The Inter-War Years

CW agents were reportedly used in several localised, mainly colonial, conflicts in the interwar years. Of particular note was the first major use of airborne delivery when Italy sprayed sulfur mustard from aircraft during its invasion of Abyssinia in 1935/36. A year later Japan began using chemical weapons on the Chinese mainland. 

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The roles of the British and American chemical industries in the inter-war years were, overall, relatively limited ones until the threat of another war appeared in the mid-1930s. Then, as in the First World War, many calls were made upon the industry as the nations prepared to defend themselves, for Britain from 1939 and for the United States from 1941. 

The luxury automobile of the inter-war years was still designed in the coachbuilding tradition. Thus, the new Chrysler Airflow failed to capture much of the market. 

World War I brought many women into closer contact with the world of transportation and the number of female drivers increased through the inter-war years but not as fast as the number of men. There was a shift from utilitarian and economic values to an emphasis on beauty, comfort and social status. 

Overall, the situation in Germany in the inter-war years has been well summarised by Scriven [20] ... 

Whilst the majority of the recovered munitions are of WWII origin, a significant number stem from WWI and the inter-war years. They include shells, mortars and grenades of various types filled with a range of toxic chemical substances, including arsenious chloride, chloropicrin (trichloronitromethane), KSK (ethyl iodoacetate), phosgene (carbonyl chloride), and thickened and un-thickened sulphur mustard (principally bis 2,2 dichloroethyl sulphide). When found, the munitions are normally heavily corroded and often little, if any, indication of their probable contents remains. 

The polarisation which has characterised the debate over chemical warfare and chemical disarmament ever since, and which remains much the same in the late twentieth century, became evident immediately after the First World War. The implications of the development of chemical warfare in 1915-18 did not escape the political or military planners. In particular, the potential for the aerial delivery of gas now opened up the possibility that chemical agents could be used on a massive scale against civilian, as well as military, targets. It was this fear which was to dominate thinking in Britain, Germany and the United States during the inter-war years and during the Second World War. 

For some commentators in the inter-war years gas was a potential wonder weapon. Chemicals would serve to disable temporarily an opposing army, allowing battles and wars to be won with the minimum loss of life and collateral destruction. J.F.C. Fuller saw as the true power of gas the fact that it can incapacitate without killing. . . and as it can terrorise without necessarily killing, more than any other weapon, it can enforce economically the policy of one nation on another . Twenty aircraft could pour into the air a rain of gas which, as it descended, would atomise and form a great cloud which would roll over the scattered and unseen target below and throw an army into a mystic sleep . 

The notion of the weapon that would send armies gently to sleep remains today as far from reality as it was when it appeared in the science fiction of the inter-war years. There is no doubt that the effects of chemical weapons on the human body are horrifying. There are two specific grounds on which chemical weapons are claimed to be particularly inhumane - they are believed to cause permanent... 

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