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CHEMICAL WARFARE

THE HISTORY OF POISON GASES

The first recorded effort to overcome an enemy by the generation of poisonous and suffocating gases seems to have been in the wars of the Athenians and Spartans when, besieging the cities of Platea and Belium, the Spartans saturated wood with pitch and sulfur and burned it under the walls of these cities in the hope of choking the defenders and rendering the assault less difficult. Similar uses of poisonous gases are recorded during the Middle Ages. In effect they were like our modern stink balls, but were projected by squirts or in bottles after the manner of a hand grenade. The legend is told of Prester John , that he stuffed copper figures with explosives and combustible materials which, emitted from the mouths and nostrils of the effigies, played great havoc.

"The great Admiral Lord Dundonald--perhaps the ablest sea captain ever known, not even excluding Lord Nelson--was also a man of wide observation, and no mean chemist. He had been struck in 1811 by the deadly character of the fumes of sulphur in Sicily; and, when the Crimean War was being waged, he communicated to the English government, then presided over by Lord Palmerston, a plan for the reduction of Sebastopol by sulphur fumes. The plan was imparted to Lord Panmure and Lord Palmerston, and the way in which it was received is so illustrative of the trickery and treachery of the politician that it is worth while to quote Lord Palmerston's private communication upon it to Lord Panmure:

"LORD PALMERSTON TO LORD PANMURE

"Inasmuch as Lord Dundonald's plans have already been deliberately published by the two persons above named, there can be no harm in now republishing them. They will be found in the first volume of 'The Panmure Papers' and are as follows:

"'BRIEF PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

"'It was observed when viewing the Sulphur Kilns, in July, 1811, that the fumes which escaped in the rude process of extracting the material, though first elevated by heat, soon fell to the ground, destroying all vegetation, and endangering animal life to a great distance, and it was asserted that an ordinance existed prohibiting persons from sleeping within the distance of three miles during the melting season.

"'An application of these facts was immediately made to Military and Naval purposes, and after mature consideration, a Memorial was presented on the subject to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent on the 12th of April, 1812, who was graciously pleased to lay it before a Commission, consisting of Lord Keith, Lord Exmouth and General and Colonel Congreve , by whom a favorable report having been given, His Royal Highness was pleased to order that secrecy should be maintained by all parties. "' DUNDONALD

"'7th August, 1855'

"'MEMORANDUM

"'Materials required for the expulsion of the Russians from Sebastopol: Experimental trials have shown that about five parts of coke effectually vaporize one part of sulphur. Mixtures for land service, where weight is of importance, may, however, probably be suggested by Professor Faraday, as to operations on shore I have paid little attention. Four or five hundred tons of sulphur and two thousand tons of coke would be sufficient.

"'Besides these materials, it would be necessary to have, say, as much bituminous coal, and a couple of thousand barrels of gas or other tar, for the purpose of masking fortifications to be attacked, or others that flank the assailing positions.

"'A quantity of dry firewood, chips, shavings, straw, hay or other such combustible materials, would also be requisite quickly to kindle the fires, which ought to be kept in readiness for the first favourable and steady breeze. "'DUNDONALD

"'7th August, 1855'

"'Suppose that the Malakoff and Redan are the objects to be assailed it might be judicious merely to obscure the Redan , so that it could not annoy the Mamelon, where the sulphur fire would be placed to expel the garrison from the Malakoff, which ought to have all the cannon that can be turned towards its ramparts employed in overthrowing its undefended ramparts.

"'There is no doubt but that the fumes will envelop all the defenses from the Malakoff to the Barracks, and even to the line of battleship, the Twelve Apostles, at anchor in the harbour.

"'The two outer batteries, on each side of the Port, ought to be smoked, sulphured, and blown down by explosion vessels, and their destruction completed by a few ships of war anchored under cover of the smoke.'

"That was Lord Dundonald's plan in 1855, improperly published in 1908, and by the Germans, who thus learnt it, ruthlessly put into practise in 1915.

"Lord Dundonald's memoranda, together with further elucidatory notes, were submitted by the English government of that day to a committee and subsequently to another committee in which Lord Playfair took leading part. These committees, with Lord Dundonald's plans fully and in detail before them, both reported that the plans were perfectly feasible; that the effects expected from them would undoubtedly be produced; but that those effects were so horrible that no honorable combatant could use the means required to produce them. The committee therefore recommended that the scheme should not be adopted; that Lord Dundonald's account of it should be destroyed. How the records were obtained and preserved by those who so improperly published them in 1908 we do not know. Presumably they were found among Lord Panmure's papers. Admiral Lord Dundonald himself was certainly no party to their publication."

One of the early, if not the earliest suggestion as to the use of poison gas in shell is found in an article on "Greek Fire," by B. W. Richardson.

He says:

"I feel it a duty to state openly and boldly, that if science were to be allowed her full swing, if society would really allow that 'all is fair in war,' war might be banished at once from the earth as a game which neither subject nor king dare play at. Globes that could distribute liquid fire could distribute also lethal agents, within the breath of which no man, however puissant, could stand and live. From the summit of Primrose Hill, a few hundred engineers, properly prepared, could render Regent's Park, in an incredibly short space of time, utterly uninhabitable; or could make an army of men, that should even fill that space, fall with their arms in their hands, prostrate and helpless as the host of Sennacherib.

"The question is, shall these things be? I do not see that humanity should revolt, for would it not be better to destroy a host in Regent's Park by making the men fall as in a mystical sleep, than to let down on them another host to break their bones, tear their limbs asunder and gouge out their entrails with three-cornered pikes; leaving a vast majority undead, and writhing for hours in torments of the damned? I conceive, for one, that science would be blessed in spreading her wings on the blast, and breathing into the face of a desperate horde of men prolonged sleep--for it need not necessarily be a death--which they could not grapple with, and which would yield them up with their implements of murder to an enemy that in the immensity of its power could afford to be merciful as Heaven.

"To conclude. War has, at this moment, reached, in its details, such an extravagance of horror and cruelty, that it can not be made worse by any art, and can only be made more merciful by being rendered more terribly energetic. Who that had to die from a blow would not rather place his head under Nasmyth's hammer, than submit it to a drummer-boy armed with a ferrule?"

"among the recommendations forwarded to the Board of Ordnance and Fortifications there may be found many suggestions in favor of the asphyxiation process, mostly by the employment of gases contained in bombs to be thrown within the lines of the foe, with varying effects from peaceful slumber to instant death. One ingenious person suggested a bomb laden to its full capacity with snuff, which should be so evenly and thoroughly distributed that the enemy would be convulsed with sneezing, and in this period of paroxysm it would be possible to creep up on him and capture him in the throes of the convulsion."

That the probable use of poisonous gas has often been in the minds of military men during recent times is evidenced by the fact that at the Hague Conference in 1899 several of the more prominent nations of Europe and Asia pledged themselves not to use projectiles whose only object was to give out suffocating or poisonous gases. Many of the Powers did not sign this declaration until later. Germany signed and ratified it on Sept. 4, 1900, but the United States never signed it. Further, this declaration was not to be binding in case of a war in which a non-signatory was or became a belligerent. Admiral Mahan, a United States delegate, stated his position in regard to the use of gas in shell as follows:

"The reproach of cruelty and perfidy addressed against these supposed shells was equally uttered previously against fire-arms and torpedoes, although both are now employed without scruple. It is illogical and not demonstrably humane to be tender about asphyxiating men with gas, when all are prepared to admit that it is allowable to blow the bottom out of an ironclad at midnight, throwing four or five hundred men into the sea to be choked by the water, with scarcely the remotest chance to escape."

At the Hague Congress of 1907, article 23 of the rules adopted for war on land states:

"It is expressly forbidden , to employ poisons or poisonous weapons."

Before the War suffocating cartridges were shot from the cartridge-throwing rifle of 26 mm. These cartridges were charged with ethyl bromoacetate, a slightly suffocating and non-toxic lachrymator. They were intended for attack on the flanking works of permanent fortifications, flanking casements or caponiers, into which the enemy tried to make the cartridges penetrate through the narrow slits used for loopholes. The men who were serving the machine guns or the cannon of the flanking works would have been bothered by the vapor from the ethyl bromoacetate, and the assailant would have profited by their disturbance to get past the obstacle presented by the fortification. The employment of these devices, not entailing death, did not contravene the Hague conventions.

The only memorable operations in the course of which these devices were used before the War was the attack on the Bonnet gang at Choisy-le-roi.

In connection with the suggested use of sulfur dioxide by Lord Dundonald and the proposed use of poisonous gases in shell, the following description of a charcoal respirator by Dr. J. Stenhouse, communicated by Dr. George Wilson in 1854, is of interest.

"1. Certain of the large chemical manufacturers in London are now supplying their workmen with the charcoal respirators as a protection against the more irritating vapors to which they are exposed.

"2. Many deaths have occurred among those employed to explore the large drains and sewers of London from exposure to sulphuretted hydrogen, etc. It may be asserted with confidence that fatal results from exposure to the drainage gases will cease as soon as the respirator is brought into use.

"3. In districts such as the Campagna of Rome, where malaria prevails and to travel during night or to sleep in which is certainly followed by an attack of dangerous and often fatal ague, the wearing of the respirator even for a few hours may be expected to render the marsh poison harmless.

"4. Those, who as clergymen, physicians or legal advisers, have to attend the sick-beds of sufferers from infectious disorders, may, on occasion, avail themselves of the protection afforded by Dr. Stenhouse's instrument during their intercourse with the sick.

"5. The longing for a short and decisive war has led to the invention of 'a suffocating bombshell,' which on bursting, spreads far and wide an irrespirable or poisonous vapor; one of the liquids proposed for the shell is the strongest ammonia, and against this it is believed that the charcoal respirator may defend our soldiers. As likely to serve this end, it is at present before the Board of Ordnance.

"Dr. Wilson stated, in conclusion, that Dr. Stenhouse had no interest but a scientific one in the success of the respirators. He had declined to patent them, and desired only to apply his remarkable discoveries to the abatement of disease and death. Charcoal had long been used in filters to render poisonous water wholesome; it was now to be employed to filter poisonous air."

MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF GAS WARFARE

The use of toxic gas in the World War dates from April 22, 1915, when the Germans launched the first cylinder attack, employing chlorine, a common and well known gas. Judging from the later experience of the Allies in perfecting this form of attack, it is probable that plans for this attack had been under way for months before it was launched. The suggestion that poisonous gases be used in warfare has been laid upon Prof. Nernst of the University of Berlin , while the actual field operations were said to have been under the direction of Prof. Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Chemical Institute of Berlin. Some writers have felt that the question of preparation had been a matter of years rather than of months, and refer to the work on industrial gases as a proof of their statement. The fact that the gas attack was not more successful, that the results to be obtained were not more appreciated, and that better preparation against retaliation had not been made, argues against this idea of a long period of preparation, except possibly in a very desultory way. That such was the case is most fortunate for the allied cause, for had the German high command known the real situation at the close of the first gas attack, or had that attack been more severe, the outcome of the war of 1914 would have been very different, and the end very much earlier.

FIRST GAS ATTACK

The first suggestion of a gas attack came to the British Army through the story of a German deserter. He stated that the German Army was planning to poison their enemy with a cloud of gas, and that the cylinders had already been installed in the trenches. No one listened to the story, because, first of all, the whole procedure seemed so impossible and also because, in spite of the numerous examples of German barbarity, the English did not believe the Germans capable of such a violation of the Hague rules of warfare. The story appeared in the summary of information from headquarters and as Auld says "was passed for information for what it is worth." But the story was true, and on the afternoon of the 22nd of April, all the conditions being ideal, the beginning of "gas warfare" was launched. Details of that first gas attack will always be meager, for the simple reason that the men who could have told about it all lie in Flanders field where the poppies grow.

"Try to imagine the feelings and the condition of the colored troops as they saw the vast cloud of greenish-yellow gas spring out of the ground and slowly move down wind towards them, the vapor clinging to the earth, seeking out every hole and hollow and filling the trenches and shell holes as it came. First wonder, then fear; then, as the first, fringes of the cloud enveloped them and left them choking and agonized in the fight for breath--panic. Those who could move broke and ran, trying, generally in vain, to outstrip the cloud which followed inexorably after them."

"Going into the open air for a few moments' relief from the stifling atmosphere of the wards, our attention was attracted by very heavy firing to the north, where the line was held by the French. Evidently a hot fight--and eagerly we scanned the country with our field glasses hoping to glean some knowledge of the progress of the battle. Then we saw that which almost caused our hearts to stop beating--figures running wildly and in confusion over the fields.

"'The French have broken,' we exclaimed. We hardly believed our words.... The story they told we could not believe; we put it down to their terror-stricken imaginings--a greenish-gray cloud had swept down upon them, turning yellow as it traveled over the country, blasting everything it touched, shriveling up the vegetation. No human courage could face such a peril.

"Then there staggered into our midst French soldiers, blinded, coughing, chests heaving, faces an ugly purple color--lips speechless with agony, and behind them, in the gas-choked trenches, we learned that they had left hundreds of dead and dying comrades. The impossible was only too true.

"It was the most fiendish, wicked thing I have ever seen."

It must be said here, however, that this was true only because the French had no protection against the gas. Indeed, it is far from being the most horrible form of warfare, provided both sides are prepared defensively and offensively. Medical records show that out of every 100 Americans gassed less than two died, and as far as records of four years show, very few are permanently injured. Out of every 100 American casualties from all forms of warfare other than gas more than 25 per cent died, while from 2 to 5 per cent more are maimed, blinded or disfigured for life. Various forms of gas, as will be shown in the following pages, make life miserable or vision impossible to those without a mask. Yet they do not kill.

Thus instead of gas warfare being the most horrible, it is the most humane where both sides are prepared for it, while against savage or unprepared peoples it can be made so humane that but very few casualties will result.

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