Chemical Weapons: A Deadly History

[TomSea]

Chemical Weapons: A Deadly History
by Wojtek Grojec and Carlos Coelho
4-5 minutes

By Wojtek Grojec and Carlos Coelho

On a sunny afternoon in April 1915, outside the Belgian city of Ypres, the wind began blowing in the direction the German troops wanted – toward the French lines. German soldiers set up over 5,000 barrels of chlorine gas along their position, and let loose a rolling cloud of thick, yellow death. More than 6,000 French troops died in what was the first systematic use of poison gas on the battlefield. Its effectiveness caught even the Germans off guard. Willi Siebert, a German soldier, noted in his diary, “When we got to the French lines, the trenches were empty, but in a half mile the bodies of French soldiers were everywhere. It was unbelievable.” Just over 99 years later, on June 17, 2014, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed chlorine gas was used by the Syrian government in an attack on its own people.


German soldiers ignite chlorine gas canisters during the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium on April 22, 1915.
Getty / Hulton Archive

In 1918, a German chemist named Fritz Haber won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for a method of extracting ammonia from the nitrogen in the atmosphere. The process made ammonia abundant and easily available. Haber’s discovery revolutionized agriculture, with some calling it the most significant technological discovery of the 20th century – supporting half of the world’s food base.


Fritz Haber is known as "the father of chemical warfare."
Carlos Coelho / RFE/RL

Haber was also a staunch German patriot who quickly joined the war effort at the outbreak of World War I. He was insistent on using weaponized gases, despite objections from some army commanders about their brutality, and treaties prohibiting their use. He personally oversaw the first use of chlorine gas at the front lines at Ypres. The next morning, he set out for the eastern front to deploy gas against the Russian army.

Read more at: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/history-of-chemical-weapons/29189261.html

Devastating, just read that first paragraph.

[Absalom]

Tear gas was the irritant used by the Germans to disrupt French formations,
forcing them from their trenches into artillery/machine gun fire.
The poisons (Mustard, Phosgene and Chlorine ) were largely ineffective as
wind direction and flow could never be controlled by either side.