| 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