During the first World War the use of chemicals in the war were never on a soldier's mind. The impracticality of having chemicals on the battlefield were quite high because it was more productive to be able to see your enemies without having to look through a chemical mist. The Germans were the first to understand that chemicals such as chlorine and mustard gas if used properly would be a devastating tool for the war. Although it seems beneficial, chemical warfare had some issues regarding it. The main advocator of the weapon, Fritz Haber, was pushing for this weapon to be a main instrument in the war but most of the German high commanders were unsure of this gas as a weapon and thought it was more of a science experiment at best. A few months into the war Haber was able to convince one of the commanding generals that chemical warfare was going to help the German Empire succeed in the war. The gas was finally ready for use.
In April 1915, the Germans laid 5,000 or so cylinders of chlorine gas along their defensive perimeter 3 weeks earlier at Ypres, Belgium. As the wind picked up the German meteorologists who understood the wind patterns opened the valves of the cylinders releasing over 160 tons of chlorine into the trenches of the French soldiers. It was a horrendous sight to see. In approximately 10 minutes the ginormous greenish-grey wall of chloride had breached about 4 miles of French trenches killing an astonishing amount of 1000 French troops, leading to their full retreat of the area. The soldiers were shocked, they described the horrors as being “too much to look at”. When French soldiers met the wall of toxic gas they were blinded and drove insane, coughing and fighting for air they slowly fell to the ground one after the other. Their skin was described as turning an array of colors from yellow and green to red and black leaving an odor potent enough to kill a man. The battle was won but no real territory was gained by the Germans from this gruesome attack on the French troops. The German high commanders sought the weapon as being a beneficial tool in their success in the war and wrapping up the end of trench warfare. This atrocity from the Germans was a benchmark in the history of chemical warfare and the first of its time. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2376985/ http://chemicalweapons.cenmag.org/when-chemicals-became-weapons-of-war/ |