Allies Command

This directive supersedes Allied Command Europe (ACE) Directive 80-63. Dated 10 January 1996. ACE Directive 00-1, Index to ACE Directive and Manuals is to be amended to indicate the current date of this directive. 

The first large-scale gas attack had taken the Allied commanders so completely by surprise that it was not until the early hours of the morning that they began to appreciate the scale of the disaster that had overtaken them. The Germans had torn a hole four miles wide in the Western Front, smashing in an afternoon defences which had held for months. The German commander, Falkenhayn, was as startled as his opponents by the overwhelming effect of chemical... 

Bari shows very clearly just how sensitive the issue of chemical warfare was among the Allied commanders. Although it rarely features in either official staff histories or personal recollections, thousands of hours were spent by the men who guided the course of the Second World War in discussing gas when and if it should be used, what new developments there had been, what the other side s policy was, what weapons they had, how best to appear well-prepared for chemical attack without at the same time giving the impression that you were about to launch one. For a war which never was, it occupied much time and deep thought, as well as expertise, money and resources.42... 

The standoff persisted into summer. Sir Ian Hamilton, the Allied commander, Corfu-bom, literary, with a Boer-stiffened right arm and the best of intentions, appealed for reinforcements. The War Cabinet had reorganized itself and expelled Churchill it assented with reluctance to Hamilton s appeal and shipped out fi ve divisions more. 

Bohr stayed on in London for several more weeks. He was thus on hand for D-Day, Tuesday, June 6, 1944. The greatest amphibious assault ever attempted, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, called that invasion of Europe across the English Channel with an initial force of 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers supported by 1,200 warships, 1,500 tanks and 12,000 aircraft. By the time Bohr and his son left England at the end of the week to return to the United States the Allies had secured the invasion beaches and begun advancing inland with a force bolstered now to 326,000 men. The way home, Eisenhower instructed his armies, is via Berlin. ... 

The membership would assemble in the wake of momentous change. The war in Europe had finally ground to an end. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower celebrated the victory on national radio the evening of Tuesday, May 8, 1945, V-E Day ... 

COSSAC Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander... 

Certainly, military opinion as to its value was divided. The Allied Commands clearly believed it to be effective, hence the plans for a major increase in the production and use of mustard gas had the war continued into 1919. There seems, however, to have been little attempt to fit chemical warfare into the mainstream of military doctrine. It was initiated and followed up in a makeshift manner, with the chemical warfare organisations evolving in response to the developing situation in the field. Although as the war progressed, technical and tactical details of chemical use were refined - sometimes to a high level there was no broad concept of the role and purpose of chemical warfare in relation to other forms of warfare. Its object was simply to harrass the enemy and cause casualties. 

See, for example, Chemical Warfare , Allied Command Europe Backgrounder 0287-B5 of 27 February 1987. 

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