A French gas attack on German trenches in Flanders, Belgium (1917).
The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large-scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I.[1][2] They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents like phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. These chemical weapons caused medical problems.[3] This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century. The killing capacity of gas was limited, with about 90,000 fatalities from a total of 1.3 million casualties caused by gas attacks. Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as gas masks. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives, gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war" and also the era where weapons of mass destruction were created.[4][5]
The use of poison gas by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted war crimes as its use violated the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.[6][7] Widespread horror and public revulsion at the use of gas and its consequences led to far less use of chemical weapons by combatants during World War II.
^Adrienne Mayor (2003). Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World. Overlook Books. ISBN 1-58567-348-X.
^Andre Richardt (2012). CBRN Protection: Managing the Threat of Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear Weapons. Wiley-VCH. ISBN 978-3-527-32413-2.
^Weisberger, Mindy (6 April 2017). "World War I Unleashed Chemical Weapons and Changed Modern Warfare". livescience. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
^Reddy, Chris (2 April 2007). "The Growing Menace of Chemical War". Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
^Saffo, Paul (2000). "Paul Saffo presentation". Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
^Telford Taylor (1993). The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-83400-9.
^Thomas Graham; Damien J. Lavera (2003). Cornerstones of Security: Arms Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era. University of Washington Press. pp. 7–9. ISBN 0-295-98296-9.
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