Gas Warfare
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Gassed by John Singer Sargent |
"[The] vapor settled to the ground like a swamp mist
and drifted toward the French trenches on a brisk wind. Its effect on the
French was a violent nausea and faintness, followed by an utter collapse.
It is believed that the Germans, who charged in behind the vapor, met no
resistance at all, the French at their front being virtually paralyzed."
The use of gas at Langemarck ø
as reported in the New York Tribune, April 27, 1915
The horrors of gas warfare had never been seen on a battlefield until
1915. The Germans have been credited with the first use, but the French
and English were not far behind. Gas was a nuisance, a crippling nuisance,
often only wounding and causing widespread panic instead of outright killing.
Add a gas mask to the already surreal atmosphere of an offensive's rolling
bombardments and heavy machine gun fire, and what you got must have been
close to hell.
(See the paintings "Hell" by Leroux and "Soldats
Masques" by Zingg in The
Fractal Gallery. They convey the experience of gas warfare better than
any photographs.) |
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The first army issue gas masks were little
more than gauze bandages with ties. These would be moistened with water
to improve their effectiveness in filtering out the gas. |
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The cannister gas mask was developed to
protect the soldier from the use of chlorine gas and tearing agents such
as xylyl bromide. This type of mask was not effective in filtering out
the more deadly phosgene and diphosgene gases. There was no mask that could
offer protection from the blistering mustard gas which attacks all exposed
flesh. |
The first reported use of gas was by the Germans on the
eastern front on 3-Jan-1915. It was a tearing agent dispersed by artillery
shell. The first use on the western front came several months later on
22-Apr-1915 at the village of Langemarck near Ypres. At 1700 hours the
Germans released a 5 mile wide cloud of chlorine gas from some 520 cylinders
(168 tons of the chemical). The greenish-yellow cloud drifted over and
into the French and Algerian trenches where it caused wide spread panic
and death. The age of chemical warfare had begun.
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An aerial view of the beginning of a gas
attack. Large gas cylinders were brought up to the front where the gas
would be released under favorable wind conditions. On more than one occasion
the wind would change direction and blow the gas back into the attacker's
trenches. |
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British gas casualties near Bois de l'Abbe
France, May 1918. The eye bandages indicate that a blistering agent such
as mustard gas was used. This gas was named for it's similarity in both
faint smell and color to mustard. |
The British were ready to return the favor by early autumn.
On 25-Sep-1915 they released chlorine gas from cylinders against the German
trenches at Loos. Unfortunately a shift in the wind blew the gas laterally
across the trench lines so that it also gassed some British troops. The
use of cylinder gas was replaced with the safer gas artillery shell and
projector. The projector was a device that lobbed a football
size gas projectile into the enemy trench. The idea with both was to get
the gas as far from friendly forces as possible before releasing it. Artillery
men were soon referring to "yellow crosses" and "white crosses" - these
were the markings used to differentiate the various gas shell types. |
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A makeshift German gas laboratory near the
front. The gas concentrate is stored in bottles for placement near enemy
trenches. Sniper fire would then be used to break the bottle and release
the gas. |
Gas was invented (and very successfully used) as a terror
weapon meant to instill confusion and panic among the enemy prior to an
offensive. It was a sort of physiological weapon with the non-lethal tearing
agents inflicting as much panic as the dreaded mustard gas.
Gas was available in three basic varieties:
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Lachrymator (tearing agent)
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Much like today's tear gas and mace, this gas caused temporary blindness
and greatly inflamed the nose and throat of the victim. A gas mask offered
very good protection from this type of gas. xylyl bromide was a
popular tearing agent since it was easily brewed.
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Asphyxiant
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These are the poisonous gases. This class includes chlorine, phosgene
and diphosgene. Chlorine inflicts damage by forming hydrochloric
acid when coming in contact with moisture such as found in the lungs and
eyes. It is lethal at a mix of 1:5000 (gas/air) whereas phosgene
is deadly at 1:10,000 (gas/air) - twice as toxic! Diphosgene, first
used by the Germans at Verdun on 22-Jun-1916, was deadlier still and could
not be effectively filtered by standard issue gas masks.
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Blistering Agent
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Dichlorethylsulphide: the most dreaded of all chemical weapons in
World War I - mustard gas. Unlike the other gases which attack the respiratory
system, this gas acts on any exposed, moist skin. This includes, but is
not limited to, the eyes, lungs, armpits and groin. A gas mask could offer
very little protection. The oily agent would produce large burn-like blisters
wherever it came in contact with skin. It also had a nasty way of hanging
about in low areas for hours, even days, after being dispersed. A soldier
jumping into a shell crater to seek cover could find himself blinded, with
skin blistering and lungs bleeding.
List of gases used in World War I
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benzyl bromide
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German, tearing, first used 1915
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bromacetone
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Both sides, tearing/fatal in concentration, first used 1916
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carbonyl chloride (phosgene)
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both sides, asphyxiant, fatal with delayed action, first used 1915
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chlorine
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both sides, asphyxiant, fatal in concentration, first used in 1915, cylinder
release only
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chloromethyl chloroformate
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both sides, tearing, first used in 1915, artillery shell
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chloropircin
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both sides, tearing, first used in 1916, artillery shell (green cross I)
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cyanogen (cyanide) compounds
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allies/Austria, asphyxiant, fatal in concentration, first used in 1916,
artillery shell
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dichlormethylether
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German, tearing, first used 1918, artillery shell
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dibrommethylethylketone
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German, tearing, fatal in concentration, first used in 1916
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dichloroethylsulphide (mustard gas)
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both sides, blistering, artillery shell (yellow cross)
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diphenylchloroarsine
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German, asphyxiant, fatal in concentration, (dust - could not be filtered),
first used in 1917, artillery shell (blue cross)
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diphenylcyonoarsine
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German, more powerful replacement for blue cross, first used in 1918
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ethyldichloroarsine
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German, less powerful replacement for blue cross, first used in 1918, artillery
shell (yellow cross I, green cross III)
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ethyl iodoacetate
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British, tearing, first used in 1916
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monobrommethylethylketone
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German, more powerful replacement for bromacetone, first used 1916
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trichloromethylchloroformate (diphosgene)
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both sides, asphyxiant, fatal with delayed action, first used 1916
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xylyl bromide
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German, tearing, first used 1915
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German signal corps soldiers placing their
carrier pigeons in a shelter during a gas attack. |
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Gas masked British soldiers manning a Vickers
machine gun. |
In the great carnage of 1916-17 there were approximately
17,700 gas casualties counting the Somme, Chemin des Dames, and Passchendaele
alone. These numbers would grow considerably higher due to the large number
of deaths after the war that would be directly attributed to gas exposure.
Despite this high casualty count for both sides, the use of gas continued
to grow. By 1918, one in every four artillery shells fired contained gas
of one type or another.
In 1918 a German corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler was temporarily
blinded by a British gas attack in Flanders. Having suffered the agonies
of gas first hand, his fear of the weapon would prevent him from deploying
it as a tactical weapon on the battlefields of the Second World War. |
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