FOREWORD

After all peaceful means of settling disputes between nations have been resorted to and have failed, war is often declared by one of the disputants for the purpose of imposing its will upon the other by force. In order to accomplish this, a superiority must be established over the adversary in trained men and in implements of war.

Men are nothing in modern war unless they are equipped with the most effective devices for killing and maiming the enemy’s soldiers and thoroughly trained in the use of such implements.

History proves that an effective implement of war has never been discarded until it becomes obsolete.

It is impossible to humanize the act of killing and maiming the enemy’s soldiers, and there is no logical grounds on which to condemn an appliance so long as its application can be so confined. Experiments in this and other countries during the World War completely established the fact that gas can be so confined. The range of gas clouds is no greater than that of artillery and the population in the area behind the front line must, if they remain in such range, take their chance. The danger area in the future will be known to all.

As the first Director of the Chemical Warfare Service, U. S. Army, I speak with some experience when I say that there is no field in which the future possibilities are greater than in chemical warfare, and no field in which neglect to keep abreast of the times in research and training would be more disastrous.

Notwithstanding the fact that gas was used in the World War two years before the United States entered the fray, practically nothing was done in this country before April, 1917, towards the development of any chemical warfare appliances, offensive or defensive, and had it not been for the ability of an ally to supply our troops with such appliances, they would have been as defenseless as the Canadians were at Ypres when the Germans sent over their first gas cloud.

This book recites the troubles and successes of this new service under the stress of war for which it was unprepared and I trust that its perusal will create a public opinion that will insist upon chemical preparation for war.

I feel that this book will show that the genius and patriotism displayed by the chemists and chemical engineers of the country were not surpassed in any other branch of war work and that to fail to utilize in peace times this talent would be a crime.

William L. Sibert,
Major General, United States Army,
Retired.

CONTENTS

PAGE
Preface[vii]
Foreword[ix]
chapter
I.The History of Poison Gases[ 1]
II.Modern Development of Gas Warfare[10]
III.Development of the
 Chemical Warfare Service[31]
IV.The Chemical Warfare Service in France [72]
V.Chlorine[116]
VI.Phosgene[126]
VII.Lachrymators[137]
VIII.Chloropicrin[144]
IX.Dichloroethylsulfide (Mustard Gas)[150]
X.Arsenic Derivatives[180]
XI.Carbon Monoxide[190]
XII.Development of the Gas Mask[195]
XIII.Absorbents[237]
XIV.Testing Absorbents and Gas Masks[259]
XV.Other Defensive Measures[272]
XVI.Screening Smokes[285]
XVII.Toxic Smokes[313]
XVIII.Smoke Filters[322]
XIX.Signal Smokes[330]
XX.Incendiary Materials[336]
XXI.The Pharmacology of War Gases[353]
XXII.Chemical Warfare in Relation to
 Strategy and Tactics[363]
XXIII.The Offensive Use of Gas[385]
XXIV.Defense against Gas[405]
XXV.Peace Time Uses of Gas[427]
XXVI.The Future of Chemical Warfare[435]
Index[440]

CHEMICAL WARFARE

CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF POISON GASES [1]

The introduction of poison gases by the Germans at Ypres in April, 1915, marked a new era in modern warfare. The popular opinion is that this form of warfare was original with the Germans. Such, however, is not the case. Quoting from an article in the Candid Quarterly Review, 4, 561, “All they can claim is the inhuman adoption of devices invented in England, and by England rejected as too horrible to be entertained even for use against an enemy.” But the use of poison gases is even of an earlier origin than this article claims.

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 (431-404 b.c.) 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 (about the eleventh century), that he stuffed copper figures with explosives and combustible materials which, emitted from the mouths and nostrils of the effigies, played great havoc.

The idea referred to by the writer in the Candid Quarterly Review, is from the pen of the English Lord Dundonald, which appeared in the publication entitled “The Panmure Papers.” This is an extremely dull record of an extremely dull person, only rendered interesting by the one portion, concerned with the use of poison gases, which, it is said, “should never have been published at all.”

That portion of the article from the Candid Quarterly Review dealing with the introduction of poisonous gas by the Germans, and referred to in the first paragraph above, is quoted in full as follows:

“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

“‘House of Commons, 7th August, 1855 “‘I agree with you that if Dundonald will go out himself to superintend and direct the execution of his scheme, we ought to accept his offer and try his plan. If it succeeds, it will, as you say, save a great number of English and French lives; if it fails in his hands, we shall be exempt from blame, and if we come in for a small share of the ridicule, we can bear it, and the greater part will fall on him. You had best, therefore, make arrangement with him without delay, and with as much secrecy as the nature of things will admit of.’

“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’ (pp. 340-342) and are as follows:

“‘(Enclosure)

“‘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 (afterwards Sir William), by whom a favorable report having been given, His Royal Highness was pleased to order that secrecy should be maintained by all parties.

“‘(Signed) 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’

“‘Note.—The objects to be accomplished being specially stated the responsibility of their accomplishment ought to rest on those who direct their execution.

“‘Suppose that the Malakoff and Redan are the objects to be assailed it might be judicious merely to obscure the Redan (by the smoke of coal and tar kindled in ‘The Quarries’), 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.[2] 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.

“The question is, shall these things be? I think they must be. By what compact can they be stopped? It were improbable that any congress of nations could agree on any code regulating means of destruction; but if it did, it were useless; for science becomes more powerful as she concentrates her forces in the hands of units, so that a nation could only act, by the absolute and individual assent of each of her representatives. Assume, then, that France shall lay war to England, and by superior force of men should place immense hosts, well armed, on English soil. Is it probable that the units would rest in peace and allow sheer brute force to win its way to empire? Or put English troops on French soil, and reverse the question?

“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?”

The Army and Navy Register of May 29, 1915, reports that

“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 (at that time an untried theory) 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 (a), 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,[3] communicated by Dr. George Wilson in 1854, is of interest.

“Dr. Wilson commenced by stating that, having read with much interest the account of Dr. Stenhouse’s researches on the deodorizing and disinfecting properties of charcoal, and the application of these to the construction of a new and important kind of respirator, he had requested the accomplished chemist to send one of his instruments for exhibition to the society, which he had kindly done. Two of the instruments were now on the table, differing, however, so slightly in construction, that it would be sufficient to explain the arrangement of one of them. Externally, it had the appearance of a small fencing-mask of wire gauze, covering the face from the chin upwards to the bridge of the nose, but leaving the eyes and forehead free. It consisted, essentially, of two plates of wire gauze, separated from each other by a space of about one-fourth or one-eighth of an inch, so as to form a small cage filled with small fragments of charcoal. The frame of the cage was of copper, but the edges were made of soft lead, and were lined with velvet, so as to admit of their being made to fit the cheeks tightly and inclose the mouth and nostrils. By this arrangement, no air could enter the lungs without passing through the wire gauze and traversing the charcoal. An aperture is provided with a screw or sliding valve for the removal and replenishment of the contents of the cage, which consist of the siftings or riddlings of the lighter kinds of wood charcoal. The apparatus is attached to the face by an elastic band passing over the crown of the head and strings tying behind, as in the case of the ordinary respirator. The important agent in this instrument is the charcoal, which has so remarkable a power of absorbing and destroying irritating and otherwise irrespirable and poisonous gases or vapors that, armed with the respirator, spirits of hartshorn, sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrosulphuret of ammonia and chlorine may be breathed through it with impunity, though but slightly diluted with air. This result, first obtained by Dr. Stenhouse, has been verified by those who have repeated the trial, among others by Dr. Wilson, who has tried the vapors named above on himself and four of his pupils, who have breathed them with impunity. The explanation of this remarkable property of charcoal is two-fold. It has long been known to possess the power of condensing into its pores gases and vapors, so that if freshly prepared and exposed to these, it absorbs and retains them. But it has scarcely been suspected till recently, when Dr. Stenhouse pointed out the fact, that if charcoal be allowed to absorb simultaneously such gases as sulphuretted hydrogen and air, the oxygen of this absorbed and condensed air rapidly oxidizes and destroys the accompanying gas. So marked is this action, that if dead animals be imbedded in a layer of charcoal a few inches deep, instead of being prevented from decaying as it has hitherto been supposed that they would be by the supposed antiseptic powers of the charcoal, they are found by Dr. Stenhouse to decay much faster, whilst at the same time, no offensive effluvia are evolved. The deodorizing powers of charcoal are thus established in a way they never have been before; but at the same time it is shown that the addition of charcoal to sewage refuse lessens its agricultural value contemporaneously with the lessening of odor. From these observations, which have been fully verified, it appears that by strewing charcoal coarsely powdered to the extent of a few inches, over church-yards, or by placing it inside the coffins of the dead, the escape of noisome and poisonous exhalations may be totally prevented. The charcoal respirator embodies this important discovery. It is certain that many of the miasma, malaria and infectious matters which propagate disease in the human subjects, enter the body by the lungs, and impregnating the blood there, are carried with it throughout the entire body, which they thus poison. These miasma are either gases and vapors or bodies which, like fine light dust, are readily carried through the air; moreover, they are readily destroyed by oxidizing agents, which convert them into harmless, or at least non-poisonous substances, such as water, carbonic acid and nitrogen. There is every reason, therefore, for believing that charcoal will oxidize and destroy such miasma as effectually as it does sulphuretted hydrogen or hydrosulphuret of ammonia, and thus prevent their reaching and poisoning the blood. The intention accordingly is that those who are exposed to noxious vapors, or compelled to breathe infected atmospheres, shall wear the charcoal respirator, with a view to arrest and destroy the volatile poisons contained in these. Some of the non-obvious applications of the respirator were then referred to:

“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.”

CHAPTER II
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 (Auld, “Gas and Flame,” page 15), 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.