historyanalysisNLM Circulating Now1915–1918 · Ypres, Belgium
Gassed!
At Ypres in April 1915, German forces released chlorine gas from pressurized canisters, and a wind carried it into Allied trenches. Around 5,000 soldiers died and over 10,000 were injured, largely because no one had protection. The Allies quickly identified the gas and began developing masks, and both sides then built large chemical warfare services that recruited hundreds of chemists and physiologists. In 1917 Germany introduced mustard gas, which soaked into clothing and ground and burned skin for hours later. Chemical weapons caused about 1.3 million casualties in the war, around 5 percent of the total, and the 1925 Geneva Protocol banned their use in war.
Gas was released from canisters and carried downwind, so it reached trenches without any shells. Chlorine attacked the lungs and caused fluid to build up there. Gas masks solved that, so chemists developed phosgene and then mustard gas, which penetrates clothing and blisters skin and eyes. Because it lingers on the ground, troops had to decontaminate equipment and uniforms, which slowed operations.
The chemical arms race of 1915 to 1918 turned laboratory chemistry into a weapon and showed how quickly a defence can chase an attack. Its legacy is the Geneva Protocol and the modern rule that chemical weapons are banned, a limit that arose from this specific wartime experience.
Each new gas forced an answer: masks against chlorine, then new chemicals that masks could not stop. Chemical weapons were banned in 1899 and 1907 before the war, yet they were used anyway, and the Geneva Protocol of 1925 repeated the prohibition, a pattern of agreements following atrocities.
background
Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare, biological warfare and radiological warfare, which together make up CBRN, the military acronym for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (warfare or weapons), all of which are considered "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs), a term that contrasts with conventional weapons.
The use of chemical weapons in international armed conflicts is prohibited under international humanitarian law by the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits signatories from acquiring, stockpiling and using chemical weapons in all circumstances except for very limited purposes (research, medical, pharmaceutical or protective).
From Wikipedia: Chemical warfare (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗_-_Gassed_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
U.S. National Library of Medicine
Illustrative photo · John Singer Sargent, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
