Technical Nature
Chemical warfare, besides being the newest, is the most technical and most highly specialized Service under the War Department. There is no class of people in civil life, and no officers or men in the War Department, who can take up chemical warfare successfully until they have received training in its use. This applies not only to the use of materials in attack, but to the use of materials for defense. Ten years from now perhaps this will not be true. It is certainly hoped that it will not be. By that time the entire Army should be pretty thoroughly trained in the general principles and many of the special features of chemical warfare. If not, chemical warfare cannot be used in the field with the efficiency and success with which it deserves to be used. Furthermore, it is believed that within ten years the knowledge of the gases used in chemical warfare will be so common through the development of the use of these same materials in civil life, that it will not be so difficult, as at the present date, to get civilians who are acquainted with Chemical Warfare Service materials.
Effectiveness of Gas
Chemical warfare materials were used during the war by Chemical Warfare Service troops, by the Artillery and by the Infantry. In the future the Air Service and Navy will be added to the above list. Chemical warfare, even under the inelastic methods of the Germans, proved one of the most powerful means of offense with which the American troops had to contend. To realize its effectiveness we need only remember that more than 27 out of every 100 casualties on the field of battle were from gas alone. Unquestionably many of those who died on the battlefield from other causes suffered also from gas. No other single element of war, unless you call powder a basic element, accounted for so many casualties among the American troops. Indeed, it is believed that a greater number of casualties was not inflicted by any other arm of the Service, unless possibly the Infantry, and even in that case it would be necessary to account for all injured by bullets, the bayonet, machine guns and hand grenades. This is true, in spite of the fact that the German was so nearly completely out of gas when the Americans began their offensive at St. Mihiel and the Argonne, that practically no gas casualties occurred during the St. Mihiel offensive, and only a very few until after a week of the Argonne fighting. Furthermore, the Germans knew that an extensive use of mustard gas against the American lines on the day the attack was made, and also on the line that marked the end of the first advance a few days later, would have produced tremendous casualties. Judging from the results achieved at other times by an extensive use of mustard gas, it is believed that had the German possessed this gas and used it as he had used it a few other times, American casualties in the Argonne would have been doubled. In fact, the advance might even have been entirely stopped, thus prolonging the war into the year 1919.
Humanity of Gas
A few words right here about the humanity of gas are not out of place, notwithstanding the Army and the general public have now so completely indorsed chemical warfare that it is believed the argument of inhumanity has no weight whatever. There were three great reasons why chemical warfare was first widely advertised throughout the world as inhumane and horrible. These reasons may be summed up as follows:
In the first place, the original gas used at Ypres in 1915 was chlorine, and chlorine is one of a group of gases known as suffocants—gases that cause death generally by suffocating the patient through spasms of the epiglottis and throat. That is the most agonizing effect produced by any gas.
The second reason was unpreparedness. The English had no masks, no gas-proof dugouts, nor any of the other paraphernalia that was later employed to protect against poisonous gas. Consequently, the death rate in the first gas attack at Ypres was very high, probably 35 per cent. As a matter of fact, every man who was close to the front line died. The only ones who escaped were those on the edges of the cloud of gas or so far to the rear that the concentration had decreased below the deadly point.
The third great reason was simply propaganda. It was good war propaganda to impress upon everybody the fact that the German was capable of using any means that he could develop in order to win a victory. He had no respect for previous agreements or ideas concerning warfare. This propaganda kept up the morale and fighting spirit of the Allies, and was thoroughly justifiable upon that score, even when it led to wild exaggeration.
The chlorine used in the first attack by the German is the least poisonous of the gases now used. Those later introduced, such as phosgene, mustard gas and diphenylchloroarsine are from five to ten times as effective.