Chemical warfare agent

“ Indeed whenever great results are promised, envy is engendered in those in other lines whose importance may be diminished, or who are so short-sighted as to be always opposed to progress.
Chemical warfare has had, and is still having, its full share of these difficulties. From the very day when chlorine, known to the world as a benign substance highly useful in sanitation, water purification, gold mining and bleaching was put into use as a poisonous gas, chemical warfare has loomed larger and larger as a factor to be considered in all future wars. ”

“ The world movement towards disarmament will hardly countenance the maintenance of permanent chemical arsenals. In the face of war experience and further research developments the laborious war improvisation of these arsenals will not save us as it did in the last struggle. Any nation devoid of the means of production invites enemy chemical aggression and is helpless against it. This, and the need to keep abreast of chemical warfare development—particularly in protection— are the chief lessons of the struggle for the chemical initiative. ”

“ If, then, there be developed industries for manufacturing these gases in time of war, and if the training of the army in chemical warfare be thorough and extensive, the United States will have more than an equal chance with any other nation or combination of nations in any future war.
It is just as sportsman-like to fight with chemical warfare materials as it is to fight with machine guns. The enemy will know more or less accurately our chemical warfare materials and our methods, and we will have the same information about the enemy. ”

“ Each nation and any League of Nations must seriously face the question of the establishment of elaborate and complex chemical warfare organisations. It seems to me that the logical course of thought and action is as follows. If guarantees are forthcoming, internationally, removing this grave German chemical warfare threat through her manufacturing monopoly, then the need for a definite chemical striking force and organisation will be greatly reduced. National safety is itself a corollary of world disarmament. ”

“ By permitting the individual soldier to retain the efficient use of his weapons in gas, the mask, or other form of individual protection, may render a costly counter-attack unnecessary. In this way protective methods in chemical warfare may be the determining factor in some strategic campaign or tactical activity. The distinction between tactics and strategy in chemical warfare cannot be made by grouping substances, or their methods of application to war, any more than one can say that certain infantry or artillery formations or weapons have a purely strategic or tactical function. ”

“ Chemical warfare, however, has introduced a method of blocking out chosen areas of the battle-field in such a way as to prevent their effective use for military defence, communications, or other purposes. It is now possible, by chemical means, to give a normal piece of country the same value as a natural obstacle, or one organised for defence by formidable engineering construction, and manned by rifles and machine-guns. This can be achieved by the use of a highly persistent dangerous gas or war chemical of which, so far, mustard gas is the most effective example. ”

“ Before taking up in some detail the methods of projecting gas upon the enemy, it is very desirable to understand the fundamentals of chemical warfare, in so far as they pertain to poisonous gases. Following the first use of pure chlorine all the principal nations engaged in the war began investigations into a wide range of substances in the hope of finding others more poisonous, more easily produced, and more readily projected upon the enemy. ”

“ In the future Gas Troops will put off the majority of all cloud gas attacks even with toxic smoke candles.
Necessity for Training in Peace. This is an outline of the subject of chemical warfare. As stated in the beginning, the fundamental underlying principles for the successful use of poisonous gas is necessarily the same as for any other war materials. The necessity for continuous training in peace is just the same with chemical warfare as with the rifle, the machine gun, with field artillery or any other weapon of war. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We must continue our studies of what is known as chemical warfare. No nation has renounced the use of poison gases as the result of the Peace Conference. There are nations whose word we could not respect if they did renounce it. It is essential to study the offensive side of chemical warfare if we are to be prepared for defence. The great importance of adequate defensive appliances arises from the fact that preparations for the offensive use of gas can be made in peace-time with great secrecy, and may have far-reaching and even fatal results in the early stages of a war. ”

“ Accordingly, chemical warfare is an agency that must not only be reckoned with by every civilized nation in the future, but is one which civilized nations should not hesitate to use. When properly safe-guarded with masks and other safety devices, it gives to the most scientific and most ingenious people a great advantage over the less scientific and less ingenious. Then why should the United States or any other highly civilized country consider giving up chemical warfare? ”

“ When the shell burst, the diphenylchloroarsine was finely divided or atomized and produced a cloud of toxic particles. Since smoke particles are only slightly removed by the ordinary mask, this formed a very effective means of chemical warfare.
An analogous result was obtained by the use of poison gases, such as chloropicrin, in a smoke cloud produced from silicon or stannic chloride. Here, however, the toxic material was a real gas, and so the real result attained consisted in forcing the men to wear their masks in all kinds of clouds. ”

“ We cannot envisage advances in the use of explosives in shell or bomb to render them more humane. Explosives, if their development be pressed, can only become more violent, with a wider range of action. Chemical warfare may follow the same lines, but it has the unique possibility of developing on more humane lines. The vesicant action of mustard gas produced huge casualties with relatively little permanent harm. Chemicals may be found which temporarily influence human functions, enabling military objectives to be attained with a remarkably small amount of pain and death. ”

“ It is a struggle for the initiative.
More than this, as the use of chemical warfare becomes an organic part of operations, as it did during the war, these operations become correspondingly dependent upon conditions imposed by the chemical campaign. One can imagine the case of an army unprotected against a new gas, aware that the enemy is ready to employ the latter, compelled to postpone some huge offensive until its protective methods were equal to countering the new chemical. ”

“ Notwithstanding the opposition of certain people who, through ignorance or for other reasons, have fought it, chemical warfare has come to stay, and just in proportion as the United States gives chemical warfare its proper place in its military establishment, just in that proportion will the United States be ready to meet any or all comers in the future, for the United States has incomparable resources in the shape of the crude materials—power, salt, sulfur and the like—that are necessary in the manufacture of gases. ”

“ Therefore, urgent guarantees for national safety are absolutely essential until the web of peace is strongly organised, which cannot be until the immediate menace of the monopoly in production is removed. But even then, until the general peace is fairly implanted, we must be ready for any surprise from an unscrupulous enemy. Research and training in chemical protection must be continued, and this can only be ensured by keeping abreast with offensive chemical warfare. ”

“ While some of the chemicals developed for use in war prior to the Armistice have been made known to the world, a number of others have not. More than this, every nation of first class importance has continued to pursue more or less energetically studies into chemical warfare. ”

“ I feel sure that the army appreciates the value of chemical warfare, and that it appreciates also the value of the chemists to chemical warfare.
"So long as there is any danger of other nations continuing these methods of warfare, research and experiment in chemical warfare must be pursued. Research must not only be directed towards the gases and apparatus, likely to be employed in the future, but also towards protection against all possible gases. Training in the use of gas will be confined to appropriate branches, but training in defensive measures will include the whole army. ”

“ It is, therefore, our intention to present a reasoned account of the development of poison gas, or chemical warfare, during the recent war. But to leave the matter there would be misleading and culpable, for, however interesting the simple facts of the chemical campaign, they owed their being to a combination of forces, whose nature and significance for the future are infinitely more important. The chief cause of the chemical war was an unsound and dangerous world distribution of industrial organic chemical forces. ”

“ The research worker's nearest confidante and laboratory companion might be unaware that he was developing some new vitally important chemical for warfare. No serious person can claim the possibility of a check upon such research. If, then, the Government of any country desires to provide its chemical factories with suitable subjects for chemical warfare production, these can be produced under ANY international arrangements, however prohibitive. ”

“ 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. [Pg 388]
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.
The measure of humanity for any form of warfare is the percentage of deaths to the total number injured by the particular method of warfare under consideration.
American Gas Casualties. ”

“ Large number of casualties resulted through the men being forced to remove their masks in an atmosphere filled with lethal gases. The gas had the additional and serious disadvantage of being a very difficult one to remove completely in the gas mask. The first American masks were very good when chlorine or phosgene was considered but were of no value when chloropicrin was used.
One of the interesting facts of chemical warfare is that few if any new substances were discovered and utilized during the three years of this form of fighting. Chlorine and phosgene were well known compounds. ”

“ As to non-combatants, certainly we do not contemplate using poisonous gas against them, no more at least than we propose to use high explosives in long-range guns or aeroplanes against them. The use of the one against non-combatants is just as damnable as the other and it is just as easy to refrain from using one as the other.
Gas Cannot be Abolished. As to the abandonment of poison gas, it must be remembered that no powerful weapon of war has ever been abandoned once it proved its power unless a more powerful weapon was discovered. ”

“ Any new chemical warfare development capable, under a given system of individual protection, of successfully attacking the hitherto protected individual, may be termed strategic. The method may be aimed at a protected or hitherto immune human function, but if it overcomes protection it is then capable of effecting strategic results by its use on a sufficiently large scale. Thus we regard the first introduction of cloud gas by Germany, or their use of mustard gas, as examples of strategic chemical warfare moves. ”

“ But if satisfactory guarantees were forthcoming it would be consistent with national safety to limit the chemical warfare equipment of each nation to what would actually represent a scientific military brain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is inevitable that such a step should benefit the growing organic chemical industries of countries other than Germany, but this issue need not be shirked. The importance of the matter is so vital that it eclipses all reproach that the disarmament argument for the maintenance of the dye industry is used on selfish grounds. Such reproach cannot, in fairness, be heard unless it destroys the case which we have established. We are faced with the following alternatives. Safety demands strong organic chemical industries or cumbersome and burdensome chemical warfare establishments. ”