Gas in Barrages. In the future we must expect the enemy to be in a measure as well prepared in chemical warfare as we are. Let us consider the special case of our own men advancing to the attack behind a rolling barrage. We will consider also that the wind is blowing toward our own troops. Obviously under those conditions the wind will blow our own gas back onto our troops. Will we use gas in that barrage? We certainly will! Because with the wind blowing toward our own troops we have the exact ideal condition that the enemy wants for his use of gas. He will then be deluging our advancing troops with all the gas he can fire, in addition to high explosives and shrapnel. Our men must wear masks and take every precaution against enemy gas. How foolish it would be not to fire gas at the enemy under those conditions. If we did not fire gas we would leave him entirely free from wearing masks, and entirely free from taking every other precaution against gas while our own troops were subject to all the difficulties of gas. No, we will fire gas at him in just as great quantities as we consider efficient. And that is just a sample of what is coming on every field of battle—gas used on both sides by every method of putting it over that can be devised.
World War Lessons Only Guide Posts. Example of Book Worms. Every lesson taught by the World War must be taken as a guide-post on the road to future success in war. No use of gas or other materials in the past war must be taken as an exact pattern for use in any battle of the future. Too much study, too much attention to the past, may cause that very thing to happen. A certain general commanding a brigade in the Argonne told me just recently that while the battle was going on a general staff officer called him on the telephone and asked him what the situation was. He gave it to him. The staff officer then asked, “What are you doing?” and he told him. The staff officer replied, “Why, the book doesn’t say to do it that way under such conditions.” There you have the absurd side of too much study and too close reliance on details of the past.
The battle field is a perfect kaleidoscope. The best we can hope to get out of books is a guide—something that we will keep in our minds to help us decide the best way to meet certain situations. He who tries to remember a particular position taught in his school with the idea of applying that to actual use in battle is laying the foundation for absolute failure. Your expert rifleman never thinks back when he goes to fire a shot as to just what his instructor told him or what the book said. He just concentrates his mind on the object to be attained, using so far as comes to him facts he has learned from books or teachers. Your general and your staff must do the same.
Infantry Use of Gas. A few words about how we will use gas in the future. We will start with the Infantry. The Infantry as such will use gas in only two or three ways. They will use some gas in rifle grenades, and a great deal more smoke. We speak of the rifle grenade because in our opinion the hand grenade is a thing of the past. We do not believe there will ever be used in the future any grenade that is not applicable to the rifle. The Infantry will probably often carry large quantities of gas in the shape of the toxic smoke candle. These materials being solids may be shot up by rifles or artillery fire, run over by trucks or tractors, or trampled and still be harmless. It is only when the fuses are lighted and the material driven off by heat that they are dangerous. In using these candles under these conditions you must have sufficient chemical warfare officers and soldiers to get the necessary control indicated by the sun, wind, woods, fogs, ravines and the like.
Cavalry Use of Gas. Next consider the Cavalry. The Cavalry will use gas practically the same as the Infantry. The chemical warfare troops will accompany the Cavalry with Stokes’ mortars or other materials to fire gases into small enemy strongholds that may be encountered whether machine gun nests, mountain tops, woods or villages. They will do this either against savages or civilized people. Methods of making these materials mobile for that purpose are already well under way. If against savages and one does not want to kill them, use tear gases—no better method of searching out hidden snipers in mountain tops, among rocks, or villages, in ravines, or in forests was ever invented.
Use of Gas by Tanks. The tanks will employ gas in the same way as the Infantry with the possibility, however, that they may be used to carry large quantities of gas on caterpillar tractors where otherwise it would be difficult to move the gas. This is not a certainty, but is a situation promising enough to warrant further study.
Artillery Use of Gas. Your Artillery will fire gas and smoke in every caliber of gun. There is a tendency now to limit gas to certain guns and howitzers and to limit smoke to even a smaller number of guns. This is a mistake that we are going to recognize. A very careful study of the records of the war show that more casualties were produced several times over by a thousand gas shells than by a thousand high explosive or shrapnel. And that is because gas has an inherent permanence that no other weapon of war has.
Permanency of Gas. The bullet whistles through the air and does its work or misses. The high explosive shell bursts, hurling its fragments that in a few seconds settle to earth, and its work is done. The shrapnel acts in the same way, but when one turns loose a shell of gas it will kill and injure the same as the high explosive shell and in the same length of time and in addition for some minutes thereafter. Even with the non-persistent gases, it will continue on its way, causing death or injury to every unprotected animal, man or beast in its path. With the persistent gases, the materials from each shell may persist for days.
Variety of Uses of Gas. This brings up the point of the great variety of uses to which gas can be put. The non-persistent gas may be used at all times where one wants to get rid of it in a few moments—the persistent gas wherever one wants to keep the enemy under gas for days at a time. We will use mustard gas on strong points in the advance, on flanks, on distant areas one will not expect to be reached, and as our own protection of masks and clothing increases toward perfection we will use it on the very fields you expect to cross. Why? Because we will be firing it at the enemy for days before hand and we will cause him trouble all those days while we ourselves will encounter it for a few hours at the most. So do not think that mustard gas is only going to be used in defense in the future.
Solid Mustard Gas and Long-Range Guns. We will come to use chemical warfare materials just as high explosives and bullets are used today, even though at times we do suffer an occasional loss from our own weapons. Our Artillery in long-range guns where we want destruction will fill each shell with say 15 per cent gas and 85 per cent high explosive. We have a solid mustard gas that may be so used. We have tremendously powerful tear gases and irritating gases that may be so used. Being solids they do not affect the ballistic qualities of the shell. And what an added danger will mustard gas from every shell bring against railroad centers, rest villages, cantonments, cross-roads and the like. The results will be too great for any force to overlook such use.