3. Chemical weapons in history
Right: A German tosses grenades.
Below:
British gas casualties near Bois de l'Abbe France, May 1918.
WWI Images courtesy of World War I - Trenches on the Web and special thanks to Mike Iavarone.
The
first...
The first big
user of chemical weapons was Germany, which released chlorine gas at
Ypres,
Belgium in 1915. Chlorine killed or maimed its victims by burning the
lungs; it also caused panic among soldiers who were totally unprepared
for gas war.
Before the so-called "Great War" ended in 1918, France and Great Britain had retaliated, and the industrial powers were also using phosgene gas and mustard gas:
Mustard gas (actually a liquid) was introduced by the Germans in 1917. It burns and destroys the skin, eyes and lungs.
Bans
Oddly, although the chemical poisons killed tens of thousands of soldiers,
they were of little military consequence because they often drifted back
toward the perpetrators. Nonetheless, they caused enough international
revulsion to spark the Geneva Protocol of 1925 which banned the use of
chemical weapons.
A
paper tiger?
Signatories of the Geneva Protocol that have used chemical weapons in
war include Japan (in China), Italy (in Ethiopia) and Iraq (against Iran
and against Iraq's Kurdish citizens). For more history, see chapter 3
of "Banning..." in the bibliography.
In addition, a cult in Japan released the nerve gas sarin in 1995 in the Tokyo subways (See "Sarin Savagery" in the bibliography).
The most extreme violation, says Javed Ali, a research fellow at the nonprofit Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Virginia, was by Iraq, during the war it started with Iran in 1980. Iran was using "human wave" attacks, using religiously motivated troops who thought they could achieve martyrdom by donating their lives to the cause.
The tactic might have been gruesome, but it was also effective against Iraq, whose smaller population could not bleed forever. Iraq's use of mustard and nerve agents to defend against these attacks, and later for offensive purposes, may have been a factor in persuading a reluctant Iran to sign a cease-fire in August, 1988. Iraq also used nerve gas against its own people, notably when it killed about 5,000 Kurds in Halabja, in March of 1988.
By returning the issue of chemical weapons to the headlines, Iraq helped spur a newer, comprehensive effort to abolish chemical weapon, the Chemical Weapons Convention.
This
masked man is the corps historian, shown here at work in M-17A1 protective
mask during an Iraqi SS-1B SCUD attack on 20 January 1991.
Courtesy: XVIII Airborne Corps photograph by PFC
John F. Freund. Courtesy U.S.
Army
The Convention On The Prohibition Of The Development, Production, Stockpiling And Use Of Chemical Weapons And On Their Destruction would ban pretty much everything associated with these weapons. On September 16, 1996, Cameroon become the 64th signatory to the Convention; one more signature will put the treaty into force, at which point signatories will have 10 years to destroy their chemical weapons.
The United States has signed but not yet ratified the convention (although it did ratify the 1925 Geneva Convention in 1975). Nonetheless, the United States is incinerating its huge stockpile of chemical weapons. On August 22, 1996, the Pentagon fired up a large incinerator near Salt Lake City and began burning rockets filled with nerve gas. (Tricky business, unless you like to die. If you're interested in how they do it, check the hotlinks under "Burning our chemical weapons" in the bibliography).
Haven't
helped much
Although Japan used chemical -- and biological -- weapons in China in
1937 and 1938, the Geneva Convention helped halt more widespread use in
World War II. But nothing slowed military research into deadly chemical
and biological weapons.
mustard agents
More on these chemical weapons.
Who invented nerve gas?
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