History of Chemical Warfare

Chemical weapons were probably first used by the Spartans against the Atheiuans. They used sulfiar and arsenic smoke in 431 B.C. Greek-fire (burning liquid sulfur) was used in the seventh century to set enemy ships on fire. Sulfur with turpentine oil was used against fortresses in the sixteenth century. 

Asphyxiating or deleterious gases were baimed by the First Hague Conference in 1899. In spite of this prohibition, the Germans plaimed to use chemical weapons prior to the start of World War I. In that war, the Germans first used Bromlost (dibromoethyl sulfide) on the Russian front. The effort was a failure because the cold weather kept the agent from vaporizing. 

The Americans and Canadians experimented early with jute fiber soaked in fuel oil and other wicks designed to catch fire from the bursting charge and help the liquid agent to vaporize in cold weather. Many of these shells are misdiagnosed as incendiary shells instead of chemical shells. 

The Germans early failure with gas was probably why they were not prepared to follow up on their initial success, in warmer weather, with their mustard attack at Ypres, the attack at Nieuport, which produced 14,000 casualties, or the attack against the French, which produced 20,000 casualties. 

For another example, ranges may have tested an occasional chemical shell or bomb. Lewisite contamination has been found at the World War II Pontiac Bombing Range in South Carolina (now a residential subdivision). Chemical weapons developed at AUES were tested at Langley Field in Virginia, Camp Simms in Washington, DC, and Fort Foote in Maryland. 

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In this introductory chapter, a broad overview is given of the history of chemical warfare on earth, and the compounds, species, and mechanisms involved. The impact of human-made compounds on the environment, which is the subject of this book, is an extremely recent event in evolutionary terms. It is important to take a holistic view, and to see the effects of human-made pollutants on the environment against the background of chemical warfare in nature. 

Ludwig Fritz Haber. The Poisonous Cloud Chemical Warfare in the First World War. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1986. An authoritative history of chemical warfare by Fritz and Charlotte Haber s son. Source for Ypres Haber s responsibility for poison gas his authoritarianism during World War I and failure of poison gas as weapon. 

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