CHAPTER VIII
AMERICAN DEVELOPMENTS
Special Attention Justified;—Special Value of American Opinion.—Various reasons prompt us to pay special attention to the development of chemical warfare by the United States of America. In the preceding chapters we have attempted a more or less connected account of its development during the campaign. Such an account must necessarily make constant reference to French and British developments. But American preparations, although on a colossal scale, were not in time to influence the campaign seriously and directly. Therefore, purely for the symmetry of our account, special reference should be made to America. But a more serious reason is to be found in the great importance attached by America to this branch of warfare. As everybody knows, the arrival of the American troops in large numbers was preceded by an educational period, during which American staffs, officers, and men became acquainted with Allied staffs, operations, and methods on the Western Front. They were less biased by military tradition, and not under the same necessity as the European Allies to organise in an improvised way for different violent emergencies. Their opinions of war methods on the Western Front are, therefore, of great interest.
Chemical warfare at once assumed a place of prime importance in their schemes, receiving a stimulus and a momentum which, rather than losing force during peace, appears to have gathered intensity. There was at first no particular background of emotion, or desire for specific retaliation in this American development. It was purely a question of deciding on technical grounds the relative importance of different methods of warfare. Solid facts determined the matter later. We have it on the best authority that 75,000 out of the total 275,000 American casualties were due to gas.
Early American Activities.—The earliest American activities, consisted in attaching various officers to the British formations in France and to the French research and producing organisations centred in Paris. A period ensued of remarkably rapid and efficient assimilation of the best developments in allied chemical warfare. Two American gas companies were attached to ours for instruction in the first month of 1918, and they assisted in several gas attacks on the British front.
Field Activities.—In a sense the development of chemical warfare organisations by the Americans was deprived of its promised success. The Allies regained the general and final offensive before American plans matured. But if the latter were prevented from participating in various types of cloud and stationary attack along the front, yet the coincidence of their organisation with the development of more open warfare gave them an opportunity, which they readily seized, to demonstrate the possibilities of mobile chemical attack. Two gas companies, known as the 30th Engineers, were assembled, partially trained, and embarked for France at the end of 1917. They entered upon a course of training with the British Special Brigade R.E. while further units were being organised in America. The projector at-tracted the Americans, and they were ready, as General Fries informs us, to launch a big projector gas attack, when Marshal Foch's counter attack disorganised the front concerned. They then turned their attention to the use of the four-inch Stokes mortar in an attempt to neutralise the German machine-gun nests, using phosphorus for smoke and thermit shell, and continued to assist the infantry either by taking part in the preparations for attack or in subsequent operations.
Special Difficulties.—The great length of the American lines of communication led them to develop certain research and experimental organisations near to the front. These had to deal with the "short range" problems, those of immediate importance, without referring them back to America. The 3000 miles of ocean represented a necessary loss of contact which prevented the home workers, however willing, from fully realising the needs of the problems concerned. Accordingly a strong experimental station, Hanlon Field, was developed near Chaumont, and a well-equipped laboratory was established at Puteaux, near Paris.
Edgewood Arsenal.—The organisations developed in America were of very great interest. The American officers in the field, through their contact with the British and French, realised early that we were extended to the utmost in the matter of production, that our demands and programmes were far ahead of our output, and that they could not reasonably expect serious help from us, either with regard to the results or the material means of production. They, therefore, made surveys of our methods and wisely determined to concentrate on production in America. As a result, they developed the phenomenal chemical warfare arsenal of Edgewood. Had the war lasted longer, there can be no doubt that this centre of production would have represented one of the most important contributions by America to the world war. Probably had production been conceived on a smaller scale, however, its results would have materialised sooner and produced greater actual influence.
A few facts with regard to Edgewood suffice to confirm its potentialities. We learn[1] that the arsenal organisation comprised a huge chlorine plant, probably the largest in the world, various chemical plants for the manufacture of the chief chemical warfare substances adopted by the European belligerents, and shell-filling plant capable of filling a total of more than 200,000 shell and bomb daily.
[1] Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, January, 1919.