THIS DAY IN HISTORY

[IceWizard]

Germans introduce poison gas


1915
April 22







On April 22, 1915, German forces shock Allied soldiers along the western front by firing
more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres,
Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line.

Toxic smoke has been used occasionally in warfare since ancient times, and in 1912 the
French used small amounts of tear gas in police operations. At the outbreak of World War I,
the Germans began actively to develop chemical weapons. In October 1914, the Germans
placed some small tear-gas canisters in shells that were fired at Neuve Chapelle, France,
but Allied troops were not exposed. In January 1915, the Germans fired shells loaded with
xylyl bromide, a more lethal gas, at Russian troops at Bolimov on the eastern front. Because
of the wintry cold, most of the gas froze, but the Russians nonetheless reported more than
1,000 killed as a result of the new weapon.

On April 22, 1915, the Germans launched their first and only offensive of the year. Known as
the Second Battle of Ypres, the offensive began with the usual artillery bombardment of the
enemy’s line. When the shelling died down, the Allied defenders waited for the first wave of
German attack troops but instead were thrown into panic when chlorine gas wafted across
no-man’s land and down into their trenches. The Germans targeted four miles of the front
with the wind-blown poison gas and decimated two divisions of French and Algerian colonial
troops. The Allied line was breached, but the Germans, perhaps as shocked as the Allies by
the devastating effects of the poison gas, failed to take full advantage, and the Allies held
most of their positions.

A second gas attack, against a Canadian division, on April 24, pushed the Allies further back,
and by May they had retreated to the town of Ypres. The Second Battle of Ypres ended on
May 25, with insignificant gains for the Germans. The introduction of poison gas, however,
would have great significance in World War I.

Immediately after the German gas attack at Ypres, France and Britain began developing their
own chemical weapons and gas masks. With the Germans taking the lead, an extensive
number of projectiles filled with deadly substances polluted the trenches of World War I.
Mustard gas, introduced by the Germans in 1917, blistered the skin, eyes, and lungs, and
killed thousands. Military strategists defended the use of poison gas by saying it reduced the
enemy’s ability to respond and thus saved lives in offensives. In reality, defenses against
poison gas usually kept pace with offensive developments, and both sides employed
sophisticated gas masks and protective clothing that essentially negated the strategic
importance of chemical weapons.

The United States, which entered World War I in 1917, also developed and used chemical
weapons. Future president Harry S. Truman was the captain of a U.S. field artillery unit that
fired poison gas against the Germans in 1918. In all, more than 100,000 tons of chemical
weapons agents were used in World War I, some 500,000 troops were injured, and almost
30,000 died, including 2,000 Americans.

In the years following World War I, Britain, France, and Spain used chemical weapons in
various colonial struggles, despite mounting international criticism of chemical warfare.
In 1925, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical weapons in war but did
not outlaw their development or stockpiling. Most major powers built up substantial
chemical weapons reserves. In the 1930s, Italy employed chemical weapons against Ethiopia,
and Japan used them against China.

In World War II, chemical warfare did not occur, primarily because all the major belligerents
possessed both chemical weapons and the defenses–such as gas masks, protective clothing,
and detectors–that rendered them ineffectual. In addition, in a war characterized by
lightning-fast military movement, strategists opposed the use of anything that would delay
operations. Germany, however, did use poison gas to murder millions in its extermination camps

Since World War II, chemical weapons have only been used in a handful of conflicts–the Yemeni
conflict of 1966-67, the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88–and always against forces that lacked gas
masks or other simple defenses. In 1990, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an
agreement to cut their chemical weapons arsenals by 80 percent in an effort to discourage
smaller nations from stockpiling the weapons. In 1993, an international treaty was signed
banning the production, stockpiling (after 2007), and use of chemical weapons.
It took effect in 1997.




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