryn Kulbicki, Beth Resnick, Thomas Burke, "Evaluating the Community Health Legacy of WWI Chemical Weapons Testing," ''Journal of Community Health'', 35, (18 November 2009): 96–97.</ref> The development and production of chemical weapons threatened public health and introduced a new set of challenges. Not only did war gasses like mustard and chlorine endanger the lives of soldiers, but also threatened the safety of workers who manufactured them.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fitzgerald |first=G.J. |date=2008 |title=Chemical Warfare and Medical Response During World War I |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/215093954 |journal=American Journal of Public Health |volume=98 |issue=4 |pages=611–625 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.2007.111930 |pmid=18356568 |pmc=2376985 |id={{ProQuest|215093954}}}}</ref>


== Explanatory notes ==
Despite the evidence in support of long-term health effects, there are studies that show just the opposite. Some US veterans who were closely affected by chemical weapons showed no neurological evidence in the following years. These same studies showed that one single contact with chemical weapons would be enough to cause long-term health effects.<ref>James R. Riddle, "Chemical Warfare and the Gulf War: A Review of the Impact on Gulf Veterans' Health," Military Medicine, 168, (August 2003): 607.</ref>
{{Reflist|group=nb}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=nb}}


==References==
==References==
{{reflist|30em}}
{{Reflist|30em}}


==Further reading==
==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
{{Refbegin}}
* Cook, Tim. "‘Against God-Inspired Conscience’: The Perception of Gas Warfare as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, 1915–1939." ''War & Society'' 18.1 (2000): 47-69.
* Dorsey, M. Girard. ''Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II'' (Cornell UP, 2023) [https://books.google.com/books?id=W4KiEAAAQBAJ&dq=mustard+gas+&pg=PR7 online].
* Fitzgerald, Gerard J. "Chemical warfare and medical response during World War I." ''American journal of public health'' 98.4 (2008): 611–625. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:6O5L0KIoCV4J:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,27&scillfp=17145573770559279105&oi=lle online]
* {{Cite book |last=Freemantle |first=M. |title = Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! How Chemistry Changed the First World War |publisher=The History Press |year=2012 |isbn = 978-0-7524-6601-9}}
* Jones, Edgar. "Terror weapons: The British experience of gas and its treatment in the First World War." ''War in History'' 21.3 (2014): 355–375. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5131841/ online]
* {{cite book |series=History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence |title=Medical Services: Diseases of the War: Including the Medical Aspects of Aviation and Gas Warfare and Gas Poisoning in Tanks and Mines |volume=II |last1=MacPherson |first1=W. G. |last2=Herringham |first2=W. P. |last3=Elliott |first3=T. R. |last4=Balfour |first4=A. |year=1923 |publisher=HMSO |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/medicalservicesd02macp |access-date=19 October 2014 |oclc=769752656}}
* Padley, Anthony Paul. "Gas: the greatest terror of the Great War." ''Anaesthesia and intensive care'' 44.1_suppl (2016): 24–30. [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0310057X1604401S05 online]
* {{Cite book
|title=Chemical Soldiers
|first=Donald |last=Richter
|year=1994
|publisher=Leo Cooper
|isbn=0850523885
}}
* Smith, Susan I. ''Toxic Exposures: Mustard Gas and the Health Consequences of World War II in the United States'' (Rutgers University Press, 2017) [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=58530 online book review]


{{Refend}}
*{{cite book |last=Connelly |first=Mark and Stefan Goebel |year=2018 |title=Ypres |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-1987-1337-1 |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ypres-9780198713371?cc=us&lang=en& |ref=harv}} {{OCLC|1081319369}}
* {{Cite book |last=Freemantle |first=M. |title = Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! How Chemistry Changed the First World War |publisher=The History Press |year=2012 |isbn = 978-0-7524-6601-9}}
* {{cite book |series=History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence |title=Medical Services: Diseases of the War: Including the Medical Aspects of Aviation and Gas Warfare and Gas Poisoning in Tanks and Mines |volume=II |last1=MacPherson |first1=W. G. |last2=Herringham |first2=W. P. |last3=Elliott |first3=T. R. |last4=Balfour |first4=A. |authorlink= |year=1923 |publisher=HMSO |location=London |edition= |url=https://archive.org/details/medicalservicesd02macp |accessdate=19 October 2014 |oclc=769752656}}
{{refend}}


==External links==
==External links==
* Faith, Thomas I.: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/gas_warfare Gas Warfare], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Faith, Thomas I.: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/gas_warfare Gas Warfare], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100919085218/http://cbwinfo.com/History/WWI.html Chemical Weapons in World War I]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100919085218/http://cbwinfo.com/History/WWI.html Chemical Weapons in World War I]
* [http://www.worldwar1.com/arm006.htm Gas Warfare]
* [http://www.worldwar1.com/arm006.htm Gas Warfare]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chemical weapons in World War I}}
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[[Category:Chemical warfare by conflict]]
[[Category:World War I chemical weapons| ]]
[[Category:Chemical warfare by conflict|World War I]]
[[Category:Environmental impact of war]]
[[Category:Environmental impact of war]]
[[Category:Military equipment of World War I]]
[[Category:World War I crimes]]
[[Category:World War I crimes]]
[[Category:World War I crimes by Austria-Hungary]]
[[Category:World War I crimes by Imperial Germany]]
[[Category:World War I crimes by Imperial Germany]]
[[Category:World War I crimes by the British Empire and Commonwealth]]
[[Category:World War I crimes by the British Empire and Commonwealth]]
[[Category:World War I crimes by the Third French Republic]]
[[Category:World War I crimes by the United States]]
[[Category:Italian war crimes]]
[[Category:United Kingdom chemical weapons program]]
[[Category:United Kingdom chemical weapons program]]

Latest revision as of 17:24, 12 December 2024

A French gas attack on German trenches in Flanders, Belgium (1917).

The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large-scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I.[1][2] They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents like phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. These chemical weapons caused medical problems.[3] This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century. Gas attack left a strong psychological impact, and estimates go up to about 90,000 fatalities and a total of about 1.3 million casualties. However, this would amount to only 3-3.5% of overall casualties, and gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as gas masks. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives, gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war" and also the era where weapons of mass destruction were created.[4][5]

The use of poison gas by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted war crimes as its use violated the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.[6][7] Widespread horror and public revulsion at the use of gas and its consequences led to far less use of chemical weapons by combatants during World War II.

Use of poison gas

[edit]

1914: Tear gas

[edit]

The most frequently used chemicals during World War I were tear-inducing irritants rather than fatal or disabling poison. During World War I, the French Army was the first to employ tear gas, using 26 mm grenades filled with ethyl bromoacetate in August 1914. The small quantities of gas delivered, roughly 19 cm3 (1.2 cu in) per cartridge, were not even detected by the Germans. The stocks were rapidly consumed and by November a new order was placed by the French military. As bromine was scarce among the Entente allies, the active ingredient was changed to chloroacetone.[8]

In October 1914, German troops fired fragmentation shells filled with a chemical irritant against British positions at Neuve Chapelle; the concentration achieved was so small that it too was barely noticed.[9] None of the combatants considered the use of tear gas to be in conflict with the Hague Treaty of 1899, which specifically prohibited the launching of projectiles containing asphyxiating or poisonous gas.[10]

1915: Large-scale use and lethal gases

[edit]
People laid out on stretchers
Russian Red Cross nurses tend to gassed Russians brought from the front lines, 1915

The first instance of large-scale use of gas as a weapon was on 31 January 1915, when Germany fired 18,000 artillery shells containing liquid xylyl bromide tear gas on Russian positions on the Rawka River, west of Warsaw during the Battle of Bolimov. Instead of vaporizing, the chemical froze and failed to have the desired effect.[9]

The first killing agent was chlorine, used by the German military.[11] Chlorine is a powerful irritant that can inflict damage to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. At high concentrations and prolonged exposure it can cause death by asphyxiation.[12] German chemical companies BASF, Hoechst and Bayer (which formed the IG Farben conglomerate in 1925) had been making chlorine as a by-product of their dye manufacturing.[13] In cooperation with Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, they began developing methods of discharging chlorine gas against enemy trenches.[14][15]

It may appear from a feldpost letter of Major Karl von Zingler that the first chlorine gas attack by German forces took place before 2 January 1915: "In other war theatres it does not go better and it has been said that our Chlorine is very effective. 140 English officers have been killed. This is a horrible weapon ...".[16] This letter must be discounted as evidence for early German use of chlorine, however, because the date "2 January 1915" may have been hastily scribbled instead of the intended "2 January 1916," the sort of common typographical error that is often made at the beginning of a new year. The deaths of so many English officers from gas at this time would certainly have been met with outrage, but a recent, extensive study of British reactions to chemical warfare says nothing of this supposed attack.[17] Perhaps this letter was referring to the chlorine-phosgene attack on British troops at Wieltje near Ypres, on 19 December 1915 (see below).

By 22 April 1915, the German Army had 167 tons of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders from Langemark-Poelkapelle, north of Ypres. At 17:30, in a slight easterly breeze, the liquid chlorine was siphoned from the tanks, producing gas which formed a grey-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops from Martinique, as well as the 1st Tirailleurs and the 2nd Zouaves from Algeria.[18] Faced with an unfamiliar threat these troops broke ranks, abandoning their trenches and creating an 8,000-yard (7 km) gap in the Allied line. The German infantry were also wary of the gas and, lacking reinforcements, failed to exploit the break before the 1st Canadian Division and assorted French troops reformed the line in scattered, hastily prepared positions 1,000–3,000 yards (910–2,740 m) apart.[9] The Entente governments claimed the attack was a flagrant violation of international law but Germany argued that the Hague treaty had only banned chemical shells, rather than the use of gas projectors.[19]

In what became the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used gas on three more occasions; on 24 April against the 1st Canadian Division,[20] on 2 May near Mouse Trap Farm and on 5 May against the British at Hill 60.[21] The British Official History stated that at Hill 60, "90 men died from gas poisoning in the trenches or before they could be got to a dressing station; of the 207 brought to the nearest dressing stations, 46 died almost immediately and 12 after long suffering."[22]

On 6 August, German troops under Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg used chlorine gas against Russian troops defending Osowiec Fortress. Surviving defenders drove back the attack and retained the fortress. The event would later be called the Attack of the Dead Men.

Germany used chemical weapons on the Eastern Front in an attack at Rawka (river), west of Warsaw. The Russian Army took 9,000 casualties, with more than 1,000 fatalities. In response, the artillery branch of the Russian Army organised a commission to study the delivery of poison gas in shells.[23]

Effectiveness and countermeasures

[edit]
British emplacement after German gas attack (probably phosgene)

It quickly became evident that the men who stayed in their places suffered less than those who ran away, as any movement worsened the effects of the gas, and that those who stood up on the fire step suffered less—indeed they often escaped any serious effects—than those who lay down or sat at the bottom of a trench. Men who stood on the parapet suffered least, as the gas was denser near the ground. The worst sufferers were the wounded lying on the ground, or on stretchers, and the men who moved back with the cloud.[24] Chlorine was less effective as a weapon than the Germans had hoped, particularly as soon as simple countermeasures were introduced. The gas produced a visible greenish cloud and strong odour, making it easy to detect. It was water-soluble, so the simple expedient of covering the mouth and nose with a damp cloth was effective at reducing the effect of the gas. It was thought to be even more effective to use urine rather than water, as it was known at the time that chlorine reacted with urea (present in urine) to form dichloro urea.[25]

Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying tissue in the lungs, likely through the formation of hypochlorous and hydrochloric acids when dissolved in the water in the lungs.[26] Despite its limitations, chlorine was an effective psychological weapon—the sight of an oncoming cloud of the gas was a continual source of dread for the infantry.[27]

A sentry stands watch next to a "gas gong".

Countermeasures were quickly introduced in response to the use of chlorine. The Germans issued their troops with small gauze pads filled with cotton waste, and bottles of a bicarbonate solution with which to dampen the pads. Immediately following the use of chlorine gas by the Germans, instructions were sent to British and French troops to hold wet handkerchiefs or cloths over their mouths. Simple pad respirators similar to those issued to German troops were soon proposed by Lieutenant-Colonel N. C. Ferguson, the Assistant Director Medical Services of the 28th Division. These pads were intended to be used damp, preferably dipped into a solution of bicarbonate kept in buckets for that purpose; other liquids were also used. Because such pads could not be expected to arrive at the front for several days, army divisions set about making them for themselves. Locally available muslin, flannel and gauze were used, officers were sent to Paris to buy more and local French women were employed making up rudimentary pads with string ties. Other units used lint bandages manufactured in the convent at Poperinge. Pad respirators were sent up with rations to British troops in the line as early as the evening of 24 April.[28]

In Britain the Daily Mail newspaper encouraged women to manufacture cotton pads, and within one month a variety of pad respirators were available to British and French troops, along with motoring goggles to protect the eyes. The response was enormous and a million gas masks were produced in a day. The Mail's design was useless when dry and caused suffocation when wet—the respirator was responsible for the deaths of scores of men.[citation needed] By 6 July 1915, the entire British army was equipped with the more effective "smoke helmet" designed by Major Cluny MacPherson, Newfoundland Regiment, which was a flannel bag with a celluloid window, which entirely covered the head. The race was then on between the introduction of new and more effective poison gases and the production of effective countermeasures, which marked gas warfare until the armistice in November 1918.[28]

British gas attacks

[edit]

The British expressed outrage at Germany's use of poison gas at Ypres and responded by developing their own gas warfare capability. The commander of II Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Charles Ferguson, said of gas:

It is a cowardly form of warfare which does not commend itself to me or other English soldiers ... We cannot win this war unless we kill or incapacitate more of our enemies than they do of us, and if this can only be done by our copying the enemy in his choice of weapons, we must not refuse to do so.[29]

The first use of gas by the British was at the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915, but the attempt was a disaster. Chlorine, codenamed Red Star, was the agent to be used (140 tons arrayed in 5,100 cylinders), and the attack was dependent on a favourable wind. On this occasion the wind proved fickle, and the gas either lingered in no man's land or, in places, blew back on the British trenches.[9] This was compounded when the gas could not be released from all the British canisters because the wrong turning keys were sent with them. Subsequent retaliatory German shelling hit some of those unused full cylinders, releasing gas among the British troops.[30] Exacerbating the situation were the primitive flannel gas masks distributed to the British. The masks got hot, and the small eye-pieces misted over, reducing visibility. Some of the troops lifted the masks to get fresh air, causing them to be gassed.[31]

1915: More deadly gases

[edit]
Microscopic section of human lung from phosgene shell poisoning from An Atlas of Gas Poisoning, 1918

The deficiencies of chlorine were overcome with the introduction of phosgene, which was prepared by a group of French chemists led by Victor Grignard and first used by France in 1915.[32] Colourless and having an odour likened to "mouldy hay," phosgene was difficult to detect, making it a more effective weapon. Phosgene was sometimes used on its own, but was more often used mixed with an equal volume of chlorine, with the chlorine helping to spread the denser phosgene.[33] The Allies called this combination White Star after the marking painted on shells containing the mixture.[34] German phosgene came in the form of diphosgene, codenamed Grün Kreuz (Green cross). This was less effective than its allied counterpart, being less toxic and slower to evaporate, but was easier to handle in shell manufacture early in the war.[35]

Phosgene was a potent killing agent, deadlier than chlorine. It had a potential drawback in that some of the symptoms of exposure took 24 hours or more to manifest. This meant that the victims were initially still capable of putting up a fight; this could also mean that apparently fit troops would be incapacitated by the effects of the gas on the following day.[36]

In the first combined chlorine–phosgene attack by Germany, against British troops at Wieltje near Ypres, Belgium on 19 December 1915, 88 tons of the gas were released from cylinders causing 1069 casualties and 69 deaths.[33] The British P gas helmet, issued at the time, was impregnated with sodium phenolate and partially effective against phosgene. The modified PH Gas Helmet, which was impregnated with phenate hexamine and hexamethylene tetramine (urotropine) to improve the protection against phosgene, was issued in January 1916.[33][37][38]

Around 36,600 tons of phosgene were manufactured during the war, out of a total of 190,000 tons for all chemical weapons, making it second only to chlorine (93,800 tons) in the quantity manufactured:[39]

  • Germany 18,100 tons
  • France 15,700 tons
  • United Kingdom 1,400 tons (also used French stocks)
  • United States 1,400 tons (also used French stocks)

1916: Austrian use

[edit]
Italian dead after the Austrian gas attack on Monte San Michele

On 29 June 1916, the Austro-Hungarian Army attacked the Royal Italian Army's Brigade "Ferrara" on Monte San Michele with a mix of phosgene and chlorine gas.[40] Thousands of Italian soldiers died in this first chemical weapons attack on the Italian Front.

1917: Mustard gas

[edit]
Microscopic section of human lung from mustard gas poisoning from An Atlas of Gas Poisoning, 1918

The most widely reported chemical agent of the First World War was mustard gas. Despite the name it is not a gas but a volatile oily liquid, and is dispersed as a fine mist of liquid droplets.[41] It was introduced as a vesicant by Germany on July 12, 1917, weeks prior to the Third Battle of Ypres.[9][42] The Germans marked their shells yellow for mustard gas and green for chlorine and phosgene; hence they called the new gas Yellow Cross. It was known to the British as HS (Hun Stuff), and the French called it Yperite (named after Ypres).[43]

A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, 1917/1918

Mustard gas is not an effective killing agent (though in high enough doses it is fatal) but can be used to harass and disable the enemy and pollute the battlefield. Delivered in artillery shells, mustard gas was heavier than air, and it settled to the ground as an oily liquid. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several days, weeks, or even months, depending on the weather conditions.[44]

The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, their eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful. Fatally injured victims sometimes took four or five weeks to die of mustard gas exposure.[45]

One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."[46]

The polluting nature of mustard gas meant that it was not always suitable for supporting an attack as the assaulting infantry would be exposed to the gas when they advanced. When Germany launched Operation Michael on 21 March 1918, they saturated the Flesquières salient with mustard gas instead of attacking it directly, believing that the harassing effect of the gas, coupled with threats to the salient's flanks, would make the British position untenable.[47]

Gas never reproduced the dramatic success of 22 April 1915; it became a standard weapon which, combined with conventional artillery, was used to support most attacks in the later stages of the war. Gas was employed primarily on the Western Front—the static, confined trench system was ideal for achieving an effective concentration. Germany also used gas against Russia on the Eastern Front, where the lack of effective countermeasures resulted in deaths of over 56,000 Russians,[48] while Britain experimented with gas in Palestine during the Second Battle of Gaza.[49] Russia began manufacturing chlorine gas in 1916, with phosgene being produced later in the year. Most of the manufactured gas was never used.[23]

Australian gunners of the 55th Siege Battery working during a gas attack, 1917

The British Army first used mustard gas in November 1917 at Cambrai, after their armies had captured a stockpile of German mustard gas shells. It took the British more than a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon, with production of the chemicals centred on Avonmouth Docks.[50][51] (The only option available to the British was the Despretz–Niemann–Guthrie process.) This was used first in September 1918 during the breaking of the Hindenburg Line with the Hundred Days' Offensive.

The Allies mounted more gas attacks than the Germans in 1917 and 1918 because of a marked increase in production of gas from the Allied nations. Germany was unable to keep up with this pace despite creating various new gases for use in battle, mostly as a result of very costly methods of production. Entry into the war by the United States allowed the Allies to increase mustard gas production far more than Germany.[52][53] Also the prevailing wind on the Western Front was blowing from west to east,[54] which meant the Allies more frequently had favourable conditions for a gas release than did the Germans.

When the United States entered the war, it was already mobilizing resources from academic, industry and military sectors for research and development into poison gas. A Subcommittee on Noxious Gases was created by the National Research Committee, a major research centre was established at Camp American University, and the 1st Gas Regiment was recruited.[53] The 1st Gas Regiment eventually served in France, where it used phosgene gas in several attacks.[55][53] The Artillery used mustard gas with significant effect during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive on at least three occasions.[56] The United States began large-scale production of an improved vesicant gas known as Lewisite, for use in an offensive planned for early 1919. By the time of the armistice on 11 November, a plant near Willoughby, Ohio was producing 10 tons per day of the substance, for a total of about 150 tons. It is uncertain what effect this new chemical would have had on the battlefield, as it degrades in moist conditions.[57][58]

Post-war

[edit]

By the end of the war, chemical weapons had lost much of their effectiveness against well trained and equipped troops. By that time, chemical weapon agents had inflicted an estimated 1.3 million casualties.[59]

Nevertheless, in the following years, chemical weapons were used in several, mainly colonial, wars where one side had an advantage in equipment over the other. The British used poison gas, possibly adamsite, against Russian revolutionary troops beginning on 27 August 1919[60] and contemplated using chemical weapons against Iraqi insurgents in the 1920s; Bolshevik troops used poison gas to suppress the Tambov Rebellion in 1920, Spain used chemical weapons in Morocco against Rif tribesmen throughout the 1920s[61] and Italy used mustard gas in Libya in 1930 and again during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1936.[62] In 1925, a Chinese warlord, Zhang Zuolin, contracted a German company to build him a mustard gas plant in Shenyang,[61] which was completed in 1927.

Public opinion had by then turned against the use of such weapons which led to the Geneva Protocol, an updated and extensive prohibition of poison weapons. The Protocol, which was signed by most First World War combatants in 1925, bans the use (but not the stockpiling or production) of lethal gas and bacteriological weapons among signatories in international armed conflicts.[63] Most countries that signed ratified it within around five years; a few took much longer—Brazil, Japan, Uruguay, and the United States did not do so until the 1970s, and Nicaragua ratified it in 1990.[64] The signatory nations agreed not to use poison gas against each other in the future, both stating "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world" and "the High Contracting Parties ... agree to be bound as between themselves according to the terms of this declaration."[65]

Chemical weapons have been used in at least a dozen wars since the end of the First World War;[62] they were not used in combat on a large scale until Iraq used mustard gas and the more deadly nerve agents in the Halabja chemical attack near the end of the eight-year Iran–Iraq War. The full conflict's use of such weaponry killed around 20,000 Iranian troops (and injured another 80,000), around a quarter of the number of deaths caused by chemical weapons during the First World War.[66]

The Geneva Protocol, 1925

[edit]
Chemical weapons canister and stockpile.[67]

The Geneva Protocol, signed by 132 nations on June 17, 1925, was a treaty established to ban the use of chemical and biological weapons among signatories in international armed conflicts.[63] As stated by Coupland and Leins, "it was fostered in part by a 1918 appeal in which the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) described the use of poisonous gas against soldiers as a barbarous invention which science is bringing to perfection".[68] Chemical warfare agents that contained bromine, nitroaromatic, and chlorine were dismantled and destroyed.[69] The destruction and disposal of the chemicals did not consider the long-term and adverse impacts on the environment.

The Protocol does not ban the stockpilling or production of chemical weapons[70] as well as the use of such weaponry against non-ratifying states and in internal disturbances or conflicts, and permits reservations that allow signatories to adopt the policy of no first use.[63] As a result, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was drafted in 1993, which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. Despite there being an international ban on chemical warfare, the CWC "allows domestic law enforcement agencies of the signing countries to use chemical weapons on their citizens".[71]

Effect on World War II

[edit]

All major combatants stockpiled chemical weapons during the Second World War, but the only reports of its use in the conflict were the Japanese use of relatively small amounts of mustard gas and lewisite in China,[72][73] Italy's use of gas in Ethiopia (in what is more often considered to be the Second Italo-Ethiopian War), and very rare occurrences in Europe (for example some mustard gas bombs were dropped on Warsaw on 3 September 1939, which Germany acknowledged in 1942 but indicated had been accidental).[61] Mustard gas was the agent of choice, with the British stockpiling 40,719 tons, the Soviets 77,400 tons, the Americans over 87,000 tons and the Germans 27,597 tons.[61] The destruction of an American cargo ship containing mustard gas led to many casualties in Bari, Italy, in December 1943.

In both Axis and Allied nations, children in school were taught to wear gas masks in case of gas attack. Germany developed the poison gases tabun, sarin, and soman during the war, and used Zyklon B in their extermination camps. Neither Germany nor the Allied nations used any of their war gases in combat, despite maintaining large stockpiles and occasional calls for their use.[nb 1] Poison gas played an important role in the Holocaust.

Britain made plans to use mustard gas on the landing beaches in the event of an invasion of the United Kingdom in 1940.[74][75] The United States considered using gas to support their planned invasion of Japan.[76]

Casualties

[edit]
John Singer Sargent's 1918 painting Gassed

A range of authors have attempted to estimate the casualties from chemical weapons in WWI. This is hampered by incomplete data. British casualties were best recorded, while estimates of gas casualties amongst Russians on the Eastern front have been described as "pure guesswork", a major issue as it is often claimed that a large proportion of casualties occurred there. A commonly used estimate claims 90,000 fatalities and 1.3 million casualties. Of this, 26,600 deaths and 652,000 casualties come from the UK, France, Germany and the US where more dependable data exists. Of the rest, historian L. F. Haber suggests the usual estimates are likely too high, but concedes "we shall never know".[77]

It is generally agreed that the contribution of gas weapons to the total casualty figures was relatively minor. British figures, which were accurately maintained from 1916, recorded that 3% of gas casualties were fatal, 2% were permanently invalid and 70% were fit for duty again within six weeks.[78]

It was remarked as a joke that if someone yelled 'Gas', everyone in France would put on a mask. ... Gas shock was as frequent as shell shock.

— H. Allen, Towards the Flame, 1934

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.

Plate III, Pallid type of asphyxia from phosgene poisoning, with circulatory failure, American Red Cross and Medical Research Committee, An Atlas of Gas Poisoning, 1918

Death by gas was often slow and painful. According to Denis Winter (Death's Men, 1978), a fatal dose of phosgene eventually led to "shallow breathing and retching, pulse up to 120, an ashen face and the discharge of four pints (2 litres) of yellow liquid from the lungs each hour for the 48 of the drowning spasms."

A common fate of those exposed to gas was blindness, chlorine gas or mustard gas being the main causes. One of the most famous First World War paintings, Gassed by John Singer Sargent, captures such a scene of mustard gas casualties which he witnessed at a dressing station at Le Bac-du-Sud near Arras in July 1918. (The gases used during that battle (tear gas) caused temporary blindness and/or a painful stinging in the eyes. These bandages were normally water-soaked to provide a rudimentary form of pain relief to the eyes of casualties before they reached more organized medical help.)

The proportion of mustard gas fatalities to total casualties was low; 2% of mustard gas casualties died and many of these succumbed to secondary infections rather than the gas itself. Once it was introduced at the third battle of Ypres, mustard gas produced 90% of all British gas casualties and 14% of battle casualties of any type.

Estimated gas casualties[48][77]
Nation Fatal Total
(Fatal & non-fatal)
More reliable data:
Germany 9,000 200,000
France 8,000 190,000
British Empire
(includes Canada)
8,109 188,706
United States 1,462 72,807
Less reliable data:
Russia 56,000 419,340
Austria-Hungary 3,000 100,000
Italy 4,627 60,000
Others 1,000 10,000

Mustard gas was a source of extreme dread. In The Anatomy of Courage (1945), Lord Moran, who had been a medical officer during the war, wrote:

After July 1917 gas partly usurped the role of high explosive in bringing to head a natural unfitness for war. The gassed men were an expression of trench fatigue, a menace when the manhood of the nation had been picked over.[79]

Mustard gas did not need to be inhaled to be effective—any contact with skin was sufficient. Exposure to 0.1 ppm was enough to cause massive blisters. Higher concentrations could burn flesh to the bone. It was particularly effective against the soft skin of the eyes, nose, armpits and groin, since it dissolved in the natural moisture of those areas. Typical exposure would result in swelling of the conjunctiva and eyelids, forcing them closed and rendering the victim temporarily blind. Where it contacted the skin, moist red patches would immediately appear which after 24 hours would have formed into blisters. Other symptoms included severe headache, elevated pulse and temperature (fever), and pneumonia (from blistering in the lungs).

Many of those who survived a gas attack were scarred for life. Respiratory disease and failing eyesight were common post-war afflictions. Of the Canadians who, without any effective protection, had withstood the first chlorine attacks during Second Ypres, 60% of the casualties had to be repatriated and half of these were still unfit by the end of the war, over three years later.

Many of those who were fairly soon recorded as fit for service were left with scar tissue in their lungs. This tissue was susceptible to tuberculosis attack. It was from this that many of the 1918 casualties died, around the time of the Second World War, shortly before sulfa drugs became widely available for its treatment.

British testimony

[edit]
British forces gas casualties on the Western Front[citation needed]
Date Agent Casualties (official)
Fatal Non-fatal
April–May 1915 Chlorine 350 7,000
May 1915 – June 1916 Lachrymants 0 0
December 1915 – August 1916 Chlorine 1,013 4,207
July 1916 – July 1917 Various 532 8,806
July 1917 – November 1918 Mustard gas 4,086 160,526
April 1915 – November 1918 Total 5,981 180,539

A British nurse treating mustard gas cases recorded:

They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with a tent of propped-up sheets. Gas burns must be agonizing because usually the other cases do not complain even with the worst wounds but gas cases are invariably beyond endurance and they cannot help crying out.[80]

A postmortem account from the British official medical history records one of the British casualties:

Case four. Aged 39 years. Gassed 29 July 1917. Admitted to casualty clearing station the same day. Died about ten days later. Brownish pigmentation present over large surfaces of the body. A white ring of skin where the wrist watch was. Marked superficial burning of the face and scrotum. The larynx much congested. The whole of the trachea was covered by a yellow membrane. The bronchi contained abundant gas. The lungs fairly voluminous. The right lung showing extensive collapse at the base. Liver congested and fatty. Stomach showed numerous submucous haemorrhages. The brain substance was unduly wet and very congested.[81]

Civilian casualties

[edit]

The belligerents avoided deliberate attacks on civilians, but the distribution of gas cloud casualties was not only limited to the front. Nearby towns were at risk from winds blowing the poison gases through, with only the French taking special precautions in planning gas attacks. Later in the war, the British provided warnings and issued civilians working near the front with gas masks, leading to improved preparedness. Eventually, everyone within 8 kilometers of the front was to carry a respirator at all times. Regardless, a significant number would be exposed, with the most serious case in Armentières where lingering mustard gas residue from heavy German bombardment in July 1917 led to 675 civilian casualties (including 86 killed). Hundreds of shells rained down per minute, and while civilians had shelters and gas masks, the particular dangers of mustard gas was not yet known.[82] British and French records list a total of around 1325 civilian casualties, including over a hundred deaths from German gas weapons. This is an underestimate as smaller incidents of exposure have not been recorded, and there is no German record of civilian casualties from Allied weapons. In addition, around 4000 civilians working in chemical weapons production and shell filling in France, Britain and the United States were injured due to accidental exposure. Similar figures for Germany are not available, though it is known that there were a number of deaths. The British did not publicise incidents of civilians being gassed by Germans due to fears about the effect on morale at home.[83][84]

Countermeasures

[edit]

None of the First World War's combatants were prepared for the introduction of poison gas as a weapon. Once gas was introduced, development of gas protection began and the process continued for much of the war, producing a series of increasingly effective gas masks.[53]

Even at Second Ypres, Germany, still unsure of the weapon's effectiveness, only issued breathing masks to the engineers handling the gas. At Ypres a Canadian medical officer, who was also a chemist, quickly identified the gas as chlorine and recommended that the troops urinate on a cloth and hold it over their mouth and nose, urine would be left to sit for a period so that the ammonia would activate, this would neutralize some of the chemicals in the chlorine gas, this action would allow them to delay the German advance at Ypres giving the allies time to reinforce the area when French and other colonial troops had retreated.[85] The first official equipment issued was similarly crude; a pad of material, usually impregnated with a chemical, tied over the lower face. To protect the eyes from tear gas, soldiers were issued with gas goggles.

The next advance was the introduction of the gas helmet—basically a bag placed over the head. The fabric of the bag was impregnated with a chemical to neutralize the gas—the chemical would wash out into the soldier's eyes whenever it rained. Eye-pieces, which were prone to fog up, were initially made from talc. When going into combat, gas helmets were typically worn rolled up on top of the head, to be pulled down and secured about the neck when the gas alarm was given. The first British version was the hypo helmet, the fabric of which was soaked in sodium hyposulfite (commonly known as "hypo"). The British P gas helmet, partially effective against phosgene and with which all infantry were equipped with at Loos, was impregnated with sodium phenolate. A mouthpiece was added through which the wearer would breathe out to prevent carbon dioxide build-up. The adjutant of the 1/23rd Battalion, The London Regiment, recalled his experience of the P helmet at Loos:

The goggles rapidly dimmed over, and the air came through in such suffocatingly small quantities as to demand a continuous exercise of will-power on the part of the wearers.[86]

A modified version of the P helmet, called the PH helmet, was issued in January 1916, and was impregnated with hexamethylenetetramine to improve protection against phosgene.[33]

Self-contained box respirators represented the culmination of gas mask development during the First World War. Box respirators used a two-piece design; a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box filter. The box filter contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas, delivering clean air to the wearer. Separating the filter from the mask enabled a bulky but efficient filter to be supplied. Nevertheless, the first version, known as the large box respirator (LBR) or "Harrison's Tower", was deemed too bulky—the box canister needed to be carried on the back. The LBR had no mask, just a mouthpiece and nose clip; separate gas goggles had to be worn. It continued to be issued to the artillery gun crews but the infantry were supplied with the "small box respirator" (SBR).

The Small Box Respirator featured a single-piece, close-fitting rubberized mask with eye-pieces. The box filter was compact and could be worn around the neck. The SBR could be readily upgraded as more effective filter technology was developed. The British-designed SBR was also adopted for use by the American Expeditionary Force. The SBR was the prized possession of the ordinary infantryman; when the British were forced to retreat during the German spring offensive of 1918, it was found that while some troops had discarded their rifles, hardly any had left behind their respirators.

Horses and mules were important methods of transport that could be endangered if they came into close contact with gas. This was not so much of a problem until it became common to launch gas great distances. This caused researchers to develop masks that could be used on animals such as dogs, horses, mules, and even carrier pigeons.[83]

For mustard gas, which could cause severe damage by simply making contact with skin, no effective countermeasure was found during the war. The kilt-wearing Scottish regiments were especially vulnerable to mustard gas injuries due to their bare legs. At Nieuwpoort in Flanders some Scottish battalions took to wearing women's tights beneath the kilt as a form of protection.

Gas alert procedure became a routine for the front-line soldier. To warn of a gas attack, a bell would be rung, often made from a spent artillery shell. At the noisy batteries of the siege guns, a compressed air strombus horn was used, which could be heard nine miles (14 km) away. Notices would be posted on all approaches to an affected area, warning people to take precautions.

Other British attempts at countermeasures were not so effective. An early plan was to use 100,000 fans to disperse the gas. Burning coal or carborundum dust was tried. A proposal was made to equip front-line sentries with diving helmets, air being pumped to them through a 100 ft (30 m) hose.

The effectiveness of all countermeasures is apparent. In 1915, when poison gas was relatively new, less than 3% of British gas casualties died. In 1916, the proportion of fatalities jumped to 17%. By 1918, the figure was back below 3%, though the total number of British gas casualties was now nine times the 1915 levels.

Delivery systems

[edit]
A British cylinder release at Montauban on the Somme, June 1916 – part of the preparation for the Battle of the Somme.

The first system employed for the mass delivery of gas involved releasing the gas cylinders in a favourable wind such that it was carried over the enemy's trenches. The Hague Convention of 1899 prohibited the use of poison gasses delivered by projectiles. The main advantage of this method was that it was relatively simple and, in suitable atmospheric conditions, produced a concentrated cloud capable of overwhelming the gas mask defences. The disadvantages of cylinder releases were numerous. First and foremost, delivery was at the mercy of the wind. If the wind was fickle, as was the case at Loos, the gas could backfire, causing friendly casualties. Gas clouds gave plenty of warning, allowing the enemy time to protect themselves, though many soldiers found the sight of a creeping gas cloud unnerving. Gas clouds had limited penetration, only capable of affecting the front-line trenches before dissipating.

Finally, the cylinders had to be emplaced at the very front of the trench system so that the gas was released directly over no man's land. This meant that the cylinders had to be manhandled through communication trenches, often clogged and sodden, and stored at the front where there was always the risk that cylinders would be prematurely breached during a bombardment. A leaking cylinder could issue a telltale wisp of gas that, if spotted, would be sure to attract shellfire.

German gas attack on the eastern front.

A British chlorine cylinder, known as an "oojah", weighed 190 lb (86 kg), of which 60 lb (27 kg) was chlorine gas, and required two men to carry. Phosgene gas was introduced later in a cylinder, known as a "mouse", that weighed 50 lb (23 kg).

Delivering gas via artillery shell overcame many of the risks of dealing with gas in cylinders. The Germans, for example, used 5.9-inch (150 mm) artillery shells. Gas shells were independent of the wind and increased the effective range of gas, making anywhere within reach of the guns vulnerable. Gas shells could be delivered without warning, especially the clear, nearly odourless phosgene—there are numerous accounts of gas shells, landing with a "plop" rather than exploding, being initially dismissed as dud HE or shrapnel shells, giving the gas time to work before the soldiers were alerted and took precautions.

Loading a battery of Livens gas projectors

The main flaw associated with delivering gas via artillery was the difficulty of achieving a killing concentration. Each shell had a small gas payload and an area would have to be subjected to a saturation bombardment to produce a cloud to match cylinder delivery. Mustard gas did not need to form a concentrated cloud and hence artillery was the ideal vehicle for delivery of this battlefield pollutant.

The solution to achieving a lethal concentration without releasing from cylinders was the "gas projector", essentially a large-bore mortar that fired the entire cylinder as a missile. The British Livens projector (invented by Captain W.H. Livens in 1917) was a simple device; an 8-inch (200 mm) diameter tube sunk into the ground at an angle, a propellant was ignited by an electrical signal, firing the cylinder containing 30 or 40 lb (14 or 18 kg) of gas up to 1,900 metres. By arranging a battery of these projectors and firing them simultaneously, a dense concentration of gas could be achieved. The Livens was first used at Arras on 4 April 1917. On 31 March 1918 the British conducted their largest ever "gas shoot", firing 3,728 cylinders at Lens.

Unexploded weapons

[edit]
Phosgene delivery system unearthed at the Somme, 2006

Over 16,000,000 acres (65,000 km2) of France had to be cordoned off at the end of the war because of unexploded ordnance. About 20% of the chemical shells were duds, and approximately 13 million of these munitions were left in place. This has been a serious problem in former battle areas from immediately after the end of the War until the present. Shells may be, for instance, uncovered when farmers plough their fields (termed the 'iron harvest'), and are also regularly discovered when public works or construction work is done.[87] After the armistice, people sought unexploded weapons for their metal value, as well as preventing the danger that they posed to civilians. Toxic chemicals were emptied from shells, resulting in many deaths and health defects.[88]

Another difficulty is the current stringency of environmental legislation. In the past, a common method of getting rid of unexploded chemical ammunition was to detonate or dump it at sea; this is currently prohibited in most countries.[89][nb 2]

The problems are especially acute in some northern regions of France. The French government no longer disposes of chemical weapons at sea. For this reason, piles of untreated chemical weapons accumulated. In 2001, it became evident that the pile stored at a depot in Vimy was unsafe; the inhabitants of the neighbouring town were evacuated, and the pile moved, using refrigerated trucks and under heavy guard, to a military camp in Suippes.[90] The capacity of the plant is meant to be 25 tons per year (extensible to 80 tons at the beginning), for a lifetime of 30 years.[91]

Germany has to deal with unexploded ammunition and polluted lands resulting from the explosion of an ammunition train in 1919.[91]

Aside from unexploded shells, there have been claims that poison residues have remained in the local environment for an extended period, though this is unconfirmed; well known but unverified anecdotes claim that as late as the 1960s trees in the area retained enough mustard gas residue to injure farmers or construction workers who were clearing them.[92]

Disposal methods of chemical weapons

[edit]
Chemical munition being destroyed at disposal facility, 1990.[93]

After World War I, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and other nations had stockpiles of unfired weapons.[94] It has been estimated that 125 million tons of toxic gases were used to manufacture bombs, grenades and shells.[88] The remaining weapons were destroyed, dismantled, and disposed of in oceans and seas.[95] It was believed that the chemicals would be diluted when disposed of in the ocean, and therefore ocean and sea dumping was a "safe and convenient" practice.[95] Hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical agents, such as sulphur mustard, cyanogen chloride and arsine oil, were disposed of at sea.[95] Chemical weapons have since washed up on shorelines and been found by fishers, causing injuries and, in some cases, death. Other disposal methods included land burials and incineration. After World War 1, "chemical shells made up 35 percent of French and German ammunition supplies, 25 percent British and 20 percent American".[96] Weapons that contained chemicals such as bromine, chlorine and nitroaromatic were burned. The thermal destruction of chemical weapons negatively impacted the ecological environment of disposal sites.[94] For example, in Verdun, France, the thermal destruction of weapons "resulted in severe metal contamination of upper 4–10 cm of topsoil" at the Place à Gas disposal site.[94]

Gases used

[edit]
Name First use Type Used by
Xylyl bromide[97] 1915 Lachrymatory, toxic Both
Chlorine[98] 1915 Corrosive. Lung irritant Both
Phosgene[98] 1915 Irritant – Skin and mucous membranes. Corrosive, toxic Both
Benzyl bromide[97] 1915 Lachrymatory Central Powers
Chloromethyl chloroformate[97] 1915 Irritant – Eyes, skin, lungs Both
Trichloromethyl chloroformate[97] 1916 Severe irritant, causes burns Both
Chloropicrin[98] 1916 Irritant, lachrymatory, toxic Both
Stannic chloride[97] 1916 Severe irritant, causes asphyxiation Allies
Ethyl iodoacetate[97] 1916 Lachrymatory, toxic Allies
Bromoacetone[97] 1916 Lachrymatory, irritant Both
Monobromomethyl ethyl ketone[97] 1916 Lachrymatory, irritant Central Powers
Acrolein[97] 1916 Lachrymatory, toxic Both
Hydrogen cyanide[97] (Prussic acid) 1916 Toxic, asphyxiant Allies
Hydrogen sulfide[97] (sulphuretted hydrogen) 1916 Irritant, toxic Allies
Diphenylchloroarsine[98] (Diphenyl chlorasine) 1917 Irritant/Sternutatory (causes sneezing) Central Powers
α-chlorotoluene (Benzyl chloride) 1917 Irritant, lachrymatory Central Powers
Mustard gas[98] (Bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide) 1917 Vesicant (blistering agent), lung irritant Both
Bis(chloromethyl) ether (dichloromethyl ether) 1918 Irritant, can blur vision Central Powers
Ethyldichloroarsine[98] 1918 Vesicant Central Powers
N-Ethylcarbazole 679 1918 Irritant Central Powers

Long-term health effects

[edit]
British troops blinded by poison gas during the Battle of Estaires, 1918

Soldiers who claimed to have been exposed to chemical warfare often presented unusual medical conditions which has led to much controversy. The lack of information left doctors, patients, and their families in the dark in terms of prognosis and treatment. Nerve agents such as sarin, tabun, and soman are believed to have had the most significant long-term health effects.[99] Chronic fatigue and memory loss were reported to last up to three years after exposure. In the years following World War One, there were many conferences held in attempts to abolish the use of chemical weapons altogether, such as the Washington Naval Conference (1921–22), Geneva Conference (1923–25) and the World Disarmament Conference (1933). The United States was an original signatory of the Geneva Protocol in 1925, but the US Senate did not ratify it until 1975.

Although the health effects are generally chronic in nature, the exposures were generally acute. A positive correlation has been proven between exposure to mustard agents and skin cancers, other respiratory and skin conditions, leukemia, several eye conditions, bone marrow depression and subsequent immunosuppression, psychological disorders and sexual dysfunction.[100] Chemicals used in the production of chemical weapons also left residues in the soil where the weapons were used. The chemicals that were detected can cause cancer and can affect the brain, blood, liver, kidneys and skin.[101] The development and production of chemical weapons threatened public health and introduced a new set of challenges. Not only did war gasses like mustard and chlorine endanger the lives of soldiers, but also threatened the safety of workers who manufactured them.[102]

Explanatory notes

[edit]
  1. ^ The US reportedly had about 135,000 tons of chemical warfare agents during WW II; Germany had 70,000 tons, Britain 40,000 and Japan 7,500 tons. The German nerve gases were deadlier than the old-style suffocants (chlorine, phosgene) and blistering agents (mustard gas) in Allied stockpiles. Churchill and several American generals reportedly called for their use against Germany and Japan, respectively (Weber, 1985).[full citation needed]
  2. ^ See the Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping from Ships and Aircraft and the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter.

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[edit]
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Further reading

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  • Cook, Tim. "‘Against God-Inspired Conscience’: The Perception of Gas Warfare as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, 1915–1939." War & Society 18.1 (2000): 47-69.
  • Dorsey, M. Girard. Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II (Cornell UP, 2023) online.
  • Fitzgerald, Gerard J. "Chemical warfare and medical response during World War I." American journal of public health 98.4 (2008): 611–625. online
  • Freemantle, M. (2012). Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! How Chemistry Changed the First World War. The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-6601-9.
  • Jones, Edgar. "Terror weapons: The British experience of gas and its treatment in the First World War." War in History 21.3 (2014): 355–375. online
  • MacPherson, W. G.; Herringham, W. P.; Elliott, T. R.; Balfour, A. (1923). Medical Services: Diseases of the War: Including the Medical Aspects of Aviation and Gas Warfare and Gas Poisoning in Tanks and Mines. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. II. London: HMSO. OCLC 769752656. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
  • Padley, Anthony Paul. "Gas: the greatest terror of the Great War." Anaesthesia and intensive care 44.1_suppl (2016): 24–30. online
  • Richter, Donald (1994). Chemical Soldiers. Leo Cooper. ISBN 0850523885.
  • Smith, Susan I. Toxic Exposures: Mustard Gas and the Health Consequences of World War II in the United States (Rutgers University Press, 2017) online book review
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