German Problems in Gas Training
The Germans also had serious troubles of their own over the psychology of gas training. As stated elsewhere they were using mustard gas nearly eleven months before the Allies began using it. During that time, for purposes of morale, if not sheer boastfulness, the Germans told their men that mustard gas could not be made by the Allies; that it was by far the worst thing the war had produced—and in that statement they were correct—and that they would win the war with it—in which statement they were far from correct. When the Allies began sending it back to them they had to reverse their teachings and tell their men that mustard gas was no worse than anything else, that they need not be afraid of it and that their masks and other protective appliances gave full protection against it. They thus had a problem in psychology which they never succeeded in fully solving. Indeed there is no question but that the growing fear of gas in the minds of the German is one of the reasons that prompted him to his early capitulation.