The first gas attack in World War I was, in short, organized by the French. But poisonous substances were first used by the German military.
For various reasons, in particular the use of new types of weapons, the First World War, which was planned to end in a few months, quickly escalated into a positional, "trench" conflict. Such hostilities could continue for as long as you like. In order to somehow change the situation and lure the enemy out of the trenches and break through the front, all kinds of chemical weapons began to be used.
It was gases that became one of the reasons for the huge number of victims in the First World War.
First experience
Already in August 1914, almost in the first days of the war, the French in one of the battles used grenades filled with ethyl bromoacetate (tear gas). They did not cause poisoning, but for some time they were able to disorient the enemy. In fact, this was the first combat gas attack.
After the reserves of this gas were depleted, the French troops began to use chloroacetate.
The Germans, who very quickly adopted best practices and what could contribute to the implementation of their plans, took this method of fighting the enemy into service. In October of the same year, they tried to use chemical irritant shells against the British military near the village of Neuve Chapelle. But the low concentration of the substance in the shells did not give the expected effect.
From annoying to poisonous
April 22, 1915. This day, in short, went down in history as one of the darkest days of the First World War. It was then that the German troops carried out the first mass gas attack using not an irritant, but a poisonous substance. Now their goal was not to disorientate and immobilize the enemy, but to destroy him.
It happened on the banks of the river Ypres. 168 tons of chlorine were released by the German military into the air, towards the location of the French troops. A poisonous greenish cloud, followed by German soldiers in special gauze bandages, horrified the Franco-English army. Many fled, giving up their positions without a fight. Others, inhaling the poisoned air, fell dead. As a result, more than 15,000 people were injured that day, 5,000 of whom died, and a gap more than 3 km wide was formed in the front. True, the Germans could not take advantage of the advantage gained. Afraid to advance, having no reserves, they allowed the British and French to re-fill the gap.
After that, the Germans repeatedly tried to repeat their so successful first experience. However, none of the subsequent gas attacks brought such an effect and so many victims, since now all troops were supplied with personal protective equipment against gases.
In response to Germany's actions at Ypres, the entire world community immediately protested, but it was no longer possible to stop the use of gases.
On the Eastern Front, the Germans also did not fail to use their new weapons against the Russian army. It happened on the river Ravka. As a result of the gas attack, about 8 thousand soldiers of the Russian imperial army were poisoned here, more than a quarter of them died from poisoning in the next day after the attack.
It is noteworthy that at first sharply condemning Germany, after some time almost all Entente countries began to use chemical poisonous substances.
The First World War was on. On the evening of April 22, 1915, German and French troops opposing each other were near the Belgian city of Ypres. They fought for the city for a long time and to no avail. But this evening the Germans wanted to test a new weapon - poison gas. They brought thousands of cylinders with them, and when the wind blew towards the enemy, they opened the taps, releasing 180 tons of chlorine into the air. A yellowish gas cloud was carried by the wind towards the enemy line.
The panic began. Immersed in a gas cloud, the French soldiers went blind, coughed and suffocated. Three thousand of them died of asphyxiation, another seven thousand were burned.
"At this point, science lost its innocence," says science historian Ernst Peter Fischer. In his words, if before that the purpose of scientific research was to alleviate the conditions of people's lives, now science has created conditions that make it easier to kill a person.
"In the war - for the fatherland"
A way to use chlorine for military purposes was developed by the German chemist Fritz Haber. He is considered the first scientist who subordinated scientific knowledge to military needs. Fritz Haber discovered that chlorine is an extremely poisonous gas, which, due to its high density, is concentrated low above the ground. He knew that this gas causes severe swelling of the mucous membranes, coughing, suffocation, and ultimately leads to death. In addition, the poison was cheap: chlorine is found in the waste of the chemical industry.
"Haber's motto was "In the world - for humanity, in the war - for the fatherland," Ernst Peter Fischer quotes the then head of the chemical department of the Prussian War Ministry. - Then there were other times. Everyone was trying to find poison gas that they could use in war And only the Germans succeeded."
The Ypres attack was a war crime - as early as 1915. After all, the Hague Convention of 1907 prohibited the use of poison and poisoned weapons for military purposes.
Arms race
The "success" of Fritz Haber's military innovation became contagious, and not only for the Germans. Simultaneously with the war of states, the "war of chemists" also began. Scientists were tasked with creating chemical weapons that would be ready for use as soon as possible. "Abroad, they looked with envy at Haber," says Ernst Peter Fischer, "Many people wanted to have such a scientist in their country." Fritz Haber received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918. True, not for the discovery of poisonous gas, but for his contribution to the implementation of the synthesis of ammonia.
The French and British also experimented with poisonous gases. The use of phosgene and mustard gas, often in combination with each other, became widespread in the war. And yet, poison gases did not play a decisive role in the outcome of the war: these weapons could only be used in favorable weather.
scary mechanism
Nevertheless, a terrible mechanism was launched in the First World War, and Germany became its engine.
The chemist Fritz Haber not only laid the foundation for the use of chlorine for military purposes, but also, thanks to his good industrial connections, helped to mass-produce this chemical weapon. For example, the German chemical concern BASF produced poisonous substances in large quantities during the First World War.
Already after the war with the creation of the IG Farben concern in 1925, Haber joined its supervisory board. Later, during National Socialism, a subsidiary of IG Farben was engaged in the production of "cyclone B", used in the gas chambers of concentration camps.
Context
Fritz Haber himself could not have foreseen this. "He's a tragic figure," Fischer says. In 1933, Haber, a Jew by origin, emigrated to England, expelled from his country, in the service of which he placed his scientific knowledge.
Red line
In total, more than 90 thousand soldiers died on the fronts of the First World War from the use of poison gases. Many died of complications a few years after the end of the war. In 1905, the members of the League of Nations, which included Germany, under the Geneva Protocol pledged not to use chemical weapons. Meanwhile, scientific research on the use of poisonous gases was continued, mainly under the guise of developing means to combat harmful insects.
"Cyclone B" - hydrocyanic acid - an insecticidal agent. "Agent orange" - a substance for deleafing plants. The Americans used defoliant during the Vietnam War to thin out local dense vegetation. As a consequence - poisoned soil, numerous diseases and genetic mutations in the population. The latest example of the use of chemical weapons is Syria.
"You can do whatever you want with poisonous gases, but they can't be used as a target weapon," emphasizes science historian Fisher. “Everyone who is nearby becomes a victim.” The fact that the use of poisonous gas is still “a red line that cannot be crossed”, he considers correct: “Otherwise, the war becomes even more inhuman than it already is.”
The first known case of the use of chemical weapons is the battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915, in which chlorine was used very effectively by German troops, but this battle was not the only one and far from the first.
Turning to a positional war, during which, due to the large number of troops opposing each other on both sides, it was impossible to organize an effective breakthrough, the opponents began to look for other ways out of their current situation, one of them was the use of chemical weapons.
For the first time, chemical weapons were used by the French, it was the French who, back in August 1914, used tear gas, the so-called ethyl bromoacenate. By itself, this gas could not lead to a fatal outcome, but caused a strong burning sensation in the enemy soldiers in the eyes and mucous membranes of the mouth and nose, due to which they lost their orientation in space and did not provide effective resistance to the enemy. Before the offensive, French soldiers threw grenades filled with this poisonous substance at the enemy. The only drawback of the ethyl bromoacenate used was its limited amount, so it was soon replaced by chloroacetone.
Application of chlorine
After analyzing the success of the French, which followed from their use of chemical weapons, the German command already in October of the same year fired at the positions of the British in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, but missed the gas concentration and did not get the expected effect. There was too little gas, and it did not have the proper effect on the enemy soldiers. Nevertheless, the experiment was repeated already in January in the battle of Bolimov against the Russian army, this attack was practically successful for the Germans, and therefore the use of poisonous substances, despite the statement that Germany had violated the norms of international law, received from the UK, it was decided to continue.
Basically, the Germans used chlorine against enemy units - a gas with an almost instantaneous lethal effect. The only disadvantage of using chlorine was its rich green color, due to which it was possible to make an unexpected attack only in the already mentioned battle of Ypres, later on, the Entente armies stocked up with enough means of protection against the effects of chlorine and could no longer be afraid of it. Fritz Haber personally supervised the production of chlorine - a man who later became well known in Germany as the father of chemical weapons.
Having used chlorine in the Battle of Ypres, the Germans did not stop there, but used it at least three more times, including against the Russian fortress of Osovets, where in May 1915 about 90 soldiers died instantly, more than 40 died in hospital wards . But despite the frightening effect that followed from the use of gas, the Germans did not succeed in taking the fortress. The gas practically destroyed all life in the district, plants and many animals died, most of the food supply was destroyed, while Russian soldiers received a frightening type of injury, those who were lucky enough to survive had to remain disabled for life.
Phosgene
Such large-scale actions led to the fact that the German army soon began to feel an acute shortage of chlorine, because it was replaced by phosgene, a gas without color and pungent odor. Due to the fact that phosgene exuded the smell of moldy hay, it was not easy to detect it, since the symptoms of poisoning did not appear immediately, but only a day after application. The poisoned enemy soldiers successfully fought for some time, but without receiving timely treatment, due to elementary ignorance of their condition, they died the next day in tens and hundreds. Phosgene was a more toxic substance, so it was much more profitable to use it than chlorine.
Mustard gas
In 1917, all near the same town of Ypres, German soldiers used another poisonous substance - mustard gas, also called mustard gas. In the composition of mustard gas, in addition to chlorine, substances were used that, when they got on the skin of a person, not only caused poisoning in him, but also served to form numerous abscesses. Outwardly, mustard gas looked like an oily liquid without color. It was possible to determine the presence of mustard gas only by its characteristic smell of garlic, or mustard, hence the name - mustard gas. Contact with mustard gas in the eyes led to instant blindness, concentration of mustard gas in the stomach led to immediate nausea, bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. When the mucous membrane of the throat was affected by mustard gas, the victims experienced an immediate development of edema, which subsequently developed into a purulent formation. A strong concentration of mustard gas in the lungs led to the development of their inflammation and death from suffocation on the 3rd day after poisoning.
The practice of using mustard gas showed that of all the chemicals used in the First World War, it was this liquid, synthesized by the French scientist Cesar Despres and the Englishman Frederic Guthrie in 1822 and 1860 independently of each other, that was the most dangerous, since there were no measures to combat poisoning she didn't exist. The only thing the doctor could do was to advise the patient to wash the mucous membranes affected by the substance and wipe the skin areas that were in contact with mustard gas with napkins abundantly moistened with water.
In the fight against mustard gas, which, when it comes into contact with the surface of the skin or clothes, can be converted into other equally dangerous substances, even a gas mask could not provide significant assistance, be in the mustard zone, the soldiers were recommended no more than 40 minutes, after which the poison began to penetrate through the means of protection.
Despite the obvious fact that the use of any of the toxic substances, whether it be the practically harmless ethyl bromoacenate, or such a dangerous substance as mustard gas, is a violation not only of the laws of warfare, but also of civil rights and freedoms, after the Germans, the British and French began to use chemical weapons and even Russians. Convinced of the high efficiency of mustard gas, the British and French quickly set up its production, and soon it was several times larger than the German one in scale.
In Russia, the production and use of chemical weapons first began before the planned Brusilov breakthrough in 1916. Ahead of the advancing Russian army, shells with chloropicrin and vensinite were scattered, which had a suffocating and poisoning effect. The use of chemicals gave the Russian army a noticeable advantage, the enemy left the trenches in droves and became easy prey for artillery.
Interestingly, after the First World War, the use of any of the means of chemical action on the human body was not only prohibited, but also imputed to Germany as the main crime against human rights, despite the fact that almost all poisonous elements entered mass production and were very effectively used by both opposing sides.
Poison gas was first used by German troops in 1915 on the Western Front. It was later used in Abyssinia, China, Yemen and also in Iraq. Hitler himself was the victim of a gas attack during World War I.
Silent, invisible and in most cases deadly: poison gas is a terrible weapon - not only in the physical sense, since chemical warfare agents can destroy huge numbers of soldiers and civilians, but probably even more psychologically, since fear in front of a terrible threat contained in the inhaled air, inevitably causes panic.
Since 1915, when poison gas was first used in modern warfare, it has been used to kill people in dozens of armed conflicts. However, just in the bloodiest war of the 20th century, in the struggle of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition against the Third Reich in Europe, both sides did not use these weapons of mass destruction. But, nevertheless, in those years it was used, and took place, in particular, during the Sino-Japanese war, which began already in 1937.
Poisonous substances were used as weapons in ancient times - for example, warriors rubbed arrowheads with irritating substances in ancient times. However, the systematic study of chemical elements began only before the First World War. By this time, police in some European countries had already used tear gas to disperse unwanted crowds. Therefore, it remained only a small step before the use of deadly poisonous gas.
1915 - first application
The first confirmed large-scale use of military poison gas occurred on the western front in Flanders. Prior to this, attempts were repeatedly made - generally unsuccessful - to squeeze enemy soldiers out of the trenches with the help of various chemicals and thus complete the conquest of Flanders. On the eastern front, the German gunners also used shells with poisonous chemicals - without much consequence.
Against the background of this kind of "unsatisfactory" results, the chemist Fritz Haber (Fritz Haber), who later received the Nobel Prize, proposed spraying chlorine gas in the presence of a suitable wind. More than 160 tons of this by-product of the chemical industry were used on April 22, 1915 in the Ypres region. The gas was released from about 6,000 cylinders, and as a result, a poisonous cloud six kilometers long and one kilometer wide covered the enemy positions.
There is no exact data on the number of victims of this attack, but they were very significant. In any case, the German army on Ypres Day managed to break through the fortifications of the French and Canadian units to a great depth.
The Entente countries actively protested against the use of poison gas. The German side, in response, stated that the use of chemical munitions is not prohibited by the Hague Convention on Land Warfare. Formally, this was correct, but the use of chlorine gas was contrary to the spirit of the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907.
The death toll was almost 50%
In the following weeks, poisonous gas was used several more times on the arc in the Ypres region. At the same time, on May 5, 1915, at a height of 60 in the British trenches, 90 of the 320 soldiers who were there were killed. Another 207 people were taken to hospitals, but 58 of them did not need any help. The proportion of deaths from the use of poisonous gases against unprotected soldiers was then approximately 50%.
The use of poisonous chemicals by the Germans destroyed the taboo, and after that, other participants in the hostilities also began to use poisonous gases. The British first used chlorine gas in September 1915, while the French used phosgene. Another spiral of the arms race began: more and more new chemical warfare agents were developed, and their own soldiers received more and more advanced gas masks. In total, during the First World War, 18 different potentially lethal poisonous substances and another 27 "irritant" chemical compounds were used.
According to existing estimates, in the period from 1914 to 1918, about 20 million gas shells were used, in addition, more than 10 thousand tons of chemical warfare agents were released from special containers. According to calculations by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, 91,000 people died as a result of the use of chemical warfare agents, and 1.2 million were injured of varying severity.
Hitler's personal experience
Among the victims was also Adolf Hitler. On October 14, 1918, during a mustard gas attack by the French, he temporarily lost his sight. In the book “My Struggle” (Mein Kampf), where Hitler sets out the foundations of his worldview, he describes this situation as follows: “About midnight, some of the comrades were out of action, some of them forever. In the morning, I also began to feel severe pain, increasing every minute. About seven o'clock, stumbling and falling, I somehow wandered to the checkpoint. My eyes burned with pain." After a few hours, “my eyes turned into burning coals. Then I stopped seeing."
And after the First World War, the accumulated, but already unnecessary in Europe, shells with poisonous gases were used. For example, Winston Churchill advocated their use against "wild" rebels in the colonies, but at the same time he made a reservation and added that it was not necessary to use deadly substances. In Iraq, the Royal Air Force also used chemical bombs.
Spain, which remained neutral during the First World War, used poison gases during the Rif War against the Berber tribes in its North African possessions. The Italian dictator Mussolini used this kind of weapon in the Libyan and Abyssinian wars, and it was often used against the civilian population. Western public opinion reacted to this with indignation, but as a result, it was possible to agree only on the adoption of symbolic responses.
Unambiguous ban
In 1925, the Geneva Protocol banned the use of chemical and biological weapons in hostilities, as well as their use against civilians. Nevertheless, practically all states of the world continued to prepare for future wars with the use of chemical weapons.
After 1918, the largest use of chemical warfare agents occurred in 1937 during Japan's war of conquest against China. They have been used on several thousand isolated occasions, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians, but exact data from those theaters of war is not available. Japan did not ratify the Geneva Protocol and was not formally bound by its provisions, but even at that time the use of chemical weapons was considered a war crime.
Including thanks to Hitler's personal experience, the threshold for the use of poisonous chemicals during World War II was very high. However, this does not mean that both sides were not preparing for a possible gas war - in case the opposite side unleashed it.
The Wehrmacht had several laboratories for the study of chemical warfare agents, and one of them was located in the Spandau Citadel, located in the western part of Berlin. In particular, the highly toxic poison gases sarin and soman are produced there in small quantities. And at the plants of the I.G. Farben company, several tons of tabun nerve gas were even produced on a phosphorus basis. However, it was not applied.