A Strange and Formidable Weapon: British Responses to World War I Poison Gas (Studies in War, Society, and the Militar)

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Author: Marion Leslie Girard

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A Strange and Formidable Weapon

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Studies in War, Society, and the Military

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<:C:G 6A:9>IDGH Peter Maslowski University of Nebraska–Lincoln David Graff Kansas State University Reina Pennington Norwich University :9>IDG>6A7D6G9 D’Ann Campbell Director of Government and Foundation Relations, U.S. Coast Guard Foundation Mark A. Clodfelter National War College Brooks D. Simpson Arizona State University Roger J. Spiller George C. Marshall Professor of Military History U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (retired) Timothy H. E. Travers University of Calgary Arthur Waldron Lauder Professor of International Relations University of Pennsylvania

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A Strange and Formidable Weapon British Responses to World War I Poison Gas

Marion Girard

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© by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America f Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Girard, Marion. A strange and formidable weapon: British responses to World War I poison gas / Marion Girard. p. cm. — (Studies in war, society, and the military) Revision of the author’s dissertation (Ph. D.)—Yale University, . Includes bibliographical references and index. >H7C (cloth: alk. paper) . World War, –—Chemical warfare—Great Britain. . Gases, Asphyxiating and poisonous—War use. . Great Britain—History—th century. I. Title. 9 8< '—dc Set in Garamond and Futura. Designed by R. W. Boeche.

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For Kurk, Luke, and the rest of my family— I am very fortunate. Thank you.

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Contents

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List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgments ix Introduction . The Political Challenge Descent to Atrocities? . The Army’s Experience New Weapons, New Soldiers . The Scientiﬁc Divide Chemists versus Physicians . Whose Business Is It? Dilemmas in the Gas Industry . Gas as a Symbol Visual Images of Chemical Weapons in the Popular Press . The Reestablishment of the Gas Taboo and the Public Debate Will Gas Destroy the World? Epilogue Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

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Illustrations . Louis Raemaekers’s The Gas Fiend

. Frank Reynolds’s The Old Formula . Gas cylinders . Projector gas attack

. Close-up of a cylinder projecting gas . British troops wearing respirators

. Raven-Hill’s The Elixir of Hate

. Bernard Partridge’s Retribution

. John de G. Bryan’s German Poison Belt . Lucien Jonas’s Kamerad!

. S. Begg’s Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils

. Frederic Villiers’s A Charge though the German Poison Gas . Unknown artist’s In a Gas-Stricken Area

. Bruce Bairnsfather’s The Candid Friend

. Lewis Baumer’s Well, Madam

. Bernhard Hugh’s A Post-War Prophecy . John Singer Sargent’s Gassed . Men blinded by mustard gas

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Acknowledgments

This book is possible only because of help from many people and institutions, too many to list individually. Thank you to all of you for your generous help and advice. In particular, I would like to thank my advisers, Paul Kennedy, Jay Winter, and John Harley Warner, who guided me though the dissertation upon which this book is based. Peter Stanksy, my undergraduate mentor, has allowed me to ask questions throughout the entire writing process. My colleagues, at the University of New Hampshire, at conferences, and at talks, have also offered support and asked questions that have encouraged me to examine the material in new ways, especially Jeff Diefendorf, Janet Polasky, Funso Afolayan, and Bill Harris. My department and college provided moral and ﬁnancial support. Research assistants and computer experts Mandy Chalou, Lisa Kelly, and John Green were wonderful, as was everyone at the University of Nebraska Press. Thank you all. Archivists and librarians at the Yale University Libraries, especially the History of Medicine, the Medical, Mudd, and Sterling Libraries, all provided invaluable help, as did the staff at the Dimond Library at the University of New Hampshire. The Baker-Berry and Rauner Special Collections Libraries at Dartmouth College offered courtesies that I very much appreciated. In London, the British Library (both at the St. Pancras and the Colindale branches); the House of Lords Record Ofﬁce; the Imperial War Museum Art Department (particularly Michael Moody); the Imperial War Museum Document Collection and Library; the Imperial War Museum Photograph Archive; the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College, London; the National Army Museum; the Royal Society; the Royal Society for Chemistry; and the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine allowed me to visit and delve into records repeatedly. My deepest thanks are due to the staff at The National Archives at Kew where I did most of my research. Marcelle Adamson at the Illustrated London News Picture Library and Andre Gailani at Punch assisted with illustrations. Outside of London, the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds; the Cheshire Record Centre; and the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge University, provided valuable assistance. Other archives

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Acknowledgments

in the United States that allowed me to visit include the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the United States Army Military History Institute, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives in College Park. The Art Archive also provided help with illustrations. The ﬁnancial assistance I received throughout this project has been invaluable. Yale University provided University Fellowships and the University Dissertation Fellowship that provided the majority of the support for my research. Other organizations also contributed to make my travels and writing possible: Smith Richardson Pre-Dissertation and Research Grants, awarded by International Security Studies at Yale; an Andrew Mellon Research Grant and History Department Alumni Funding from the History Department at Yale; a Paul Mellon Traveling and Research Grant from the Yale Center for British Art; a Chemical Heritage Foundation Travel Grant from the Chemical Heritage Foundation; grants from the Rutman and Signal Funds awarded by the History Department at the University of New Hampshire; and an Alumni Gift Fund grant given by the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire. Several organizations allowed me to present my ideas about chemical warfare at seminars or conferences where participants offered comments that inspired further thought. These include the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the History of Science Society (which also provided a National Science Foundation Travel Grant), the Northeast Conference on British Studies, the Ohio Valley History/Society of Military History Conference, the American Historical Association, and the Society of Military History. Winston Churchill inspired the title with a comment that captured many of the components of gas warfare. On April , , he discussed the reorganization of the chemical warfare group within the Ministry of Munitions, explaining to his fellow members of Parliament in the House of Commons that “chemical warfare in all its strange and formidable forms must be expanded on an ever-increasing scale.”1 The use and types of poison gas were indeed frequently proven and perceived to be unusual, varied, and fearsome before, during, and after World War I in Britain. Finally, and most important, thank you to family and friends who talked with me about ideas, recommended sources, helped me edit, and offered support—again and again and again—Kurk most of all.

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A Strange and Formidable Weapon

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Introduction

On May , —Whit Monday and a month after the ﬁrst gas attack of World War I—Sgt. Elmer Wilgrid Cotton of the Fifth Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, woke up when a gas alarm sounded. He described the scene in vivid terms: I got out of my dugout very quickly—then I donned my respirator. . . . The ﬂat country all around was covered to a height from to feet with a greenish white vaporous cloud of Chlorine gas. . . . Many, many men were being carried or were staggering towards the Ypres Canal—they were all suffering from the effects of gas poisoning. . . . [We] received orders to move forward and reinforce the front line. . . . On the way up we passed our own batteries, the artillery men were working like slaves and some were overcome with the gas—further on we passed a dressing station—green and blue, tongues hanging out and eyes staring. One or two were dead and others beyond human aid, some were coughing up green froth from their lungs. As we advanced we passed many more gassed men lying in the ditches and gutterways. . . . The gas which I breathed in my dugout had told on me. . . . I was forced to lie and spit, cough and gasp the whole of the day in that trench. . . . That was a fearful day for the British—they sustained ,—gas—cases alone.1

Later his diary contains an undated and unpaginated entry describing the horrors of chemical warfare: “Chlorine Gas produces a ﬂooding of the lungs—it is an equivalent death to drowning only on dry land—the effects are these:—a splitting headache & a terriﬁc thirst (to drink water is instant death) a knife edge pain in the lungs the coughing up of a greenish froth off the . . . lungs and stomach ending ﬁnally in insensibility & death—the colour of the skin from white turns a greenish black or yellow, the tongue protrudes & the eyes assume a glassy stare—it is a ﬁendish death to die.”2 The frightening aspects of gas—the terror of the soldiers, the suffering of the victims, the helplessness of the men—were not unique to Cotton’s

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. Louis Raemaekers’s The Gas Fiend. Courtesy Wellcome Library, London.

perception of chemical warfare, nor were they the only negative images associated with gas. Louis Raemaekers’s wartime sketch captured other attributes commonly associated with gas during the conﬂict, particularly its underhanded nature. Raemaekers was a Dutch artist who became outraged at the German invasion of Belgium and the horrors of war. He created images for British and Allied audiences conveying his outrage, and his work led to a German bounty on his head. In his efforts to condemn the enemy, he created The Gas Fiend, published in a collection of his work.3 In the picture, a French soldier lies sleeping in his trench, vulnerable and unaware of the danger that looms over him. A serpent, nearly the size of a human, blows poison gas down on the unsuspecting man. The treacherous symbolism of snakes and the creature’s menacing, cold expression add to the evil aura of the scene. The poison, a snake’s natural weapon, is toxic and sneaky, espe-

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. Frank Reynolds’s The Old Formula. Reproduced with the permission of Punch, Ltd. www.punch.co.uk.

cially since it is deployed against an unsuspecting man during the darkness of night. (The moon provides just enough light to allow the viewer to see the situation.) Although the soldier sleeps with his hand on a riﬂe and in a semiprone position, ready to ﬁght, these precautions do not protect him from the gas. Even worse, the image involves the viewer in the nightmare; the scene compels us to feel horror at the situation without being able to do anything for the victim. The crowning element of Raemaekers’s commentary about gas is the title of his drawing. He evokes poison, deception, and helplessness in his sketch and evil with his words: The Gas Fiend. Gas was condemned by some soldiers as “unsportsmanlike” and “dishonourable”; Raemaekers saw that from the very beginning.4 However, there was another, and largely forgotten, vision of gas prevalent

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| Introduction

during World War I. This perception is illustrated by a Punch cartoon in which the artist, Frank Reynolds, found humor in a weapon that others often found terrifying. In The Old Formula, a woman shows off her gas mask to her husband, much as she would display a new frock.5 Reynolds implied that the wife was merely modeling one more purchase in a long line of them, and that there was nothing unusual about buying a gas mask—other than the fact that civilians might need a piece of military equipment. Still, Reynolds suggested that war was pervasive, not that gas was frightening. Even on the battleﬁeld, some men who regularly faced gas attacks became rather lighthearted, or at least treated gas with the same sort of understated humor as other aspects of war.6 Brigadier A. E. Hodgkin, an assistant chemical adviser in the British army, spoke about gas in a similar tone. He noted in his diary that May , , was “rather a hectic day. The G6 [Royal Artillery] and I had arranged a nice little strafe with gas shell and all was going merrily at about . p.m.”7 Hodgkin suggested that the gas attack his men planned was minor, perhaps even fun: it was “nice” and went “merrily.” This accepting attitude toward gas was also apparent in the interwar period. Gas proponents sometimes expressed frustration toward those trying to outlaw chemical weapons after World War I, as if it were incredible that anyone would protest against employing the armaments. Winston Churchill said this most clearly when he proclaimed, in his usual blunt manner, that it was “too silly” to object to using gas in the colonial battleﬁelds; gas was effective and allowed technology to replace soldiers.8 These pictures and words show that society, not just soldiers, had a familiarity with gas. Furthermore, civilians, including women, interacted with gas in the home, not just in public. These examples also demonstrate that parts of society and the military acclimated to chemical warfare: attacks could be “nice little strafes” and respirators could be treated like any other new item of fashionable clothing. Finally, they suggest that the gas taboo has not always been in place; there was a time when at least some people condoned gas and incorporated it into daily life. World War I was a window of time during which gas was not only used, but largely accepted, at least in Great Britain. The advent of gas warfare shocked the country, but soon Britain became a leader in the chemical war.9 While Germany led the way in using gas and other belligerents developed their own chemical warfare capacities, it was Britain’s unique position, as a victim and then an authority, that makes it particularly intriguing to study her responses to chemical

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Introduction |

weapons during World War I and the interwar period, the era when fear of a future, more horrible gas war was in the air. This strange situation raises some fascinating questions. How did a weapon that had been outlawed by an international treaty at The Hague in become a standard armament of the Great War, used widely on the Western Front and occasionally elsewhere? And once that happened, how did postwar diplomatic and public condemnation of gas develop into a taboo that still exists today, even though the perception of chemical weaponry was not uniformly negative during World War I? Along with extensive bloodshed and the trench system, gas warfare has long characterized the First World War. Although carnage was rife in the American Civil War and trenches were used in the Russo-Japanese War, all three characteristics became globally visible during the much larger Great War and have been discussed by scholars, soldiers, and laymen since . Soldiers who experienced gas during World War I wrote about their own experiences and those of their regiments, as did Frederic James Hodges, who wrote Men of in , and Charles Foulkes, commander of Britain’s offensive chemical warfare unit, the Special Brigade, who analyzed his troops’ work in “Gas!” 10 Outside the military, historical monographs have emphasized speciﬁc elements of the chemical story, such as Donald Richter’s look at the Special Brigade personnel in Chemical Soldiers. Albert Palazzo’s Seeking Victory on the Western Front examines the role of gas in the British army’s ﬁghting ethos.11 Activists during the interwar period and beyond, such as the Union of Democratic Control during the former time and Seán Murphy and colleagues during the cold war, emphasized the dangers of future gas use and the need for disarmament. They were motivated by a dislike of war and a particular horror of chemical weapons.12 Thus, the story of gas during World War I and the interwar period is rich and relevant to a variety of disciplines, from the military to politics to history, although past studies generally focused on only a single dimension of it.13 With the knowledge revealed in those books, new archival material, and a different perspective, it is possible to build on previous works.14 Because gas had an impact on civilians and the military, on laymen and experts, on the home front and the battlefront, a useful way to understand the window of time during which Britain abandoned the gas taboo is to look at World War I and the interwar period overall, and not simply as one portion of the conﬂict or era. To see the weapon’s impact on the society as a whole, it is critical to examine how several different groups in Britain perceived gas.

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| Introduction

Gas is, after all, a tool of total war and of post–Great War military policy, and it is these two ideas that are central to this book. These issues are examined in relation to Britain’s interactions with chemical weapons during World War I and the interwar period, but they have relevance and application to us today. Britain’s experiences with gas are not just a case study of a few years in history, though; they helped to shape postwar understandings of warfare, particularly military reluctance to use gas as well as popular and political rejection of chemical warfare in large and small conﬂicts.

Warfare in the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century was dominated by the concept of total war. Strictly speaking, total wars require everything and everyone to be dedicated to the war effort, something that is nearly impossible to achieve. However, it is commonly accepted that World Wars I and II were total wars because most segments of society participated in the war effort. One famous historian, Arthur Marwick, argued that there were interactions between the ﬁghting in World War I and many aspects of civilian life in Britain.15 For example, enormous numbers of civilians as well as soldiers actively helped in the war effort and also became targets. Other scholars have explored the ramiﬁcations of studying total war. Stig Förster noted that a period of total war requires “a total history” in which the home front and the battleﬁeld are analyzed; traditional military history that focuses solely on soldiers’ clashes is not enough.16 One of the core elements of war, weaponry, has not often been viewed as being as pervasive—as total—as the conﬂict itself. The aerial bombs of World War II deliberately threatened civilians on the home front as well as soldiers on the battleﬁeld, but the armaments of World War I have not been seen in that light. During the Great War, belligerents deployed gas only on the battleﬁeld against soldiers, as though it were a traditional weapon. But for the British, gas was a total weapon for a total war. It required a united effort by the military and civilian experts in politics, science, and industry to wage a chemical war offensively and defensively. In addition, the introduction of the new weapon called into question the limits of modern war and threatened the boundaries of civilization; many observers concluded that gas was a barbaric weapon. Laymen and experts debated the nature of gas and the meaning of a chemical war. The public also faced concerns that it might be targeted by German gas bombs dropped from the air.17 Unlike conventional weapons such as guns, gas did not limit itself to the battleﬁeld. Instead, several segments of society interacted with it, physically, emotionally, and men-

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Introduction |

tally. Thus, viewing gas as a total weapon is not only a novel way to look at war in Britain, and at gas, but it also offers a means of examining the impact of war on British society as a whole. That effect was not uniform on each segment of society, nor did experts and laymen perceive the weapon in the same way.18 Each group’s engagement with gas, including the reasons why a group involved itself in the chemical war, inﬂuenced its understanding of the weapon. These varied experiences led each segment of society to emphasize different aspects of the weapon. Perceptions ranged from enthusiastically positive to extremely negative. Frequently, they were multifaceted. For instance, for politicians gas was a positive development because it might prove to be the key to breaking the stalemate on the Western Front. It was also negative, though, because using gas might lead to global condemnation for deploying an outlawed weapon. Symbolically, the new weapon represented barbarism and inhumanity. Overall, as Churchill said in Parliament, chemical warfare emerged in “strange and formidable forms.”19 Chemical warfare was not something undertaken thoughtlessly. Of course, groups in society did not develop monolithic perceptions of gas, but because members of each segment interacted with gas in similar ways, consensus views developed. Comparing and contrasting these views offers a wider window into total war, First World War Britain, and the mixed reputation of gas. That there could be positive or even ambivalent attitudes toward lethal gas seems shocking today, when it is an inconceivable weapon for nations to use. Now gas is considered to be one of the trio of weapons of mass destruction, along with nuclear and biological weapons. It is an armament used only by despised or rogue states such as Nazi Germany, which gassed Holocaust victims with Zyklon 7, or Saddam Hussein, who deployed mustard gas, a World War I chemical, against his Kurdish citizens and his Iranian enemies in the s.20 Gas has become even more marginalized since it, along with related biological weapons, became associated with terrorists, who are outside the system of civilized state interactions. Consider the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult’s nerve gas attacks with sarin on the Tokyo subway in , the unknown perpetrators who sent anthrax-laden mail through the U.S. postal service after September , , and the insurgents’ use of homemade chlorine weapons in Iraq in . The gas taboo in interstate relations seems strong, and even rigid.21 Reinforcing that taboo is the realization that the current global rejection

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Introduction

of chemical weapons has its roots in The Hague Conventions of , which sought to make warfare more humane. The Preamble stated that the signatories were “animated by the desire to serve . . . the interest of humanity and the ever increasing requirements of civilization.”22 At that time, before poison gas had been employed or even developed, diplomats from leading Western nations prohibited the use of “projectiles whose sole purpose” was “the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.”23 Confronted with modern developments in chemistry and armaments, the delegates could envision a world contaminated by poison gas and acted to avoid it. There was a variety of views about gas, but it was fundamentally seen as dishonorable and cruel; it was an amorphous weapon that could kill indiscriminately by choking or drowning. Gas was not the only banned item; negotiators also considered dumdum bullets, those “which expand or ﬂatten easily in the human body,” and poisoned wells as beyond the pale, at least in warfare against other civilized signatories of The Hague Conventions.24 Gas was the only one of the prohibited armaments or methods of warfare that had not actually been tried on the battleﬁeld. Before it was even used, therefore, gas had a negative reputation. Originally, when the Germans surprised the world and introduced gas to the battleﬁeld in World War I, most of British society already had a horror of gas and condemned its inhumane character. Some groups, such as politicians and scientists, were able to move beyond this view. The specialists’ attitudes arose because of their familiarity with and knowledge of gas, among other reasons. Recognizing that gas could be handled relatively safely reduced anxiety. For example, Britain soon learned to develop and upgrade helmets effectively; if soldiers managed to put them on correctly and quickly, their lungs and eyes were protected.25 Gas became accepted as a regular part of the modern arsenal, if not always as an improvement in warfare. The desensitization necessary to cope with the numerous brutalities of World War I had an effect on experts and laypeople alike. Gas, after all, ﬁt with the general (and sometimes exaggerated) atrocities of the rape of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, unrestricted submarine warfare, and the nearly unimaginable conditions of trench warfare. In some ways, gas was simply another horror to which people had to become accustomed. Still, members of most groups, lay, military, and expert civilian, recognized some of the negative aspects of gas warfare, such as the way it could asphyxiate and painfully kill or maim victims, and reasons to reject gas resurfaced in a public postwar debate in Britain about its nature and future. In addition,

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disgust and horror at the cost of World War I left the population fearing that future wars would become only more barbaric; after all, weapons had become more sophisticated, battleﬁelds had become wider, and more laws had been broken over the course of the recent conﬂict. Why should anyone expect that trend to stop? Such fears encouraged the public debate to continue throughout the interwar period, and as it did so, governments outlawed gas again. The Treaty of Versailles banned German possession and use of chemical weapons; the Washington Naval Conference agreements of contained an antigas protocol; the Geneva Convention Protocol of banned gas use among a broader range of nations.26 It was not simply a matter of law; a popular and powerful taboo against gas was established in Britain and most of the world, as can be seen by the limited use of gas since World War I and the reputations of those who dared to deploy it. In Britain, the signers of those laws and the makers of military policy even acknowledged the pressure they felt from the taboo to refrain from developing or using gas.27 The window during which gas was used, and sometimes lauded, closed. Conﬁrming this, belligerents avoided using chemical warfare against each other in World War II.28 Although the taboo has become global in the years since World War I, watching the evolution of the taboo in Britain shows that the ban was neither instinctive, automatic, nor inevitable. Once established, though, the ban has had a long-lasting and powerful impact; it has inﬂuenced public sentiment and the military policy of nations for decades. Gas may be a weapon of retaliation, but it is not an arm of ﬁrst resort, even if it can replace soldiers and the enemy cannot defend against it. Lethal gases are easy to make; one, chlorine, is a basic product of the peacetime chemical industry. Without some sort of ban, it would have been simple to release chemical weapons during wars later in the twentieth century. Instead, countries vehemently reject accusations of gas use, such as U.S. denial of communist claims that the United States used chemical and biological weapons in Korea. World powers outside the war zones often largely ignored such accusations, especially between cold war opponents, believing them to be propaganda or without credibility.29 Yet as invincible as the taboo seems, that does not mean that gas may not be used, but rather that it cannot be released with political impunity. Remembering this may help us today as we face chemical threats from terrorists and rogue states, both of whom violate other wartime taboos and thus are the most likely groups to break the taboo against gas.

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Introduction

The Larger Context The taboo against gas is relevant to us today, but so are the wider twentiethcentury themes with which it is entwined. One theme is the tension between civilization and barbarity; another is the growth of terror and the dangerous ability to become desensitized to it and to other negative forces. Both pairs of ideas—civilization and barbarity as well as terror and desensitization— are linked. For the purposes of this discussion, desensitization refers to the acceptance of terror and horror. Chemical weapons terriﬁed people for two reasons: the weapons’ perceived brutality—they killed by suffocating and drowning victims—and their novelty. To some, the efforts to create terror and psychological havoc in warfare caused people to fear that civilization was losing the struggle for dominance to the force of barbarity.30 These themes had their origin before the Great War. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, industrialized Western societies believed not only in their own civilized status, but in progress. For the most part, the general sentiment was that society was improving, whether this was to explain European dominance over their colonies or the Progressive era in the United States. Britain possessed this intellectual framework, too. The Hague Conventions’ bans against unnecessary suffering and cruelty in war are more evidence of this mind-set. This belief in constant progress and in the superiority of Western civilization, despite the ﬂaws that certainly existed in these societies, formed a basic foundation for these cultures. This conviction explains some of the rhetoric that appeared when the Germans introduced gas. Not only was the enemy breaking the spirit of international law, but he did so with a weapon that was expected to be barbaric. Instead of progressing toward a more highly developed form of civilization, Germany was moving backward, regardless of German claims to possessing Kultur. As one journalist stated a year after the gas war started, “War . . . was made more ghastly by the apostles of Kultur, whose introduction of poison gas necessitated the use of masks which gave brave men the appearance of apes from a nightmare world.”31 Chemical weapons reduced men to animals. This is one of the reasons World War I proved so shocking. How could such developed nations bring such devastation upon themselves? Gas was only one example, of course, of the horrifying weapons, carnage, and experiences at the front, but it was a powerfully symbolic one.32 This also helps to explain why, during the interwar period, after people

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in Britain became more experienced with gas, they argued whether gas was a humane weapon, or, at least, any more inhumane than high explosives, ﬂamethrowers, and some of the other means of killing used in the conﬂict. Those who vehemently despised gas often argued to ban it. Civilization, tied to humaneness, in contrast to barbarity and cruelty, was a major concern in society.33 The nature and use of gas was intimately tied to this crucial issue. If gas was inhumane and its savage character was one of the reasons it was terrifying, then what would it say about the character of a nation that planned to use it in the future? Furthermore, leaders saw civilization spreading throughout the globe as non-Western people became increasingly recognized as equals, or potential equals, whether through the mandate system or decolonization. How, then, could civilized nations anywhere use gas? Yet attitudes toward gas were not always negative. Many people who rejected gas at ﬁrst during World War I became desensitized to the novelty of it, if not the weapon itself.34 Nor was gas the only element of war to which Britons became desensitized; the carnage as a whole, submarines in particular, and other elements had to become tolerable for people to survive the war mentally and emotionally intact. Scholars Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker investigated this in great detail with regard to other brutal elements of World War I, but the critical element in the gas story is that several groups in society learned to tolerate, if not embrace gas during and after World War I.35 Some of this was because frequency of exposure—in person or abstractly— often desensitizes. This is a technique used today for everything from allergens to phobias. It works, to a certain extent, for horrors like gas, too. Thus, even in the months immediately after the introduction of gas, popular British periodicals could joke about chemical weapons.36 In addition, people who had hands-on experience with gas, such as the soldiers in the chemical Special Brigade and scientists who experimented with new toxins, found that anticipatory fear can be worse than actually interacting with what you fear. They learned that gas was manageable, not ubiquitously cruel and lethal. With such knowledge, gas did not seem as unpredictable nor people as helpless in the face of it. Gaining some measure of control reduced fear. In many ways, terror is the opposite of desensitization. One of the key reasons some elements in British society feared gas was because it was physically dangerous; it certainly could be lethal and induce suffering. It was worthy of respect, if not fear. Its terrifying nature tied it to cruelty and barbarity, and

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Introduction

thus to the debate about the direction of civilization during and after the war. This negative judgment was recognized by those who used and supported gas. Members of the popular press, although not ofﬁcial propagandists, regaled readers with graphic descriptions of gas; how could the war effort ﬂag when motivation abounded to exact revenge on the Germans or to show bravery in the face of the enemy’s barbarity? In the eyes of the military, the threat of a gas attack could be as successful as a kill, its anticipation upsetting the enemy’s strategy and making him ﬁght wearing an uncomfortable respirator.37 In the interwar period, the psychological damage that gas could cause frustrated supporters of chemical weapons. They explicitly argued that gas was despised largely because it was misunderstood, different, and thus frightening.38 If World War I gas was terrifying, believers in its fearsome nature were convinced it would be even more dangerous, and thus terrifying, as it “improved” in future wars with the development of “new and more deadly poisons.”39 Thus gas was a vehicle in the vigorous debates about the direction of civilization. Was humanity progressing or regressing? Did the use of gas mean that the very underpinnings of society were eroding? Confronted with a terrifying weapon, it would be hard to believe that the forces of progress were winning. But did desensitization to gas mean that the weapon was not truly fearsome after all, or that standards of civilization had fallen such that gas did not seem unusually terrifying anymore? None of these questions was easy to answer, nor were they universally settled during World War I or even by , though the interwar establishment of a taboo against gas means that those who thought gas was a threat to civilization won; banning gas might save society from having to desensitize further (although the innovations and destruction of World War II forced that anyway), protect populations from cruelty, and, most important, save civilization from destruction. Elements of these two paired themes, civilization/barbarity and terror/ desensitization, provided a foundation with which groups in British society could analyze gas during World War I, explicitly or not. Some segments of society incorporated one pair, others both. While the military’s experiences with gas, for example, revolved around desensitization, the general public balanced concerns about civilization and instances of numbness to the threat of gas. During the interwar period, these themes came to the forefront of the public conversation about gas, providing a focus for the discussion about the future of chemical warfare. The language and ideas of terror, barbarity, and

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civilization are still relevant to us. They are concepts we use when we consider gas today while worrying about terrorists destroying society with chemical weapons or rogue states wreaking havoc in the international community.40 Overview The foundation for today’s outlook and policies regarding gas lies in World War I. Thus, the British experience with gas during the Great War and interwar period provides the focal point of this project. The book is organized to illuminate the issues of civilization, terror, and their antitheses, since these themes provide a link between the various groups in society, despite each one’s different interactions with and perceptions of gas. The ﬁrst chapter and the last two, those on politicians and the general public, respectively, offer discussions of civilization’s relationship to barbarity and terror. Chapters through , on the military, scientists, physicians, industrialists, and laymen, reveal how segments of society could become desensitized to gas. Chapters and , on laymen during and after the war, incorporate both pairs of themes and so tie the rest of the book together. More speciﬁcally, each of the ﬁrst ﬁve chapters concentrates on one or two groups in British society. The ﬁrst two chapters focus on politicians and the military, starting with leaders of the war effort. The next two broaden the scope of the discussion to include new experts in warfare, those who had technological knowledge of poison gas: chemists, physicians, industrialists, and factory workers. Chapter analyzes general civilians. The last chapter widens the study even further and analyzes the experiences of the public, both specialists and laypeople, with gas during and after World War I. I argue that each group viewed gas differently based on its particular interaction with gas. For politicians, gas provoked a dilemma, forcing them to choose between victory and Britain’s image as a civilized nation. If they chose to use gas and escalate the chemical war, then Britain might enhance her chances of victory by using all of the tools at her disposal. However, Germany’s introduction of gas onto the battleﬁeld had aroused international condemnation of such terrifying tactics; if Britain were to adopt gas she, too, might face global disapproval. In a total war in which propaganda and diplomacy counted as much as military might, this risk was substantial. Britain responded by developing a gas program, but carefully refrained from escalating the chemical war; the British could claim that they only retaliated against German aggression. It was a difﬁcult line for them to walk and a choice they

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Introduction

had to make repeatedly when chances came to expand the use of poison gas, but ultimately Britain managed to use the weapon without destroying her reputation as a clean ﬁghter. On the other hand, gas did not provide such a clear-cut dilemma for the military, as will be discussed in chapter . The army, unlike politicians, did not have the luxury of analyzing gas from a distance. As far as Gen. Sir John French, commander in chief of the British army in France, was concerned, once Germany introduced gas, Britain had no choice but to embrace it also. He did not ﬁnd that decision as difﬁcult as the politicians did. Instead, the problem that he and his colleagues faced was how to ﬁt gas into the army; the military had to change in order to face the gas threat posed by the enemy and to wage chemical warfare itself. Army reorganization included the development of a new unit in the Royal Engineers called the Special Brigade. This body concentrated on launching gas attacks and dominated the offensive segment of the British gas war. Later, the artillery and the infantry took on new responsibilities, but the Special Brigade led the way. Defensively, however, the gas threat could not be left to specialists; all military personnel had to protect themselves from chemical weapons. With the help of new protocols, drills, and equipment, every soldier learned how to respond to gas. The pervasive changes required by defensive policy contrasted sharply with the smaller institutional changes necessary to implement the offensive program. Although some in the army maintained a dislike of gas, almost everyone became desensitized to an extent. The Special Brigade’s knowledge of gas and all soldiers’ familiarity with it reduced, if not eliminated, their terror of chemical weaponry and enabled the men to handle the challenge of the gas war. Just as servicemen perceived gas differently depending on their interactions with it as offensive users or defensive targets of gas, scientists also varied their views of chemical weapons depending on their specialties. As in the military, hands-on work helped desensitize chemists and doctors and kept them focused on the physical rather than emotional or mental threats. As chapter demonstrates, chemists and physicians worked with gas as civilians and as servicemen. For chemists, gas warfare provided an opportunity for increased prestige among the leaders of the war effort. The politicians and the ofﬁcers running the war needed chemists to develop poison gas; they had to rely on these experts and incorporate them into the upper echelons of the war effort. Chemists followed the policy set forth by the other two groups, but they decided which chemical processes to investigate and when new gases were ready

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for use. They successfully enabled Britain to participate in the gas war, and the traditional political and military leaders of the war effort recognized their accomplishments. The physicians’ story was different. They had to ﬁnd ways to counteract the gases hurled at British soldiers by the Germans; to make matters more challenging, the enemy changed the chemicals used throughout the war. Thus, even if doctors managed to ﬁnd a way to identify the gas that injured a particular soldier and to treat his wounds, the next week soldiers might be suffering from a different, mysterious chemical. The medical professionals in London and on the Western Front used their scientiﬁc training and their clinical experiences to develop treatment protocols; unfortunately, they were never able to standardize them with conﬁdence. Gas was a challenge that they could combat, but never conquer. Scientiﬁc demands blended with business concerns in the production of poison gas, as examined in chapter . As with chemists and doctors, industrialists’ hands-on work with gas lessened their fear of it. Factory owners played a pivotal role in the manufacture of chemical munitions; they had the opportunity to contribute to the war effort and demonstrate their patriotism. They did this repeatedly, for example supplying the government with chemicals despite the fact that contracts were not ﬁnalized.41 At the same time, the chemical companies needed to make a proﬁt. How much should they focus on their own concerns, and how much should they prioritize the government’s and the nation’s? In addition, the government began to impose increasing amounts of control over private businesses, as it did over various sectors of society by such measures as rationing and conscription. In industry, this meant requiring plants to conform to production regulations, to depend on the government for available supplies, and to allow supervision by government scientists. The struggle between private business and the government, therefore, was over more than proﬁt; it was about autonomy in a country that had championed the private sector throughout its history. Another facet of the struggle over autonomy in industry centered on the issue of factory workers’ health. Manufacturing munitions, especially chemicals and explosives, was dangerous; after all, the liquids and solids inside the weapons were toxic. Because many of the products made during the war were new, businesses did not have time to establish procedures for protecting laborers from the speciﬁc occupational dangers that the new chemicals posed. The pressure added by shortages of time and labor meant that the risks

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increased. In response, the government established the Welfare and Health Department of the Ministry of Munitions to oversee the health and safety of workers. These regulations brought physicians, businessmen, employees, and the government into contact and reshaped the traditional employer-laborer relationship. Finally, laypeople developed their own perceptions of gas. As illustrated in chapter , the general population did not have to endure gas attacks or handle chemicals in laboratories; instead of physical dangers from gas, they experienced the weapon’s threats mentally and emotionally. However, many did buy gas masks, and there were widespread fears that sooner or later Germany would begin to drop gas or germs on London and other British cities.42 There was no question that the public thought about gas, as an examination of the visual images of the chemical war in popular periodicals of the day conﬁrms. The pictures also illuminate civilian understanding of gas as an unusual and disliked weapon, and one that had come to stay. Still, people were able to joke about it; one cartoon depicts a soldier blowing cigarette smoke on a louse as he asks the insect where his gas mask is.43 The images also provided a way for the British to emphasize their national identity and contrast it with that of the Germans; the enemy used underhanded poisons, but Britons were a heroic people able to withstand the barbaric attacks.44 Musings about gas thus ﬁt into larger concerns about the state and future of British civilization as well as struggles to face the terrors of the war. Even without physical experience of gas, laypeople had to confront its existence and could develop some desensitization to the weapon. The last chapter builds on the foundation set out in the previous ones. It looks at the interwar debate in public between nongovernmental experts, particularly scientists and former military ofﬁcers, and laypeople regarding the role of gas in future wars and its status as an unconventional and reprehensible weapon—a debate between the gas-tolerant and the antigas contingents. This debate uniﬁed groups in society examining gas across professional boundaries. The chapter also emphasizes one of the themes of the ﬁrst part of this book: that each group—in this case, large ones composed of laypeople and experts—approached dilemmas surrounding gas from different angles. Although both sides considered the impact gas use would have on civilization, the antigas group believed that Armageddon would ensue in a future war, whereas the gas-tolerant group believed that a chemical war was manageable, just as it was during World War I. The experts, such as scientist J. B.

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S. Haldane, often focused on casualty statistics and other rational, quantitative examples; he argued that gas was less deadly than conventional weapons and thus a relatively humane instrument of war.45 Laypeople, such as the Second Earl of Halsbury, emphasized pain and emotional angles in their depiction of chemical weapons as ﬁendish tools.46 Thus gas was a total weapon not only in World War I, but afterward. During the interwar period, abstract discussions of gas replaced many individuals’ focus on immediate, concrete, and physical interactions with gas— such as manufacturing, deploying, and facing it—during the war. Because of the intertwining of the issues of civilization, barbarity, terror, and desensitization to gas, after all of these ideas moved to the forefront of the debate, at times explicitly. They provided links between multiple segments of society and the groups’ separate opinions of gas. The Basics of Gas Examining gas in terms of some of the major issues of the twentieth century has been a complex undertaking from World War I onward, but gas has also inspired questions and confusion in those who have simply tried to deﬁne it. Prototypes of chemical weapons had been discussed and proposed before the end of the nineteenth century. Lord Dundonald, a British admiral, and Lord Playfair, a chemist, suggested variations on a poison gas during the Crimean War; burning sulfur, they hoped, might break the stalemate against Russia by poisoning the enemy with the toxic substance.47 However, the British government rejected these overtures; even then, just the idea of gas was too horrible to consider.48 Looking back further in history, some scholars argue that rudimentary chemical weapons have been in use for centuries. According to broad deﬁnitions, that may be true; one could argue that smoke used to dislodge besieged or fortiﬁed foes was a chemical weapon.49 Regardless, the conception of industrialized warfare with complex chemicals—what most people today would generally accept as chemical warfare and the type that appeared in World War I—arose only in the mid-nineteenth century as familiarity with manufacturing and chemicals grew. Even modern chemical weapons can be perplexing to identify; what people call poison gas does not have to poison, nor must it be gas. As the British Medical Manual of Chemical Warfare stated, “In chemical warfare the term ‘gas’ is applied to any substance, whether solid, liquid, or vapour, which is used for poisonous, irritant, or blistering effects.”50 Making matters more

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| Introduction

confusing is the fact that chemical weapons often have been grouped together with biological weapons in the eyes of policy makers, the military, and especially the public. Biological, also known as bacteriological weapons, “are those which achieve their effect primarily . . . through the dispersal of biological or pathogenic agents. Thus . . . [they] cause disease.”51 Today, the abbreviations 78L and 87L refer to biological and chemical weapons; the two are often considered a unit since both attack mass targets and often damage them organically. These weapons differ from conventional weapons not only in the manner in which they attack the body, but also with respect to the broad range of uses to which they can be put. As Valerie Adams, a scholar of disarmament, wrote, poison gases “may be used directly to cause casualties, or to deny the use of terrain to an enemy by contaminating it, or to harass the enemy, undermining his operational efﬁciency by imposing the need for protection,” such as respirators that lessen his efﬁciency in carrying out other tasks and demoralize him because he anticipates the attack fearfully. She also could have included in her list of goals the intention to confuse the enemy by mixing smoke and gas so that he is not sure what sort of weapon he faces. Another purpose might be to augment the conventional weaponry used by an army. For example, a gas attack at the beginning of a large infantry assault may act as the equivalent of a unit of shock troops; this was common during World War I, such as at the battle of Loos on September , , when the British ﬁrst deployed gas offensively. Finally, Adams noted that, strictly speaking, chemical weapons include herbicides (such as Agent Orange) and tear gases used against rioting crowds.52 In general, though, the popular deﬁnition of chemical warfare, and the one used in this book, refers to chemical weapons used against human targets during a war by an enemy power. There are many kinds of gases that ﬁt these criteria, leading to four classiﬁcation systems for chemical weapons. The ﬁrst is toxicity, which refers to the extent to which the chemicals incapacitate a victim. Tear gas, for example, causes temporary discomfort and therefore is known as an irritant. Other gases, for instance, mustard, cause actual injuries, but they may not be lethal depending on the amount the victim ingests or other factors, such as the weather. Some gases, such as chlorine, are intentionally lethal. A second way to categorize gases is by persistency, or how long they retain their effectiveness. Phosgene may blow over a target in minutes, depending on the speed of the wind; mustard gas, though, lasts for days.53 A third way to arrange

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gases is by their effect, or how they damage a person or property. Some cause corrosion; chlorine, for example, eroded the metal barrel of guns and turned buttons green in World War I.54 Phosgene produced heart attacks, mustard gas led to blistering sores, and chlorine caused suffocation. These gases could be used alone or in conjunction with one another, producing multiple effects, as with those called German Blue and Green Cross. The ﬁrst gas contained components that penetrated masks to cause vomiting; once the suffering soldier removed his mask, the lethal portion of the mixture killed him.55 A fourth and recent system is organization by generation, or chronology. A World War I gas is a ﬁrst-generation substance, while those developed during the Second World War, such as nerve gases, are second generation.56 Gases can be deployed via various mechanisms, and some gases can be delivered to the enemy in more than one way. During World War I, cylinders produced cloud gases by releasing gas the way an open oxygen or helium tank does. Later in the war, the other major delivery method was via artillery, whether mortars or shells. The British army also experimented with grenades, and the possibility exists for “aerial spray” from planes.57 The problem is that a gas has to be stable enough to withstand transportation and storage, and the deployment system has to deliver chemicals in sufﬁcient concentrations on the enemy’s lines; these requirements limit the gases that can be used and the ways they can be released. There are other factors that inﬂuence which gases are likely candidates for chemical warfare. For example, the British experimented with prussic acid during World War I, but discontinued it because it was not sufﬁciently lethal.58 Some ingredients, such as iodine, were difﬁcult to gather due to a shortage of materials during wartime; the J-boats and disrupted trading routes made it difﬁcult for the Allies to purchase ingredients from abroad, and the British blockade hindered Germany’s international trade.59 The war competed with commercial demands for critical chemicals, too, such as cyanide.60 Most armies combated gases (and continue to do so) using four types of defenses. The ﬁrst was prevention, speciﬁcally intelligence reports and laboratory tests or, as Adams noted, “reconnaissance.”61 Such information allowed an army to develop effective antigas equipment to meet the speciﬁc threats posed by different gases. Second and third were personal and collective protection, which involved military equipment and training. Individual defenses focused on respirators and group defenses on items such as gas-proof dugouts that several soldiers could use. Each of the methods of protection required

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Introduction

research to ﬁnd out if the equipment would withstand the enemy’s gases and training to enable soldiers to use them correctly. Fourth, and as a last resort, the army provided medical treatment for soldiers who became victims of chemical warfare. While some of these defenses, such as collective protections, were most effective in trench warfare where elaborate systems of defense could be set up, gas itself could and can be used in almost any kind of conﬂict; it is not limited to static warfare like that in –. On the Eastern Front, it proved to be of use in mobile or open warfare, and today it can be used in terrorist attacks. In theory, there is no reason it cannot be used in guerrilla, insurgent, or clandestine warfare.62 Regardless of the particular chemical, it is one of the unique properties of gas that, despite the fear many have of it, it is a weapon against which soldiers can defend themselves well if they are prepared.63 Compare this with artillery and machine guns; dugouts cannot protect soldiers thoroughly against artillery and can provide cover against machine gun ﬁre only until a soldier has to cross No Man’s Land. The variety of protective methods and equipment means that solders often can continue to work, ﬁght, and live through gas attacks. This has not always been the case, but even World War I soldiers acknowledged, as Pvt. A. L. Robins, later a clergyman, noted in his memoirs, that although gas “was a severe afﬂiction,” masks became “highly effective. If it was not so I would not be alive to-day, ﬁfty or more years afterwards having been in gas more than a dozen times for some hours at a time.”64 An Effective Weapon? It is hard to determine how effective gas really was during World War I. Was it such a useful weapon that it justiﬁed all of the uproar after the war about its nature and the belief that another conﬂict would certainly entail chemicals? As with many fascinating questions, there is no clear-cut answer. Even the experts could not agree on a conclusion. Ludwig Haber, author of a respected book on poison gas and son of the German scientist viliﬁed for developing chemical warfare, argued that it was an ineffective means of warfare.65 An American report argued that “considering the small numbers of the special gas troops employed and the low total percentage of the gas shells ﬁred (about per cent), gas was easily the most effective weapon used in the Great War.” Charles Foulkes, head of Britain’s offensive chemical warfare unit, was not quite as conﬁdent, but he did believe that “it was certainly one of the fac-

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tors which led to the Allied victory, and it was increasing in importance” as the war continued.66 Of course, as an Allied gas commander, Foulkes might have been prone to exaggerating the importance of his weapon. In fact, each of these men had personal reasons to come to his conclusions, but each was also an expert in the ﬁeld. The dichotomy of their professional opinions, therefore, reﬂects the complex nature of gas. Part of the problem is that the question of effectiveness is a vague one. Is a good weapon one that creates a large number of casualties? The American army used this body-count method to measure its progress in Vietnam; however, it did not accurately reﬂect the progress of the war, nor were numbers always reliable. This approach was problematic during World War I, too, yet it was a traditional way to count a weapon’s effectiveness. Completely accurate numbers of wounded and dead do not exist; too many bodies and records are missing. Studies suggest that the death toll due to gas for Britain, Germany, and France ranged between . and . percent of their total casualties.67 Others note that ofﬁcially there were approximately six thousand British men who died of gas and , were attacked by it.68 Yet gas wounds were difﬁcult to diagnose. Was someone’s pulmonary difﬁculty due to gas or to an organic disease such as bronchitis, or both? If a soldier had clearly been killed by a shell, did anyone stop to note, or was anyone able to ascertain, whether he had also been gassed? 69 Gas may have slowed the victim down and made him vulnerable to the enemy’s artillery, but that lung damage would be invisible to the naked eye. Finally, casualty counts would vary with the type of gas used and the timing of its deployment. For example, chlorine wreaked havoc when the Germans used it in April , before opposing soldiers had masks with which to protect themselves; later, chemicals generally produced fewer casualties and permanent injuries.70 Helmets could protect victims of mustard gas from some pulmonary discomfort, but nothing could neutralize the skin lesions the gas produced. Mustard gas, because of its persistency and the amount of damage it could cause, was considered very effective.71 The other limitation with the body-count method is that it assumed that the goal of chemical warfare is solely to injure and kill enemy soldiers. Gas can be used defensively, to keep the foe from crossing chemically saturated land, such as when the Germans spread mustard gas over No Man’s Land. It can be used as a psychological weapon to demoralize the enemy by making him feel vulnerable or even exhausted from having to wear cumbersome protective gear for a long period of time. When used this way, the threat of gas

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Introduction

is nearly as effective as the actual deployment of it. In other words, gas was a psychological weapon, a tool of terror, as much as a physical one. Gas can also be used as an auxiliary weapon. In this situation, it is part of a larger attack and its goal is to demoralize or disrupt the enemy before an infantry assault. It can also be used as a clean-up tool to drive soldiers from deep fortiﬁcations; as Foulkes knew, gas could winnow its way into bunkers that would resist artillery.72 These other standards by which to determine the effectiveness of gas are difﬁcult either to measure or to quantify. During World War I, scientists enabled societies to use gas, politicians approved gas warfare, and armies waged it. Clearly this weapon was seen as either sufﬁciently useful—it certainly enhanced the effectiveness of other weapons by demoralizing the Germans—or at least worth trying, even though there were not any absolute ﬁgures conﬁrming it as a casualty maker or quantifying its effectiveness on other grounds. Foulkes noted that captured German reports bemoaned British use of gas and thought that these documents were a reliable indicator of chemical weapons’ worth.73 British military planning for , assuming that the war would continue, included consideration of a large increase of gas for offensive use.74 The British Experience with Gas Surprisingly, considering the hatred of gas, an examination of Britain’s World War I experiences with chemical weapons shows that it was not gas itself that was the problem; early twentieth-century Britain promoted gas-fueled stoves and heating.75 The gas industry was strong.76 The unpopularity did not even stem from poison gas’s connection to chemistry and the mysterious world of science; in , industry produced medicines and other necessities of a modern society. Biological and physical sciences were constantly breaking new ground and receiving the respect of laypeople awed by new discoveries, even if they did not always understand them.77 In the decades before World War I, Pasteur and Koch promulgated the germ theory of disease, blood transfusions developed, the M-ray became an accepted tool, and chloroform eased operations.78 This was an age of celebrated scientiﬁc change. The real problems with war gas were its associations with poison and “bad air” and its conﬂict with traditional conceptions about how wars should be fought. Gas triggered instinctive, universal horrors of suffocation. Poison gas generally threatened breathing; fear of suffocation was difﬁcult, but necessary, to overcome if gas were ever to be widely accepted. Finally, bad air, and

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gas certainly tainted air, had been associated with lethal threats in the past. Long before the germ theory of disease appeared, the miasmatic theory dominated the medical scene. In this philosophy, bad air caused disease; for example, it was believed that swamp breezes, not the mosquitoes that lived in marshes, led to malaria. Underground, miners also were familiar with bad air ﬁlled with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide that could kill them; they carried canaries to warn them of pockets of deadly air.79 Thus, the idea that air could be deadly was not new, and the dangers of poison gas were easy to comprehend and ﬁt into an existing framework of threats to human life. Poison, too, was familiar. It has almost always been viewed as a deceitful weapon, used by assassins or the weak.80 Poison had a dual nature, though; for instance, arsenic could be used to kill rodents and other pests legitimately or to murder people underhandedly. Poison usually killed painfully; strychnine, for example, forced victims to contort themselves into impossible positions in response to the drug. Some poisons, such as cobra venom, killed immediately; others, such as arsenic, worked gradually. Rulers constantly feared it; some relied on tasters to avoid being poisoned through their food. In short, centuries of experience and rumors with poison created an inherent dislike of it because of who used it, how they wielded it, and the ways it worked on the body. Poison had been banned in war by tradition and law before the twentieth century, and the prohibition was reinforced in the Hague Convention.81 Furthermore, poison contrasted sharply with so-called noble weapons, such as swords, with which a soldier killed his opponent personally and faceto-face.82 A British subject, W. A. Spooner, expressed this popular belief in a letter to the Times weeks after the ﬁrst gas attack: “All through history those who have used poison to compass the death of their enemies have been held up to special detestation and loathing. . . . The use of such means of destruction places the brave, the chivalrous, the conscientious at the mercy of the cunning, the unscrupulous, and the cowardly. Should not the use of poison, including poisonous gases, in war be a subject of equal detestation and obloquy?”83 A sword also required expertise to wield, unlike poisons, which required skill only to concoct. Of course, other weapons and means of ﬁghting had overcome the condemnation originally heaped upon them; early riﬂemen and the ﬁrst guns were seen as ignoble because they undercut the socially privileged and thoroughly trained knights and cavalry. In contrast to guns, though, gas did not simply threaten bodily integrity the way swords did; it

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Introduction

also worked, sometimes invisibly, as a weapon of mass, impersonal destruction. Even worse, it was unpredictable. Soldiers could learn patterns of behavior for bullets and artillery, but gas could change the direction in which it ﬂowed, the intensity with which it bombarded a section of the line, and the longevity of its presence in a particular area depending on the particular gas, the deployment mechanism, the weather, and the climate. Unpredictability often leads to feelings of helplessness, which, in turn, exacerbates fear. All of this helps explain British reactions to the advent of the chemical war in western Europe. There are hints that the German army may have ﬁrst tested gas on the Eastern Front, but even if the Central Power did use chemical weapons there, the attack was largely ineffective because it used tear gas, most of which froze.84 Thus, the gas war truly opened on April , . On that day, the Germans targeted the French colonial troops at Ypres, doused them with chlorine, and surprised the Allies so thoroughly that the enemy nearly broke through the lines, winning the war.85 Two days after the new kind of war began, on April , Canadian soldiers in the British line generally held their place in the face of chlorine fumes.86 The Canadians were the ﬁrst targets to withstand a gas attack successfully. Many soldiers died, but enough, armed with jerry-rigged masks of vinegar-soaked handkerchiefs and similar substances, stood in place and fought off the attack.87 Almost immediately, British scientists began to develop gas masks and poison gases; the former were ready within weeks, and the latter made their debut in September at the battle of Loos.88 In the meantime, a public call went forth to the women of Britain to make simple gauze masks for soldiers until more elaborate ones could be produced in factories. This appeal was so successful that thirty thousand masks were shipped to the War Ofﬁce within thirty-six hours.89 Despite the surprise nature of the gas attack and Britain’s weak chemical industry—she started the war unable to make aspirin or even dyes due to her dependence on German products—her ingenuity led her to the forefront of the gas war.90 By choice, she did not escalate the gas war; however, she dominated it most of the time.91 The Germans made a mistake when they released gas at Ypres; the wind that carried gas to the enemy was in their favor that day, but normally on the Western Front it was to Britain’s advantage.92 Furthermore, although Britain’s supply situation made it difﬁcult for her to obtain some chemicals, she had enough rubber to manufacture effective, tight-ﬁtting masks and occasionally to supply some to her allies, such as

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Introduction |

Russia.93 In contrast, by the end of the war, the Germans faced rubber shortages, and their helmets were unable adequately to keep gas from slinking between a soldier’s face and his mask.94 Finally, Britain’s willingness to experiment continually assisted her. For example, the British constantly rearranged the governmental and military organizations responsible for waging the gas war to ﬁnd the most effective structure.95 Britain’s leadership and expertise even allowed her to send a mission to the United States to offer advice as the American army began preparations to ﬁght in Europe.96 Britain’s contributions to the gas war were substantial.97 In hindsight, it is clear that gas did not win the war for the Allies; there were too many other factors involved, from blockades to war weariness.98 As this book shows, however, gas had an impact, sometimes positive and sometimes negative, on almost every aspect of British society, whether or not it caused the effects that were intended by its users. Furthermore, it was an emotional component, the fear of gas, as much as physical danger that helped promulgate a taboo that has lasted since the interwar period. Perhaps, then, since gas is a total weapon, recognizing the variety of mental, emotional, and physical impacts it has on society is the most valid way for historians and military planners to measure chemical weaponry’s effectiveness. By looking in depth at politicians’ reactions to and perceptions of gas, the mental and emotional effects will be illuminated ﬁrst.

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. The Political Challenge Descent to Atrocities?

Britain had long viewed herself as enlightened, ethical, and law-abiding in her actions abroad and at home. In the nineteenth century alone, the British abolished slavery, instituted reform legislation without revolution, and enjoyed Queen Victoria’s reputation for rectitude. They had reason to be proud of their national image, despite the fact that they became embroiled in a costly, and often sordid, war in . What did it mean, then, when they had to accept barbarous elements of war, such as the massive destruction of the trench system, and atrocious kinds of weaponry, such as gas? If some of Britain’s actions in the nineteenth century demonstrated her moral purity and civilized status in the eyes of her own citizens and the world, what did the wartime measures say about her? Although this was a question that all of Britain had to consider, consciously or not, it was the politicians who had the responsibility for adopting wartime policies that required the nation to utilize and confront barbaric methods. As they did so, they balanced on a ﬁne line; using every tool at their disposal, such as gas, might be barbaric and help lower Britain’s status as a civilized nation in her own and in global eyes, but failing to wield every possible tool might cost Britain victory. The fact that the main foe, Germany, had already been labeled barbaric, or without Kultur, for invading Belgium, instituting unrestricted submarine warfare, and now using chemicals meant that Britain might suffer a similar fate if she, too, adopted the new weapon. The British might also be seen as hypocritical if they used gas after condemning Germany vociferously for doing just that. In the end, British politicians adopted the new methods of war, but did so hesitantly. They responded to escalations in the gas war; they did not cause them. By limiting the expansion of chemical warfare, the politicians tried to protect both Britain’s ﬁghting ability and her reputation and status.

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Politicians assumed the major responsibility for Britain’s reputation in the world as they steered their country through the brutal conﬂict. The prime minister and his colleagues could delegate responsibilities to organizations such as the navy, but in the end they were the leaders and the decision makers.1 The government grew enormously over the course of the conﬂict, both in size and in authority, to wage a total war of unprecedented cost and scale.2 This meant that London was involved in private property and business to a greater extent than ever before. The government censored the news strictly, drafted men into the army after , and supervised businesses serving the war machine.3 Those in power used a variety of techniques to maintain morale at home, reputation abroad, and the drive to victory on the various fronts. Propaganda campaigns, for example, persuaded men to join the military and women to volunteer their services as part of the war effort. Scientists struggled to develop more efﬁcient weapons, both artillery and chemicals, especially those that would break the deadlock on the Western Front. The military tested these new arms and did the actual ﬁghting. Whether the government ordered these actions, encouraged them, or merely condoned them, politicians held responsibility for them. Strong leadership allowed the nation to harness her strength and riches, but it also placed increasing obligations for directing Britain’s future and policy on the government and not on the citizens. As one element in a successful war effort, it was essential for Britain’s leaders to maintain the population’s mental, physical, and economic well-being as much as possible. Every country wanted to claim the high moral ground in a conﬂict; it was a strong motivator. This was true whether, as was the case in Britain, the cause was presented as a legal one to defend the treaty guaranteeing Belgium’s neutrality, a just one against German aggression and brutality, or a defensive one against enemy bombings and raids.4 Securing Britain’s honorable reputation and the positive morale that arose from that required convincing not only her own civilians and soldiers but also the world of the purity of her cause. Winning over neutrals, such as the United States, who could provide material and moral support, and perhaps an alliance, was crucial. The story of the Zimmermann telegram, for example, which helped convince President Wilson and the Americans that Britain was on the right side in the war and the conﬂict, is well known.5 Yet other paths toward victory required decisions that focused on practical ﬁghting ability rather than psychological warfare. Britain had to be able

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The Political Challenge

to keep up with, if not defeat, the Germans on the battleﬁeld. As World War I developed, it became clear that the conﬂict would require novel kinds of warfare, ones that dismayed, disgusted, and disillusioned people prepared to ﬁght a romantic, quick war. Soldier-poet Wilfred Owen’s cynicism toward “pro patria mori est” provides vivid evidence of this; his experiences in the trenches proved that it was not sweet and proper to die for one’s country.6 The enormous numbers of casualties, the unbearable shelling, and, of course, the poison gas were all examples of the new, brutal war. Allowing one’s soldiers to be subjected to this kind of ﬁghting, and furthermore to ask them to wage it, was necessary in the struggle against the Germans. This did not mean, though, that submarine warfare, chemical weapons, and other elements of the conﬂict always were embraced with equanimity. Perhaps it should not have been difﬁcult to accept methods of ﬁghting that were so psychologically fearsome and physically destructive. After all, signs that warfare was growing in scale and intensity were present in the American Civil War and the Russo-Japanese War with machine guns and trench warfare. Still, this was a period in which Europeans believed that they enjoyed a superior level of civilization compared to that outside the industrialized world.7 They even thought themselves able to restrict some of the inhumane elements of war through international treaties, such as those signed at The Hague in and . Thus it became increasingly burdensome that the war intensiﬁed in brutality and demanded that belligerents on both sides engage in atrocious behavior. Refraining from at least some of the new techniques of war would have left the British vulnerable to defeat; at best, therefore, they could try to limit the number of barbaric acts they committed. This was a job in which the politicians had a major role; they helped set the policies that governed Britain’s war effort. Out of necessity there was some acceptance of the new ways of war; yet at the same time, there were risks, beyond self-disgust, in adapting to the novel weapons. One letter to the Times in London acknowledged this openly. The author asked, “Is it more important that we should be able to say to ourselves and to the great neutral America, ‘Our hands are clean, search the book of rules, we have broken none of them,’ or that we should take every step [including the use of gas] in our power to secure victory and peace?”8 American newspapers and periodicals on both coasts were watching. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times reported on the gas war from the beginning.9 Their tales graphically described the nature of the gas attacks,

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the suffering of the Allied soldiers, and the German attempts at justiﬁcation.10 Although the United States proclaimed neutrality, the information it received from Europe often ﬂowed through British-controlled cable lines. The news therefore encouraged sympathy for the Allied plight and disgust at the new German weapon; in fact, some stories were nearly identical to those published in the United Kingdom.11 Britain managed to use these accounts of her military difﬁculties with gas as a tool with which to enhance her image as a belligerent on the “good” side of the war in her own propaganda and in America. Perhaps more important, with her policies, Britain appeared to be a reluctant gas warrior when, in reality, she was simply a cautious one. Once the British decided to engage in the gas war offensively, they worked hard to keep up, and thus not give Germany too great an advantage, without taking the lead in escalating the gas war. They could limit their vulnerability without appearing aggressive. Decisions about Gas The Germans introduced poison gas in France in April , and Britain responded with outrage.12 The enemy had started a form of warfare that the British army was not prepared to combat; there were no masks, no gas canisters, no policy with regard to chemicals, and no one who could use the new weapon.13 The nation was morally repulsed and militarily vulnerable. Responding militarily was a challenge, but a straightforward one that could be overcome. It required the harnessing of scientists, industry, and the military to develop defensive and offensive tools to ﬁght with and use gas. Within months, the army possessed efﬁcient gas masks, ones that were constantly improved to increase protection against novel gases. The labs produced a range of chemicals, from simple chlorine to sophisticated mustard gas, as the war continued. With time, industry learned to manufacture these products and the army to use them effectively. After the ﬁrst wave of antigas helmets had been created and distributed to troops (by the end of April public volunteers had ﬁlled the War Department’s needs with simple masks, and by July soldiers had received the more sophisticated hypo helmets), the problem politicians faced was not whether the nation was capable of waging chemical warfare.14 It was whether they should do so offensively. Over the course of World War I the British government made a series of decisions regarding gas. The ﬁrst was whether to use gas offensively; defen-

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The Political Challenge

sive activities were clearly justiﬁed on the grounds of self-protection. Once the government gave approval for gas attacks, the issue of escalation arose: Should Britain introduce more sophisticated chemicals on the battlefronts? The story of gas was one of tit for tat; one side would develop a new chemical and the other would then produce and use it, too. Meanwhile, each side would improve the design of its respirators to withstand the new threats. The cycle would continue. Chemicals fell into groups, though, from lachrymatory, that is, tear gases, to fatal mixtures. These toxins could produce different types of symptoms, from suffocation to burning. They reached enemy lines via various delivery systems, such as shells or cloud cylinders. Changing from one category of gas to another altered the tenor of the gas war more than switching from one poison to another. Britain had to consider whether she wanted the responsibility for shifting the gas war to a new phase. A third decision arose when Britain had to decide whether to introduce the new weapon into other theaters, spreading the gas war beyond the Western Front. The ﬁnal question was whether to stop the chemical war before the end of the larger conﬂict in response to a multinational International Red Cross appeal in , a request whose existence foreshadowed the postwar efforts to prohibit future gas use. The Advent of the Gas War At ﬁrst glance, it seems that if the Germans introduced a new weapon, the only questions Britain might have had about adopting it were whether she could produce and deploy it and whether it was a sufﬁciently effective tool to bother to do so. When the enemy targeted the French colonial lines in April on the ﬁrst day of the gas war, the Allied troops ran. In fact, it has been recognized that the Germans would have been able to break through the opposing lines if they had had enough faith in gas to arrange for reinforcements who could follow up on the advantage the chemicals produced.15 Gas appeared to be the miracle weapon at this point, capable of breaking the stalemate of the Western Front. Two days later, the Canadians proved that troops could withstand gas, although at a great cost in lives, even without sophisticated antigas helmets. Although there was no way of knowing whether the Germans would use gas again, the general assumption was that they would, and thus Britain needed to start an antigas helmet industry as well as institute military training to respond to the threat. In addition, Britain considered trying the new armament. Gas was a pro-

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hibited weapon, though, according to The Hague Conferences of and . The former outlawed arms whose main role was to deploy asphyxiating gases, and the latter banned tools of war that produced unnecessary cruelty as well as poisoned armaments, which included chemical weapons. The slow suffocation of soldiers that resulted from the chlorine gas used in April seemed to violate the latter. The Germans knew this; they had signed both treaties.16 Yet they openly acknowledged the possibility that they might have employed gas, as the Times quickly publicized in its translations of articles from the Kreuz Zeitung: “It is even probable that missiles which emit poisonous gases have actually been used by us.”17 Later they admitted it outright.18 They defended themselves largely on two grounds, one based on the language of the Hague documents and one resting on claims of the right of retaliation. The Germans did not address the less speciﬁc Convention; perhaps the terms of the treaty were too vague to use as the basis of a strong argument. The ﬁrst line of reasoning focused on the letter, not the spirit, of the law. This technique was reminiscent of Germany’s defense against charges of human rights violations in Belgium. She had argued that she was well within her rights to shoot franc-tireurs, or partisans, because they “did not carry weapons openly, nor did they conform to the laws and usages of war,” as The Hague Conventions of required legitimate popular resisters to do. This could have been a successful argument in a court of law, but it did not win over world public opinion, particularly when Britain focused on the inhumanity—not the legality—of her foe’s actions. A similar result occurred after Edith Cavell’s execution in the fall of . The British woman had aided the foe and abandoned neutrality; German ofﬁcials technically could arrest and execute her, and in fact they did this. It looked inhumane in the world’s eyes, though, to shoot a female nurse in the face of civilization’s general taboos against harming women and nurturers.19 With regard to gas, Germany could argue that The Hague Declaration of banned “projectiles whose sole object” was to deploy gas (my italics).20 The treaties had used that terminology because high explosives often released small amounts of toxic fumes simply because of the way they functioned. Releasing gas on the battleﬁeld as an unintentional by-product was quite different from doing it deliberately to choke soldiers. Germany would have had a hard time proving that she was innocent of breaking the contract on that point.

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The Political Challenge

However, the Germans could point out that they had not violated the terms of the agreement because the army had used cylinders, such as helium tanks, to release the chemicals. It is true that they had not used the mechanism speciﬁcally mentioned in the law: projectiles. At that point, chemical warfare technology relied on imprecise canisters to release gas. Soldiers connected cylinders of gas with pipes and buried them near the front line. At the appointed time, they opened valves to release the gas. This rudimentary system relied on the wind to carry the chemicals to the enemy. Although it could produce a wide and deep cloud of gas, how quickly it blew over (and away from) the foe was at the mercy of the wind. (Later in the war, both sides adopted gas shells that they could drop directly into the midst of the enemy, although the cost was a weaker concentration of the poison.) Germany had obeyed the letter of the law, but not its spirit. The distinction between shells and canisters was further undermined by the date of the treaties. In , and even , gas did not exist as a functional weapon. It was difﬁcult to outlaw technology, or even to describe it, because it had the potential to change radically and quickly. It was even more challenging to describe technology when it did not exist physically, as at the time of these treaties. Before , the British had discussed and experimented in the laboratory with chemicals, but did so within the boundaries of The Hague treaties as they understood them. For example, they concentrated on lachrymatory substances such as ethyl iodoacetate (more informally called H@ after the South Kensington location of the laboratory).21 These experiments, however, were truly in the nature of an investigation; no plans for using the weapons existed before the Germans attacked at Ypres. If there was such a strong dislike of gas among the international community, why did The Hague Conferences fail to outlaw chemical cylinders as well as shells? Because gas had never been used, it was unclear exactly how a chemical weapon would work. The best that the diplomats could do was to envision an existing weapon modiﬁed to deploy gas; they tried to put gas into their conceptual framework of weapons. Shells were a sophisticated, modern armament, and thus they imagined that a dedicated scientist or soldier could turn a shell into a conveyor of gas. The Hague treaties were never intended to limit the distribution of gas speciﬁcally from shells, but to ban gas weapons altogether. A German argument exonerating their use of cylinders instead of

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shells, therefore, would be rather weak. H. J. Tennant, the undersecretary of state at the War Ofﬁce, conﬁrmed this ofﬁcial interpretation in the House of Commons. On May , , he proclaimed that “obviously the diffusion of the gases was the object of the prohibition rather than the means by which they were diffused.”22 There was another prong to Germans’ justiﬁcation for releasing chlorine at Ypres in April : they claimed the right of retaliation against earlier French and British gas use.23 It is possible that some French soldiers, with or without ofﬁcial sanction, experimented with the riot gas that their police force used against criminals. However, if that did occur, it was isolated, on a small scale, and irritating, not lethal, in nature.24 In addition, the British never used gas, although they had wondered why Germany published accusations against them in the weeks before April . As the South Wales Argus noted on April , , “The false statement made by the Germans a week ago, to the effect that we were using such gases, is now explained. It was obviously an effort to diminish neutral criticism in advance.”25 Germans’ claims on the grounds that they were retaliating were also weak. Aside from anger over Germany’s use of gas, the British were furious that the Germans had broken the law. Lord Robert Cecil criticized Germany’s actions as one of several examples of laws of war broken by the enemy, although “the most terrible is the barbarous use of poisonous gases. I am quite certain no one would have thought that credible or possible six months ago.”26 For Britain, breaking the law was almost as uncivilized as the new weapon itself. After all, she had joined the war partly to uphold her treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality. So the British felt justiﬁed in decrying Germany’s use of gas as illegal, although they, too, focused on the Convention and not the more vague treaty. An occasional voice did question, if not reject, this judgment, even in the cabinet. Prime Minister Asquith wrote to the king about the meeting of April , , “As the gases are apparently stored in and drawn from cylinders, and not ‘projectiles,’ the employment of them is not perhaps an infraction of the literal terms of the Hague Convention.”27 These doubts were few and far between, however, among the British population. Deciding to Use Gas Offensively The Germans released gas upon the world at Ypres, at : p.m. on April , .28 By : the next morning, Sir John French, the British Expeditionary

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Force leader, sent a telegram to Lord Horatio Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, with the news that Britain’s allies had been devastated with a new weapon: Germans used powerful asphyxiating gases very extensively in attack on French yesterday with serious effect. . . . Apparently these gases are either chlorine or bromine. . . . Will send further details later but meanwhile strongly urge that immediate steps be taken to supply similar means of most effective kind for use by our troops. . . . Also essential that our troops should be immediately provided with means of counteracting effects of enemy gases which should be suitable for use when on the move. . . . As a temporary measure am arranging for troops in trenches to be supplied with solutions of bicarbonate of soda in which to soak handkerchiefs.29

The general clearly expressed ire and, more important, his concern for the military implications of the new weapon. Britain’s troops had to be able to ﬁght on equal ground; they, too, needed poison gas. There was no hint that Sir John felt he faced a dilemma about adopting a reviled and outlawed armament; the foe had crossed that line, and he saw no moral problems in following. His only interest lay in outﬁtting his soldiers such that they were not at a disadvantage. If gas was going to be used, as the Germans indicated, and if it was effective, as the attack demonstrated, then the British could not afford militarily to eschew the new weapon. His needs were immediate and practical, unlike those of diplomats and politicians. He could not even take the time to worry about the impact chemicals would have on the tradition of the army and of European ﬁghting. He had to respond to an immediate crisis. His superior, Lord Kitchener, replied the next day. As the leader of the war effort, a military man with an outstanding reputation, constantly conversing with professional politicians and situated safely in London at a geographical and temporal distance from the Western Front, Kitchener’s concerns differed from French’s: The use of asphyxiating gases is as you are aware contrary to the rules and usages of war. . . . Before therefore we fall to the level of the degraded Germans I must submit the matter to the Government. . . . In the meantime I shall be glad if you would send me any example or diagnosis of the material used, and I am also having the matter fully gone into in our laboratories and by experts in this country. . . . These methods show to what depth of infamy our enemies will go in order to supplement their want of courage in facing our troops.30

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Kitchener’s response resembled a press release, with its references to “degraded Germans” and the “infamy” of the foe’s actions. He also had the luxury of resources and time that French did not. He could think clearly about bringing the might of Britain’s scientiﬁc resources to bear in order to make the nation’s response as strong as possible. His primary remark addressed the legal implications of the Germans’ actions. In the ﬁrst place, in his mind, the recent events were illegal; in the second place, they were beyond the pale of civilized behavior. He did not rule out the possibility of offensive actions by the army, but neither did he condone or even refer to French’s request for them. Kitchener was in a position, close to the government physically and with regard to his role in the war, to need to consider image as well as practicalities. In fact, the former concern seems to have come ﬁrst in his set of priorities. However, Lord Kitchener did not become the chief soldier of Britain without being realistic; he began planning for all contingencies. Almost immediately, the War Ofﬁce requested the respected scientist Dr. John Scott Haldane to travel to the front to investigate the situation.31 Soon afterward, on May , , Lord Kitchener ordered the scientiﬁc bodies in the Trench Warfare Department under Col. Louis Jackson to explore and develop the nation’s chemical warfare capabilities.32 In the meantime, a public debate surrounding the introduction of gas, and the proper response by the Allies, was trumpeted through the press. Arguments such as the following, in a regular column of the Illustrated London News in June , wrestled with the moral and practical issues that the leaders of the government considered behind closed doors: Is it worth while to violate all the rules of civilised warfare hitherto observed for the sake of such puny results? [Gas up to now had not been that effective.] This point is of much importance in considering the question of reprisals. . . . Shells, guns, riﬂes, and bayonets are what we really want to end the war. . . . To our soldiers, then, should be left, as it seems to the present writer, the task of requiring the use of weapons which they consider unfair, and some of which at least are a distinct contravention of the international agreements.33

There were calls for British retaliation and retribution and questions about potential policy regarding gas, but the government preferred to keep its adoption of these policies quiet.34 They were not absolutely secret, but they were not emphasized. Better to appear slow than to blatantly acknowledge that the

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The Political Challenge

country had embraced the very behavior she had condemned (and continued to decry) so publicly. In addition, it made sense to keep the Germans in the dark as long as possible about any British conclusion to use gas. Finally the government announced its decision. In an account of the period recorded after the war, cabinet meeting minutes noted that “public opinion had compelled the Government to retaliate.”35 Popular pressure certainly had a role, but so did more practical concerns. On May Kitchener addressed the House of Lords, simultaneously condemning Germany for her premeditated surprise attack and announcing that “His Majesty’s Government, no less than the French Government, felt that our troops must be adequately protected by the employment of similar methods so as to remove the enormous and unjustiﬁable disadvantage which must exist for them if we take no steps to meet on his own ground the enemy who is responsible for the introduction of this pernicious practice.”36 Britain thus did not formulate her response to the German gas attacks blindly or hurriedly. When the British made the decision to enter the offensive gas war, they did so after investigation and debate. They also noted the ethical and military choices that shaped their thinking; the government and many of the British people saw the issue in the same way. These new steps to create gas weapons did not receive the same degree of press coverage that the enemy’s assault did. The press rarely mentioned offensive chemical action by Britain, whereas reports on defensive developments and references to Germany’s use of the new weaponry continued.37 The former allowed Britain to continue to portray herself to her citizens and to the world as brave and victimized without being weak. It also prevented any secrets about the army’s new weapons from leaking to the enemy. The latter stories emphasized the enemy’s atrocities and the justness of the British ﬁght. When the press or other public mouthpieces referred to offensive gas use, such as in visual images, they often justiﬁed the actions in ways that would maintain Britain’s national image as a defender of the weak and of the law.38 As a belligerent exercising retribution or retaliation, Britain appeared almost biblical in behavior. Consider that the British could merely have declared The Hague treaty void because the enemy broke the contract that bound Britain to avoid gas. They could also have claimed simply that Germany used it ﬁrst and they were only responding. Britain carefully maintained her image and her position as a civilized country as much as possible, although she did, in the end, choose the goal of victory over fear of committing barbaric actions.

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The British tried to protect their status, but they did not change all of their behaviors to save it, particularly when the cost would have been so high. The Second Decision: Escalation of Chemicals Politicians’ dilemmas did not end with a simple decision to adopt gas as a weapon. They constantly had to make choices that balanced the nation’s image and its deeds. Would they be willing to risk worldwide condemnation by escalating the chemical war? The use of poison gas was dynamic in many respects. Each side improved its defensive capabilities, including the alarms that the troops sounded in a gas attack, the chemicals that the respirators could defuse, and drills that the soldiers practiced when wearing them. With regard to offensive aspects, the armies changed the chemicals they used in order to penetrate the increasingly sophisticated helmets. They also attempted to outwit the foe’s antigas procedures over time by switching from lachrymators that temporarily blinded victims to mustard gas, a blistering, persistent agent that burned skin. Delivery systems improved, progressing from cylinders that released a large cloud of gas that traveled across the front according to the mercy of the winds to shells and grenades over which troops had more control when directing them to the enemy trenches. There was a distinction between responding to the enemy’s use of gas and expanding the scale of the chemical war either by degree of lethality or type of deployment mechanism. The introduction of gas in April , especially because the chemical was lethal chlorine, was the largest innovation taken by either side. The Germans paid for their action with vociferous condemnation in the global press.39 Almost as much damage to a reputation could be done by increasing the scope of the poison gas. If simple chlorine, which turned out to be rather easy to combat once Britain began to manufacture antigas masks, produced popular and political horror, what would occur when more sophisticated and diabolical chemical weaponry or tactics appeared?40 For example, throughout the war, simply the notion that Germany might release gas or germs deliberately on London’s civilians, thus widening the gas battle by using airplanes and violating another traditional law of war by attacking noncombatants, produced anxiety.41 In response, Britain’s policy makers in General Headquarters, the War Ofﬁce, and the Ministry of Munitions, in conjunction with the French, explicitly stated that they would

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The Political Challenge

not use their aircraft to deliver gas, except in retaliation.42 Britain struggled to maintain the high moral ground over the Central Powers despite her decision to adopt offensive strategies; that was difﬁcult enough when she merely followed Germany’s lead. What would happen if she now took the initiative? Britain therefore accepted a policy in which she would respond but not initiate escalation. As one gas warrior, Charles Foulkes, stated, Britain decided “to use gases ‘which were as harmful, but not much more so, than those used by the enemy, though preparations and experiments might proceed for the employment of more deadly things’” (Foulkes’s emphasis).43 The British constantly experimented with and even developed new gases, but they did so to be able to anticipate German innovations and thus improve soldiers’ gas masks before the new poisons appeared on the ﬁeld. They also wanted to be ready to use more unusual chemicals as soon as Germany produced them herself. Britain was not willing to lose the chemical war, or the entire conﬂict. She wanted to be able to respond and ﬁght at each new level of warfare as soon as it developed. Britain developed a policy, therefore, that allowed her to maintain her image as the reluctant gas warrior and her status as a civilized nation that reluctantly engaged in the necessary atrocities of the war, while remaining ready for new levels of retaliation as they became necessary. The debate over the discovery and manufacture of jellite, a cyanide compound, illustrated this dilemma. Scientists sitting on governmental bodies, such as the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee of the Trench Warfare Department in the Ministry of Munitions, enjoyed almost complete autonomy in deciding which substances to explore for potential weapons and when to stop the investigative procedures.44 Some substances were obvious choices for exploration; they were known to be toxic or plentiful, such as poison ivy.45 One of these was prussic acid, also known as hydrocyanic acid. This compound contained cyanide, long recognized to be an almost instantaneously lethal chemical.46 As a weapon, it formed the basis of jellite, vincennite, and similar gases, depending on the exact components of the compound.47 Initially, there was resistance among the British decision makers to utilize this chemical, and not simply because of the horrible reputation prussic acid held even in comparison to other awful substances. The gas war had begun with the Germans releasing fatal cylinder gas, chlorine, and the British responding. Shells, however, were projectiles speciﬁcally outlawed by The Hague Conventions, although they were more accurate than canisters. Using a new gas that was perceived to be worse than previous ones and also deploy-

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ing it as one of the ﬁrst lethal British gases in shells, therefore, was a serious escalation in the war, legally as well as militarily. By , intelligence learned of rumors that the Germans were considering using prussic acid.48 One of the most colorful stories was that an American professor in Switzerland heard the rumors at an international academic meeting; dismayed, he passed on the news to a British chaplain, who forwarded it to British ofﬁcials.49 This inspired the British to conduct their own investigations so that they would be ready if Germany did use the poison.50 Soon reports of enemy activity went further, suggesting that Germany would actually use hydrocyanic acid, “particularly in the event of his line . . . being pierced.”51 Information indicated that the industries were producing the supplies needed to support this policy and that other factories were ﬁlling shells and airplane bombs with it.52 The rumors were effective and believable, but after the war it became clear that Germany had never used this poison.53 One reason may have been that she could not defend her own troops against it effectively.54 On the offensive side, British scientists in the Admiralty and the Ministry of Munitions, those under Brigadier General Jackson’s aegis, began to compare their experiments in March . They explored different proportions of the compounds necessary to make prussic acid an effective weapon. The army and the navy both had considered the chemical in , but only the former expressed long-term interest in using it. Added to these difﬁculties were the interservice rivalries between the army and the navy; the latter owned the plant that was equipped to make jellite but would not give it to the army. Finally, production of jellite required cyanide, a chemical used to harvest the gold needed to run the British war effort. Diverting cyanide would have enormous repercussions, and thus the Bank of England and the Colonial Ofﬁce became involved in discussions over jellite production. How much cyanide did the army need? How valuable was it to the nation to have a certain amount of jellite at the cost of a particular amount of gold? Finally, it became clear that the Treasury could spare some cyanide, enough to make twenty tons a week of jellite, and this amount would not upset ﬁnances unduly.55 Eventually the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee recommended approval of jellite shells, their technical analysis having deemed them sufﬁciently effective and reliable.56 In the end, though, the choice was not theirs. Even so, the Ministry of Munitions took steps to prepare for jellite production, including negotiating with the navy for plant space, arranging supply priorities to

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include jellite, and establishing guarantees of delivery.57 In the military expressed a desire for the new shells, too. Yet this all occurred before the War Committee, a subset of the cabinet and ultimate leaders of the war effort, approved such an escalation of the gas war.58 The government did not want to use lethal bombs or shells before the Germans did.59 In fact, prussic acid received a speciﬁc ban, separate from that on other fatal shells.60 Eventually, after the enemy released lethal gas shells at Verdun in , the government approved retaliation in kind. It was ready to escalate the war, and willing to do so if necessary. Britain could not fall behind in the war and lose any advantages inherent in the new stage of the chemical ﬁghting, but the government did not want to initiate an increase in scale.61 The British actually discontinued the use of jellite in late because they thought that, despite its reputation, it was not as effective as other chemicals.62 One famous anecdote tells how Joseph Barcroft, to prove his point about prussic acid’s weakness, conducted a dramatic experiment. He and a dog sat in a gas chamber into which colleagues released a hydrocyanic compound. The dog quickly died, while the man remained conscious and unharmed. (One version claimed that the dog awoke during the night, shocking the scientists who had prepared to autopsy him.) 63 In addition to this discrediting evidence, British gas policy changed and began to favor more persistent gases that threatened the enemy for a longer period of time.64 After all of their agonizing and frantic checking of the rumor mill, the British phased out the very gas that they had reluctantly endorsed—and because it was less lethal than other gases, not more. All through the discussion, the issue of image and legality remained. The scientists frantically worked to make jellite shells effective, and the Ministry of Munitions badgered the navy in order to acquire manufacturing space, but they did so before they received ﬁnal approval to use or even to ship the chemical to France. The British were not going to be unprepared to use jellite, if the need arose. The government, as much as it wanted to win the war, and thus as motivated as it was to use the most effective chemicals, did not want to lose its moral position in the world or sink further toward barbarity by the selection of methods that it chose to achieve victory on the ﬁeld. The Decision to Expand the Gas War Geographically Soldiers used the toxins on the Eastern Front and in Italy, and they threatened to use it elsewhere, too. Britain, though, did not want to exacerbate the

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gas war by introducing the weapon into a new battlefront, but she did want to win the war and assist the generals in their campaigns. In practice, when the army asked for permission to receive gas supplies and to use them, the cabinet approved. Simultaneously it discouraged the local commanders so that they would have as much reason as possible to decide that gas was not a useful weapon. The government repeatedly allowed the generals autonomy while guiding them to conservative decisions that agreed with the political policy to limit the scope of the gas war as much as possible without harming Britain’s chances for victory. The exchanges between London and the ﬁeld in Africa and Gallipoli demonstrate this pattern. The Gallipoli campaign, the brainchild and pet of Winston Churchill, proved to be a disaster for the British war effort. It absorbed so much time at the cabinet level that the body running the war, composed of the prime minister and his closest associates, became known at the Dardanelles Committee (a forerunner of the War Cabinet) for a time. At the June , , meeting, six days after Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton requested gas for the troops stationed at Gallipoli in case they were needed for retaliation, the cabinet discussed the use of gas in the region as a means of improving the military situation there. Lord Kitchener responded that the troops already possessed defensive materials, such as masks. He then discouraged offensive use of gas because of the weather. At this point, gas still depended on the wind for deployment. A windless day could delay an attack, and wind blowing onto Britain’s own lines could create a danger from enemy gas as well as from backﬁre, causing the equivalent of friendly ﬁre. Lord Kitchener noted that meteorological conditions favored the enemy at Gallipoli: “The wind nearly always blew from the northeast in that region” against the British position.65 Introducing gas would be foolhardy, he implied, because it would be inviting the Turks to retaliate in a situation in which they would have the upper hand climatologically.66 Churchill disagreed. He argued that gas should be used: ﬁrst, the wind did blow to the southwest in the winter sufﬁciently often to be a help, and second, he anticipated that the Turks would not have sophisticated antigas equipment; they would be easy targets.67 Churchill was an outspoken and consistent proponent of gas, unlike many of his colleagues. In fact, he constantly urged that its use be increased in scale, and Kitchener’s arguments did not dissuade him. In his “War Committee Notes” of October , , he wrote, “I trust that the unreasonable prejudice against the use by us of gas upon the Turks will not cease. The massacres by

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the Turks of Armenians and the fact that practically no British prisoners have been taken on the Peninsula, though there are many thousands of missing, should surely remove all false sentiment on this point, indulged in as it is only at the expense of our own men. Large installations of British gas should be sent out without delay.”68 The fact that he later served as minister of munitions, the person responsible for the supply of gas, and acted as such a strong champion of gas yet did not dominate British policy regarding the weapon indicates the strength of the resistance to escalating the chemical war. It is even more startling in the face of his persuasive encouragement to undertake the Gallipoli campaign. Whether because of his reputation for recklessness or the depth of his fellow politicians’ resistance to gas, he did not win the point with regard to Gallipoli. Lord Kitchener replied to Hamilton’s request on June , , although he emphasized supply rather than political obstacles: In case gas is used it is very important that you should have proper protection against it. For this purpose helmets have been found to be quite effective. We have sent you , up to yesterday, and a further consignment of respirators, one per man, is being sent with the XIIIth Division. Your request for gas has been forwarded to the Minister of Munitions, but as it has not been possible to provide sufﬁcient gas up to the present for France, I doubt if there will be any for you for some time, but I will give you due notice. The wind at the Dardanelles is, I understand, generally against you.69

Yet the story soon became more complicated. Hamilton’s further correspondence indicated that the danger of gas attacks by the Turkish force had grown, and ﬁnally London reluctantly and half-heartedly acceded to his request for gas weapons. On August , Kitchener sent a telegram: “We have sent out a certain amount of gas to you. The use of gas by your troops on the Peninsula, where I understand that the wind is generally against you, is left to your discretion. Please let me know if you think of using it, as it may lead to retaliation. I understand that the Turks, although supplied with German gas, have refused to use it.”70 The rumors surfacing in the Gallipoli region partially explain the change of policy. In July, Hamilton noted, “We are accused of using gas by the Turkish War News of th July. This indicates that it is their intention of using gas shortly.”71 The commander recalled the stories circulating before the Germans ﬁrst used gas in Ypres; at that time they had spread tales that the

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Allies had used gas against them in order to prepare a defense of retaliation when they themselves released chlorine a few weeks later. Yet Hamilton was aware of the political as well as the military implications. After reporting the rumors, he said, “As this [story] will in any case give us a bad name in the Islam world, I presume that you will contradict the statement, which is, of course, absolutely false.”72 He pressed Lord Kitchener a month later, offering diplomatic advice: As Turkish ofﬁcial reports persist in false statement that we use asphyxiating shell, and as a sinister motive clearly underlies these German fabrications, would it not be worth while to appoint a small neutral Commission, consisting of men whose word would carry weight in their own countries, to come out here and make a full inquiry and report. I would grant every facility for examining ordnance supplies and documents and for visiting batteries in action. I am aware this would be troublesome both for War Ofﬁce and myself, but it would be worth some pains to prove conclusively to the world that we have never used a single asphyxiating projectile. It is all very ﬁne to say that virtue is its own reward, but why let enemy lies ﬁlch from our chivalrous troops the full credit for ﬁghting in a clean-handed way.73

However, Hamilton demonstrated that he was more concerned about image than true ethical behavior. Like the politicians, in the end he did not want anything to interfere with military victory, even public relations. (The dilemma between national security and popular opinion was one with which postwar British politicians also wrestled, as will be seen in chapter .) As a result, Hamilton sent a personal telegram to Kitchener following the one just quoted: “I hope you will publish my telegram. The reference to the Commission is made to show bona-ﬁdes, but I do not, of course, press for any action to be taken. . . . I do feel that these reports should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.”74 He did recognize the political implications of gas use in Gallipoli, though, and conﬁrmed to Kitchener that despite these publicity manipulations, he would not open the gas war in this theater.75 A few months later, the issue of geographical boundaries of the chemical war arose again, with similar results. By December , the members of the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee in the Ministry of Munitions were mulling over the idea of using gas in Africa as well as Mesopotamia. The scientists and their military chair, Gen. Louis Jackson, thought that chemical weapons potentially offered the army signiﬁcant advantages. However, they decided to delay their ofﬁcial report and suggestions pending the arrival of “details as to

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The Political Challenge

climatic and geographical conditions and the possible pressure that would be produced inside the cylinders.”76 Their task, as scientiﬁc advisors, was to report on the technical nature of the war. While they could recommend policy, their power lay in applying their expertise to the new weaponry and coming to professional conclusions regarding it. Their professional opinions served as facts for the true policy makers to consider. Thus, despite the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee’s suggestions, London did not immediately approve gas for use in sub-Saharan Africa. The scientists had considered it partially because the South African general Jan Smuts had recommended it to the chief of the Imperial General Staff, and he, of course, was familiar with Africa. He thought that gas might be useful if the Germans and their allies “concentrated in an area where the campaign could be brought to a speedy end by the use of gas.”77 The politicians thus confounded the military leaders and scientiﬁc experts by discouraging the widening of the chemical war. They did not tell a general that his forces could never use gas, but they emphasized technical—not political or diplomatic—reasons for abstaining; that is, they offered rationales that were difﬁcult to combat. The War Ofﬁce reply to General Smuts stated: Use of gas in cylinders not considered advisable in sharply accidented [sic] country, nor in very dense scrub nor long grass, and of doubtful value in your local conditions owing to necessity of choosing exactly favourable weather and difﬁculty of replacing used cylinders. Also climate unsuitable for use of anti-gas appliances essential for our troops. . . . Considerable difﬁculty in securing trained personnel as one man per four cylinders is required. Present gas cylinders . . . not strong enough to guarantee safety owing to increased pressure from higher temperature but smaller stronger cylinders weighing pounds each would be possible. , required for one attack of , yard front. This number could be despatched in about months. Considering above do you still wish for gas?78

The decision belonged to General Smuts, although it essentially was a theoretical one. He could not have the gas in a timely manner, did not have the personnel to release it, and did not enjoy the appropriate climate for using it. Smuts received the message and told the War Ofﬁce, who passed it on to the politicians sitting on the War Committee, that he would decline to request gas “in view of the technical difﬁculties outlined in the Conclusion of the War Committee on Oct. th.”79

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On the other hand, on January , , the cabinet decided to permit the army to use gas shells in Egypt. The government explicitly justiﬁed this— a year after the evacuation of troops from Gallipoli—in terms of retaliation against the Turks in order to maintain a seeming continuity in their policy. Britain was not escalating the gas war, and thus barbaric behavior, gratuitously. The most intriguing factor in this decision was that the cabinet was reacting not to gas use by the enemy, but to the commission of other “atrocities, perpetrated on subject races by the Turks and their maltreatment of Allied prisoners during the present war.”80 The British were not willing to pursue any and all chances for victory. Technological considerations indicated that gas would be a weak weapon in Gallipoli and sub-Saharan Africa. Those factors, combined with political reluctance to expand the gas war geographically, meant that the politicians discouraged gas use outside of Europe despite the requests of local, respected commanders. However, the policy against expanding the chemical war was not inviolate; revenge against inhumane behavior by the enemy provided a legitimate reason in politicians’ minds to use gas in a new arena. In the Egyptian case, though, the rationale was that gas was proportional retaliation, not a gratuitous expansion of gas use. This example emphasizes the unusual position gas had in the arsenal available to the combatants; technical practicality and morality had to be considered before using it. The Last Decision: To Continue or to Stop The British government may not have wanted to escalate the gas war, at least without justiﬁcation, but it demonstrated that it did not want to end it either, if that meant leaving Britain in a vulnerable position. British leaders faced the challenge of refusing a Red Cross request to act humanely and abandon chemical weapons, something that may have been tempting because of Britain’s desire to appear, and remain, civilized despite the characteristics of the new war. Carefully, the British managed neither to acquiesce nor to appear barbaric for refusing the Red Cross. The International Red Cross (>G8) was established in when Henry Durant and Gustave Moynier founded a committee that evolved into the organization known today. They inspired twelve countries to sign the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field, providing a binding agreement among several European nations and a legal basis for the charitable body.81

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The Red Cross’s goals did not include preventing or ending war; it saw conﬂict as an inevitable outgrowth of civilization.82 Its mission was to make armed struggle as humane as possible, through international agreements that offered principles for the national branches of the Red Cross, which in turn provided the actual relief to the wounded. The organization developed an international appeal; through its ruling body, located in Switzerland, it governed thirty-seven national branches by .83 The >G8 actively sought to return World War I, widely recognized at the time as a war of novel scale and ferocity, to the level of a humane conﬂict. Repeatedly during –, the ruling committee requested that belligerent nations modify their behavior by ending mistreatment of prisoners, stopping the sinking of hospital ships, and, in , appealing to combatants to stop chemical warfare.84 The call to end the use of gas was a daring step for the >G8. The volunteer group had carefully deﬁned its sphere of inﬂuence and the areas of war into which it could intrude. It was, after all, a private group, not a government body.85 One of its boundaries was that it believed its mandate arose from the Geneva Convention, not other international laws such as The Hague Conventions of and . While the Red Cross offered medical and other care to participants in the war, it was the role of The Hague treaties to proscribe the parameters of the ﬁghting, such as unnecessarily cruel weapons and chemical armaments. Poison gas, though, in the philanthropists’ eyes, was a tool of war that existed on a plane by itself. It alone inspired the Red Cross to violate its own rules and interfere on behalf of an international treaty that it did not have the right, per se, to enforce. As one scholar of the organization noted, the constant escalation of chemical warfare frightened the International Committee; it feared the developments that might follow, such as “chemical warfare via long-range artillery and aircraft bombing, [so] it decided to dispense with legal proprieties and make their revulsion unmistakable.”86 It argued that the progress of chemistry increased suffering and endangered populations, so the request ended with a call for belligerents to stop this atrocious form of warfare.87 The Red Cross took a risk; combatant nations could have replied that it did not have any authority to challenge methods of warfare, rejecting the >G8 and denting its prestige. However, by it had been in existence for approximately sixty years. In that time it had built up a global reputation as a caregiving and humanitarian organization. If anyone were to speak out against

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barbarous behavior, it would seem to be the right of a group that stood for civilized action. No nation could stand on the same moral ground as the Red Cross; even Britain could not say that both her behavior and her conscience were completely clean. Furthermore, it was difﬁcult, as Britain knew from her propaganda efforts, to argue against a body with moral authority, even if that group did not have legal authority or even physical force on its side. Adding to the awkwardness was the fact that Britain had a national Red Cross society of her own and legally had signed the Geneva Convention indicating that she supported the goals of humanizing warfare. As a result, Britain could not simply dismiss the Red Cross’s call to stop chemical warfare.88 By this time, however, Britain and the other Allies were voracious users of chemical weapons. In fact, the amount of gas used by the armies increased annually during the war.89 Stopping would require wasting munitions, changing tactics and battle plans, and, most important, risk. If Germany did not abandon gas warfare and Britain did, how would that affect Britain’s mission to win the war? If the enemy did stop using the new weapons, then Britain would be in the moral position Germany endured in April : she would be the international outlaw. There were other complications, too. What, exactly, would be banned by a chemical warfare agreement? Projectiles with the primary purpose of releasing asphyxiating gas had been outlawed in The Hague treaties and that had not stopped Germany. Partially, that was because Germany did not feel the need to adhere to many international treaties, such as the one that protected neutral Belgium, but also because she twisted through loopholes that existed because the technology was too new to describe unambiguously. Chemical weapons were still changing rapidly, so how could they be precisely outlawed in ? Even worse, if it were successful with this appeal, what would the Red Cross try to ban next? Why was gas singled out as so atrocious? One British document noted, “The Swiss proposal is ostensibly based on humanitarian grounds: on these grounds the use of liquid ﬁre, attacks on hospital ships and the bombardment of open towns are equally indefensible.”90 Understandably, the British government delayed responding to the Red Cross appeal and carefully investigated its options, juggling the military, public relations, and moral consequences of heeding or rejecting the appeal. Britain also had to second-guess the motives behind the petition: would she be playing into Germany’s hands if she agreed or if she dismissed it? The British intelligence network proposed that the information that spurred the

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Red Cross to make its request, the rumor that Germany was about to escalate the chemical war with a particularly horrifying and mysterious gas, was suspect. Britain wondered if Germany herself was promoting the gossip in order to provoke the Red Cross to make a demand on Britain that would be hard to refuse.91 The Red Cross based its appeal not only on humanitarian grounds, which alone were difﬁcult to ignore, but also on scientiﬁc and legal ones. The >G8 indicated that the potential of science added to the charity’s incentive to intervene in an unprecedented manner with regard to the tools of warfare. Science, at that point in time, relieved some suffering but proved it had the ability to increase misery also.92 Regarding legality, the >G8 further noted that one of The Hague Conventions had outlawed unnecessarily cruel and inhumane weapons.93 By citing this treaty, the Red Cross applied moral and legal pressure. British experts, in turn, investigated the laws that bound their nation. A government memorandum on the “Legal aspect of the use of ED>HDC<6H” discussed the history of chemical warfare and Britain’s legal options. The authors suggested that, technically, the British could “legitimately continue to employ it [gas] in the present war if they consider[ed] it advantageous to do so” since Germany “commenced to use it.”94 Britain could engage in retaliation; Germany’s ﬁrst use of gas abrogated the Allies’ agreements in The Hague Declaration to refrain from wielding that weapon. The Red Cross had one more card, though; it augmented the strength of its appeal by addressing it to all of the belligerents. The need to consider her allies’ viewpoints added pressure on Britain. The British wanted to write a joint answer that would be supported by all the Allies and ultimately sent to the Red Cross to present a united front.95 That by itself was not a problem, but Britain wanted that response to be the one she desired. To that end she supported allied discussions of the subject directed at drafting a unanimous reply. The British Army Council recommended rejection of the Red Cross proposal on several grounds. It noted that the Germans began the chemical war, surprising the Allies, but now that Britain had caught up and surpassed them in effectively waging this new method of warfare, the Germans faced operating at a disadvantage. Abandoning gas would greatly beneﬁt the enemy. The commanders also “consider[ed] it would be impossible to arrive at a satisfactory deﬁnition of the gases to be prohibited.” Furthermore, “the Council are

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of opinion that it would be impossible to obtain any adequate guarantee from the Germans that they would not employ gas again at some future date if the Allies agreed to renounce its use.”96 They expected that Germany would continue to lie and act treacherously, just as she had claimed that Britain used gas as grounds for her own deployment of the weapon.97 As one ofﬁcial noted, “The Germans could, at any moment, if they chose, resume gas attacks, justifying their action by an alleged breach of the Allies’ guarantee, or they might contrive to manufacture a new form of gas falling outside the scope of the deﬁnition of prohibited gases.”98 Nor would there be any relaxation for the Allied soldiers: “In any case the troops would have to carry gas masks in order to safeguard themselves against a surprise gas attack, and it would be necessary to maintain the supply of gas and of the machinery for discharging it in case the necessity for resuming its use should arise.”99 There would be no military beneﬁt to acquiescing to the Red Cross proposal. Based partly on a French and British military proposal, a contingent of servicemen from France, Belgium, Britain, Italy, and the United States, as well as a Portuguese minister, agreed on a united recommendation. They “based [their decision] on purely military considerations,” knowing that the politicians might not follow their advice. The armies’ representatives did not dismiss the request out of hand; they acknowledged the humanitarian impulses of the Red Cross and noted dislike of science’s role in brutalizing the war, yet they emphasized that blame should be placed on Germany for the chemical war. The proposal indicated the low opinion they held of the Germans: “With any other adversary, had such a question been possible, the Allied Powers would not hesitate to give their agreement without reservation. They agreed in and [in The Hague treaties] and are ready to pledge themselves with any one whose word is kept.”100 They ﬁnished with an eloquent plea, one that allowed the Allies to maintain the high moral ground of agreeing to act in the most humanitarian way possible if the Red Cross would undertake a guarantee that Germany would keep the agreement—an impossible task for the >G8 Thus the military managed to appear willing to acquiesce, but did so in such a way that it sustained its reputation, protected its military position, and did nothing. The ofﬁcers ﬁnished their statement with a comment that even justiﬁed the Allied role in the war once more: “In spite of all, if the German Government to-day declares that it adheres to the Committee’s proposal and offers detailed and effective guarantees that an agreement to discontinue the

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The Political Challenge

use of gas will be observed, the Allied Governments will not refuse to examine its proposals in the most liberal spirit. But without such guarantees, the Allied Governments would fail in their duty in not having recourse to every means of depriving their opponents of their power to harm.”101 The French government indicated that it supported the military pronouncement.102 The British and other Allies concurred. The Germans offered a similar response, and the Red Cross’s proposal was stalemated.103 It was not until after the war that the >G8was able to support a successful international treaty banning chemical warfare. It simply proved too hard to change the course of the war during the conﬂict, when so much distrust had built up and when the immediate consequences of misjudgments and vulnerabilities could mean losing the war. The Red Cross had a powerful tool: moral authority. It even presented arguments that echoed many of the beliefs held by the British, such as the barbarity and immorality of chemical warfare. Britain, however, put her mission to win the war ﬁrst, but she struggled to do so in such a way that she did not lose face herself, at home or abroad. Britain’s politicians struggled to maintain the nation’s position as a viable belligerent yet remain a civilized country. They could not avoid descending to the enemy’s level of barbarity, but they tried to limit and even mask this by only matching escalations in the gas war and not initiating them. In contrast, for another segment of British society, the army, the most critical decision about the gas war was not how chemical warfare affected Britain’s nature and reputation at home and abroad, but how to confront the physical challenges of the new weapon. As discussed in the next chapter, the appearance of gas was just as shocking to the military as it was to the rest of Britain, but the army had to learn to handle the chemicals immediately and practically. The lethal capability, not the atrocious nature, of the weapon was of paramount consideration. For the army, gas was a pervasive and physically threatening innovation in the war, although there were some emotional and mental challenges to combat, too.

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. The Army’s Experience New Weapons, New Soldiers

The politicians were not the only ones surprised by the events of World War I. The conﬂict shocked the military long before gas appeared. The drawnout war ﬁlled with novel weapons, enormous casualties, and global combatants did not match the popular vision of a war in which offensive spirit and élan would lead British troops to victory before Christmas.1 Part of the rush to enlist arose because young men thought that they would miss the chance of their generation to ﬁght, to earn glory, to demonstrate their patriotism, and to share in one of the quintessential activities of manhood. The rude awakening began early in the conﬂict; by the fall of the mobile war on the Western Front had transformed into the stalemate of trench warfare. By December , it was clear that the war had not ended in time for the holiday season. On April , , Germany introduced gas, making it obvious that innovations in this war could be horrifying and the ramiﬁcations of chemical weapons would affect the military extensively. The advent of the gas war stunned the British military, as it did the nation. Surprise failed to evolve into a universally hostile attitude, however. Some senior ofﬁcers never expressed enthusiasm at chemical weaponry nor satisfaction at their ability to use or combat it.2 Yet it was not a taboo weapon. Many commanders recognized poison gas as a new tool that would now have to be used; the genie could not be put back into the bottle. Just as the current war had enlarged the scope of the battlefronts and the number of the casualties, it also increased the types of weapons used. These transformations were not always liked, but they were generally accepted. There was no other choice if belligerents were to keep ﬁghting. As I discussed in the previous chapter, Sir John French, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France, was one of the men who immedi-

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The Army’s Experience

ately recognized that gas was now part of the war. He decided that if gas were to be used by the enemy, then he had to employ it, too. Thus, in the same telegram in which he reported the ﬁrst German gas attack, he asked Lord Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, for permission to use gas, despite the fact that Britain did not have an arsenal of it nor means with which to protect troops against it.3 Scientists, soldiers, and industrialists involved in the war effort began to rectify those deﬁciencies immediately. Other aspects of the gas dilemma demanded solutions, too. Chemical weapons provided a mental challenge. How did the army perceive gas as it determined how to use the weapon and ﬁt it into the existing army? The military hoped that gas, when added to the rest of the British arsenal, might be the magic weapon that would provide a “decisive blow” to the Western Front stalemate and win the war.4 Chemical weapons’ unusual nature meant that they could have become the cornerstone of a new military strategy. For example, gas offered unique features such as the ability to inspire revulsion in potential targets and the capability of penetrating bunkers impervious to artillery.5 Gas also proved to be a psychological weapon. As commanders recognized, the threat of gas forced the enemy to don gas masks.6 Soldiers nervously anticipated the actual gas attack and the physical harm it could do, since gas could not only kill them but do so in a particularly horrifying way, by suffocation.7 Furthermore, they did not know which gas to expect during any particular attack. Soldiers also worried that the neutralizing agents in their respirators that puriﬁed air would become exhausted before it was safe to take off the masks or that insufﬁcient oxygen would permeate the respirators.8 Brigadier A. E. Hodgkin described the situation succinctly on April , : “People [aside from gas specialists] are terriﬁed of gas even now, after over years of it.”9 In the end, though, gas served the military’s existing philosophy rather than shaping a new one. As the historian Albert Palazzo noted, “Although not given over to a separate branch of the army . . . [the] practitioners [of gas] were able to incorporate it—both intellectually and practically—within the scheme of the phases of battle.”10 British commanders maintained a consistent policy throughout World War I, searching for a victory that was to be produced by a “vigorous offensive.”11 To achieve this, the army had to negate the advantage that the new artillery and machine guns had granted the defensive position, leading to the impasse.12 Gas, for the most part, became an

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auxiliary tool in the British arsenal, one used frequently at the beginning of battles, like artillery bombardments, to demoralize, distract, exhaust, and kill the enemy prior to and during infantry offensives.13 Although gas did not change the British strategy on the Western Front, it did have a substantial impact on the armed services there. The army had to meet the mental and tactical challenges that gas offered and adapt extensively to the new weapon; both offensive and defensive concerns forced the army to reorganize. The army did not have the luxury of simply being disgusted or even terriﬁed; it had to face gas and learn to manage it defensively in order to survive and offensively to continue the ﬁght. In the end, although gas was not popular with all soldiers and ofﬁcers, they coped. They became sufﬁciently desensitized to fear because of knowledge about how to handle gas safely (as Special Brigade members or through antigas drills) and familiarity with masks and attacks. In addition, the frequent drills could help numb soldiers to the novel horrors. Gas did impact the army substantially, though. Offensively, chemical warfare demanded structural changes in the army, speciﬁcally the creation of a completely new unit, the Special Brigade, to handle the new weapon. Defensively, the necessary alterations were even more pervasive; every man on the Western Front had to change daily routines and behaviors with the advent of gas. Fighting Back: The Special Brigade On a structural level, the needs of the new weapon dictated changes in the organization of the army. The activities of the Special Brigade, the unit that had the monopoly on chemical warfare attacks in the British army, illustrate the extent to which the weapon’s offensive demands could change the army. The Special Brigade’s unusual form and evolution resulted from a multitude of factors; the sudden onset of the chemical war, the requirement to integrate gas into the existing conﬂict, the traditional structure of the army, the particular nature of gas, the need for scientiﬁc knowledge to utilize gas, and the personality of the Special Brigade’s commander all shaped the British army’s response to gas. During the ﬁrst two years of the chemical war, gas attacks were the responsibility of the Special Brigade, a segment of the Royal Engineers, which deployed gas through cloud cylinders and projectors.14 The combined work of the army and scientists later led to the development of gas weapons for use by traditional units, namely, shells for the artillery and grenades for the infantry.

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The Army’s Experience

In fact, the use of shells increased during the second half of the conﬂict, but the Special Brigade remained vital to the war effort. Their weapons delivered greater concentrations of gas than shells did.15 There was also a continued need for some of the Special Brigade’s ancillary functions. For example, by , the members of this unit became experts in defensive training as well as in the offensive use of gas.16 The military not only developed a new unit when it formed the Special Brigade; it created one that possessed unusual properties for a frontline detachment. The Special Brigade’s position in the military was anomalous; it acted as a consultant and troubleshooting expert. This group communicated with research scientists to develop and practice using gas weapons; it even included some scientists in its ranks to handle chemical matters too technical for the regular army.17 In principle serving in the Royal Engineers, the men of the Special Brigade visited sections of the line held by other units in order to carry out their specialized missions, but they obeyed their own rules and commanders.18 So, while gas became incorporated into the repertoire of the British army as part of larger assaults with more conventional weapons, the chemical portion of the attacks were carried out by men who never became integrated into speciﬁc artillery or infantry units.19 This unusual offensive section of the army developed gradually. Within two weeks of the advent of gas warfare by the Germans, the British military began preparations for retaliation in kind. In London, Lord Kitchener assigned Louis Jackson, then a colonel, to liaise with scientists and generally oversee the production of gas, a role that kept Jackson largely on the home front. Because the military’s initial steps to ﬁght offensively occurred in London, Sir John French, stationed in France, suffered from a lack of information; he needed to understand the decisions and discussions under way about the new weapon across the English Channel, given that he was the one who had to make practical decisions about how to use or respond to gas on the battleﬁeld.20 His solution was to summon Maj. Charles Foulkes, an engineer on the Western Front, to General Headquarters. By the end of May , Foulkes rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and started a new position as French’s “gas adviser.” As Foulkes recalled in his memoirs, the general ordered him “to take charge of our gas reprisals here in France. Something is going on in London, and you must cross over and ﬁnd out all about it. Then come back here and tell me what you propose to do.”21 Foulkes’s outward qualiﬁcations were that he was a professional military

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man and a well-educated engineer, had experience on the front in France, and had earned the respect of Sir John French. He did not know anything about gas, something both Foulkes and French recognized, but neither did any other soldier. Acknowledging his ignorance of chemistry, he painstakingly learned to communicate and understand the vocabulary, concerns, and issues the scientiﬁc experts raised when they discussed chemicals; he noted in his memoirs that “masses of reports had to be read weekly, relating to the experiment work being carried on.”22 He accomplished this well, unlike some of his military colleagues, a portion of whom never learned to understand or respect gas.23 Perhaps it was natural aptitude, but it may well have been a result of Foulkes’s interest in and dedication to the success of gas warfare, coupled with his frequent exposure to chemists on the London committees, that allowed him to move between the scientiﬁc and the military worlds. By June , he served as a liaison between the defensive and offensive units in the army, and in the fall of he also took over as the president of the Chemical War Committee, the Ministry of Munitions’ body composed largely of civilians that researched gas innovations for the military. With that appointment, he began to travel weekly between London and the Western Front to communicate personally with researchers and the army ofﬁcers dedicated to gas; as he himself noted, research results and practical needs were not always the same.24 He provided the expertise in the realms of development and practice that an effective liaison needed. Perhaps most important, Foulkes was a visionary. His role was similar to that of J. F. C. Fuller’s with regard to tanks, and he recognized the analogy between tanks and gas.25 Although Fuller’s crusade for the acceptance of the tank was longer and his chosen weapon participated in more than one war, both men championed their revolutionary armaments in the face of some doubtful army commanders.26 Whereas tanks merely tantalized the military in World War I, not showing their full potential until the next conﬂict, Foulkes faced, accepted, and mastered his chosen weapon. His achievements were therefore all the more impressive. He had to educate himself about the scientiﬁc aspects of chemicals so that he could communicate with scientists about them. He had to develop tactics for using gas, create a group of soldiers who could wield the constantly evolving and dangerous chemical weapons, and convince the war’s commanders that he and his new weapon could be trusted. In Foulkes’s eyes, though, gas never quite received the recognition it de-

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| The Army’s Experience

served, nor was it used exactly as he intended, particularly at a major battle like the Somme. For example, he would have preferred a greater reliance, especially on cylinder (rather than projector or shell) attacks than occurred, because he thought that those mechanisms deployed more gas onto the enemy lines. The greater concentration of toxins was worth the extra effort the cylinders required to disperse gas from them.27 Foulkes developed his own philosophy regarding the ideal use of gas, one that depended partly on the Special Brigade’s methods. He determined that the three ways gas harmed the enemy occurred through “(a) the exhaustion of their masks; (b) the penetration of their masks; and (c) surprise.”28 Respirators worked by decontaminating the external air that came through the valves on the masks. The neutralizing agents could purify only a limited amount of air, though, so a high concentration of gas meant that not all the air that penetrated a mask would be decontaminated. The Special Brigade’s deployment of gas through cylinders increased the likelihood of overwhelming the enemy’s masks this way. Then, when heavy gas lingered on the ground or below it in trenches and dugouts, the toxins could exhaust the neutralizing agents by outlasting them. Some masks were not able to withstand even limited gas bombardments. At one point, due to shortages, the Germans used leather buckles and joints on their antigas helmets, which became much more permeable than British rubber versions.29 Foulkes’s desire for surprise arose because if the attackers could catch the enemy off guard, he might not get his mask on before he managed to breathe some tainted air; that delay might incapacitate or kill him.30 This explains some of the secrecy that the Special Brigade practiced in preparing for attacks at night, although surprise was a goal of almost every attack on the Western Front. Each of these methods could be used to pester the enemy; in fact, harassment alone was considered a success because morale was one of the targets of the British efforts.31 Gas also could be used in conjunction with a more traditional attack to soften up the enemy for the shells and infantry. A gas attack as the opening move in a larger battle sometimes had the goal of removing a speciﬁc threat, such as defensive ﬁre by the enemy. Because gas, unlike other weapons, could travel long distances and go into nooks and crannies, it could seek out the German artillerymen hidden in otherwise invisible and inaccessible positions.32 This was one way to neutralize the power of defensive ﬁre. With the help of these tactics and Foulkes’s enthusiasm, the Special Brigade became an essential element of the British war effort. It launched attacks

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New Weapons, New Soldiers

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between the battle of Loos on September , , and November , . Its ammunition included approximately , cylinders, , projector drums, and , mortars. Although the effectiveness of gas has never been determined because of the difﬁculty of measuring enemy casualties, intelligence reports suggest that gas demoralized the Germans.33 Attacks were not ﬂawless, however, especially the ﬁrst one. Sometimes cylinders leaked, gas blew back over the British lines, and other problems occurred, especially during Loos, just as problems occur in any battle.34 Overall, though, considering the unit’s performance, it is clear that Foulkes was a good choice to lead and develop the Special Brigade; his skills and his ﬂexibility enabled him to shepherd along a new weapon. To commemorate his achievements and promote gas, after the war Foulkes took the time to write a thorough history of the Special Brigade, “Gas! ”35 He also became a vocal participant in the debate over the role of gas in any future war; the chief gas man thought that it would and should be used.36 The organization of the Special Brigade was Foulkes’s creation, too. His basic philosophy was “to group civilian specialists possessing technical knowledge with an equal number of men withdrawn from infantry battalions in the line, who supplied the necessary trench experience.”37 Gas was sufﬁciently different from traditional weapons that nonmilitary experts would have to be incorporated into the forces during the weapon’s introduction. Yet, because chemical warfare was continually evolving, this blend of manpower was necessary throughout the conﬂict. The ﬁrst challenge Foulkes faced was to gather the men who would become the core of the Special Brigade. He wanted to blend outside experts, who had joined up for the duration of the war, with professional soldiers, thus opening this section of the army to amateur servicemen, much as other branches were doing. Some of the men, according to one veteran, “found it very distasteful but they stuck it until the end,” although Donald Richter, a historian who studied numerous personal narratives of Special Brigade members, concluded that “diaries betray no sense that the writers believed they were engaged in anything but a completely honorable contribution to the war effort.”38 Both were true. Some men lost their horror of, although probably not their respect for, gas, but others simply accepted without quibbling the gas duty that the army imposed. Veteran ofﬁcer J. C. Hill, in an interview with archivist Peter Liddle ﬁfty years after the war, said that he never questioned his participation

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The Army’s Experience

in chemical warfare: “I just took it for [granted that] the Germans had started this kind of thing. We must use it too.”39 Also speaking about the early days of the Special Brigade, Lt. John Sewill noted, “There was not a single regular ofﬁcer [in his unit], we became, if not terribly smart, keen and efﬁcient at our job which was all that mattered.”40 Beyond picking men he could train for the novel assignment, Foulkes also wanted to alter the structure of command. He felt that the new, complicated weapon would require more ofﬁcers than were normally assigned to a group of men; speciﬁcally, he envisioned a ratio of :. He rationalized that the original gas attacks, chlorine clouds deployed from cylinders, were too labor intensive and complex to organize. Because deployment required setting up small groups of approximately sixteen men, each spread along thousands of yards, Foulkes’s proposals made sense; the soldiers had to be able to exercise more autonomy than usual in the army because of the difﬁculties inherent in communication across trenches and to headquarters. In fact, Foulkes requisitioned three hundred watches, “a demand . . . without precedent,” in an effort to produce simultaneous deployment of gas during the Loos attack by chemical ofﬁcers unable to consult with their superiors.41 A further problem was that the wind conditions varied along the ﬁve-thousand-yard section of the front in which Foulkes planned his ﬁrst attack at Loos. Despite attempts to monitor the breeze, it was likely that, at the last minute, one portion would have air blowing in an unfavorable direction or speed. Releasing gas then would mean that the chemicals would not ﬂoat to the enemy’s lines; they would instead hover over the British trenches. Local chemical ofﬁcers had to be able to monitor the entire section for which they were responsible. Each ofﬁcer also had to be willing to countermand an order from the infantry commanders in his section to deploy gas and thus to violate a carefully prepared battle plan. Such an exercise of authority was daring. With his changes in basic policy about the exercise of local command, Foulkes took another step in breaking tradition in the British army.42 Other innovative moves included initially making corporal the lowest rank of the Special Brigade (although this policy was discontinued for new recruits since duties evolved to include increasing amounts of less skilled manual labor and infantry responsibilities) and selecting most of the ofﬁcers from within the ranks.43 Foulkes thought that gas had unique needs and deserved an innovative support group in the Special Brigade.

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. Gas cylinders. Photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London, negative no. F.

The weapons themselves dictated other interactions between the Special Brigade and the infantry. The cylinders, resembling large helium tanks of the sort used to inﬂate balloons, varied in size, and some weighed over a hundred pounds. Because it required at least two men to carry each cylinder up to the front trenches in a manner that would keep the cylinders’ presence secret from the Germans, Foulkes’s need for manual labor was enormous. He occasionally even had to borrow infantrymen stationed along the lines from which he was staging the attack. The difﬁculty was that commanders did not like loaning their men; borrowed soldiers, after all, could not engage in all of the regular demands of infantry life. The soldiers themselves did not like the heavy labor. In addition, most soldiers outside the Special Brigade disliked the proximity to gas. They feared that the tanks would leak, that they would be dropped, and that a German shell or bullet might hit one, causing the gas to pour out. The cylinders were made of metal, but they were not impenetrable. Understandably, it was not just the temporary laborers who worried about gas. Once the cylinders arrived at the front lines, nests often had to be dug for them so that they would have an immobile resting place and could await use hours, days, or months later.44 Any soldier who had to share his trench with a cylinder worried about leaks. The Special Brigade, therefore,

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The Army’s Experience

was not always a welcome guest in the lines, even if some commanders did appreciate the help that gas would offer them.45 Once the cylinders were in place, men had to carry up pipes with which to connect the cylinders to each other.46 This way, when the Special Brigade turned valves on the cylinders, the poison would ﬂow along pipes and eventually out through apertures that would carry the gas out of the trench, into the wind, and, hopefully, toward the enemy trenches. This part of the process required scientists, some of whom were only partially trained. Because these men would be working in a war zone under battle conditions, Foulkes paired each chemical specialist with a military veteran.47 The two could work together to carry canisters and equipment when necessary, but also to discharge the gas successfully and safely. Foulkes ensured that scientists were not just consulted, but were incorporated into the military’s gas efforts. He did the same when he served as president of the Chemical Warfare Committee, the organization in charge of this portion of the war, and consulted weekly with the researchers in London and the soldiers in France. With the enormous labor demands and the need to integrate the military and scientiﬁc worlds, gas attacks were troublesome to mount. Despite the trials, commanders such as French and Gen. Douglas Haig understood that the potential of gas was worth exploring and expanding. Soon Foulkes found himself expanding his brigade enormously; it grew from four to twenty-one companies, including some specialists within the gas unit. “Z” company, for example, used ﬂame-projectors, while others concentrated on different delivery systems beyond cylinders and the more advanced projectors and mortars. Another group had to serve as munitions workers in a factory in France; the local business could not staff the plant and the Special Brigade needed the chemicals it could produce.48 Brigade members gained experience jerry-rigging and experimenting as they increased their repertoire of projects; ﬂexibility was much more a hallmark of this unit than of the army as a whole. The Special Brigade evolved with regard to weapons as well as manpower. Cylinders were the original delivery systems, and, Foulkes thought, the best.49 He acknowledged that they were labor intensive and that the clouds produced depended completely on the wind to arrive at their objective. The canisters provided storage; it was the wind that actually transported the chemicals, so conditions had to be just right for the attacks to work, as can be seen at Loos. One of the problems at that battle was that the wind changed the night before the dawn attack. In the early morning hours, the commanders of the British

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. Projector gas attack. Photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London, negative no. F.

Expeditionary Force had to make their decision about whether or not to use gas. They decided to deploy it based on the latest information they had that stated that the breeze was barely strong enough and blowing in the correct direction. Unfortunately, the wind changed in the few hours remaining before the attack began. It became more unfavorable, which meant that some ofﬁcers on the line had to decide not to use gas or to watch their clouds travel in a less effective route than originally intended.50 On the other hand, cylinder deployment allowed the gas to be dispersed in greater concentrations than were possible with other delivery mechanisms, which was important when trying to overwhelm German respirators with a gas cloud that was too intense for the masks to diffuse.51 Understandably, though, some commanders questioned whether gas could be deployed in ways that would solve some of the complaints seen in cylinder attacks, such as those involving labor, time, and wind dependence. One of the answers was to introduce projector attacks, a method that the Special Brigade inaugurated in September ; another solution was to use shells, originated by the artillery in April .52 The two new methods relied on machines that could throw the gas into the enemy’s lines; wind thus became less of a concern. The Livens projector shot large containers of gas, each hold-

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. Cylinder projecting gas. Photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London, negative no. F.

ing perhaps thirty pounds, in groups, although not very precisely.53 Artillery used shells. The challenge here arose from the fact that gas had to be encapsulated in containers that had to ﬂy accurately and open without ruining the gas inside them. Research in England led to the development of shells and bombs of various sizes, but in each case the ratio of shell lining or bomb case to gas was signiﬁcant; using them limited the amount of gas that could be carried. Ultimately, projectors and shells could guarantee delivery of gas but did not permit the concentration of the chemical substances that cylinders did. However, the new mechanisms did not require the same level of expertise or labor that a cylinder did, which meant that they demanded less in the way of manpower.54 Because of their ﬂaws, these methods could not replace the original format completely. The Special Brigade was the original offensive gas unit in the British army, and it continued to perform throughout the war. Its career was ﬁlled with innovation and evolution. Foulkes formed it in a rush; he had seven weeks before French wanted to introduce British gas at the battle of Loos to become the gas expert of the army when none had previously existed.55 He had to train men to become offensive gas specialists before the ﬁrst British deployment of

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chemical weapons. The Special Brigade, its work, and its armaments evolved as technology changed and as the unit gained experience. The brigade was a large-scale reaction to the new gas weapons as well as an example of change in an army long known for its traditions. Despite the upheaval caused by gas, though, not everyone was terriﬁed of it. The Defensive Side: Outwitting Gas The Special Brigade developed because of the offensive requirements of gas. Fulﬁlling the defensive needs generated by the new weapon also changed the structure of the army, but more important, it transformed the daily life of soldiers on the Western Front. Organizationally the military established antigas schools, eventually tied to the Special Brigade, which required additional training centers and individuals dedicated to them who taught soldiers how to protect themselves and their comrades.56 Much more pervasive were the effects felt at the individual level, which arose from those and other efforts to protect soldiers against gas attacks before, during, and after they occurred. The army changed procedures relating to military procedures, such as standing guard, and personal activities, such as sleeping. Gas therefore had an impact on almost every aspect of life on the front, much as trench warfare did. Thus, while offensively gas was an opportunity for the Special Brigade soldiers to develop expertise and scientists to use their professional skills, defensively, and for everyone, it was one more element of the war that increased hardships. Privations can be endured, however; they are neither incapacitating nor unexpected in army life. Each soldier had to be prepared for an attack at almost any time, whether or not the enemy deployed the new weapon on a particular day. Poison gas became a burden because it required men to shape their daily behavior around the threat that a gas attack might descend upon them and anyone in its path was a perpetual, potential victim. Thus, fear was an element of the gas war for potential targets, making gas a physical and emotional weapon. To handle both threats, because of the pervasiveness and dangerousness of gas, the British army created an elaborate system of antigas training with supplemental equipment, such as respirators, developed to protect soldiers.57 One goal was to provide protection and to convince soldiers that the tools worked, reducing legitimate fears of gas while encouraging soldiers to take chemical threats seriously. This was a delicate balance. The training, which soldiers of

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all ranks received, included lectures and drills in antigas schools in Britain and on the battlefronts.58 The formality of the training might vary, depending, for example, on whether it took place on the line or in Britain, but the protective goals and universal nature of the instruction were clear. Complementing the more formal antigas programs offered to ofﬁcers and noncommissioned ofﬁcers were drills on the Western Front led by local commanders for the purpose of practicing antigas procedures. The War Ofﬁce also published pamphlets for the ediﬁcation of ofﬁcers and men.59 These booklets clearly explained how gas worked and how to protect soldiers from it. They also instructed ofﬁcers how to train soldiers to master antigas measures, such as donning helmets quickly, and how to carry out new activities, such as sounding an alarm in case of a gas attack. The pamphlets offer insights into the policies and concerns of the army’s antigas program for all soldiers; these written summaries codiﬁed the army’s policies about defensive behavior and disseminated these ideas throughout the military. The complexity of the topics in the manuals and the frequency with which the War Ofﬁce published pamphlets demonstrates how seriously the army took gas. It invested human and physical resources, as well as time, into providing soldiers with the most relevant information about gas and countermeasures. The military updated the documents as changes occurred or when researchers and the intelligence sources discovered new facts. For example, the army printed SS in , a pamphlet that superseded thirteen previously published booklets. Then it reissued the manual yet again in a November edition.60 The authors generally organized the pamphlets in a standard format. The contents almost always included sections on how a gas mask worked, how to wear one, drills using them, gas alarm procedures, how to behave during an attack, and how to repair damage caused by gas after a battle.61 They offered background knowledge to supplement the practice drills, they explained how gas damaged the body, and they noted when attacks were most likely to occur. Information changed as novel chemicals, such as mustard gas, and new delivery systems, such as shells, developed, but the basic means necessary to protect against gas remained the same. Despite the novelty of the weapon and the constant uncertainty about when a gas attack would occur or which chemical would be used, the tone of the pamphlets expressed both the conviction that the army could successfully combat the threat as well as an interest in conveying this attitude to soldiers.

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On the ﬁrst page of one of the most detailed booklets, SS of , the author states, “If these precautions are taken there is nothing to fear from hostile gas. Ofﬁcers must impress this on their men. One of the main objects of anti-gas instruction should be to inspire complete conﬁdence in the efﬁcacy of our defensive measures.”62 In fact, although more than , British casualties were attributed to gas during the war, only , or so died, although Foulkes thinks this excludes the deaths during the learning curve occurring during the ﬁrst two months of attacks.63 Booklets, masks, and other defensive measures contributed to this record. The army’s goal in developing these instructional guides was to ensure the safety and morale of the soldiers. If men had faith in the antigas measures, then they would be likely to obey instructions during gas attacks and refrain from panicking; they would avoid endangering their positions on the line and their health. The guidebooks explained how gas worked, rather than insisting on blind obedience to army orders about antigas procedures. “If the nature of the advancing [gas] cloud is understood, and protective measures are carried out automatically as the result of effective practice, the moral[e] effect of a gas attack becomes very small,” explained the author of one text. This conﬁdence was reasonable. The author of the ﬁrst gas pamphlets, published in December , concluded, “The protection provided by the tube helmet is so complete that the material effect of a gas attack will be negligible provided that men know how to adjust their helmets.”64 Gas was not catastrophic, if handled properly. The stakes were high, though, and since percent of the causalities, according to September statistics, occurred because of “carelessness” in taking antigas measures, scare tactics were used to convince soldiers who were not persuaded by pure reason.65 On the front cover of SS , a booklet distributed to soldiers in the ranks, there is a statement emphasizing this message: “Remember that your . . . helmet . . . [is] of importance second only to your weapons. . . . NDJGA>;:B6N9:E:C9JEDC[>I].”66 Of course, these persuasive arguments had to be combined with drills to ensure that compliance to antigas orders would be “automatic” and correct.67 Wearing a mask, creating a gas-free environment, or sterilizing tainted equipment after an attack had to be done properly if the procedure was to be effective. To ensure that soldiers learned the complicated procedures necessary to carry out their jobs and that they were able to perform them under stressful battle conditions or at night required frequent practice. This is the way the

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military traditionally trains soldiers, after all, to ensure immediate action and obedience in dangerous situations. This was particularly crucial with regard to gas because, according to those supervising the antigas training of the British forces, the problem was in compliance with instructions by the individual, not in provision of effective protection by the army.68 After all, the countermeasures worked only if soldiers heeded them. Still, some of the soldiers refused to accept the need for the rules or to follow them consistently.69 For example, some soldiers felt that there was no need to carry helmets, perhaps because they did not understand the danger gas provided or because they believed they already knew how to survive the war.70 They could even have been fatalistic about their chances of being killed. Others simply could not grasp the danger of gas. There were examples of soldiers drinking and sometimes dying from tear gas samples that were distributed when testing helmets.71 In the early days of the gas war, one report even noted that “ casualties occurred, both men having misunderstood the use of the respirator and having worn it suspended round their necks [where it was useless] instead of tying it over the mouth and nose.”72 In general, though, both the men and their leaders respected the danger posed by gas and modiﬁed their daily behavior because of the potential for attacks. Gas Masks: The Core of Defense Helmets (for the purposes of this chapter, the term “helmet” is used interchangeably with “mask” and “respirator”) were the foundation of antigas precautions. Every soldier had orders to carry one, and in , two, at all times.73 Capt. H. J. C. Leland noted in his diary, “Gas seems to be one of our greatest dangers around this particular part [of the front]. We carry two gas helmets on our persons day and night. It is a crime to be without them.” He later noted, “We are never allowed to move without our gas respirators and helmet, which is a beastly nuisance.”74 Helmets were ubiquitous and tiresome, but necessary. These respirators evolved over time from gauze pads resembling surgical masks to helmets that covered the entire head and contained neutralizing chemicals, usually charcoal compounds, which would purify air as it entered a mask, much like contemporary gas masks do.75 With these barriers in place, men could inhale untainted and exhale deoxygenated air in the middle of a gas attack without exposing their faces to the toxins surrounding them. Furthermore, the masks were light and allowed soldiers to remain mobile.

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. The range of respirators worn by British troops before December . Photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London, negative no. F.

Because eyes and lungs are two of the most vulnerable parts of the body in a gas attack, a helmet could protect soldiers from the irritations of tear gases and pulmonary burns. Unfortunately, even though most helmets were effective, soldiers disliked them. In one of the early battles of the chemical war, despite acknowledging the thickness of the gas cloud surrounding him, Trooper Luther Mitchell explained in his diary, “We all had gas helmets on, but they get so stuffy that the temptation is to remove them for ‘a breath of air,’ which proves to be a breath of chlorine.”76 Captain Leland seconded the idea of a love-hate relationship with his mask. He wrote, with great understatement, “I had my helmet [on during a a.m. gas alert] in ﬁve seconds and had to keep it on for some time. It was very uncomfortable but very necessary.”77 Wearing an antigas helmet was also burdensome because the difﬁculty of breathing normally inside a closed container made any movement or activity harder than usual to perform.78 In addition, they made some men feel as though they were suffocating; occasionally, a desperate but misguided soldier would rip off his respirator despite danger from gas.79 In response, the army provided drills in which soldiers carried out their usual routines while wearing respirators in an effort to familiarize them with the normal feel of gas masks and to

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instill conﬁdence that they could carry out their normal work while wearing a helmet.80 There were other problems with helmets, too. At the ﬁrst sign of a gas attack, respirators had to be donned immediately, because if they were put on late or improperly, the soldier would have to inhale contaminated air. Tube helmets, the ﬁrst model that covered the entire head, were “useless unless [the bottom was] properly tucked in under the tunic [so foul air could not waft under the mask].”81 The helmets also had to be maintained carefully to avoid, or at least to discover, leaks and holes. Masks also could lose their effectiveness if the neutralizing chemicals lost their potency over time or from overuse, or because they were useless against a new gas.82 As a result, some drills forced soldiers to practice donning respirators as fast as possible, and regular inspections checked the condition of masks.83 To save wear and tear, special drill masks were used in some practice sessions and limits were placed on the amount of practice that could be done with any particular helmet.84 One last dilemma arose because of physical, rather than psychological, issues. Soldiers had different facial shapes and sizes, yet a close ﬁt was necessary for a mask to be of any use. A rubber seal between the mask and the skin usually provided an airtight barrier, but the mask had to ﬁt relatively well for this to work. It was too difﬁcult to produce masks of unusual shapes, however. At a meeting of the army’s chemical advisors in France, the minutes noted, “Arising out of a demand for a mask smaller than No. and the cases of men with facial disﬁgurement etc., which renders the ﬁtting of masks impossible, it was recommended that no ofﬁcial action be taken in the case of men incapable of wearing Box Respirators but the Meeting was of the opinion that such men should not be kept in the line.”85 One general noted that the nose clips, which ensured that soldiers breathed through their mouths to get the ﬁltered air, were so narrow that they did not ﬁt the South African troops.86 Another ofﬁcer asked how to protect Sikhs in the British forces, whose beards inhibited the masks from making an air-tight seal on skin. After much debate, designers ﬁnally decided that facial hair would not be a problem. A chemical advisor for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, Maj. H. B. McCance, concluded that the most sophisticated model, the box respirators, would work for several hours, although the seal around the beard might not last as long as it would around a clean-shaven face. However, there was an added beneﬁt to equipping Sikhs with the box res-

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pirators: “They prefer[red] the Box Respirator on religious grounds, as they consider the E =. helmet [a model impregnated with sodium phenate and hexamine] resembles a hat.”87 Others were concerned about how to protect animals. The armies of World War I still depended on horses for transport, dogs for messages, and carrier pigeons for notes. Gas testing, both defensive and offensive, used goats, cats, and dogs as subjects.88 Designers therefore had to ascertain how to produce respirators that would ﬁt these radically different head shapes. Pamphlet SS : Defence against Gas of November demonstrates the importance of these issues to the army; this booklet dedicates three pages of appendix III to a discussion of horse respirators.89 With experiments like this, adequate production of equipment, and training in the ﬁeld, the British antigas program managed to supply enough effective respirators to the troops so that after the ﬁrst few months of the chemical war soldiers could protect themselves and their animals if they used the masks properly.90 Furthermore, scientists endlessly worked to improve helmets to make them more comfortable, more durable, and effective against new chemicals. The author of one pamphlet concluded conﬁdently, “In all gas attacks, since protection has been provided, those battalions which have been carefully instructed in the use of the helmet or respirators have come through practically unharmed, while other battalions in which this instruction has been neglected have suffered severely.”91 Mustard gas, however, damaged the successful reputation of the antigas program. This persistent gas, ﬁrst used by the Germans in July , produced time-delayed burns. Masks could protect the lungs, but they could not prevent skin lesions. Although British and American scientists experimented with special clothing, gloves, and salves, nothing worked well enough to be distributed on a wide basis.92 Drill Speciﬁcs To teach soldiers to use masks properly, the army conducted a range of drills. The detailed and extensive exercises illuminate how seriously the army took gas, but also that it thought chemical weaponry was a threat that could be managed largely by using the military’s traditional combination of proper equipment, discipline, and practice. Exercises taught men such tasks as how to sound alarms at the beginning of a gas attack, to don gas masks during an assault, and to clean surfaces contaminated by gas once the chemical cloud

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had passed. Pamphlet SS : Defensive Measures against Gas Attacks described eight separate gas drills for small box respirators and instructions regarding the frequency with which they should be performed. Exercises 6 and 7 focused solely on the proper adjustment of masks to prevent gas from penetrating a helmet. These were considered such essential lessons for men to learn that ofﬁcers had to schedule 6 and 7 twice a week when there was little likelihood of an attack, and 7 was to be performed once a day if there was an alert. Three other drills were to be performed “occasionally,” and another three “frequently.” These six drills concentrated on how to clean helmet eyepieces for proper maintenance, give antigas orders without breathing in chemicals when a speaker opened his mouth, remove gas from a mask without removing the helmet, test for gas contamination in a shelter, perform strenuous activity (speciﬁcally infantry drill) while masked, and change from one helmet to another during a gas alert. The frequency of the drills indicated the emphasis placed on compliance, along with the warning on the front cover of the manual: “Every ofﬁcer is responsible that the men under his command are properly instructed in Defensive Measures against Gas Attacks.”93 No chances were to be taken that soldiers would develop bad gas discipline. Drills promoted good antigas behavior by emphasizing consistency, speed, and obedience. The instructions for drill 7 note that speed “is the most important, and complete adjustment must be obtained by all ranks in H>MH:8 DC9H.”94 Alarms did not necessarily provide much warning of an impending attack, and a breath or two of fouled air could incapacitate a soldier. A man had to have his mask handy and be able to put it on before he needed to take a breath. He also had to be able to turn his attention to defending his position from any conventional attack that might accompany the chemical assault. With regard to consistency, one pamphlet stated, “Uniformity and attention to the smallest details must be insisted upon.”95 The minutiae included in helmet drill instructions in the struggle for standardization was enormous and was almost ridiculously speciﬁc, until one realized that a soldier’s life often depended on this piece of equipment. Instead of simply telling men to rub their eyepieces with a cloth, for instance, drill 8 states: On the command “Clean Eyepieces” the right eyepiece will be gripped between the thumb and the ﬁrst ﬁnger of the left hand. The ﬁrst ﬁnger of the right hand will then be pushed gently into the ﬂap of the mask behind the right eyepiece which will be cleaned with a gentle circular motion. The left eyepiece will be cleaned in a similar way.96

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Clearly, the army dedicated a substantial amount of time to gas protection, from cleaning to inspecting helmets. Down to the smallest detail, the military rapidly institutionalized gas defense and spread its new policies throughout the army not only with regard to helmets, but also with other antigas measures. Although the antigas division started with improvised masks, it evolved a sophisticated program of universal training and equipment provision. Procedural Antigas Measures: New Routines Gas changed the lives of soldiers as well as the equipment they used. New military routines, such as how to sound a gas attack alarm, also became integrated into army life. Perhaps more invasive, though, were the required changes in personal activities, such as eating and sleeping. At all times, but particularly when the wind was favorable for enemy attacks, observers had to watch for the green or yellow breezes that indicated gas. For this reason, everyone received rudimentary training in detecting gas, while some C8Ds and ofﬁcers necessarily became experts in gas detection.97 In the ﬁrst phase of chemical warfare, this was a matter of looking on the horizon and detecting the sickly green of a chlorine cloud.98 At night, it meant listening for the “hissing” of air that occurred when the enemy released gas from a cylinder.99 Later, it required listening and watching for shells that landed without exploding, ones that were too quiet to be conventional ammunition.100 Finally, after the development of colorless gases, soldiers learned to become aware of chemicals by smelling them or by recognizing other characteristics.101 For example, at antigas school, Sgt. J. Clement learned that mustard gas smelled like “garlic or onions” and Blue Cross “contains sneezing properties.”102 Trained observers carefully checked wind direction and velocity during the early phases of gas warfare, the era of cloud gas attacks in which the poison relied on the air to carry it to enemy lines.103 As a result, the army used the Beaufort scale to measure the strength of the wind and thus determine the likelihood of a gas attack at any particular time.104 Some individuals had more responsibility than others for detecting and announcing gas attacks, but everyone had an obligation to be alert. In fact, the basic senses proved to be the best tools for investigating gas attacks. Still, soldiers had to receive training on how to identify what they saw, heard, and smelled. They also had to learn how to evaluate information quickly; no one wanted a false alarm, but a late warning could increase the number of casualties that would result from the attack. Capt. K. W. Mealing had a close call one evening:

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When this message came through therefore, if it were authentic no time was to be lost. But was it authentic? It was at night. I knew our Infantry had a number of working parties out putting up barbed wire in No Mans Land. If we “opened” [to repel the expected infantry attack hiding behind the gas cloud] on our Gas lines of ﬁre these men would be wiped out by our own guns. On the other hand men lived with their ﬁngers on a hair-trigger and if a gas attack was developing, failure of the Artillery to get busy at once might cause a great disaster.

To his relief, it turned out to be a false alarm; his decision to wait for conﬁrmation before broadcasting gas alerts was the correct one. However, his choice could have created a lot of British casualties if he had made a mistake. He concluded his account of the incident thus: “There is no doubt I saved many mens [sic] lives that night by keeping my head, but was I right? Supposing it had not been a false alarm we should have ‘opened’ [ﬁre] too late!”105 For someone who was not an expert on gas, but who knew that the chemicals constantly changed and thus were difﬁcult to identify accurately, this kind of dilemma could occur repeatedly. When there was an attack, the soldier who noticed it ﬁrst engaged in a race to spread the alarm to his comrades before the toxins injured them. The challenge was that he had to communicate the news along the trenches quickly and accurately, without inhaling gas himself, so that the other men could put on their respirators before the danger reached them. In a pinch, almost any noisemaker could serve as an alarm; one contemporary magazine illustration showed an empty shell hanging in a trench that would ring when hit by a bayonet or another piece of metal.106 The best signals did not require sentries to give a verbal alarm and risk inhaling gas-laden air. Therefore, whistles and telephone warnings were rare; special gongs and rattles were more common tools.107 There was a bonus in using mechanical warnings: they were unmistakable. Everyone could recognize the sound and appearance of a gas alarm. To make messages more explicit, policy sometimes dictated that certain tools be used only for speciﬁc gases or at special steps in the alarm process. For instance, Strombos horns, alarms activated by air cylinders rather than breath, indicated a cloud gas attack as opposed to a shell assault.108 This was important because different chemicals, each with its own characteristics, were sometimes linked to different kinds of attacks and reactions. For example, although gas was often just the opening move in an infantry attack,

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mustard gas was so persistent that the Germans rarely attacked an area for six days after they saturated it with that chemical.109 If soldiers recognized that the poison shells were ﬁlled with mustard gas, they knew they were unlikely to face German soldiers in the near future. Regardless, learning to use and recognize all of these alarms necessitated training. It also required men to work with at least part of their attention constantly dedicated to listening for gas attacks instead of concentrating fully on any other tasks, from ﬁghting to maintaining trenches. Other antigas measures, whether taken before or after an attack, concerned essential, nonmilitary activities, such as sleeping and eating. Wrapping food protected it from contamination.110 Even more elaborate procedures created spaces impermeable to gas. For instance, some booklets, complete with diagrams, described curtains and doors that could be erected on dugouts; when closed correctly, a gas-proof haven resulted. Men who normally had to sleep with their gas masks in pouches on their chests would not even need to wear helmets inside the elaborate dugouts.111 Once gases passed over a trench and any conventional follow-up attack had been averted, a special clean-up process began. This involved sanitizing equipment that could be decontaminated with neutralizing chemicals and destroying materials that could not. The gases often corroded metal, whether buttons or guns, unless washed with water, oil, or chloride of lime.112 Any open food exposed to gas had to be destroyed. One of the gravest problems arose because water in shell holes or other open spaces could not always be drained or puriﬁed. The army warned soldiers repeatedly that the water was dangerous; even so, medical reports included cases of poisoning because men drank tea from gas-ﬁlled shell hole water.113 Mustard gas offered special challenges. It had the dubious distinction of being the most persistent, or long-lasting, chemical used in World War I, so much so that even earth inundated with that gas had to be decontaminated.114 Clothes and the mustard-laden surroundings had to be washed, too; one report noted that a man carrying a log burned his shoulder because the mustard gas that had fallen on the wood burned through his uniform.115 Wounded men had to be stripped of their uniforms immediately to prevent sodden cloth from creating deeper lesions.116 These and other precautions also kept medical personnel, bending over patients in closed areas, from being injured by the chemicals on the wounded men.117 Cleaning, therefore, had

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to be methodical and thorough; it required time, effort, and a store of chloride of lime or sprayers ﬁlled with neutralizing solution to do it effectively. Ventilators such as manual fans, used to blow fouled air away from a trench or another area, could help during an attack, but once the gas had settled other procedures had to be used.118 It is no wonder the booklets emphasized the importance of meticulous cleaning and that the Germans found mustard gas a useful weapon. Even if the British survived an attack without casualties, they were scared, annoyed, and forced to change their behavior at a considerable cost of time. Those, in fact, were some of the main goals of gas use. Altering the behavior of the enemy and causing him anxiety were at least as important as creating casualties. The ﬁrst two effects could be produced even when the army did not release gas. The constant threat of deployment altered activities, training, equipment, and attitudes; gas was a burden for everyone on the battlefront. Conclusion The military found that the advent of gas changed the way it waged war in very practical and concrete ways. Just defending soldiers from the new weapon was expensive and time-consuming. The army established an antigas organization to run gas defense schools in Britain and on the battlefronts, thus training some soldiers to be experts on this subject.119 The army also had to create a new organization to wage gas wars offensively. Most important, though, gas affected life on the front daily, from the most basic activities (such as sleeping) to those of military routine (such as stationing gas alarm sentries). Training was not always effective, as accounts of soldiers’ careless behavior demonstrated, nor did masks always work against a new generation of chemicals.120 However, the army put forth a strong, interdisciplinary effort by scientists and soldiers to meet the physical, mental, and emotional challenges of gas in order to protect its men and the trenches they held. The military treated gas as a manageable weapon that colored army decisions and activities at every level. As they gained practical knowledge or experience with gas, soldiers grew accustomed to it, whether or not they ever grew to approve of it. It was a serious threat that could be conquered by education and repetitive, but necessary, countermeasures. Gas was accepted as a weapon of World War I, although not an ordinary one. As one of the army’s last booklets on the topic produced during the war stated, “Gas has now become one

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of the normal weapons of warfare, and many of the substances employed are so poisonous that the breathing of very small quantities may cause death or serious injury.”121 The respect for, rather than fear of, gas encouraged by the army was also felt by chemists and doctors, who are discussed in the next chapter. They, too, proved to be quite aware of the serious consequences of gas because of their hands-on interactions with it.

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. The Scientiﬁc Divide Chemists versus Physicians

Two other groups that became inured to many of the horrors of gas warfare were research chemists and army clinical physicians; they provided scientiﬁc expertise necessary to wage World War I, but their experiences with the weapon and its effects allowed them to see its dangers without becoming overwhelmed by them.1 Their professional engagements with gas centered on speciﬁc aspects of the chemical war, such as the production of poisons and treatment of victims. With their attention narrowly focused on particular facets of the gas war, combined with their disciplines’ rational approaches to the problems that they had to solve, these scientists could examine gas as objectively as possible.2 Their controlled approaches discouraged emotional reactions to gas and helpless feelings about it, although there were certainly times when they, especially the doctors, became frustrated. In addition, their constant interactions with gas further desensitized them to its novelty and the barbarity perceived by others. It is no wonder that chemists and doctors did not discuss gas as a weapon of terror or atrocity; while gas offered them challenges, they were professional trials, not life-threatening tribulations (at least not for the scientists). Both chemists and doctors worked with dedication, adapting their professional methods and skills to the national emergency, yet the former enjoyed a positive experience with gas while the latter suffered a negative one. Their contrasting interactions with gas, despite the fact that both groups were technical experts, reinforce the fact that various groups in society—even relatively similar ones—developed their own perceptions of gas. Chemists helped wage the gas war by developing new toxins as well as by creating increasingly sophisticated antigas measures. They did this so successfully that they helped Britain take a leading role in the chemical war, even though she had entered this phase

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of the conﬂict surprised and unprepared. At the same time, chemists took advantage of the opportunity to increase the prestige of their profession by encouraging war leaders’ awareness of their critical expertise. Army physicians participated in the chemical war effort by counteracting the chemists’ best efforts: they concentrated on healing gas victims. Yet the Royal Army Medical Corps (G6B8) failed to master gas injuries. Their negative experience with gas occurred despite several factors that should have ensured success. For example, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the advent of modern scientiﬁc medicine, a period in which Western medicine was gaining prestige and respect because of the development of the germ theory, strides in public health, and inventions in medical technology. Furthermore, World War I offered the opportunity for several successes for and advances in medicine, particularly in the realms of surgery and hygiene.3 This was the ﬁrst war in which more men died of injuries than of disease—a dubious success, but one suggesting that basic medical care was strong. Although observers in Parliament criticized the leadership and organization of the G6B8 at times, they recognized the hard work of the physicians themselves.4 Chemical weapons did not ﬁt the pattern, though. They provided a challenge to doctors’ identity and their authority as experts, particularly as trained healers. The physicians’ goal, and the basis of the respect they received as professionals, was to repair, and if possible to cure, the injured and ill. In addition, they needed to be able to explain the process by which gas caused damage and how the body healed; doctors, after all, knew more about the mysteries of the body than anyone else. No one expected doctors to be perfect, but they could not even reliably identify gas victims. In addition, their difﬁculty in determining a standard set of treatment procedures made them look incompetent to supervisors of the war effort, such as BE Douglas Hall, who criticized the G6B8 in the newspaper.5 The frequent changes in the medical manuals sent to doctors in the ﬁeld, combined with the insecure tone of the advice in these pamphlets, indicated that physicians were aware of their weaknesses and struggled to correct them. Yet at the end of the war, the handbooks still offered a variety of suggestions for doctors to try instead of providing deﬁnite treatments on which physicians could conﬁdently rely. The medical profession never conquered gas or drew even with it. In contrast, poison gas provided scientists—particularly chemists, but also physiologists, research physicians, and their assistants—with professional

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opportunities. At the most basic level, the new weapon allowed these experts to increase their technical knowledge of chemistry and physiology by learning more about chemicals, how to manufacture them, and their impact on humans. In addition, their work enhanced the status of research scientists because of the recognition they received from the government and the military. The chemists and their colleagues had training that allowed them to understand poison gas to a degree that the other two groups did not, but needed to, in order to wage World War I after the introduction of chlorine onto the battleﬁeld. The government leaders and the army therefore began to include chemists in the decision-making process for waging the war. Surprisingly, they even delegated authority over some gas decisions to this group, a change in behavior that the research community desired and applauded. Chemists’ power remained restricted to technical areas, such as approving or rejecting new poisons to examine for use as weapons. At times their power was de facto; although ofﬁcially the advisory bodies offered only recommendations to the government, the Board of Trade and other bodies frequently rubber-stamped their suggestions. The mix of civilian and military chemists sitting on a variety of Ministry of Munitions committees throughout the war exercised this sort of practical authority. Regardless of its limitations, the experts recognized their power and welcomed it. They also appreciated the respect for science as a ﬁeld, and the scientiﬁc profession as a whole, that their committees elicited from the government and the military. Another factor leading to chemists’ positive war experience was the method by which they offered their expertise. They did not do so as individuals, who could be dominated by the military and political experts who led the war effort.6 Instead, they frequently voiced their opinions as groups of scientiﬁc experts, either working on chemical warfare committees within the Ministry of Munitions, including the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee, in scientiﬁc units of the military such as the Central Laboratory, or as professional organizations that predated the war, like the Royal Society. This uniﬁed voice added authority and credibility provided by the consensus of specialists and because a group was harder to dominate than an individual. It also allowed these scientists to work within the familiar scientiﬁc culture of discussion and experimentation that many followed as civilian researchers before the war. Because of their professional identity, and by maintaining their status as experts to be respected rather than interchangeable cogs in the war machine, chemists were able to contribute effectively to the war effort and increase the

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prestige and authority of their profession among the powerful groups that led Britain. This alone was not enough to explain their success in the gas war, however. Physicians, too, approached the gas war using their professional skills, but their attempts to meet the gas challenge were frustrated. What worked to the advantage of chemists was the nature of their task; they were proactive in the gas war as they created new weapons and masks, unlike the doctors, who were reactive. Being proactive is almost always more effective than being reactive. Not every chemist or physician participated in the war effort or approved of gas warfare; not all scientists had the same values, interests, and goals. However, the dissenters were difﬁcult to ﬁnd. People, expert or not, as a whole supported and contributed to World War I where they could. Among other reasons, it was uncomfortable, if not illegal, to reject the general trend of behavior. This was the war in which civilian men sometimes received white feathers from unknown women trying to shame them into enlisting and conscientious objectors could be jailed. Experts, too, found compliance with the war effort easier than resistance to it. Some scientists did refuse to participate, at least with regard to gas, and others were reluctant at ﬁrst.7 Harry Baker was one of the few chemists who openly resisted. He was a senior chemist employed by the chlorine producer Castner-Kellner before the war. He continued to work for the company during the conﬂict, but when it contracted to make war materials he “refused to make munitions or poison gas and this cut him off from control of, or interest in many departments and tended to isolate him.”8 Although he did not lose his job, he lost the respect and company of his colleagues; he also missed the opportunity to work on an innovative, if dangerous and disturbing, aspect of chemistry. Considering Baker’s experience and the general atmosphere surrounding the war effort, it is not surprising that there are few records of dissenters. Many scientists seem to have joined the war effort, whether for personal or professional reasons; objectors apparently kept a low proﬁle. Joseph Barcroft, for example, restricted his contributions to medical, rather than offensive, issues because he was a Quaker. Still, he worked at government sites such as Porton Down and visited the Western Front when necessary.9 Speaking of chemists and physicians as two monolithic bodies, therefore, may ignore some subgroups but does include the majority of scientists. One result of the chemists’ success was that some of the new respect for the ﬁeld outlasted the war, such as in the founding of the Department of

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Scientiﬁc and Industrial Research. The chemistry industry’s value to the country was also recognized, as seen in the Safeguarding of Industries Act of , which instituted measures to protect ﬂedging scientiﬁc advances from foreign competition.10 The Chemists’ War: The Context Scientists had been on a quest for respect throughout the nineteenth century. Partly because of scientiﬁc advances in the Victorian period such as Darwin’s theories, insights into atoms, and the advent of the telephone, they saw increasing value in their ﬁeld’s investigative methods and achievements. They wanted others to acknowledge that, too. Until the s, one of the ways they tried to gain cultural authority was by dethroning religion’s prestige in society and elevating science’s. At the same time, scientists became an increasingly professional community and thus gained power as a well-educated and organized group. However, scientists failed to establish the level of respect that some desired; for example, they did not acquire ofﬁcial positions in the government, nor was the logical scientiﬁc method adopted by politicians, as the scholar Frank Turner notes.11 In addition, the majority of Britons did not hold the ﬁeld of science in great esteem. It was not a popular subject of study at the top universities, nor did society feel urgency in seeing progress in ﬁelds such as chemistry.12 Although the modern age of the chemical industry dawned at the turn of the century, Britain did not invest heavily in it.13 Instead, Britons relied on trade with others, particularly Germany, for necessary products manufactured by the modern chemical industry. These included basics such as dyes and aspirin. Yet, as Turner concluded, “By the close of the war the scientiﬁc community had securely established itself as a major intellectual interest group with direct channels to the government and with improved opportunities for receiving state funds.”14 During the war, scientists’ special training led to recognition by Britain’s leaders of their value and knowledge in their ﬁeld, an area that happened to be essential to the war effort. Scientists did not invade and dominate the government, taking it over from the politicians, nor did they become subsumed in it as individual advisors; instead, they became accepted and acknowledged junior partners. This required scientists to bring their usefulness to the notice of the government so that the politicians could recognize their value. Research chemists and other scientists who did dedicate themselves to the war effort, as another scholar, Roy MacLeod, conclud-

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ed, did so as a group, not as individuals.15 MacLeod’s thesis can be applied to the speciﬁc collection of scientists who developed chemical weapons and responses to them. However, chemical warfare was not simply the purview of one set of research scientists. Although most of these experts were chemists, physiologists also served with them. Chemical weapons could be designed and combated efﬁciently only if the decision makers knew how each substance would affect enemy soldiers and might injure their own countrymen. This sort of biological knowledge was the domain of physiologists and some research physicians. Fortunately, the Royal Society, a centuries-old scientiﬁc organization, had long included experts of various disciplines. It is not surprising, then, that this body took the lead in involving researchers in the war effort. It both saw and could answer the challenges the war effort faced in a more interdisciplinary way than could almost any other group. Chemists in the Limelight The poison gas war did not start until nearly a year after the conﬂict opened. Well before the war even began, some scientiﬁc groups warned the government and the public that Britain was weakly situated with regard to industrial chemistry in particular, and the technical disciplines in general. She depended too greatly on Germany. Many of her scientists completed some of their training there, and Britain relied heavily on imported chemical goods.16 Recognizing Britain’s situation, by November , on its own initiative, the Royal Society formed a War Committee to offer advice to the government about scientiﬁc matters.17 Ofﬁcials politely received them but did not always respond enthusiastically to their suggestions.18 The shocking news of April , , woke the government to full alertness, particularly with regard to scientiﬁc aspects of weapons. The British government was not expecting this development; militarily, morally, intellectually, and emotionally British leaders were shocked. They began responding immediately. One of the ﬁrst orders emanating from London was to Dr. John Scott Haldane, an eminent physiologist and a relative of Lord Haldane, the secretary of war at the start of the conﬂict.19 Although he possessed political connections, it was his professional qualiﬁcations that made him a wise choice; his expertise lay with oxygen treatment for injured miners. (That was probably the closest experience a civilian could have with chemical weapons since the injuries resulting from the ﬁrst gases also caused respiratory damage from

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chemical toxins.) Haldane toured the battle zone to identify the chemical, which he recognized as chlorine, and to propose a response.20 One of the ways Britain reacted was to establish research and development organizations. The ﬁrst steps the government took to form an administrative home for chemical warfare research led to the creation of two departments. One, for antigas work—the development of masks, goggles, and later helmets—arose under the auspices of physicians, physiologists, and the G6B8. The second, for offensive research, began in the War Ofﬁce under Louis Jackson, then a colonel, who already had begun exploring chemical inventions for the war.21 His ad hoc group received help from the Royal Society, a body already poised to do sophisticated chemical research. Soon these two groups united for greater efﬁciency. Five weeks after the opening of the chemical war, the managers of the war effort instituted a radical change. On May , , they formed the Ministry of Munitions, largely in response to a scandalous shortage of conventional shells. The new department took responsibility for developing and supplying most of the weapons for the army.22 The hope was that under an innovative and motivated leader, an agency dedicated to the problems of munitions would ensure that the British army had the materials necessary to win the war. Its birth was controversial and resisted somewhat by the War Ofﬁce. Ofﬁcials in the latter saw it as an insult as well as a loss of power, men, and responsibility.23 The new ministry did, however, manage to supply the army much more thoroughly than had the previous system.24 It also began incorporating scientiﬁc bodies almost immediately.25 The leaders of the Ministry quickly recognized that their work required a close working relationship with research scientists, especially when developing the new chemical weapons. For this reason, the chain of command was unconventional; unlike the structure for most production processes for the army, it united the departments of supply and research. They thought it necessary for researchers to know what chemicals were available before deciding which new gases should be supplied. This relationship demanded that scientists work inside the Ministry rather than simply consult from outside, as had previously been the case. Thus, on June , , the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee, complete with a Chemical Sub-Committee, formed under the auspices of the Ministry of Munitions; members included many of those on the Royal Society war committees.26 The Ministry brought over the organized experts almost en masse.

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As with any administrative organization, the Ministry of Munitions changed with time as ofﬁcials sought to improve its performance. For example, in February , the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee evolved into the Chemical Advisory Committee in recognition of the fact that so much of its work dealt with chemical warfare issues. The British may not have started the poison gas war, but they embraced it once it appeared. Then, a year and a half later, in October , there was another merger. The Chemical Advisory Committee, largely responsible for offensive gas work, joined the antigas research units that had previously worked at the Royal Army Medical College at Millbank to become the Chemical Warfare Committee.27 The need for offensive and defensive workers to communicate easily and fully was ﬁnally recognized. Two other changes occurred over time. The Royal Society realized that the members of the physiology subcommittee were already serving in advisory capacities for the government; its existence as a separate entity was not necessary. It was therefore dissolved, practically speaking, though its members continued to assist the government without having to attend extra meetings.28 The Royal Society had succeeded in proving to the government that its members were vital to the war effort.29 The other alteration further demonstrated the drive toward unity and consolidation; in Charles Foulkes became head of the Chemical Warfare Committee of the Ministry of Munitions in addition to his post as commander of the Special Brigade.30 The chief liaison between the two groups became the leader of both of them. A number of men worked with Foulkes and his predecessors. The members included a mix of military personnel and civilians, some of the scientists, but not all, having joined the army because of the war. One president, Henry Thuillier, eventually a major general, was a professional soldier whose World War I experience required him to work closely with the scientists. Others included Prof. H. B. Baker of the Imperial College of Science, South Kensington; Mr. J. Barcroft of Cambridge; Prof. A. R. Cushny and Prof. F. G. Donnan of University College, London; Prof. P. F. Frankland of Birmingham University; Lt. Col. E. Harrison (another scientist, focusing largely on antigas work); Col. W. H. Horrocks; Prof. L. Hill of the Lister Institute; Prof. W. J. Pope of Cambridge; and the secretary, Dr. C. Young.31 Nearly all were also members of the Royal Society and prewar colleagues. Interestingly, most remained civilians. In many ways, this form of war service asked men who normally exchanged professional information to continue to do so; the war, in effect, adapted to their way of working together collegially.

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They discussed a broad range of subjects. In one representative meeting, on October , , the group, at this time called the Chemical Warfare Committee, discussed potential additional members, proposals for an intelligence section regarding chemical matters, a new schedule for future meetings, methods of production of mustard gas (including industrial as well as technical concerns), and German perceptions regarding the effectiveness of Allied masks.32 Offensive, defensive, intelligence, administrative, and industrial matters all fell within their purview. Their knowledge and access to material was astonishing. Also during this period, the government acquiesced to the scientists’ need for a testing ground at which they could conduct hands-on work to complement their intellectual discussions and laboratory experiments. In and early , the Imperial College laboratories at South Kensington and small lots at Wembley and Clapham Commons offered sufﬁcient room for testing chemicals. Unfortunately, large-scale open tests that could replicate the dimensions and weather of a battleﬁeld could not be completed in these areas. In July , the government acquired grounds at Porton Down for research and outdoor experiments. The head of the new property was Professor Crossley, a respected physiologist, although civilians and soldiers worked together there. Porton Down has remained in operation as a chemical and biological warfare testing and research facility since then.33 This administrative evolution resulted in the scientists’ increased respect and authority, as a group and as professionals, with regard to practical developments in the gas war, although not policy elements; they did not lose their status as experts or their ability to work as scientiﬁc culture required. Three examples illustrate these points in more detail: the stories of consultation, of the committee’s authority, and of manpower. Chemists in Action For many Britons, chemical warfare inspired fear, pure and simple. Gas was a terrifying weapon on the battleﬁeld, especially because the enemy continually improved his weaponry. It was even more unsettling to consider ways the Germans might expand the potential of the weapon, such as by using it against civilians in London. A recurring nightmare was that the Germans would attempt to use their zeppelins to drop chemicals, or even germs, on the British people.34 After all, the enemy had proved willing to break civilized laws and traditions numerous times. The tales of atrocities in Belgium, the

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use of prohibited gas in France, and the zeppelin bombing of London were all on people’s minds. Dropping chemical or biological poisons on England would only be the next, logical step. Rumors forced the government to consider the question seriously, and to do that, it needed a reliable assessment from chemists and physiologists.35 On January , , the Committee of Imperial Defence sent a letter to the Royal Society. The request from the top of the political ladder asked the organization to deliberate on the issue in order that “a deﬁnite pronouncement on the scientiﬁc aspects of the question could be laid before the War Cabinet, so that the possibility or otherwise of such operations . . . could be settled ﬁnally.”36 Clearly the Royal Society’s views would be inﬂuential in the government discussion. The politicians needed to know whether the Germans could do much damage with such a weapon and thus decide how, or whether, to retaliate or prepare defenses. The consultants—from the Local Medical Board and the Army Sanitary Committee, as well as the Royal Society—concluded that dropping germs from the air would be ineffective.37 The most likely result was that germs would disperse widely instead of concentrating sufﬁciently to cause illness. Even if some contamination occurred, it could be combated just like normal diseases. Furthermore, “it . . . [was] not at present worth while to take scientiﬁc men from other and more important duties to devise methods of retaliation,” especially as such techniques “could be improvised . . . if . . . necessary.”38 Considering that the type of germ had not been named in these communications, it is unclear how scientists could be certain that they could combat it effectively. Yet their professional conclusions provided enough assurance that the ofﬁcial debate on biological warfare soon ended, although some civilians still carried masks in anticipation of the chemical warfare that never materialized.39 The fact that the government requested an opinion and analysis from an outside group was not necessarily unusual if the organization had special resources. It is clear, though, that the politicians’ decision rested almost totally on the technical experts’ professional opinion; it would be difﬁcult for them to reject the conclusions or to reanalyze the basis of those decisions. In essence, the research scientists made this decision and the government rubberstamped it.40 Furthermore, the Royal Society seemed to recognize the extent of its authority. Although theoretically it simply advised the government, in practice its recognition of its members’ power and worth can be seen in the way the secretary framed the reply: the Royal Society decided that it could

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easily respond to germ warfare in London if that ever became necessary; it assumed that its members’ skills would be called upon and would be sufﬁcient to the demand. Furthermore, the tone of the note demonstrated the Society’s sense of self-worth, if not arrogance: the members decided that their valuable time could better be used on other issues. In a war in which the British government interfered more than ever before in citizens’ lives, these scientists determined where their skills could best be—or not be—applied.41 Consultation accompanied other discrete projects, and, as on the germ warfare question, the results were highly valued. The Royal Society Physiology Committee, for instance, wrote a report in September , revising it several times through , that “constituted the ofﬁcial hand-book on poisonous gases and vapours and their physiological effects, and was of great value, not only to the British Gas Services, but also to those of our Allies.”42 The outsiders again provided a foundation of reliable expertise for the chemical warfare effort. Once the government began to incorporate groups of scientists into Ministry of Munitions committees, they increasingly depended on them. At times, various government agencies went so far as to delegate authority, for all practical purposes, to these committees. An early report notes that the Board of Trade requested the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee’s advice “daily regarding the granting of licences for export of chemical substances of importance to the Trench Warfare Department. . . . With the wider development of chemical warfare by the enemy and by this country, it . . . appeared desirable, from time to time, to add to the list of substances the free export of which is prohibited.”43 A particular danger was that substances exported to neutral countries might be forwarded to enemy nations. The materials considered by the Committee included basic components of industrial chemistry such as acetic acid and bleaching powder. Of a more intriguing nature were the superﬁcially innocuous chemicals. The concern was that certain items could be broken down or combined to produce war chemicals. Not only might Britain need these at some point, but it was also imperative to keep them out of the enemy’s hands. The process of deciding which chemicals were harmless and thus exportable and which were not required experts. The Committee considered quite a range of materials. Pepper, for instance, had been used in war. Thus the Committee suggested that its export be limited.44 Other applications sub-

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mitted by businesses received approval. William Cooper & Nephews, for instance, asked for continued permission to “export cases Cooper’s Sheep Dip powder” to Tasmania. The Committee granted this petition.45 Another area in which the Committee’s scientists wielded power was the selection of chemicals to explore for their military potential. In this case, their authority allowed the chemists to determine their own course of action, rather than merely responding to others’ questions or demands. British scientists used their autonomy to develop their own method for British mustard gas, rejecting the German formula, which they called = H (or “Hun Stuff”), in reaction to Germany’s introduction of that poison.46 They also enjoyed the freedom to investigate more unusual substances. At one point, chemists studied kelp as a potential source of iodine since it was a component used in the manufacture of lachrymatory gases, the least toxic of World War I chemical weapons. Britain did not have sufﬁcient iodine herself; she relied on imports from Chilean saltpeter mines. Depending so much on an import from a distant country left Britain vulnerable and led scientists to look carefully at kelp as another source of iodine.47 Ultimately, the Committee rejected this approach, partially because the only place in the United Kingdom that would be suitable for harvesting kelp in large quantities was Scotland. One report noted, “The reluctance of the crofter to take up any new occupation or to take part in the kelp industry systematically and regularly” diminished the possibilities of success of this new avenue. The report concluded that harvesting kelp was not worth “the resentment of landowners who have proprietary rights to driftweed [i.e., kelp] coming ashore, or of the crofters in certain districts who have a right to a ﬁxed portion of the weed which they use for manurial purposes.”48 The kelp study was a dead end, too complicated and troublesome to pursue. Large scientiﬁc organizations also exercised their authority to protect their own professional domain and future while simultaneously helping the war effort. For example, the Royal Society of Chemistry helped ﬁnd and list student and professional chemists for the government.49 Chemists, unlike infantrymen, could not be trained quickly. However, like the new soldiers, many rising scientists were of military age. The Society helped to determine how many chemists existed, since the total would inﬂuence how many could be allotted to each facet of the scientiﬁc war effort. The next question was to ascertain how well the chemists were trained and for what sort of work they

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were available. Could they work without supervision? Would they be of more use in industry than in the army? Should they serve in the army’s chemical corps, the Special Brigade? Should they receive exemptions from military service?50 Assessment of their qualiﬁcations could best be done by the same body that knew where to ﬁnd chemists in Britain: professional chemists with contacts with science departments in schools and universities, with industry, and with laboratories. The Royal Society of Chemistry and similar organizations dedicated great effort to appealing to educational institutions to send names and particulars of their matriculating chemists. The groups then worked to compile and update these lists while making them available for the government. The Society, for its part, not only made a patriotic contribution and helped gather information of professional interest, but it also protected the future of chemistry in Britain. By directing chemists into positions that used their skills, they often ensured that they remained in relatively safe wartime occupations. The next generation of scientists was not totally lost in the trenches as riﬂemen.51 For the most part, the established chemists thus managed to protect their junior colleagues and themselves. Chemical warfare research scientists’ interests and those of the government largely coincided, which meant that collaboration helped both groups, the ﬁrst with regard to their professional concerns and the latter with regard to the war effort. Yet that was not the only reason chemists found the gas war to be an opportunity that they successfully exploited; the way they used their professional connections and group identity eased their path. The Medical Front: The Learning Curve The late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries were a period of growing respect for, and rising power of, the medical profession. Physicians established themselves as professionals in the mid-nineteenth century in Britain and increasingly based their identities on scientiﬁc and related grounds.52 As a body, the medical profession grew in complexity, developing specialties and dominant positions in hospitals. One factor underlying the growth in medical power was the increasing reliance on scientiﬁc tools and thinking in ways that would be recognized today, such as a dependence on laboratories and hospitals instead of solely on philosophies of sickness and health or observation. Formation of germ theory to explain disease, development of the Pasteur treatment for rabies, the use of antisepsis in surgery, and other in-

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novations in Western medicine also helped medicine evolve into a ﬁeld that not only seemed wondrous (and beyond the understanding of the average person without a scientiﬁc education), but actually was much more effective than ever before. Such successes in organization and practice led to improvements in British medicine’s prestige. For example, the government began to accept the input of the medical profession when establishing laws such as the Contagious Diseases Acts of the s to regulate prostitutes.53 Doctors thus now found themselves not only working within the traditional world of medicine, treating individual patients, but also helping to shape society in the realm of public health, some serving as government medical ofﬁcers. For example, they offered expert opinions to reinforce traditional women’s roles by conﬁrming that females were at the mercy of their reproductive organs.54 It would not have been a surprise, therefore, if doctors and medicine had a successful war in which their work, profession, and achievements heightened the status of the ﬁeld in the eyes of British leaders and society, much as the research scientists’ efforts with gas did for chemistry. For the most part, physicians did enjoy great respect for their war work. Their relationship with the government meant that ofﬁcials relied on and incorporated their opinions, just as they did with respect to antigas research at the beginning of the chemical war. Their new skills helped them complete thousands of complex operations, and they managed to care for even more patients.55 However, with regard to the clinical aspects of the chemical war, the healing profession failed medically and professionally. Doctors and physiologists retained a monopoly in determining medical treatment for military gas victims, but they certainly could not dependably cure them. Nor could they even develop a consistent protocol for treatment or even reliably diagnose gas victims. This was, of course, only one type of casualty. Yet despite their failures, the medical profession as a whole was not hurt in the postwar years. It does stand in contrast, though, to the wartime experiences of chemical warfare scientists.56 From the outset of World War I, the British understood that they would have to convert their peacetime military medical service into one suited for conﬂict.57 As with many aspects of the war, the generals’ plans before and during the early phases of the war required modiﬁcations over time.58 The G6B8 did successfully meet the challenge of recruiting enough doctors to meet the needs of the continually increasing army.59 Between and , the G6B8 increased from , to , men.60 Organization of the medical units

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evolved over the course of the war, as the G6B8 experimented with the placement of ﬁrst aid stations, the introduction of triage, the inclusion of nurses, and other means of handling critically wounded patients effectively.61 Other challenges arose in efforts to convert recently inducted civilian doctors to military priorities and goals. The military developed courses in England and on the fronts to educate physicians about military life as well as peculiarities of practicing medicine in the army. Some aspects of this specialized training affected the core of doctors’ understanding of how to practice their profession. Convincing physicians that their primary duty was not to the long-term health of the patient but to provide ﬁt soldiers for the military required revamping the medical codes of ethics.62 While placing the greater good of society over the individual was certainly a principle of public health work, the situation was more complex in military medicine. Treating a soldier in an effort to heal his body quickly so that he could return to the front lines and endanger it again was not quite the same thing as invading a patient’s privacy to prevent the spread of cholera or sexually transmitted diseases. In those cases, the goal was to protect both the individual and the general population as much as possible. In the army, doctors had to look to the short-term health of the patient, even if that risked long-term damage or death for him. A soldier’s ability to ﬁght in the immediate future was most important for the country as a whole. Practically, this demanded behavior such as limiting the number of casualties evacuated for convalescence in England in favor of treating them rapidly near the front.63 It also encouraged using a cynical eye to diagnose possible victims of shell shock and other ailments associated with shirkers.64 The army argued that doctors’ loyalty was to the military, and thus to the nation, not to an individual patient.65 This contradicted the core of physicians’ professional role as they had been trained to understand it. Doctors’ identities also rested on their abilities to minister to, if not to cure, their patients. Despite advances in medicine during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during the s physicians regularly faced injuries and ailments—ones treatable today—that they could not conquer. Although the war produced some discoveries, such as the delayed primary suture method of cleaning and treating wounds, the conﬂict also added to the list of daunting illnesses and wounds that doctors faced. Physicians confronted a range of afﬂictions: trench fever, shell shock, and the Spanish inﬂuenza. The ailments caused by assorted poison gases soon bedeviled them, too. To make the situation more difﬁcult, the problems incurred in treating patients

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quickly and effectively were well publicized within the medical world and British society.66 From press reports of BE Douglas Hall complaining about evacuation procedures to cutting comments by war leaders, the G6B8 had to face its ﬂaws.67 In time, trial and error enabled the G6B8 to correct errors and conquer challenges.68 For example, experimenting with innovative treatments and observing the results led to the development of procedures for handling new wartime ailments.69 Although occasionally the tests may have been done blindly and out of desperation, in general physicians worked according to a professional methodology as part of the ofﬁcial efforts to ﬁnd cures and treatments. The London branches of the war effort, such as the Medical Research Committee, encouraged observation and research by those at the front, as well as undertaking their own studies.70 On the Western Front, doctors such as Capt. H. W. Kaye performed postmortems on gas patients to determine the damage and progress of gas poisoning and compiled reports of their ﬁndings.71 Reﬂecting on the clinical work, commanders in London distilled the new knowledge into treatment suggestions and other information published in a series of pamphlets for physicians on the front.72 In fact, booklets served as one of the most widespread means of education within the military. The army produced pamphlets for a multitude of purposes, from Lessons from the German Gas Attack on / June, to Hints on Cooking in the Field, and even included Recreational Training.73 They published more than sixty pamphlets regarding gas mask drills, analysis of gas attacks, and possible treatments of chemical weapon injuries.74 The medical services produced their own handbooks, usually under the signature of Gen. Sir Arthur T. Sloggett, director general of medical services, British Armies in France. The military distributed these to physicians in the ﬁeld and considered the contents to be secret. A statement on the cover of one booklet emphasized this secrecy: “This Memorandum . . . >HID7:IG:6I:9 6H8DC;>9:CI>6A AND SHOULD ON NO ACCOUNT BE TAKEN INTO THE TRENCHES.”75 Compiled by a “Committee of Consultant Physicians and Physiologists” speciﬁcally for the army, the pamphlets appeared periodically during the war, and particularly after advances in chemical warfare required updates in the literature. The government printed SS : Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare with notes on its Pathology and Treatment, for instance, in July , and then, after the advent of mustard gas, again in January . A warning that the original version was obsolete stands in bold lettering on the cover of the later edition.76

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The Scientiﬁc Divide

The medical service not only provided updated information to physicians about treatment, or at least about possible treatments, but it went further. These handbooks, such as the SS series, run twenty-seven to thirty-two pages each. They contain sections on the classiﬁcation of war gases, diagnosis of gassed patients (including the type of gas that caused the injury), treatment of patients, “pathological changes” that gases work on bodies, and recovery times. The intent to educate, not simply to order, physicians is clear. The existence of thorough explanations demonstrates that the professionals were treated as the scientiﬁc experts they were, not simply as obedient military men. The level of detail used to describe the effects of gases on the body and the reasons behind certain treatments resembled civilian medical texts. Partly this was because it was difﬁcult to identify the gas that caused the ailments, since many gases produced similar reactions or could be used in combination.77 Each type of gas required different treatment. Phosgene’s effects had a delayed onset, but exertion on the part of the victim could overtax the heart and be fatal. Suspected cases needed to be carried to aid stations; they should not walk.78 In contrast, though the burns produced by mustard gas also appeared hours after an attack, exercise was harmless.79 Yet the medical explanations were present in much greater amounts than were necessary simply for identiﬁcation purposes. The language and depth of the text also indicate a respect for physicians that was not erased simply because they could be ordered into the military. Medical expertise and authority remained. This was reinforced by the fact that the booklets suggested a variety of possible treatments rather than simply stating a standard protocol that should be followed invariably. The G6B8 recognized how little medical knowledge existed regarding gas wounds. Gas was a new weapon. Senior physicians attempted to use knowledge of carbon monoxide poisoning in mines as a platform for their experiments, but that had a limited usefulness because the war gases were chemically different.80 Early treatments included those used for respiratory ailments in civilian life, since the early war gases attacked the lungs and eyes.81 The limited supplies of the forward medical aid stations also played a role in determining effective treatments.82 The ﬁrst gas cases, however, received more palliative than curative care; they were kept warm and comfortable. Doctors were largely helpless in the face of the new medical challenge. To make matters worse, new gases frequently appeared—the “Germans used . . . [in all] against the Allies”—demanding different treatments and considerations.83 A treatment for chlorine victims might not work

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with chloropicrin sufferers. The medical service was on a constant learning curve and used these pamphlets to educate its members about the most recently gleaned information. Knowing this, the authors of the booklets asked colleagues at the battlefront to record their observations.84 In this way, information about new gases and their effects, as well as results of treatments, could be gathered and discussed by the committees writing the handbooks. Thus memoranda such as “Report on Gas Cases Treated in No. Casualty Clearing Station: Notes and Observations upon Cases of Gas Poisoning—June ” included not only case notes on speciﬁc patients but also statistics that gave the reader an overview of the gas situation at No. . It included a record of mortality, treatments, and observations to help build a ﬁle of information that would lead to insights into effective gas cures as well as provide military records of the war.85 Drs. Elliott Glenny and H. W. Kaye produced lengthy postbattle and postmortem reports for this purpose. In an analysis of gas cases after April , , Glenny and Kaye arranged their report to resemble a research paper, dividing their patients into groups 6 through 8, depending on the severity of their poisoning. They proceeded to list the treatments, compare the patients to men gassed in , and suggest future care for chemical warfare victims.86 Such reports replaced the articles one might otherwise expect to see in contemporary medical journals, discussions that it seemed wise to keep away from public view and perhaps German eyes.87 More important, these reports indicated that experts in London recognized the abilities and value of their medical colleagues on the front lines; they treated them as professional peers in khaki, not as medical or military subordinates. Two Medical Dilemmas Medically, the pamphlets revolved around two debates: the treatment and diagnosis of gas victims. To properly diagnose, a physician had to determine that the soldier suffered from gas and not another ailment that also produced burning eyes or laboring breath, such as bronchitis.88 He then had to struggle to identify the type of gas that the patient absorbed in order to choose the correct course of treatment. The challenge arose because of doctors’ lack of experience with gas and the constantly changing forms of chemicals used; it was difﬁcult to gain conﬁdence diagnosing when there were not always clearcut cases on which to practice. Treating miners who breathed bad air in mines

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The Scientiﬁc Divide

was the closest most doctors had come to handling the sort of cases they faced in World War I.89 They had, of course, cared for pulmonary patients suffering from emphysema, pneumonia, bronchitis, and similar diseases. Thus, there was a temptation to respond to respiratory or optical discomfort in a familiar way and to prescribe treatment based on the knowledge of how such cases progressed in peacetime—even if they arose from nonchemical causes. Conceptually, the logical way to understand something new was to place it into an existing intellectual framework; in this case, that included pulmonary diseases and even the new danger of malingering soldiers.90 One of the great concerns of the army was that soldiers would try to shirk their duty by pleading illness, thus avoiding the front lines and danger. Desertion or an outright refusal to ﬁght was considered criminal behavior. Because the crime was so serious in military eyes, capital punishment might be conferred. One reason for the careful examination of conscientious objectors and the disabled was to discourage false claims of an inability to ﬁght. Medical disqualiﬁcation from service required doctors—nonsoldiers who were experts in a separate ﬁeld—to make judgments on which the strength and size of the army depended. If the incapacity to ﬁght was a physical one, such as a missing limb, there was little question about the ruling. If it was a weak heart, that was a more difﬁcult decision; such an ailment was unseen and diagnosis was often a judgment call. This was an even more complex process after the recognition of shell shock. Were men whose suffering manifested itself as neurasthenia (basically bad nerves) medically unable to ﬁght? Was this a legitimate ailment caused by war, or was it a manifestation of a weak man suffering from what was often considered Victorian woman’s hysteria? And were the complaints of bad nerves legitimate or merely the unveriﬁable claims of shirkers? After, or perhaps because of, the appearance of shell shock, physicians and the military were wary that patients complaining of difﬁculty breathing were malingering or perhaps suffering from bronchitis rather than gas.91 Several references warning about this appeared in the medical pamphlets, as did regulations that tried to prevent shirkers, and even mildly wounded soldiers, from abusing the system. For example, authorities expressed concern that evacuating patients to London would delay recuperation time because it would mollycoddle the men. In one booklet, the guidelines stated, “No cases of pure lachrymatory gas poisoning are sent to the United Kingdom.” Such a gas did not produce serious wounds, and the implication was that evac-

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uation would be wasteful and perhaps pamper patients with neurasthenia. The next paragraph emphasized that even patients with “persistent vomiting of the neurotic type . . . should not be kept in bed.”92 A similar warning arose in suggestions about how to care for eyes temporarily damaged by gas. Pamphlet SS states, “The inﬂammation is liable to be succeeded by photophobia, which, if improperly treated, may delay a man’s return to duty. . . . The condition is apt to assume a neurasthenic character.”93 All of this underlay the questions: When was a patient shirking? When was he truly healed? Had he actually never been gassed at all? Physicians faced the dilemma of placing the interests of the state over those of the patient. They also confronted the need to put their expertise in the service of the military, where errors in judgment—cases in which they were too lenient or cynical toward patients’ claims—could weaken the strength of their country’s army. The G6B8 commanders did not always believe warnings offered sufﬁcient guidance to doctors; therefore, they created regulations that directed physicians about what to do in doubtful cases. These orders treated suspect patients in much the same way as questionable mental patients. In General Routine Order (
The “not yet diagnosed” label was frequently indicated in situations in which self-inﬂicted wounds were suspected, challenging even honest cases to prove themselves innocent of cowardice or carelessness. In fact, a June , , set of instructions,
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The Scientiﬁc Divide

ed, a soldier who deliberately put his mask on slowly might breathe enough gas to make himself slightly ill. If an investigation followed, the man could be court-martialed.96 That the military considered such wounds easy for malingerers to claim can be seen in the changes to
In ofﬁcial documents, the message was clear, if less frankly stated: In these doubtful cases the patient should be made to give his own account of the occurrence. . . . No leading questions should be put to him. . . . The beneﬁt of the doubt must be given to the patient, but it should be borne in mind that if no objective symptoms [such as vomiting] have arisen after the lapse of hours, the degree of gassing must have been very slight, and the case can be returned to duty with little delay.99

It did the army no good to punish or refuse to treat a legitimately wounded man, but it also behooved them to conserve their manpower. One result was

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that, in the case of diagnosing gas victims, doctors had to be policemen as well as physicians in a situation in which the stakes were high and their judgment uncertain, despite all the assistance of the medical booklets and handson experience. Treatment Once a doctor diagnosed a gas case, he needed to choose a treatment. At the beginning of the war, largely due to unfamiliarity with the impact chemicals had on the body, care was palliative rather than restorative, or based on common sense rather than sophisticated medical knowledge.100 Keeping the patient warm and comfortable (or at least making attempts to do so) was the norm: “Initially . . . there were simply no known remedies. Instead, medical personnel often had to stand helplessly by.”101 Adding to physicians’ frustration was the criticism expressed by outsiders who recognized the inability of the medical profession to constructively respond to chemical patients. The complaint expressed by Lord Knutsford to Lord Derby in July about the G6B8 included gas treatment as an example of how the organization was ﬂawed.102 Criticism appeared in the press, too.103 The criticism about the G6B8’s ineffectiveness contained some truth. The frequently changing suggestions for treatment in the pamphlets, along with the wide range of options, showed that the medical world sought effective cures everywhere. The head of the G6B8 preferred to “secur[e] a high level of uniformity of method and procedure through the medical services. At the same time, however, he was anxious not to hamper initiative, and the rigid prescription of medical treatments was avoided.”104 The clear caveats about the unknown efﬁcacy of treatments and the range of medications permitted revealed that the consulting physicians and physiologists were well aware of the limits of their knowledge and of their suggestions. The January SS lists numerous treatments of doubtful use for victims of lung-irritant gases. The authors carefully noted, “Subcutaneous injection of oxygen has proved valueless, neither have efforts to introduce oxygen intravenously met with any success.” Later, a comment about administering atropine says that it “has been used under the impression that it will relieve bronchial spasm and check the output of oedema ﬂuid. There is, however, no clear evidence that it has any beneﬁcial action.” Thus, the open call to doctors at the front to record their observations and send in their data so new information could be gleaned and compared illustrated the keenness of the crème de la crème of the G6B8’s

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The Scientiﬁc Divide

advisors to increase the information at their disposal and to provide working cures.105 Only then would the reputation and the expert status of the medical profession be justiﬁed and miserable patients be helped in the gas war. The debate about appropriate medications illustrates how much the doctors experimented and how little they knew at the beginning. Even in , the treatment section of SS discussed the possible uses of ammonia, atropine, brandy, caffeine, camphor, oxygen, morphia, aspirin, phanacetin, strychnine, and digitalis. Many of these were dismissed, but others, such as the simple administration of brandy, remained as recommended drugs.106 The bloodletting, or venesection, debate also demonstrates the desperation with which physicians sought solutions to the dilemma of chemically induced wounds. Although bleeding had been in doctors’ arsenal from ancient through Victorian times, it had faded in popularity and respect by . To recall it to use, even as a treatment of last resort, meant that doctors were willing to try anything to save their patients. The guides offered caveats about its effectiveness and suggested it be used under limited circumstances, but it appeared repeatedly in the repertoire of likely treatments to try. A postwar history written by the G6B8 explained that it was “a useful means to lessen acute venous engorgement caused by the failure of the heart or obstruction to the circulation through the lungs.”107 Even if it merely gave the sufferer relief rather than actually helped him, it was worth trying.108 In contrast, oxygen therapy offered a modern approach. By working with companies such as Salvus to develop, manufacture, and supply units with oxygen sets, the consulting physicians and physiologists, particularly the latter, were able to offer a novel approach to treatment. The goal was to replace the “deﬁciency” of oxygen that resulted from lung-irritant gases.109 This technique required special equipment and the control of difﬁcult-to-manage gases. Guides suggested oxygen therapy at least as often as and frequently with more conﬁdence than bloodletting.110 The new method was not eagerly accepted or used by frontline doctors, however; other options, more familiar or easier to apply, existed. Others proposed that research-oriented physiologists, not patient-focused clinical physicians, championed oxygen therapy, and thus doctors were unlikely to adopt it.111 A simpler but likely explanation is practicality. Regulations ordered oxygen sets to be stationed at various sites so that they would be available for use when needed, especially for mine rescue operations and carbon monoxide poisoning.112 However, considering that shortages always occur in war and that supplies of food, let alone medical

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goods, were erratic at times, it was likely that oxygen tanks were not reliably placed where or resupplied when ofﬁcials ordered them or where they were needed. As one soldier, Lieutenant Berber, noted, “The oxygen was supplied in cylinders of two sizes, ﬁve cubic feet and twenty cubic feet respectively; [some of] the former . . . were empty in less than minutes. The larger size lasted about minutes.”113 That was not a long time. If oxygen supplies were not dependable, why should doctors turn to oxygen as a ﬁrst or frequent choice of therapy, regardless of efﬁcacy?114 Summary of Scientiﬁc Efforts During the war, the frontline physicians, with the help of experiments conducted in London, developed a range of treatments, some of which seemed to work on gas victims. This was particularly true for primary treatment steps, such as enforcing rest to prevent heart attacks in phosgene patients and rapidly removing clothing of mustard gas cases to halt burning of ﬂesh.115 It is hard to assess how effective other treatments were. Fortunately, the agencies responsible for antigas measures were outstanding. The defensive sections constantly improved helmets to make them more useful against current gases as well as toxins predicted to be used by the enemy in the future. The military prevented some gas injuries, and perhaps lessened the severity of others, by requiring soldiers to practice diligent antigas measures and helmet drills.116 All of these steps probably helped doctors by reducing the number of serious cases they had to treat, in spite of the fact that each year of the war saw increasing amounts of gas used on the Western Front.117 Even so, the physicians’ effort was impressive and their approach should not be blamed for their failures to diagnose and treat gas victims reliably. Military doctors reacted like the professionals they were, although they were researching their scientiﬁc problems under chaotic, real-life rather than controlled laboratory conditions. They treated each other and were treated by the military largely as specialists; their authority over their area of knowledge was recognized, even if frustration abounded because of their occasionally slow progress or gaps in the data they collected. This group of professionals, most of them temporary soldiers, contributed their skills as well as their time to the war effort; they served as medical scientists who cooperated with other segments of society in a national emergency. They did not lose their identity as experts even as they donned khaki in the military world. They adapted to some unavoidable aspects of military life, even compromising their proce-

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| The Scientiﬁc Divide

dures regarding evacuation, but they were not subsumed in, nor dominated by, the army. They proved innovative in confronting new ailments. The booklets also showed the effort the medical branch of the army made to learn and communicate among its members. Drawing on civilian consultants to draft, print, and distribute pamphlets illustrated a clear commitment to educate and upgrade the G6B8. These steps required approval by doctors and the military professionals. Both groups integrated their efforts to maximize the physicians’ effectiveness, but also to coordinate separate groups into one army and war effort. They learned to communicate with as well as among each other. Yet gas threatened doctors’ identity as professionals when they failed to ﬁnd consistently successful and simply administered treatments. In civilian life, they had achieved their status as experts not only because of the methods they used to solve problems, but because they healed successfully; in the war, they were often unable to cure or reliably identify the problem. The failure to provide miracles, unlike the research scientists who built Britain’s chemical industry in wartime and then led her to a position as a dominant country in that ﬁeld, meant that doctors did not enjoy the same growth in prestige that chemists did. The physicians had an almost impossible task. They had to react to developments in offensive chemical weapons; they were always playing catch-up, unlike the research scientists. They may not have lost credibility—at least not much—among the public regarding the quality of medical wartime work as a whole, but they were not able to seize the opportunities that the war offered them to display their skills successfully during the gas crisis. Chemical warfare scientists thus gained from the war experience, while physicians did not. Both were aware of the dangers of the new weapon and strove to apply their professional skills to combat it or wield it for the British side. Because of the manner in which poison gas tested each profession’s skills, scientists proved more successful than physicians in working with and responding to it. The fact that research scientists were able to approach their work, for the most part, in a familiar way on the home front—consulting colleagues, remaining in universities—may have helped. That physicians applying the ideas conceived of by medical consultants in London were working in chaotic conditions on the battlefront did not help them. Neither doctors nor chemists saw gas as a barbaric horror, though. Both groups had hands-on experience of some sort with it and looked at it through

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the lens of professionals tackling a challenge. They could narrow their focus on the scientiﬁc aspects of gas, using their training to provide a framework within which to understand it. In addition, they had some control over the kind of interactions they had with gas, and it is a general psychological principle that control often eliminates anxiety. Another group of civilian experts, industrialists, also found gas to be a part of their job, and a manageable aspect of the war, rather than one of its frightening terrors. However, their perceptions of gas were those of businessmen, not scientists, and thus they deﬁned a “good” gas war very differently.

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. Whose Business Is It? Dilemmas in the Gas Industry

On the home front, British chemical industrialists immersed themselves in the gas war by manufacturing toxins and respirators developed by scientists. Intimately involved in the specialized work, businessmen in this ﬁeld, like the research chemists and physicians, developed a respect for the dangers of gas but were not overwhelmed by its terrors. Practical experience demonstrated that factory workers could be injured or killed from gas accidents, but these could be reduced through careful workplace protocols and factory construction. Besides, the dangers were not new. Before , the chemical industry routinely produced dangerous compounds, such as the chlorine that made up the ﬁrst wartime gas. The new threat for gas manufacturers came from their need to build up their industry to meet the government’s demands while not becoming overwhelmed by regulations. Private business was still private business; much as research scientists wanted to maintain their professional identity despite their immersion in government work, factory owners wanted to maintain sovereignty over their companies. Overall they were successful, but balancing their needs against those of the government shaped industrialists’ experiences in the gas war and their perceptions of the new weapon. The government itself did not want to nationalize the chemical industry, nor did it want to threaten the long-term independence of the businesses involved; it merely wanted to ensure that businesses manufactured goods as quickly, safely, and accurately as possible to meet the demands of the war. At the same time, owners recognized the beneﬁts of cooperating with the government and tolerating some regulation; after all, they wanted to produce goods efﬁciently to maximize proﬁts and to win the war. There were tensions in the government-industrialist relationship, therefore, but, in the end, manageable ones.

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Dilemmas in the Gas Industry

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The story of industry’s participation in the gas war began long before World War I started. Britain had earned her reputation as the great, enduring merchant nation in the two centuries before . She was not only the preeminent imperial power of that era, whose ﬁnanciers and companies invested abroad in global markets; she was also the “nation of shopkeepers” whose commercial class traded proﬁtably at home.1 As the world changed, she began to lose her market position to Germany and the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. She even trailed behind the more recently industrializing nations at times; she particularly grew dependent on German chemical products.2 Compounding this vulnerability, Britain, along with other nations, endured difﬁcult times at home in an era of strikes and socialism in the early twentieth century. During World War I, however, British industry—with the help of the government and its agents—rose to the challenges produced by the hostilities and played a critical role in the successful national efforts to win the conﬂict. In fact, the government and its deputies often took the leadership role in meeting the needs of wartime production.3 The industrial arena of – was not the same one that produced Britain’s wealth and power during previous eras. Instead, this was a ﬁeld transformed by the conﬂict. Demands for goods speciﬁcally needed for battle, such as gas masks and munitions, and those that now had to be produced domestically rather than imported, such as dyes and aspirin, altered the products some factories manufactured. The war frequently caused changes in customers and the scales of production. For example, the demand for liquid chlorine increased as both the government and commercial buyers ordered it.4 In the quest for increasing numbers of guns, uniforms, and the like, the government, instead of stores and individuals, purchased the output of certain companies. John Bell, Hills & Lucas, for instance, discontinued its prewar chemical work and became a premier manufacturer of gas masks.5 In addition to adapting to changes in commodities, the new wartime needs meant that shortages in time, supplies, and skilled labor required industries to adopt new processes for selecting manufacturers, for producing goods, and even for reporting proﬁts to shareholders. At times businessmen worked without contracts, university scientists suggested new formulas to factory managers, and annual reports refused to divulge the status of the company to stockholders in the interests of producing, secretly and quickly, needed war materials under wartime regulations.6 This was an era when the British government grew in an unprecedented fashion both in size and in the extent to

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which it involved itself in affairs previously considered part of the private, rather than public, sector.7 This intervention was expressed, for example, in food rationing and in the press. Even industry fell under the supervision of increasing numbers of national agencies, such as the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Munitions.8 Through all the changes, industry, and those who managed or owned the elements of it, often proﬁted from the war. The government spent with relative abandon to equip armies and protect the nation. This was particularly true in industries that produced war products, whether army uniforms, government rations, or weapons. That is all part of a well-known story, as are some of the problems industry faced with respect to labor, such as strikes, resistance to dilution, a shortage of skilled labor because so many men were drafted, and an increased demand for war materials.9 The chemical industry, a portion of which supplied poison gas and defensive equipment, faced many of these dilemmas, too, particularly once the gas war began in . This industrial sector also produced elements of conventional weapons, such as ICI, and goods used for civilian purposes, such as bleaching powder. Although not all chemical manufacturing was dedicated to gas, the poison war’s industrial partners almost all fell within the chemical industry.10 The supply of gas during World War I, therefore, centered on the chemical industry. In a study of the contributors to poison gas production, it is important to recognize the coincidence in the timing between the acknowledgment of a shell shortage crisis around May and the opening of the gas war in April .11 These events raised the stakes in the battle to provide the army with sufﬁcient and up-to-date munitions. In this atmosphere, Britain founded the Ministry of Munitions under David Lloyd George’s supervision. Characterized by an iconoclastic attitude and a mission to produce the needed goods, the Ministry abandoned established avenues of production as well as traditional means of organizing government bureaucracies. It fearlessly stepped on the toes of other agencies by taking over some of their roles and willingly integrated new scientiﬁc experts into its hierarchy. It was a particularly active ministry, and a successful one. To achieve its goals, the Ministry beseeched industries to produce. It also dominated the companies at times; it invaded previously sacred private turf with government controls that essentially took over managerial responsibility of businesses according to authorizations provided under the Munitions of War Act.12 The government

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ordered outside medical and scientiﬁc inspections of facilities, workers, and products.13 Of course, the industries were not exploited ruthlessly; they, too, received some beneﬁts from fulﬁlling the Ministry of Munitions’ and the war’s needs, mainly orders and often proﬁts. In an effort to ensure the space needed to make the required items, the government offered ﬁnancial aid in building expanded plants, suggestions for new formulas and production processes, and advice regarding the protection of labor from occupational illnesses.14 Sometimes the government intervention had the additional beneﬁt of removing friction between managers and labor; in controlled industries the government, rather than the private owners, handled labor relations.15 Industrialists and employees also demonstrated patriotic behavior that satisﬁed their desires to help the nation and looked to their postwar interests by winning the admiration of their peacetime customers for their wartime activities.16 To meet Britain’s wartime needs, therefore, the methods by which the industry worked changed in many ways. One common result was that the lines of authority blurred. No longer was the private sector—in the guise of shareholders, individual industrialists, and private-sector companies—kept almost completely separate from the government; now the government (and those scientists and physicians it integrated into the process) began to inﬂuence the shape of companies. However, the leaders, both from the government and the private sector, shared the goals of winning the war and greeting the postwar era with a strong British chemical industry. Their interests, though, were not uniform. Industrialists, for instance, were not completely altruistic; they were also concerned for the health of their particular company after victory. The government needed to produce gas regardless of cost, yet with limited funds. How much would industrialists cooperate, and how much would outsiders participate, as they all struggled to achieve a common goal producing needed weapons to win the war? Because manufacturing usually involves interaction among various parties, an examination of the chemical weaponry business requires a study of these relationships. Two examples, the creation of jellite, one of the poison gases developed in World War I, and the medical supervision of factories, illuminate the relationships in the wartime poison gas industry among the government, industrialists, and employees. The story of jellite production, a cyanide-based poison gas (discussed in chapter from a different perspective), illustrates the government’s impact on industrialists and decisions nor-

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mally made by management. It includes three major steps in the production process: the decision to make a chemical, preparations to manufacture it, and the process of actually making the poison gas. On the other hand, the tale of Dr. Frank Shufﬂebotham’s medical supervision of factories for the Trench Warfare Supply Department reveals the motivations for government creation of a system to analyze, react to, and prevent occupational casualties.17 More important, it illustrates the intervention of the Ministry of Munitions and its consultants into the lives of workers in the chemical industry and the degree of supervision the government could impose on businesses. Between the two examples, it is clear how different groups, despite their own interests, cooperated to provide Britain with needed tools of war. The demands and pressures that gas placed on the British chemical industry (the portion of it that became the British poison gas sector) were not unique among British businesses during –. However, gas offers a window into this world and a vantage point from which to examine not only problems common to British enterprise but also dilemmas particular to the poison gas industry. Chemical weapons had to be developed as quickly as possible; Britain had to catch up with the unexpected German proﬁciency in armaments and learn how to defend her soldiers against the poisons. Even more challenging, these new tools had to be invented; nothing like them had existed before and so there were no precedents on which industrialists and scientists could simply improve. Instead, they had to invent under the pressure of time. Because it is a narrow and distinct product, gas illuminates the choices and pressures at each stage of the production process and the roles of labor, business, and government. These groups worked toward the common goal of supplying needed goods for the war effort, but simultaneously each tried to further its own interests. The Production Story of One Weapon: Jellite The gas war was one of escalation and experimentation. It began with chemicals released from cylinders, progressed to lachrymatory compounds launched in shells, and ﬁnally resulted in lethal poisons ﬁred by artillery; the army increased the power of its deployment mechanisms and the strength of its gases as the war continued. When Britain escalated the gas war, she did so after great thought and scientiﬁc advances. One of the most vivid examples of this was the debate over the decision to introduce a prussic acid mixture to the arsenal. Why was this chemical in particular so controversial? Gas itself had a

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horrible reputation, but prussic acid had a heinous one as a poison even before its transformation into a potential weapon. One of the components of prussic acid is cyanide, and thus prussic acid has long been known as an almost instantaneous and inevitably fatal poison. Even to scientists immersed in the gas war, it was “a poison which has always appealed to the popular mind as peculiarly deadly and outside of the usages of civilised warfare. The throwing of Vitriol is on the same moral plane.”18 It could be argued, therefore, that a chemical weapon based on cyanide would create an armament that could not be surpassed for power and depravity. It would be a staggering weapon. Did Britain really want to escalate the gas war to that level, or even take responsibility for using this unparalleled poison? Eventually, in the British army requested a prussic acid compound in the hope that its use would assist the military in breaking through German lines. Later that year the government ﬁnally approved, after the rumor mill hinted that the German army was making preparations to use the poison.19 The choice to produce this gas, therefore, rested with the state and not the private companies that manufactured most of Britain’s chemicals. However, prussic acid not only provoked controversy as men debated producing it; it also proved to be one of the more challenging chemical toxins to manufacture. Sometimes the government had a difﬁcult time developing the proper formula to turn a chemical into a stable yet dangerous poison gas. At other times, factories struggled to acquire the supplies or labor they needed. Prussic acid offered both kinds of complications. The production process also illustrated the main tensions and the many parties involved at different phases in chemical production during World War I. The story of prussic acid began with dilemmas in preparing the industry to make the gas and then progressed to problems actually producing it. The Decision to Make Prussic Acid Because Germany introduced gas and was commonly believed to have committed other atrocities, it seemed sensible to many in Britain to expect the enemy to use prussic acid at some point. It would be in character, after all. In fact, the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee drafted a report dated February , , entitled “The Possible Use of Prussic Acid . . . by the Germans.” So sure were the scientists that they felt it necessary in this memo to explain all the reasons why the enemy had failed to use the poison yet. Because Germany had the supplies to produce more of it than Britain could, Germany

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could win a war of attrition using prussic acid. The British scientists on the Chemical Advisory Committee, examining this conundrum, put forth several reasons for the foe’s restraint. They wondered whether the Germans had not been able to discover a formula that made the prussic acid gas “stable, so that it will not decompose during storage, or when subjected to shock, such as detonation or fall from an airship.” They rejected this because many “stabilisers” existed. Or perhaps the Germans had found more powerful gases, though British investigators decided that “it would not be safe to rely upon this.” The Germans might be waiting for a good time to use the gas; they might not want to tarnish their reputation any further by escalating the gas war themselves with such a disliked weapon. In support of this, the British scientiﬁc committee noted that the enemy did worry about its reputation and had tried to justify its use of gas at Ypres so as to avoid global censure. Finally, the Germans might be ready to use prussic acid but were waiting until they could shock Allied troops and thus introduce it most effectively.20 After all, surprise was a basic element of gas tactics and one of the reasons the ﬁrst German chemical offensive was so successful.21 In conclusion, the scientists feared Germany was, indeed, planning to use prussic acid and, to make matters worse, probably intended to do so against civilians. As a result, they suggested that “[Britain] should prepare to reply to it by accumulating, as quickly as possible, a supply. . . . We should not take the ﬁrst step in their use nor should we employ them until the supply is adequate.”22 Britain had to be ready to retaliate in kind. It was hard to follow through on that recommendation, though. Pure prussic acid could not be used as a weapon; it had to be converted into a compound that, like other gases, could be released from a distance. It was not easy to discover a mixture that would be lethal to the enemy, could be transported and stored safely, and could be deployed effectively.23 In addition, industrialists needed to be able to regularly and reliably acquire the compound’s ingredients, despite the war shortages. British scientists needed to develop a formula that could meet all of these needs. In fact, although the navy had begun to investigate and even produce a prussic acid compound in , the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee, responsible for suggesting viable new gases for the army, did not notice its potential until March . At that time, although the government did not permit lethal shells, General Jackson’s scientists thought that the military would soon need some. Scientists had heard the rumors that the Germans were

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about to use prussic acid; these may have been only horror stories, but the rumors circulated and terriﬁed listeners. As a result, the scientists continued their experiments in search of a viable form of prussic acid, one that was stable and effective, in case the order ever came to manufacture it.24 The approval for the new gas ﬁnally came approximately three months after scientists began their work. By June , , though, the War Committee had authorized factories only “to ﬁll shell with Jellite [a version of prussic acid] for storage purposes.”25 Then, on June , the War Committee approved the policy to deploy the new chemical, and the next month the Army Council approved the actual use of the lethal shell.26 To produce the new weapon in sufﬁcient quantities, the chemists had to know how to concoct the gas. The Ministry’s scientists experimented with various versions of prussic acid compounds before ﬁnding satisfactory formulas. During this process, one of the basic dilemmas was to decide what kind of cyanide to use in the new gas: potassium cyanide or, because it was more plentiful, sodium cyanide.27 This was a crucial concern because many of the production delays were due to obstacles in providing factories with the ingredients and other materials they needed.28 In the end, several different forms of prussic acid gases developed, some created by the army and others by the navy and the French.29 Preparing for Production Producing chemicals made speciﬁcally for the war was challenging, but the process was even more complex when the formulas and manufacturing methods had been developed before the war for commercial purposes by private companies. Although this was not a serious problem when making jellite, it was a problem when making liquid chlorine and other gases; it was a critical element of the production process and necessary to understand when examining the chemical industry.30 Companies were eager to help the war effort, but they did not want to do so at too great a cost to themselves; they feared the government would release their trade secrets to the competition. Sometimes this did in fact occur, because the military demanded greater quantities of a chemical than one company could produce. At that point, the Ministry of Munitions, with varying degrees of pressure, would urge one business to offer its formulas and inside knowledge to another producer. The government body even resorted to the far-reaching Defence of the Realm Act,

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which empowered the government to do almost anything, from closing pubs to censoring the press to, in this case, compelling the sharing of intellectual property. In return, companies might protest these demands or include protective clauses in contracts to safeguard their formulas as much as possible.31 They were concerned that their industrial opponents would start the postwar era with unfair advantages because of the trade secrets they had learned during the conﬂict.32 The debate over trade secrets demonstrates the dilemma faced by industrialists as they weighed their patriotism against their dislike of government interference and their reluctance to hinder their own business interests. For both new and well-known chemicals, the actual authorization to produce a particular gas had to come from the military and the War Ofﬁce, but manufacturing it was the responsibility of the Ministry of Munitions. This division of authority increased the complexity of the supply process and could lead to production delays. The army, for example, might not give enough notice to the Ministry for the latter to organize and have factories manufacture enough jellite. In other cases, the military might simply change its mind, leaving the Ministry in possession of unwanted poisons. This became even more confusing if, because of tactical or other needs, General Headquarters changed not only the types of chemicals they were requesting, but also the size of the shell they desired. For example, on July , , General Headquarters requested lethal shells, which the Army Council approved on the th. The poison gas would not be ready until the next month, though, because of the time required to manufacture the items. In another instance, the army decided that it needed thirty thousand .-inch, Howitzer -pounder, and .-inch shells divided “in ratio to to .” Four months later, it abandoned its order for .-inch shells.33 Because the manufacturing problems arose not only when making chemicals, but also when supplying shells, the potential changes were difﬁcult to predict.34 The result was tension between the military needs and industries’ production capabilities. To make matters worse, all too often the government bodies established to facilitate the supply of weapons, such as the Ministry of Munitions, instead hindered it with their masses of administrative red tape.35 Even when the military placed clear orders, the Ministry sometimes had to struggle to ﬁnd contractors willing to ﬁll them. Setting up a factory and training laborers to make a particular chemical was time-consuming and expensive. As a result, private businesses liked the ﬁnancial security of guar-

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anteed minimum orders. One Ministry report noted that in December “the Supply Department reported that it had failed to place orders with the trade [private companies] . . . partly owing to the smallness of the order. The Supply Department asked that the demand should be increased [from ﬁve hundred .-inch cast-iron lachrymatory shells a week], or made a standing order” to make it more attractive to manufacturers.36 Once again, the tension between serving the war effort and pleasing shareholders bedeviled the companies. Manufacturing Prussic Acid Many challenges arose during the ordering process, but the production of the chemicals offered its own problems: locating a supply of the ingredients, ﬁnding plant space, and solving sheer procedural problems. In peacetime, the challenge of acquiring ingredients needed in the manufacturing process would be the responsibility of industrialists to solve; after all, they contracted to make a product for a customer or perhaps even made it gambling that they could ﬁnd buyers. The rules of production changed during the war because there were shortages of so many ingredients. The government frequently took responsibility for deciding not only what goods should be made, but also whether manufacturers should get the necessary supplies. When making prussic acid compounds, cyanide was one of the most difﬁcult ingredients for the government to locate; the problem was that there was a limited supply and a compelling reason to use it for other purposes, namely, the mining of gold needed to ﬁnance the war. Without cyanide for the chemical industry, Great Britain might not be able to produce a gas with which to win the war—or at least keep up with German advances in weaponry. Yet, without enough cyanide for the Treasury, the country might not be able to fund the war effort. Furthermore, only one business, Cassell Cyanide Company, manufactured cyanide.37 A Ministry of Munitions study noted that all sodium cyanide available was “required for the Gold Industries in British Possessions and it may be taken that every ton of sodium cyanide withdrawn from this purpose represents a shortage of Gold production equal to £, sterling.”38 Britain mined an amount “estimated at fourteen million ounces per annum . . . requiring approximately , tons of high grade Sodium Cyanide.” The demand might increase since France also prioritized prussic acid compounds, and soon Britain would need to supply the French needs and their own.39 (By March they did so.)40 To ﬁnd a solution, Dr. Christopher Addison of

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the Ministry of Munitions convened a “small informal Committee” with C. Lubbock from the Bank of England, G. T. Davies from the Colonial Ofﬁce (since the gold mines were in lands under his jurisdiction), and Alexander Roger for the Ministry’s scientists.41 Private business was only one of many parties involved in the industrial process. In the immediate future, there was enough cyanide to go around because the mines had some stockpiled and the Ministry had some in hand.42 The group decided on a long-term solution with two prongs that managed to meet the needs of both the Ministry and the Treasury, while also enabling a sale of cyanide to France. Part of the answer was to build more factories that could make cyanide.43 This was one of the government’s typical solutions when facing chemical shortages. There was no question of reducing an order if the chemicals were needed for the war, so a way to increase production had to be found. The industries themselves were not averse to expanding; in the long run it could prove proﬁtable for them. A willingness by the government to help ﬁnance expansion of the plant, allotment of priority for supplies, and assistance in ﬁnding labor meant that the expenses could be met and some of the practical obstacles to growth solved.44 These agreements were of mutual beneﬁt to the government and the businesses. The other avenue was to follow the process of converting the compound sodium ferro cyanide, acquired from gas utility companies, into sodium cyanide, an ingredient needed in the prussic acid process.45 This procedure required that the Board of Trade add sodium ferro cyanide to the limited export list; selling it outside of Britain now required a license approved by the Chemical Supply Department.46 These decisions not only maximized the amount of cyanide available but also prevented the enemy from receiving any. The concern that Germany might want some was real; the authors of a memo from the Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee commented that the enemy had stopped exporting cyanide by February .47 In this example, not only were the Ministry of Munitions, additional government agencies, and the chemical industry engaged in discussions about poison gas production, but home gas utilities’ interests were at stake, too.48 Normally, the next step was to enter into contracts with one or more private manufacturers to produce the required chemicals according to a speciﬁc formula on a particular schedule. In hopes of serving their country and amassing proﬁts, companies willingly made agreements with the government.49 For the sake of producing the needed goods as quickly as possible, the govern-

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ment delegated the work to experts who already had the plant space, labor, and knowledge to produce the gases. At times these partnerships required only a small investment in the production process and facilities when compared with the alternative of starting from scratch. For instance, as discussed earlier, the government might have to provide a formula or even supplies to a private company; in other cases, it would have to invest in expansion or in new factories administered by existing companies.50 Although neither the government nor companies participated in the gas manufacturing process out of absolute altruism to assist the war effort or to support British industry, neither did either side concern itself only with proﬁt. For example, Castner-Kellner, one of the foundational companies of the gas industry, promised to produce experimental versions of mustard gas in April without expectation of proﬁt.51 The managers may have hoped to later win the contract to manufacture the mustard gas order, but they did contribute invaluably without any guarantee of reward. In fact, His Majesty’s plant at Avonmouth, not Castner-Kellner, became the main manufacturer once a formula had been chosen.52 On the negative side of these relationships, industrialists’ most frequent complaints were that, whether from inefﬁciency of negotiations with the government or lack of knowledge about particular terms of the order, circumstances arose that led companies to begin production without a ﬁnal, signed agreement.53 An ofﬁcial report by Maj. Harold Moreland on the subject noted, “In many cases, it was impossible for even an approximate estimate to be formed, but a provisional sum, which was not to be exceeded, was generally given as an approximation of the undertaking to be carried out.”54 In one case, two years passed before the parties signed a contract.55 The companies were not always gracious; they blamed the Ministry for the delays, some of which were due to red tape, such as inconsistent policies, in which bureaucracy became ensnared.56 It is understandable, though, that industrialists accustomed to decisive negotiations between businessmen would become frustrated. This was particularly true in an era when the government’s regulations and inefﬁciencies meant that companies also had to rely on the Ministry’s priorities and permission to get needed supplies, often producing delays before they received the items required to produce the gases.57 The production process was simpler when the Ministry used a government factory to produce a particular gas. When manufacturing jellite, for example,

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private hands provided the cyanide to a government-owned factory that made the ﬁnal product.58 However, there was only one suitable factory for manufacturing jellite, and the Admiralty controlled it. It agreed to make the chemical for the Ministry, but soon negotiations with the navy over access and control foundered on intragovernmental rivalry. The frustrations that resulted from the army’s dependence on an inefﬁcient factory and the need for more jellite than that plant could produce led the Ministry to engage in contracts to build more jellite workshops. That decision occurred after a long struggle with the navy. The Admiralty had begun to produce prussic acid compounds at a factory in Stratford before the Ministry of Munitions even awoke to the possibilities of the new poison. By August , , though, the Ministry had begun the process of asking the Admiralty to help it manufacture jellite for the army at the Stratford plant.59 However, though the naval service did not even know what to do with all of its own supplies of the compound, it did not want to give up control of its factory. The navy thought that it might need prussic acid for its own use in the future, and at the moment it needed the plant as a laboratory.60 In the meantime, the Admiralty offered to share any jellite produced as long as it did not need the gas itself; this mimicked the British policy to give France sodium cyanide as long as she herself did not require it.61 However, since even the total output of Stratford would not produce enough jellite for the Ministry to ﬁll the army’s order, the Chemical Advisory Committee wanted the navy to “treble the present plant.”62 These were not the only problems with the intragovernmental arrangement. Although the navy did agree to produce jellite for the army, it did so inefﬁciently; the Ministry repeatedly complained about this. In a memo documenting his frustration, Deputy Director General E. V. Haigh of the Trench Warfare Supply Department (ILH9) ranted: We [the ILH9] ﬁnd that statistics relating to the running of the factory, the consumption of chemicals, the working costs etc. etc. which would be of the utmost value to us are inaccessible or at least difﬁcult of access under present conditions. We are also unable to maintain the records of consumption of raw materials which, especially in view of the scarcity of some of the materials, are of great importance in the management of our supplies. It is exceedingly difﬁcult to understand the attitude of the Admiralty in connection with this factory. Chemical warfare is assuming great importance in the land operations but would seem to be comparatively unim-

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portant to the Navy. The raw materials used in the factory are supplied by the Ministry, the shell are ﬁlled on behalf of the Ministry and used by the Army and it appears that even some of the labour has been supplied by the Ministry. The work of the factory is part of a big problem which is in the hands of the Ministry i.e. that of poison gas research and manufacture, and yet the valuable experience gained in the running of the factory is denied to the Department responsible for the whole problem.63

The results were further attempts by the Ministry to take control of the factory.64 Before the situation was clariﬁed by a June , , meeting, this time at the top level between Alexander Roger, the director general of trench warfare supply, and Sir Edward Carson at the Admiralty, the Ministry’s frustration with the Admiralty had deepened.65 Eventually, the fruitless struggles to ensure that Stratford manufactured jellite consistently led the Ministry of Munitions to conclude that they would have to commission two additional factories. One of them was to supplement the Stratford production, and Gas Light & Coke Co. at Beckton agreed to build space and supply sixty tons a week.66 The navy, speciﬁcally Sir Edward Carson, offered his assistance in this endeavor in an effort to ease tensions between the Ministry and the Admiralty.67 Over the next few months it became clear that the Ministry’s decision to build its own plants had indeed been necessary. The original set of problems had been compounded by new ones: slowness and poor record keeping at Stratford and the navy’s growing need for toxic chemicals. Roger wrote to the minister of munitions on June , , “I ascertained that although the total staff at Stratford could have been only or a few months ago, mainly engaged in our work, the staff . . . now amounts to of which only are engaged in Ministry work.”68 Even if Stratford had been efﬁcient and there had been good relations between the Admiralty and the Ministry, the navy could not have produced enough jellite for its own needs and those of the army. Ironically, though, after desperate struggles to ﬁnd a viable form of prussic acid, to receive approval to produce and use it, and then to manufacture enough of it, the army’s priorities changed with the German introduction of mustard gas in July . “Persistent gases,” those that lingered as opposed to those whose primary purpose was to kill, became desirable. In addition, new tests determined that prussic acid compounds could not be delivered in sufﬁciently lethal combinations.69 As mentioned in chapter , Joseph Barcroft demonstrated that dogs were poor test subjects for this gas because they were

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more vulnerable to it than humans were.70 As a result, the Ministry canceled the program for the jellite compounds, leaving the factories for it half-built, and soon focused on mustard gas, the most sophisticated chemical in World War I.71 The story of jellite was ﬁlled with struggles, but ended anticlimactically in Britain.72 France remained enamored of this chemical, though, and continued to use it.73 For those parties manufacturing poison gases during World War I, chemical warfare created a situation in which private business and government had to renegotiate their mutual responsibilities. Traditionally, the British government supported merchants and occasionally regulated them. During the war, companies certainly contributed to the war effort and were glad to do so for reasons of both proﬁt and patriotism. However, to a limited extent they submerged their identities as private businesses. The government drove the production process, unlike in peacetime. This change resulted not from a shift in policy regarding private business, but from the emergency of the war. The crisis required temporary changes in the economy. Yet this could not be done solely by force of laws such as the Munitions of War Act; the government needed private businesses’ willing cooperation so that it could take advantage of their expertise and manufacture gases as rapidly as possible. The common goal of making poison gas for the army required a new relationship among those parties who struggled to supply the military’s needs. Workers’ Health and Mustard Gas Up to this point the story has centered on industrialists and their relationship to the government in the war effort, but the production of gas depended on workers. Before the war, manufacturers and their employees frequently endured strained relationships. Among other stresses, Britain’s increasingly threatened global economic position led to concerns about foreign trade, while socialist movements and strikes among workers caused domestic fears. Memories of these prewar difﬁculties remained alive during the war. Adding to them during the conﬂict were pressures on the industrialists to keep plants working, sometimes at higher levels of productivity than during peacetime; this required skilled personnel working at a faster pace or additional employees. Yet the army’s need for manpower threatened the owners’ pool of skilled workers. Reserved occupational status protected some of these men. Even so,

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the government and many employers had to push a policy of dilution, whereby female workers entered the workforce to temporarily replace skilled male workers. This was neither a one-to-one substitution nor permanent; still, it conﬂicted with the normal gender assignments for work and, in skilled male employees’ eyes, threatened their status and employment security. What if less skilled, often lower paid women could replace them? What if all of the prewar labor struggles had been in vain? Out of a desire to avoid industrial strife and to enhance productivity, the government assured workers of the emergency nature of dilution with a fair degree of success. That is a wellknown story of labor during World War I.74 Gas industries, however, in addition to the problem of retaining employees, also struggled with protecting workers from illnesses and injuries caused by chemicals. Just as soldiers could be injured or killed during accidents occurring while they transported or installed gas, workers could be hurt producing chemicals or ﬁlling shells and cylinders. In some ways the factory could be more dangerous than the front lines because the concentration of gas was greater.75 Most of the manufacturing process occurred indoors, without the beneﬁt of the battlefront’s natural ventilation to blow away toxic fumes. In addition, employees worked with the dangerous substances all day and every day, unlike any of the soldiers, even those in the Special Brigade. This was such a concern that a Ministry of Munitions conference on mustard gas included a discussion about the available industrial manpower. Military and scientiﬁc experts wondered whether the “elderly man between and , generally of Grade [ﬁtness] . . . [or] woman and girl labour” would be heartier and better able to withstand the rigors of potentially frequent exposure to the chemicals; participants leaned toward the latter group.76 The government recognized the threat and acted once industries began production of lethal gases on a large scale in .77 Early in the gas war, though, the government had not been very concerned about workers’ safety; in general, the private sector still monitored itself. The rapid rise and growth of the poison gas industry meant that there was little time in which to establish safety measures. It did not seem urgent, either, when workers concentrated on lachrymatory and not fatal gases.78 The emergency of the war meant that the priority was on production, not on worker protection. After all, female workers turned yellow from ICI, but that did not halt the production process.79 In notes for a history on “Gas and Chemical Supplies,” Miss F. M. G. Micklethwait noted both the danger and the toleration of chemicals that

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the workers of Hammersmith Distillery Company in June endured. They “deserve . . . special recognition in that it [their work] was carried out at the cost of intense pain, discomfort, and in some cases real injury to workers. It must be remembered that in those days there were no specially planned factories . . . [and other forms of protection]; and that these workers . . . cheerfully faced each day an atmosphere impregnated with these poisonous sulphur gases the potency of which was enhanced by admixture with the active constituent of cayenne pepper.”80 The industry did not completely ignore the issue of worker risk. Some chemicals, such as chlorine, had been produced before the war and thus businesses already knew how to take appropriate measures, such as providing gas masks, to protect employees handling those substances.81 More complex and novel gas compounds required stricter precautions and, before they could be instituted, studies to determine how best to protect workers and how to treat those injured. This is where Dr. Frank Shufﬂebotham gained his authority. Shufﬂebotham was an expert on industrial medicine, such a specialist in fact that the Royal Society urged his appointment as “special medical adviser” for munitions production in July .82 Nine months later his title became medical consultant to the Department for Chemical Factories.83 His mission was to be “responsible for administering and supervising all medical and health conditions at the factories where chemicals were made and charged, as well as at those ﬁlling factories where trench warfare projectiles were loaded with explosives.”84 This project, of course, included the poison gas industry as well as producers of ICI and other chemical components of conventional weapons. He found that the risks were great for labor. In a report on an arsenious chloride factory, he concluded that “workpeople employed . . . are exposed to great dangers from this poisoning, and that although apparently they may have enjoyed good health . . . toxic changes are going on in their various organs which must eventually result in grave illness, if they continue in this employment under the same conditions.”85 As part of his new mission to supervise employees’ health, Shufﬂebotham appointed some medical ofﬁcers associated with the Welfare and Health Department of the Ministry and gained authority over others that industrialists themselves had hired to comply with a Factory Act promulgated before the war.86 He and his staff educated medical ofﬁcers on the special needs of treating and protecting gas patients and potential patients. In return, the ofﬁcers inspected and would receive accident reports from the factories.87

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The motivation, as noted in the History of the Ministry of Munitions, was the result of “interests of humanity as well as of output. . . . The prevention of casualties in the workshops stood second only to the prevention of casualties in the ﬁeld; i.e., manufacture was continued under unsatisfactory conditions only when immediate output was considered of primary importance to the success and morale of the army.”88 The reality belies this explanation; the priority was actually output rather than humanity. Still, the government’s agents did want to protect workers. Taking advantage of the gathered data, the physicians involved in this project consulted one another as they might in peacetime and as they did on the front lines. For example, Dr. Thomas Smith corresponded with Dr. Shufﬂebotham regarding “a curious case” at the Calder Vale Munitions Works. An employee, F. Brooke, became ill. In his report Smith graphically described his condition, which included “gasping in short sharp gasps[,] . . . pulse , colour of lips scarlet,” and treatment (“hot bottles[,] etc.”). He announced that his investigation had found the patient’s work area to be gas-free, and then Smith asked his question: “Is this a case of Picric Acid poisoning or simply neurosis?”89 Basing his response on experience with other patients, Shufﬂebotham concluded that it was a chemically induced illness. He suggested blood and urine tests, expressed a willingness to offer further help if necessary, and asked that Smith let him know the results.90 (Unfortunately, there is no record of the outcome in the ﬁle.) Clearly, one of the beneﬁts of the new, centralized scheme for industrial medicine was that experts could easily contact one another and that a base of knowledge about new injuries could be formed. The factories themselves had not done this; in fact, “as late as July, , no exhaustive information as to the amount of sickness among the employees engaged in the manufacture of H @ (also known as thyliodoacetate, an irritant and toxic tear gas) was available, since the factory, the Cassell Cyanide Company, where it was made had no recognized medical ofﬁcer.”91 Yet to enable doctors to consult and compile statistics meant increasing the intrusiveness of the government into the worker-employee relationship by adding physicians whose authority came from the government, not the private sector—all in the name of producing munitions for a public war effort. Even so, the relationship between the physicians and the government’s Trench Warfare Supply Department was not always smooth. While the latter wanted copies of accident reports in order to keep up to date, Shufﬂebotham

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was not always welcome in turn to sit with the scientists and military men on the Chemical Warfare Committee.92 Gen. Henry Thuillier, president of the ILH9, wanted to keep the scientiﬁc body “as small in number as possible”; besides, Shufﬂebotham already sat on the Chemical Warfare Medical Committee.93 He received reports about the issues that were most relevant to him, even if he was not informed about the larger picture. As a specialist he received respect from the Ministry, but only within his area of expertise. Using the authority they did have, Shufﬂebotham and his colleagues based their program on the precedents in the prewar Factory Acts and, in particular, the Workmen’s Compensation Act of .94 These laws formed an intellectual basis for plans to prevent injury and to compensate disabled workers; however, they did not prescribe ways to protect employees from new threats of poison gas chemicals nor cover new diseases arising from these novel materials.95 One of the difﬁculties was that insurance companies would require full disclosure of the details of an accident; national security prevented that.96 Yet the current compensation plan was not fair. As it stood, each company treated injured workers differently, and there was some fear that workers took advantage of generous policies. For example, the Sneyd Bycar Company decided that tardy workers sometimes claimed illness to excuse their late arrivals; this way they could avoid penalties and even receive compensation.97 Closer examination of the Workmen’s Compensation Act demonstrated that, like most laws, it was a complex document. The terms encouraged workers to remain out of work for at least a week in order to trigger employer liability for payments to disabled workers. In addition, certain diseases, those on the “schedule,” resulted in automatic compensation for victims. Most poison gases, however, and the illnesses they caused, had not been included on the latest schedule; workmen’s compensation did not protect these victims. Another problems was that, “in the case of a large escape of gas it is possible . . . for workpeople not engaged in the actual processes of manufacture of these gases to contract illness due to gas poisoning [in a large factory in which only some employees work on gases], and, further, people who live in the immediate vicinity of these factories may be gassed in exactly the same way.”98 Shufﬂebotham’s solution was simple: “I think it is reasonable that all workers in these dangerous processes should have a guarantee that they receive compensation in case of disablement. Considering that the number of factories where these gases are made is comparatively small, and that all are under

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government control, it seems that this suggestion could be easily carried out without putting into operation the machinery of adding new diseases to the Schedule of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, which might take considerable time.”99 Speciﬁcally, he suggested that disability wages equal half of the average wage, up to £, when a worker missed two or more days of work. This would ensure that the workers received a meaningful portion of their salaries, and yet the total amounts should not be detrimental to the Treasury. In addition, the two-day threshold would encourage workers who were slightly injured to return to work as soon as possible rather than linger a week or so in the hopes of triggering the current threshold for compensation under the Act. Although payment would be rapid, the illness would have to be recognized by a physician employed by the factory or one certiﬁed to make such judgments.100 This would not only save money in the long run, but would help factories maintain their production schedule. In addition to ﬁnancial savings and limiting absenteeism, this system would avoid the bureaucratic red tape necessary to revise the schedule of diseases eliciting payments under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Ministry agreed and soon instituted a policy along these lines.101 Shufﬂebotham, the government, and factories preferred, each for different reasons, that employees avoid injury in the ﬁrst place. In an effort to prevent illness or, if one occurred, to react to it with swift and effective treatment, Shufﬂebotham’s assistants collected accident reports from the factories and inspected the plants. These data were forwarded to Shufﬂebotham himself; the government doctors could then analyze conditions and require companies to make changes that they deemed necessary for the safe and efﬁcient production of gas.102 They recommended precautions that could be taken when producing gases and when arranging the factory work space. The primary measures included ventilation to remove any toxic air from the factory, keeping work areas clean, and procedures to ensure that workers removed any chemicals from their skin as quickly and thoroughly as possible.103 Ventilation systems were perhaps the most important tool in preventing gas injuries among workers. The challenge of toxic air was that it could affect workers in a gas factory who were not directly involved with the manufacture of poisons, as the chemicals could spread over the plant and the neighboring town. If the geography or the weather was suitable, the toxic gases would linger. What made it worse was that some compounds, such as phosgene,

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did not produce immediate suffering, and workers lost their ability to smell others, such as mustard gas.104 Without a powerful exhaust system, therefore, a plant might risk serious injury to several workers or else temporarily close until the air was puriﬁed. The mustard gas plant at Avonmouth did exactly that in October , losing valuable production time.105 Factories also established procedures for laborers to follow. Workers had to bathe before leaving the factory and scrub their hands before touching their skin or eating. When working, employees had protective gear that they wore continuously or, as in the case of goggles, that was available during accidents or other emergencies. Finally, clothing had to be kept scrupulously clean, especially when workers made mustard gas. The unique danger of this gas was that it would continue to burn as long as it was in contact with the skin. Therefore, after any contact with it, workers had to change clothes. As the Ministry of Munitions noted in its ofﬁcial history, “It was only by the most minute attention to such details of factory life that there was any hope of preventing chronic poisoning.” In particular, once mustard gas production began, ventilation was critical.106 Employers tried to protect their laborers not only by carefully structuring the work environment, but also by limiting work hours. Because not all injuries could be prevented, the government and employers focused on maintaining worker health so that manufacturing could continue. The priority was on production, not people. Preferably this meant choosing the workers least likely to succumb to slight contact with gases during accidents, and then keeping the level of exposure as low as necessary to keep workers functioning. Individuals had different levels of susceptibility to gases, particularly poison gas. Also, a person’s sensitivity grew with increasing contact to a particular gas.107 Thus, healthy workers were preferred over already weaker ones. Or employees might change their jobs within a plant periodically to reduce their exposure to particular chemicals. Workers might be limited in the number of hours a week that they labored or the number of days in a row that they came into the plant.108 The idea was to limit toxicity due to exposure to poisons and, presumably, accidents due to weariness. In August , the question of prioritizing production over worker health became more obvious. At that time “the general shortage of labour was so great and the demand for chemical workers had so increased that the medical examination of new employees was suspended and applicants were no longer prevented from work on medical grounds.”109 Health could be sacriﬁced for

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production to a certain extent, although care had to be taken that too callous an attitude eventually would leave the factories without any ﬁt workers. When injuries did occur, physicians’ collaboration and research meant that up-to-date treatment could be offered. Regulations stipulated that medical personnel were available to the factories; this meant that a doctor or two, and perhaps even nurses, worked at each plant or in a nearby town.110 Their presence ensured that experts on the spot could treat anyone who developed work-related illnesses or injuries with the latest techniques. Mustard gas provides an illustrative example because of its danger and the fact that production began late in the war, when the medical supervisors had both more experience with occupational casualties and a wider range of workers to protect. When mustard gas was inhaled, it burned the lungs and could trigger pulmonary illnesses such as bronchitis. The gas could also damage eyes, one of the most sensitive parts of the body. Because it was a persistent gas it would burn, and continue to burn, anything it touched until neutralized with chloride of lime or another compound. This “extreme tenacity” made it a threat whether it splashed onto a boot or sleeve or spilled onto a machine that someone might touch later. Any interaction with mustard gas could lead to blisters and burns, but sweaty portions of the body were the most vulnerable. At the Avonmouth factory, records list damage to, among other body parts, hands, scalp, shoulders, arms, abdomen, buttocks, genitals, thighs, legs, and feet. Finally, long-term exposure could lead to general illnesses such as “gastric pain,” “chronic cough,” “memory weakness,” and “mental inertia.”111 The main goals of treatment were simple: prevent infections and lung conditions and avoid “scars” that would “impair the workers[’] future usefulness.” To manage this, Captain Roberts noted that physicians tried a variety of treatments. These included “hot fomentations in severe [eye] cases and instilling of warm parafﬁn and cocaine when the lids could be opened.” That would be followed by rest in a dark room and time off from work. “All burns were treated as far as possible by Ambrine and no better line of treatment could be adopted. . . . The chief features of the Ambrine treatment are the prevention of scar tissue and the rapid healing process. Both of these have considerable ﬁnancial interest to employers.”112 In other factories that produced asphyxiating gases, oxygen might be on hand as a common treatment.113 Despite these efforts, the gas industry remained a risky one. For example,

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Avonmouth reported employing , people per week, on average, between June and December , . In total, the records list accidents that year, including three fatalities. Many workers suffered from more than one disease; workers became disabled because of mustard gas, with a total of , mustard gas illnesses. The number of patients treated at the plant, including workers who had been injured multiple times and one lead poisoning patient, was ,.114 One of the most dangerous tasks was cleaning the factory; for purity of the product and the safety of employees, chemical manufacturing often required scrupulously clean facilities. Records indicate that “at least % of the casualties occurred” at this time and “such operations as dis-connecting pipes and syphoning the ﬁnished product into storage tanks and the taking of samples are much more frequent causes of casualties than is the manufacturing process.”115 While physicians sympathized with injured workers and employers recognized their responsibility to compensate them, there was a certain amount of cynicism inherent in the screening process for claims. Dr. Roberts said that claims “necessitated careful inquiry and investigation on the part of the medical staff in order to keep down bogus claims.”116 After all, was a sore throat from mustard gas exposure or a simple cold? In this way the physicians sided with the requirements of the employers, the government, and the nation rather than the needs of their patients. This collaboration recalls the alliance between doctors and the high-ranking ofﬁcers on the front and builds on the prewar ties between physicians and the government in the area of public health; in both cases doctors owed some of their loyalty to society as a whole and not simply to their patients.117 There were some differences, though, in the chemical warfare situation. Poison gas was a new realm for physicians, whether at home or in France. Also, the physicians and scientists involved in the production of chemical weapons wielded a lot of authority over the actual factory owners—civilians—in their roles as agents of the government’s intrusion into private enterprise. Private business did not always welcome doctors’ participation, but their expertise helped smooth the production of gases. In return, the government received the gases it needed for the war effort, probably as efﬁciently as possible. It certainly managed to coordinate supplies, production, and worker safety measures across the industry, something private business had not done for itself. Furthermore, it was clear from the intragovernmental tensions apparent in the Ministry of Munitions’ struggle to work with the navy to man-

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ufacture jellite and the snubs Shufﬂebotham suffered from Thuillier of the Chemical Warfare Committee that keeping production in the public sphere would not have been an effective solution. Private industry was, in fact, probably more efﬁcient since many of its factories were already up and running by the time the gas war started, even if they had to be converted or expanded in order to make chemical weapons. The goal of manufacturing armaments drew the government and chemical companies together to achieve a common goal. Despite a late start compared to the Germans, these groups succeeded in working together to produce effective chemical weapons. In the end, World War I helped businessmen develop the capacity of British industry and the wealth of their own companies. In , the government even began to recognize the long-term importance of the British chemical industry; Parliament instituted measures to protect the businesses in foreign competition and to ensure their continued healthy progress as the modern age of chemistry developed.118 From an examination of the war itself it is also possible to see, by looking at the experiences of poison gas manufacturers, that here was another group in British society for whom the dangers of the gas war were business-related and manageable. In fact, the presence of gas even offered them beneﬁts. This contrasts with the perceptions of the general public in Britain, who never experienced gas physically, but rather emotionally and psychologically in the form of rumors about it, news reports of its use, and visual images of it. The public’s interactions, therefore, could be more emotional in tone, less focused in subject, and more symbolic in nature than those of industrialists, chemists, doctors, and the military.

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. Gas as a Symbol Visual Images of Chemical Weapons in the Popular Press

From the beginning of the chemical war in , gas invaded Britain’s home front. By word and image it appeared in the press, frequently bombarding the public with reminders of its existence and forcing the general population to confront the threats and implications of the new weapon. The Times and other papers announced the shocking news of the April chlorine attacks on the Allies, printed the War Ofﬁce appeals for homemade respirators, reported the frequent use of gas in battles, and even included letters to the editor discussing the issue of chemical warfare. Established magazines, such as Punch and the Bystander, as well as those founded during the conﬂict, like the War Illustrated Weekly, covered gas news, too. Sometimes journals contained commentaries and articles dedicated to poison gas. In “War by Chemicals, and Reprisals,” the Illustrated London News explored Germany’s wealth of chemical supplies and potential Allied responses to the new weapon.1 Other columns contained images of gas simply to illuminate larger questions about the war. G. K. Chesterton’s contribution to the Illustrated London News, for instance, offered chemical weapons as one more example of the numerous German atrocities committed during the war.2 Overall, visual representations of poison gas were more common than verbal discussions of it. Photographs, illustrations, and even cartoons presented gas in a variety of images, from the chaos of battles using chemical weapons to the routine of respirator drills. Pictures portrayed the poison on the battlefront and on the home front. Sketches included scenes depicting reality and predicting future uses. They informed viewers about the conduct of the war and offered explanations about the repercussions of it. The images of gas provided an avenue through which the British could confront gas at a distance, mentally and sometimes emotionally. The variety of the images also revealed

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the multifaceted perceptions of gas in British society, making it clear that though gas appeared barbaric and terrifying to some, it was tolerable, and even a vehicle for amusement, to others. Some desensitization to gas could occur simply from visual confrontation with it; hands-on interaction of the sort in which scientists engaged was not necessary. Public perception is a complicated subject to study. Numerous references to gas exist in the papers, but how those reports and comments arrived in newsprint and magazines is not documented. It was a complex process, including consideration of ofﬁcial censors, consumer interest, artistic skill and opportunity, and availability of information to reporters. Chance inﬂuenced some of these factors, such as the speciﬁc events that correspondents and cartoonists saw. Capt. Bruce Bairnsfather, a popular cartoonist for the Bystander, served on the Western Front and created pictures inspired by his wartime experiences.3 His work therefore depended on the knowledge of gas that he happened to observe. Photography suffered from additional restrictions. The British government condoned the presence of few cameras on the Western Front and ofﬁcially approved of even fewer.4 Besides that, the smoke of battle, combined with clouds of gas and the scale of the attack, made it technically difﬁcult to capture photographs of chemical attacks in progress.5 Drawings depicting the heat of battle abounded, but photographs focused on the preparation for, and the aftermath of, the ﬁghting. Because many editors’ instructions to artists and reporters are unavailable, it is unclear who made the decisions to print particular pictures or reports of gas, and why they did so. Still, newspapers and periodicals are valuable sources. The frequency of graphical representations of gas in popular magazines indicates that the British population was familiar with the weapon. The content of the visual images, ranging from gas helmets to battle scenes, hints at the knowledge the general population had about the new weapon. The tone of the pictures also illustrates attitudes held by the British public about gas and the war. As David Reed, a scholar of the popular press, notes, people generally buy reading material with whose point of view they agree.6 This is particularly true if they purchase those publications day after day or month after month. Editors of middle-class magazines ﬁlled with war news and visual images would not risk alienating their audience. Instead, they fed them the information their consumers wanted to see. Visual images in journals therefore offer rich insights into perceptions of

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| Gas as a Symbol

poison gas by the British public. These were not the only weapons depicted in the popular press, however. The periodicals also discussed conventional weapons, both traditional and new, in terms of the ﬁghting and the battlefronts. Tanks, for instance, frequently appeared on the pages of magazines, as did submarines. Gas, though, uniquely threatened both civilians and soldiers. Furthermore, because the readers of magazines such as the Bystander were soldiers as well as civilians, the art illuminates how the general population, particularly the middle class, viewed the Germans who used gas, the Allies who suffered from it, and the way life had been and would be changed by chemical weapons.7 Discussing each of these subjects shows how poison gas had an impact on British daily life, whether in the battle zone or on the home front. One category of images, popular throughout the war, addressed the national characters of Germany and Britain; viewing these pictures offered readers an opportunity to consider their perceptions of the two nations. A second group, appearing with increasing frequency as the war continued, considered the role of gas in the everyday life of civilians and soldiers during and after the war. This set demonstrates that the public had accepted that gas was here to stay but that they did not always like it and sometimes even feared it. In the visual images in the press, gas challenged civilians mentally to confront several difﬁcult issues, just as it threatened soldiers physically. It offered a means for the general population to feel invested in the war effort, even in parts that dealt with battleﬁeld armaments. This weapon did not have to be deployed against a person to have an impact; it did not have to be used, in the traditional sense, to be effective. These stories about gas in the popular press tied into the twentieth-century themes discussed earlier and allowed gas to serve as a symbol as people tried to understand the nature of the war and its impact. In the messages about German barbarity and British heroics, one can see how the public considered the character of those who used gas. This becomes particularly apparent in the images portraying the long-term effects of gas, when some magazines explicitly questioned whether gas destroyed the civilization of those who used it.8 At the same time, the ferocity of many of the gas pictures emphasized the terrible and frightening nature of gas, whether on the battleﬁeld or the home front. Although the public eventually learned to accept the presence of gas, and even became inured to it at times, its essential fearsomeness was never completely eradicated.

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Parameters on Published Images The British government organized a two-tiered press censorship system for the war. Before journalists even wrote their stories, one kind of censorship took place. During that stage, the military limited access to the raw material gathered by reporters or transferred to newspaper ofﬁces. Another type of censorship occurred when the publishers themselves restricted the articles they produced and printed. They did not have to submit written stories to the Press Bureau for approval before publishing, but they could be punished under the Defence of the Realm Act for printing material detrimental to the war effort.9 It was a complicated scheme and received frequent criticism, but, considering that a major war was in progress, it also granted publishers enormous freedom about what to print. The choices could be burdensome, so to avoid the risk of ﬁnes and imprisonment for printing improper material, some newspapers asked the government to approve of an article or picture before it reached readers.10 Most editors relied on their personal judgment, though, refraining from airing secrets or publishing demoralizing material. The government appealed to the press’s patriotism and wisdom with regard to making decisions about material to be placed in public view, and the fourth estate largely honored that request. The most active censorship, therefore, occurred before the press received information about the war. The military was vigilant. It restricted the number of cameramen and reporters on the front lines, which of course limited the stories gathered.11 Then, censors frequently cut the material that did arrive in Britain. Therefore, there was not much information for the press to print—something that inspired complaints by the editors and the readers— but most of the information ﬁnally received was safe to publish.12 There was little risk of including a crucial fact that the enemy did not already know, so, with regard to the news, relying on appeals to patriotism and self-censorship by the publishers was not terribly daring behavior on the part of the government. The difﬁcult element to censor, and perhaps the most important, was the attitude behind the reporting. The British government, like most governments involved in World War I, recognized that the public had to contribute if the nation were to persevere. At its most basic level, this meant keeping the people supportive of the war effort and maintaining their morale. This had to be done even during challenging times, such as during the failure at Gallipoli, the introduction of conscription in , and as the war dragged

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on into the ﬁfth year.13 As Sir Edward Cooke, the former head of the Press Bureau, the body responsible for most of the censorship in England, noted, “In a free country . . . Government and Law may be a little, but cannot be very far, in advance of Public Opinion. . . . This was conspicuously the case with the gradual formation of Public Opinion in favour of compulsory military service and of food-control. The Press helped both to carry the Home Front forward and to keep it staunch.”14 Threats to morale were not easy to censor before publication, because it was not always clear what would undermine the war effort. The government did decide that a reputation for always telling the truth was inspirational, and therefore it did not lie—even if it omitted some facts in the battle stories it released for the press and as communiqués.15 The publishers themselves seemed to ﬁnd the acceptability of cartoons to be difﬁcult to judge on their own, based on the number of “Passed by Censor” labels, an indication of voluntary censorship, that adorn many of the comics about gas.16 For their part, censors might wonder: Was sarcasm depressing and demoralizing? Was frivolity about a barbaric weapon upsetting? Humor is difﬁcult to deﬁne; what is amusing to one person is offensive or confusing to another. It is not surprising, then, that publishers who censored themselves in the name of patriotism occasionally wanted a second, ofﬁcial opinion before they printed a cartoon. This was particularly true when the cost of making incorrect judgment calls was not only a threat to Britain’s security but also legal punishment.17 Consequences were severe; they included ﬁnes, hard labor, and potentially extensive jail time.18 Censorship limited the images the press could print, but opportunity also restricted the number of photographs that were available for publication. There are a few examples from the Western Front where the process of procurement of images is clear. With regard to photographers, there were ofﬁcial and unofﬁcial cameramen. Individual soldiers were forbidden to carry cameras or diaries at the front. Men and women stationed there managed to keep personal records, however. Some pictures came from this source, but they were taken “when they [the amateur photographers] could relax.” In discussing the records of two nurses, author Jane Carmichael noted that the pictures “tend to show a much lighter atmosphere [than the diaries:] . . . [friends] framed by the peculiar geometry of the ruins, with the various pets they adopted, visitors . . . who came for tea. . . . They were too busy to photograph the main purpose of their daily round.”19

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Ofﬁcially, the government and military responded to demands for war news by appointing a few war photographers in . While the number grew over the course of the conﬂict, the chosen men struggled with a lack of ofﬁcial encouragement, too much work, and limited guidance.20 They also learned about the limits of their medium. The battles in World War I involved hundreds of thousands of men and should have been rich subjects for photographers. But the scale of the battle, combined with the smoke of the guns and the confusion of the action, meant that photographs recording the ﬁghting itself were not easy to take. Furthermore, the gruesome scenes of the dead, wounded, and dying would not inspire the British public; they might even depress them.21 Finally, gas itself was difﬁcult to capture on ﬁlm. By its nature it was amorphous and cloudy. Without color ﬁlm it was difﬁcult to distinguish gas from the smoke produced by guns, except for the debilitating impact on suffocating men. Even with color added to the prints, not all chemicals were as visible as the greenish-yellow air produced by chlorine. As a result, photographs relating to gas tended to be of men preparing for gas drills, soldiers modeling antigas helmets, long-distance images of the attack, or the postbattle destruction caused by it.22 It is no wonder that cartoons and illustrations outnumbered photographs in visual representations of gas. Who were the ofﬁcial photographers? Since the military had not had men engaged in this job before World War I—and in fact, photography increased in popularity as a vehicle of news reporting during the conﬂict—the men selected had civilian training. Lieutenant Brooks was a life-long photographer and Lieutenant Brooke was a newspaper photojournalist before World War I. They were joined by men from the Canadian and other imperial war records ofﬁces.23 Their training meant that they focused on scenes appropriate for publication as well as for record keeping. Their assignment, in fact, was to capture subjects needed for propaganda, for the press, and for national records. However, they could not control which of their photographs would be censored or chosen by publishers. Nor could they select the colors chosen to illuminate their pictures by editors and artists, the captions written to accompany the shots, or even the point of view presented in the captions.24 The photographs in the magazines were seen by thousands of Britons, but they were a group effort created by personal judgments and not according to rigid guidelines. Cartoonists did not labor under the same government restrictions. Argu-

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ably the most famous artist was Bruce Bairnsfather. Sent to France as a second lieutenant responsible for machine guns, he became a captain in the First Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment.25 His interest in art predated the war, but his commissions from the Bystander magazine began during this conﬂict.26 In his wartime autobiography, Bairnsfather wrote that the activities and scenery around his unit inspired him and he sketched partially to pass the time.27 His voice, therefore, was that of an authentic soldier, and he clearly struck a chord with his peers. He also reached the civilian population, as the circulation of his cartoons in the Bystander and his books, such as Fragments from France, showed.28 One man writing to his parents in England recommended Bairnsfather and enthused over the artist’s comments on the war.29 Even the government recognized Bairnsfather’s talent and popularity. After being wounded and evacuated in , he became an ofﬁcer-cartoonist in the Intelligence Department at the War Ofﬁce.30 Other cartoonists were professionals who began their careers before World War I. James Dowd of Punch gained fame for his illustrations of children; Frank Holland of John Bull often devoted himself to comic strips; and George Studdy contributed to a variety of magazines and created Bonzo the dog. They all formed part of a group of proliﬁc war artists. These men did not necessarily have the same eyewitness view of the war that Bairnsfather did, but they too found gas to be a suitable topic for their pencils.31 The subject was too central to the war effort to ignore. On the other hand, the circumstances surrounding drawings are more challenging to trace because they were created in London, often in-house. They could be based on photographs or verbal reports from the front, but the artists and editorial inﬂuence are frequently unknown; still, the messages are clear.32 Gas as a Symbol of National Character: Anti-German Artwork Poison gas was a German innovation, and thus it featured in anti-German propaganda, photographs, sketches, and cartoons. It became part of the German identity in British eyes and a symbol of the enemy’s barbarity and malice. Images used poison gas in association with commentary on Germans in scenes set on and off the battleﬁeld. In some artwork, chemical warfare was merely one of Germany’s many blameworthy actions or inventions. In a Punch cartoon of May , , pro-

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. Raven-Hill’s The Elixir of Hate. Reproduced with the permission of Punch, Ltd. www.punch.co.uk.

duced less than two weeks after the ﬁrst use of gas on the Western Front, the artist depicts the kaiser as a wicked sorcerer conjuring over munitions, a torn Hague Convention document (outlawing poison gas and setting forth the rules of war), a viper labeled “Kultur,” and a jug of poison. All of this takes place in a dungeon containing an impaled baby, a skeleton wearing a military cap, and an empty noose. Supervising approvingly is the devil. There is no doubt how the kaiser should be viewed, and poison, the item in the center foreground of the cartoon, is one of the most important reasons for labeling him a ﬁend. The scene, titled The Elixir of Hate, calls on the commonly expressed notion in the war that the Germans produced hatefulness. A strong barrage on British lines, for example, would have been an example of hatefulness. The caption completes this image. The kaiser utters, “Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair; Hover through the fog and ﬁlthy air.”33 Although the cartoon recalls many blameworthy facets of Germany, the focus is on poison gas, contaminating the air and preventing the basic ability to breathe.

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The press persevered in picturing the devil on the side of the Germans because of their association with gas. In another drawing, a winged devil, resembling a gargoyle crossed with a faun, pours gas into a bomb.34 On the ﬂoor near his feet is a cast-off “Cloak of Civilisation,” emphasizing that chemical warfare is beyond the pale of acceptable behavior. The kaiser, resembling a miniature devil, and a serpent look on attentively. The gases rising from the concoction on the laboratory table are labeled “Poisonous gases” to ensure that the reader understands the drawing. In the caption, the kaiser says, “I can’t beat them by fair means; I’ll see what I can do by foul.” Only a devil would embrace such tactics. The devil analogy also appears in the Bystander. On April , , Bernhard Hugh created a vision of a nightmare.35 “Cadet Smith Brown-Jones, on the conclusion of his course of instructions, has a very poor night on the eve of his examination,” thinking about all of the horrible facts he has to know and dangers he has to face. Some of these are the typical elements of bad dreams about ﬁnals, such as the enormous amount of material on the exam. Tugging at Cadet Brown-Jones’s sheets are books titled “Military Hygiene,” “King’s Regulations,” “Map Reading,” and the like. The other tormentors are small devils, horned, spectacled, and one wearing a gas mask. They direct shells at him, ﬁre question marks out of machine guns, mark his answers wrong on a test sheet, and hose him with poison gas. The horrors of this war are logical food for nightmares, yet the devilish Germans, not the British military, will offer the worst of the challenges. The terrors prominently include gas. The theme of gas as the devil’s poison appears in other cartoons, as do images of toxic chemicals as products of a laboratory. A tuxedoed Satan, decorated with an Iron Cross, serves “Hemlock for Huns” at a table of ofﬁcers in one cartoon.36 In Double-Dyed, there is not a devil to be seen, but an artist represents a German professor in his scientiﬁc workplace with a jar of “Prussian poison gas” and a cylinder dispensing the chemicals on the right side of the drawing.37 This cartoon highlights the German connection between the development of poison gas and the chemical dye industry. Before the conﬂict, Britain had relied on the German chemical industry for everyday necessities such as aspirin, ﬁne glass, and dyes. The latter was needed for almost everything, including the coloring of uniforms, and the British chemical scientists struggled to develop a native industry from scratch during the war. Thus, Professor Hertling, the scientist depicted in the cartoon, claims that “Der Ingleesh . . . have invented substitutes vor our vamous dyes.” This

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cartoon cleverly draws connections between the dyes that change the color or appearance of the materials they touch and the gas that turns healthy men into casualties. It further plays on the spelling of words and syllables that sound like “dye,” most obviously “die.” Jars ﬁlled with colored liquid line the shelf and tables of the room. There is “Turkey Blood Red Dye,” “Bulgarian Aniline Atrocity Dye,” and “Potsdam Propaganda Dye,” all referring to casualties, cruelties, and lies the British thought Germany and her allies perpetrated. In the center-left of the scene is “Hohenzollern Dye Nasty.” The professor suggests in the caption that the Allies want to “destroy” this German product, too. Within the label is another verbal joke, of course, that the German royal family should “die [in a] nasty [fashion].” Chemical inventions, even harmless prewar ones such as dyes, had become part of the German identity and another reason to despise the enemy. This is intriguing because at this time the British scientiﬁc world was a critical part of the war effort and an essential piece in the military-industrial complex. Furthermore, many people recognized that Britain was starting the war from a position of weakness in industrial chemistry because she had not developed her own industry; she had wrongly dismissed science as a subject of little importance in the British way of life. Some artists couched criticism of the Germans in other ways. Instead of referring to the mad scientist, the devil, or schoolboy nightmares, they appealed to higher reasoning. In a Bernard Partridge cartoon, a fearful German soldier hunches under his cloak, ﬂeeing a dark cloud labeled Retribution.38 The message is that Britain will exact justice from the Germans for their use of gas against unprepared men, even if that means using chemical weapons herself. A similar message appears in Sowing the Wind.39 In this image from the patriotic magazine John Bull, enormous clouds of “Retaliation” and “Poison Cloud” descend upon a line of comic German soldiers. The leading German military man carries a poison gas bomb that releases a meager cloud of gas. To emphasize the seriousness of the situation, the caption quotes Hosea :: “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” The Germans must pay for their hideous actions. John Bull urged a policy that the government eventually adopted, but not without contemplation. Britain had to decide whether to stoop to the level of the Germans by engaging in offensive chemical warfare—in this case, made somewhat palatable by a biblical rationalization—or to adhere to her standards and ﬁght at a disadvantage in the war. Justiﬁed retribution combined

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. Bernard Partridge’s Retribution. Reproduced with the permission of Punch, Ltd. www.punch.co.uk.

with a mission to win meant that the British engaged in offensive as well as defensive chemical warfare. They rarely announced or presented images of their nation engaged in the former, however. It remained a dirty tool they did not like but had to use. In the few cases when they acknowledged that they deployed gas, they indicated that they did so for moral reasons, such as justice or retribution.40 The British were not only unlike the Germans; they were the Germans’ opposites in the war and in character. Britain also stood for the civilized world against the barbaric. In one cartoon printed in the Tatler, the artist represented the Allies as a knight wearing the cloak of civilization and literally wielding the sword of revenge.41 The honorable Allies, in the guise of a noble, medieval warrior, battle a winged devil brandishing poison gas. The brief caption states, “Fighting the Fiend[.] Christian, the champion of civilisation, ﬁghting the Apollyon of German

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barbarism.” With one small cartoon and because of the use of one weapon, the artist stripped Germany of her claims to Christianity, to civilization, and to all that is good and progressive. The Germans violated other norms of behavior, such as obedience to the law. In one series, titled “German Breaches of the Hague Convention,” Sketch published two cartoons regarding gas.42 Both make fun of German gas attacks, dismissing them as ludicrous and thus unworthy of respect. In number in the series, the artists dismiss the Germans’ efforts as Lachrymosing the British by Onion-Whittling under Cover of Night. In number , the caption explains that the enemy is Laughing-Gassing the British before an Advance in Close Formation. Neither cartoon depicts lethal chemicals, which made it possible to chuckle at German chemical activity. The fact that the enemy sometimes used nonlethal tear gas and that respirators could protect soldiers if they were worn correctly meant that gas did not have to be a weapon of mass destruction. In addition, humor, as many bullies learn, can be an excellent defense because it shows that the victim will not grant the aggressor the honor of being taken seriously. What was grave was the German violation of The Hague Convention outlawing the use of gas, particularly for a nation that prided herself on following laws. Britain had, after all, entered the war partly because she had promised, in a treaty, to protect the Belgian neutrality that Germany violated in executing the Schlieffen Plan.43 The violations of laws made it easier to attribute atrocities to Germany. The Illustrated London News of May , , misleadingly labeled a page of photographs “The Poisoning of Langemarck”: A Scene of the Gassing.44 The enemy had indeed released chemicals at Langemarck, but the damaged landscape, the ruined church and castle, and the destroyed homes were not a result of gas, but of more traditional shells and bullets. Placing the responsibility for that destruction, especially that of civilian housing and religious buildings, on “dastardly gassing” implied that the Germans caused harm to civilian villages while the British and the Allies did not. Printed a month after the ﬁrst use of gas, the outrage provoked by the banned weapon was particularly high at this time. It is not very surprising, therefore, that especially disgraceful kinds of destruction were attributed to gas. Also, because the harm caused by gas was difﬁcult to capture on ﬁlm, photographers and editors had to be creative when depicting it. A gas cloud was occasionally captured on ﬁlm, but it did not look very different from regular gun smoke.45 It would not inspire the higher level of disgust gas deserved when compared with artillery.

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Men could be photographed as they writhed in agony, gripping their throats as their faces turned blue and red, but these pictures were unlikely to pass the censor and would undermine morale. Some illustrations depicted the suffering of German soldiers during battles. Artistic license for drawings extended further than it did for photographs, perhaps because it was clear that the former owed something to imagination and never intended to show reality with complete accuracy. Images often showed Britain’s allies as victims of the chemicals. British soldiers charged the enemy during gas attacks, and generally were not portrayed as helpless or anguished. Placing an Ally in that position allowed viewers to rail at the Central Powers, feel horror at gas, and sympathize with the wounded without thinking their own soldiers weak. The Algerian Zouaves, French colonial troops, received the ﬁrst gas released on the Western Front. Caught by surprise and without masks, many of the troops abandoned their positions in fright and horror at the choking, green clouds of chlorine. The events inspired artists to render the men, without protection and clad in their native costumes, ﬂeeing and suffering, a truly dramatic sight. In the Illustrated London News a two-page color spread appeared in the May , , issue created by “John De G. Bryan from sketches by, and under the direct supervision of, an ofﬁcer present at the action.”46 It was so stunning that the Illustrated War News of that same week also reproduced it, but in a smaller format.47 One of the earliest depictions of a gas attack, it helped form the public’s perception of gas. Its appeal was visceral and emotional. The caption referred to “suffocating fumes” and “diabolical asphyxiating gases.” It mentioned the fact that gas was illegal and contained a brief eyewitness description of the attack. It quoted Dr. J. S. Haldane, a fellow of the Royal Society, who had been sent to France after the event to form an opinion and report to the government. The drawing used color, especially the green that represents chlorine gas and that most people associate with mold or seasickness. It showed men lying dead in a barren landscape, soldiers ﬂeeing, abandoned guns, and wounded wiping or clutching their faces. In word and picture the magazine emphasized the horror of gas. Attacks on other allies, such as the Turcos (French colonials) and Russians, were also illustrated in popular magazines.48 The Illustrated War News offered the unusual perspective of an Austrian attack on the Russians in the east; the Western Front had captured most of the attention of the press. In addition, it depicted before and after scenes. Russian soldiers huddle behind

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. John de G. Bryan’s German Poison Belt, published in the Illustrated London News.

metal shields in the snow in the ﬁrst illustration, and are dead or crouching down covering their faces in the second.49 An interviewed serviceman claims, “Only such of our men . . . as were behind their shields could stand the gas. They did this by bending close to the shields and letting the gas drift overhead.”50 Such imagery of Allied soldiers suffering from gas on other fronts offered a unifying vision of the war effort across national lines. Newspaper articles widely praised the Canadians for holding their line under an early gas attack; they were heroic members of the British forces. The Germans used gas against the Zouaves on April , , at Ypres, and then against the Canadians days later. The British reports noted the bravery and sacriﬁces of the Canadians; from the Zouaves’ experience, they knew that gas could be painfully lethal. They also were aware that they had to hold their line to prevent a German breakthrough that could win the war. At the cost of many casualties, men stood or even retook ground lost during the earlier attack on the French, even though respirators had not been distributed to the troops yet.51 After stories of their bravery, the Illustrated War News of July , , published a picture, reminiscent of the scene of the Zouaves, of the dominion troops running while covering their faces or dying.52 The explanation stated that this was “an enemy drawing.” Returning to the theme of the sneaky and lying character of the Germans, this picture reminded viewers how horrid gas could be and roused ire at the demeaning of Canadian bravery. The magazine commented, “As a German illustrated paper can publish

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with self-satisﬁed complacency such a drawing as this, it may be presumed the German people not only condone, but actually take pride in, such glorious achievements of their Army.” The ﬁnal sentence was this: “It will be noted that the uniforms are not drawn correctly”—the enemy could not even get that part right. A few illustrations do show suffering British soldiers. In Hun Sneers at British Victims of Poison Gas, a German prisoner grins and points at three men clutching at their chests and writhing on the ground.53 The comment below the drawing says that other British soldiers had just spared this enemy’s life. An interesting note is that the soldiers escorting the prisoner are British, in regular khaki uniforms. The three wounded men, however, include one, if not two or more, kilted Scots. It was rare that magazines would publish Englishmen suffering from gas. Perhaps the regional distinction made a difference here. Regardless, it allowed further comments on German “savagery” and inhumanity. The ultimate chastisement occurs in “The Wind that Bloweth from the East”: A Gas Alarm in a French Village; Children with Masks.54 The British play the heroes in this drawing. They provide antigas helmets to the children in this town behind the trenches because German gas sometimes reaches them. The Germans, of course, are the villains. Not only do they use gas, but it harms civilians, and children at that. It hurts those who traditionally should be the ones most protected and exempt from war. Looking at children wearing the dehumanizing masks and an adult solicitously helping one young boy with his brings home the fact that gas is a particularly despicable weapon. Anyone who uses it against such targets—even inadvertently—is beneath contempt. Other pictorial propaganda against the Germans focused on the enemy’s claims that Britain initiated chemical warfare. In issues of the Illustrated London News and the Illustrated War News of July , photographs appear with captions chastising the Germans for their lies.55 The former states, “Adding Insult to Injury!,” and the latter starts with the exclamation “Cool Cheek!” Printed before the British used gas offensively, these are photographs of German soldiers wearing masks. One picture even depicts the medical procedure for the treatment of gas victims. The captured German propaganda, meant to be anti-British, was used here against its creators. The British press presented the German military as sneaky and underhanded, not simply boldly diabolical.

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Another popular topic for illustrations and photographs was gas backﬁring on the Germans. In other words, they were shown as victims of their own invention, either because the wind changed and blew the chemicals back to their lines or because the Allies launched gas at them. The captions for such pictures indicated that such events were just what the enemy deserved. In Gassed by their Own Gas, the artist expressed this precisely: “A German column . . . advanced behind an asphyxiating cloud. The wind suddenly changed and the Germans, panic-stricken, ﬂed.”56 They appear foolish and cowardly, especially when compared with the Canadians. A cartoon in Punch also addresses this subject.57 A corpulent German ofﬁcer gingerly steps through a gas cloud, holding his nose, as a change in the wind blows his own poison back on him. “Gott Strafe England!” he cries. Here the enemy is made to look foolish for not being able to control his own weapons. His character is at stake. German weakness appears in Kamerad! by artist Lucien Jonas.58 Intended for publication in Canada and the United States, too, this simple picture covers two pages in the Illustrated London News. Three German soldiers run toward the British with their hands up, trying to surrender. Two more Germans, one on either side of the mobile group, crouch and cover their mouths—the only indication that gas is causing the men to give up. These Germans do not match the effective ﬁghting reputation of the enemy’s army; they are conquerable. The reputation of Germany’s leader is vulnerable, too. Another cartoon in Punch shows the kaiser, “the most omnipotent,” sweating with fear because his dentist asks if he will “take gas.”59 The enemy’s royal leader cannot stand the thought of medical gas being used on him, although he inﬂicts a more dangerous chemical on others. Another illustration shows the Austrians in a similar position: Caught in their Own Trap—The Horrors of Poison Gas.60 This picture is unusual. It is partially vorticist in style, which was rare among the traditional techniques used by magazine artists of the time. In addition, it depicts Austrian civilians caught when an Italian bombed one of their poison gas factories. The laborers clutch at their faces and run, in the expected manner for such scenes. It ends with a message that ﬁts this genre: “This is the stuff the Germans say they have employed for humanitarian reasons, since it produces painless asphyxiation!”

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. Lucien Jonas’s Kamerad! from the Illustrated London News.

In these images, the Germans became a devious, devilish, inhumane, barbaric, but ultimately cowardly people. This characterization occurred largely because they introduced gas to the battleﬁeld in violation of tradition and international law. Chemical weaponry was not the only atrocity charged to the Germans, but it was one that repeatedly appeared and thus conﬁrmed the enemy’s immoral nature over and over again in British eyes. Depicting British reactions to the new armament also allowed the public to admire their own nation’s actions and character at the same time it condemned the enemy’s. Gas as a Symbol of National Character: Pro-British Artwork Art in periodicals also illustrated the opposite side of poison gas. If it was a terrorizing weapon for some, particularly the Allies and occasionally the Germans, its use also offered an opportunity for the British, and some of their associates, to overcome terror and demonstrate bravery. One cover of War Pictures Weekly and the London Illustrated Weekly depicts kilted soldiers with tam-o’-shanters over their masks, clearly indicating that the attackers are Allied soldiers, charging through a gas cloud into a German trench.61 The enemy servicemen react in a variety of ways: dying, suffocating painfully, ﬁring at the Scots, and surrendering. The simple caption explains, “Our soldiers now often use their gas masks in charging through the clouds of gas that are

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let loose on both sides, thus presenting a very terrifying appearance.” Now the British were refusing to back down in the face of gas and producing the fright that policy and retribution claimed the Germans deserved. The picture emphasizes the masks, and readers would understand that the military produced and distributed adequate protection to the men. Most readers probably remembered the War Ofﬁce appeals in April asking women to make respirators since the army did not have any yet. By July this shortage had been addressed (if not conquered). The theme of British soldiers intimidating German men appears repeatedly, yet always inspired by British personal courage and not simply the use of modern technology. In that situation, the words and images that were negative in portrayals of the enemy’s use of gas become positives and strengths when describing the British. Another one of the few images that suggests a British gas attack shows the ﬁrst time the army used chemical weapons offensively.62 The basic message is still one of British bravery in the face of gas. The infantry is on the offensive, with conventional weapons, racing through a protective cloud of gas deployed to cover their advance. The British soldiers still have to confront the danger of the gas: “Through it our men had to plunge.” With their masks, and after the example of Canadian courage, the British could show contempt or mastery of the weapon by refusing to let it wound or stop them. Entitled “Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils”: Masked British Territorials Charging German Trenches at Loos, the implication of the caption and the sketch is that it is British bravery in the gas zone as much as the featureless masks and the infantry attack itself that makes the soldiers frightening to the Germans. Though the soldiers are likened to devils, it is with approval; the suggestion is that the Germans deserve to be scared. This two-page illustration proves its legitimacy with a note that sketches by ofﬁcer eyewitnesses inspired it.63 Artistic license must be presumed, however. The details of some of the German faces, the mixed colors of the British masks (some black, some light), and the exact placement of the soldiers are aesthetically effective but not realistic. Almost uniformly, the British are charging upright and determined toward the enemy lines, yet with riﬂes held high instead of pointed at the German soldiers’ bodies. The artist positions the Central Power men subserviently; standing in their trenches, they are lower than the onrushing British soldiers. The defenders in the foreground are raising their hands in surrender. It is true that a few of their comrades in

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. S. Begg’s Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils from the Illustrated London News.

the back are preparing to throw grenades, but most are not resisting. Finally, to add to the drama of the men and the masks, a rainstorm is brewing in the background. In this drawing, it is the British who inspire fear; it is they who wear dehumanizing gas masks and are likened to devils.64 The magazine even describes them as “hooded familiars of the Spanish Inquisition,” which was certainly not a reassuring thought in the minds of the subjects of a Protestant country.65 Still, it is a scene of determined vengeance on a foe who deserved retaliation. Other illustrations show masked British soldiers charging through gas clouds without an enemy in sight. The Illustrated London News of May , , included a drawing by Frederic Villiers.66 In it, running soldiers carry their bayoneted riﬂes ready for use as they counterattack through a German cloud of gas. The artist does not hide the suffering, but he does draw with some artistic license; the men coming over the hill may be wearing masks— it is too dark to tell—but the soldiers in the foreground are not. However, whether the artist believed, or merely wanted the public to believe, that the British soldiers had conquered the horrors of gas and could proceed through the toxic air, he drew the situation as if that were the case. The image the public had about gas was that it was diabolical, but the British would triumph bravely over it. Emphasizing this is the label below the illustration: “Poison Fumes Deﬁed.” This is a popular idea; a May issue of the War Illustrated shows an almost identical scene, except that it is even more unrealistic.67

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. Frederic Villiers’s A Charge through the German Poison Gas, published in the Illustrated London News.

British courage is inspirational in these illustrations, reassuring the people at home and perhaps encouraging them to keep up their own parts in the war effort. The most exceptional picture of all of these is the July , , cover of the War Illustrated.68 Here a speciﬁc soldier, Private Lynn, mentioned in the dispatches for bravery, is the center of attention: “His exploit was rather greater than saving the guns, or like heroism. A poison-gas cloud loomed up from the German lines, and Private Lynn, without waiting to adjust his respirator, rushed to his machine gun . . . [and stopped the Germans]. . . . Twenty-four hours later Private Lynn died, in great agony.” The hero has the expected set expression and stands ﬁrmly behind the gun. Although illustrations rarely showed British soldiers wounded by gas and suffering, the realism here only adds to Lynn’s bravery. The fact that his actions were more important than saving the guns—a traditionally meritorious endeavor—and that he died in agony suggested that poison gas was not a usual weapon. It is more serious, more appalling, and inspires British bravery in the face of it. The Routine of a Gas War During the war soldiers had to adapt to poison gas and the threat of it. They became desensitized, to an extent, to this horror of war, as to many others that existed. They learned to carry out daily activities while always on the alert for a gas cloud. This meant wearing masks as they dug trenches or car-

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| Gas as a Symbol

ried shells. It included establishing sentries to sound alarms at the ﬁrst hint of a gas attack and practicing the donning of helmets as fast as possible. They lived in constant awareness of the threat of chemical weapons. They also learned to carry out activities while wearing clothing that made it difﬁcult to breathe and often gave the sensation of suffocation; masks were not comfortable even if they were largely effective. The periodicals carried illustrations of this aspect of the conﬂict, too. In the War Illustrated, under the title Labour that Paves the Way for Further Progress, there are two images.69 The top sketch shows men transferring shells from trains to trucks to get the munitions to the front. These men do not have masks on, nor is there any indication that gas is a threat. In the lower drawing, men wearing the masks and satchels of box respirators, one of the more sophisticated designs of helmets, dig trenches. There is no sense of drama or excitement despite the danger of gas. It is merely an ordinary military scene, with gas playing a role in this everyday chore. Even in earlier years of the war, masked men engaging in trench maintenance appeared. In one example, soldiers string barbed wire along the British front, and in another they carry supplies to the front lines.70 One of the most revealing pictures is In a Gas-Stricken Area: A Sketch from a Soldier at the Front, published in the Illustrated London News on January , .71 The drawing features seven men, all wearing respirators, who are taking needed supplies to the men at the front. They cannot wait for a gas-free time, so they are carrying out their crucial job at night and wearing respirators. In fact, the gas helmets on the men are one of the most important elements. The respirators catch the viewer’s attention; except for the moon, the eyeholes on the masks are the brightest portions of the sketch. From the soldiers’ body positions, it is clear that the soldiers are exerting themselves to pull the cart toward the front; the masks must be effective if the men can breathe heavily and safely. Overall, according to the captions, the most noteworthy aspect of these drawings is not the need to wear masks when engaged in these activities, but the tasks themselves. They reveal the sort of work that is done on the modern battleﬁeld: the war requires a lot of manual labor close to the enemy shells. It is not exciting, but it is dangerous and necessary. The soldiers have to accept and deal with the gas threat. Masks were a dominant subject of gas pictures. They were less gruesome to depict than suffocating soldiers and easier to capture than battle scenes. They were an accessory clearly associated with gas, and thus the suggestion

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. Unknown artist’s In a Gas-Stricken Area, published in the Illustrated London News.

of a mask was a simple way for an artist to indicate the theme of his work. Finally, they became an accepted, if disliked, part of war. Photographers took group pictures of men wearing masks, and jokes were made about them in cartoons, but there was almost always a negative undercurrent to the visual images published. In one set of photos, portraits of two masked soldiers are the subject.72 The captions stress that the helmets are necessary and effective, even if the “appliances [the masks] look as though the cure [for gas] is as bad as the disease.” In another, a group of casualties is “wearing the respirators which saved them.”73

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The masks may not be attractive, but British ingenuity has been successful in developing useful protection against chemical warfare. There is even speculation about the types of masks the Germans are using. A series of pictures in the Illustrated London News offers a variety of examples, all resembling old-fashioned diving helmets rather than the softer rubber, canvas, and gauze inventions of the British.74 It makes the Germans look clumsy and inﬂexible. On a lighter side, masks were also excellent topics for humor since they could make it look like a soldier was wearing a bag over his head, leading to mistakes in identity. In fact, portraiture was a subject that frequently appeared in cartoons about gas masks, just as it did in photographs. In Bruce Bairnsfather’s The Candid Friend, a man looks at two portraits of his friend, one in which his comrade is wearing a respirator and the other in which he is not. He recommends the one in which his buddy is unidentiﬁable, saying “Well, yer know, I like the photo of you in your gas mask best.” 75 A similar joke arises in Edwin Morrow’s group photograph of ofﬁcers, all wearing their masks.76 The caption identiﬁes them not by name but by rank, discernable from their uniforms presumably. Their individual identity is not known. Masks, therefore, could be topics for silliness as well as distressful reminders of the reason for their need and of their dehumanizing qualities. In other cartoons involving gas masks, the jokes were about antigas training that soldiers underwent. In Punch, a sergeant teaching soldiers how to use masks faces a line of helmeted men.77 He instructs them, “Squad! In-hale! Ex-pire!” This is a bit of black humor, for of course improper use of the respirators would lead to death. Edwin Morrow made another comment on antigas courses in the same magazine, warning teachers, “When making joke [do] not expect any appropriate expression from the [masked] audience”; one could not see their faces and smiles anyway.78 Punch was a popular magazine among soldiers, so they probably appreciated the cartoons about gas courses that they, too, had undergone. Making jokes about gas masks themselves was one thing; after all, they are funny-looking pieces of equipment. Cartoons also showed scenes of soldiers using gas or engaged in gas-related activities, demonstrating that gas had been accepted as a standard part of the war, at least by the soldiers who faced it regularly. For instance, the army spent considerable time and money developing gas alarms and training men to use and heed them. Basically, any noisemaker that did not require breath was acceptable. As the caption in

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. Bruce Bairnsfather’s The Candid Friend, published in The Bystander. From the Illustrated London News Picture Library.

one picture notes: “Necessity is the mother of invention. . . . This one . . . is a frequent method, showing a private hammering on a tin with the hilt of a bayonet.” The title is “’Ware Gas!” Sounding the Alarm in the Trenches.79 The artist depicted a group of British soldiers in a trench. As a cloud rolls toward the men, one soldier bangs on a basin to alert everyone. Others put on their masks or have them on already, preparing for the poison and the German attack to follow. A similar scene in the Illustrated London News differs only in that the soldier rings an empty shell casing and not a basin.80

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| Gas as a Symbol

Some photographs captured the gas drill, during which soldiers put on helmets as quickly as possible and walked through a gas-ﬁlled hut or trench to test the helmets and to learn what gas was like. The Illustrated War News shows visiting Serbian army ofﬁcers undergoing gas mask tests in France.81 Not only does the photographer capture Allied cooperation in a situation in which Britain is clearly the senior partner, but the photo makes mask wearing look routine. Everyone has to learn how to use them. The implication, though, is that it will be necessary. The photographs of such scenes may not be dramatic, but they do reveal a lot about life on the front. F. H. Townsend shows a less wholesome, but perhaps more hygienic use of foul air.82 A soldier in a ﬁlthy trench asphyxiates a louse or a ﬂea with his pipe smoke. The smoke he blows, though, is the “harmless” kind—at least in relation to war gases. Surrounding him are his accoutrements: tunic, sword, riﬂe, and gas mask. He notes that the pest is vulnerable as he asks, “Nah, then, what abaht yer blomin’ respirator?” Gas and respirators were concepts that had permeated into aspects of life beyond the ﬁghting. A third type of cartoon portrayed gas use by the British. Note that references to offensive use by the British almost always appear in comic drawings, not in more serious media. It was not a secret that the army bombarded the Germans with chemicals, but the fact was rarely discussed (and when it was mentioned, it was carefully justiﬁed, as seen earlier). Mentioning it in a humorous context, though, was a different matter. In such a situation viewers do not have to confront the fact that their country is using the very weapon that it condemns when the enemy wields it. The comics that ﬁt into this category include Bairnsfather’s Pushfulness at Plug Street and Tips for Tommies. The latter is an “ad” by the Asphyxobomb School of Instruction that promises to teach “bayonet work, bombing, & asphyxiation”—although not necessarily competently, according to the drawing. Pushfulness at Plug Street states that the “First Blobshire Riﬂes” are “expert Gas & Bomb Manipulators, Trenches Taken at the Shortest Notice.”83 It acknowledges, although as lightly as possible, that modern tactics required the use of gas. Gas at Home Civilians as well as soldiers confronted the possibility of gas attacks on a regular basis. On the home front, the concern arose that zeppelins would drop gas bombs. After all, if the Germans ignored the laws of war that prohibited chemicals, what would stop them from abandoning the laws that protected

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Images of Chemical Weapons

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civilians? They already had damaged London. That they might target other areas of Britain and use gas instead of conventional shells was only moving to the next step. In fact, scientists and politicians carefully considered this threat, although they dismissed the idea of biological and chemical warfare from the air. Several cartoons did address this topic, though, and one can see messages similar to those contained in the depictions of gas in battlefront scenes. There are some indications that desensitization is clearly occurring, even early on in the gas war, yet hints of the terrifying nature of gas still lurk in others. One, published early on in the chemical war, shows a farmwoman placing gas masks on her chickens in case of a raid.84 The army did produce masks for carrier pigeons (really, bags for their cages), dogs, horses, and goats, so why not chickens? In another vignette, a man comes to bed wearing pajamas and a mask, scaring his waiting wife.85 The cartoon admonishes husbands to warn their spouses if they are going to appear in disguise. Yet beyond the funny drawing is the idea that civilians own and wear masks; they should carry them everywhere because the danger is all around them.86 Their lives have been changed by gas even though it has never been used on the home front. Other cartoons show that masks were so accepted that they became part of daily life and even fashionable activities. It was not enough to have a mask— it had to be an elegant one and worn at all of the best social events. Two episodes from Punch play on the idea that a mask is not a necessity, but an accessory. In one, a woman and her daughter, dressed elegantly, converse with a store clerk. He shows them two models of masks and says, “Well, madam, we sell a good many of both. The solid rubber is perhaps the more serviceable article, but the other is generally considered the more becoming.”87 As amusing as the concept of a trendy gas mask is, the fear on the daughter’s face keeps this cartoon from being completely comedic. An earlier issue of the magazine included the image shown in the introduction. This cartoon depicts a woman showing off her mask to her husband as they undress for the night. Entitled The Old Formula, the woman says “Look, George—my new respirator,” as if she were modeling a new dress or hat. He responds, paying little attention as always to this entreaty, “Suits you devilish well, my dear.”88 The threat of gas had become so absorbed by society that it became the subject of humor. More than that, the fact that representations of gas masks had become integrated into routine activities meant that gas had become a part of everyone’s life. This incorporation of chemical danger occurred on every social and age

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. Lewis Baumer’s Well, Madam. Reproduced with the permission of Punch, Ltd. www.punch.co.uk.

level. One illustration depicts a family, from baby to grandfather, posing for a group photograph, all clad in masks.89 In another cartoon children have placed masks on their dolls and blow smoke from the ﬁreplace over them as they play “gas attack.”90 Even a country picnic shows members of the upper class (and a dog) wearing masks on a grassy hillside as they lounge by picnic baskets.91 The cartoons became increasingly absurd. One photographic contest in the Sketch Supplement takes the joking a step further.92 Four gasmasked socialites appear on one page; they appear again, unveiled, on the next page. Cartoons conveyed the belief that gas was here to stay. During the last months of the war, sketches on this theme began appearing. Any activity could be updated with the new weapon. Soon gentlemen would go “gassing stags” rather than shooting deer.93 In scenes of postwar British life, one artist imagined that hikers would wear masks to keep germs away; thieves would wear helmets as disguises when robbing homes; the traditional masquerade ball would be replaced by the gas-masked dance; debtors would hide behind

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. Bernhard Hugh’s Post-War Prophecy, published in The Bystander. From the Illustrated London News Picture Library.

masks to avoid their creditors when strolling down the street; and nonsmokers would avoid foul air in train carriages.94 Another artist envisioned that tear gas would be dispersed in theaters to move audiences of bad plays to tears.95 Some people may have wanted to believe that gas and its accessories could be made innocuous. Others may have decided that it was an evil genie that could not be forced back into the bottle; to make the best of its presence they looked to humor. There was never approval of this use of zeppelins, gas, and mines, but there was recognition that it might be hard to ignore the weapons’ existence or their application to peacetime pursuits. Gas Will Threaten the Future of Britain The press also offered serious recognition of the long-term impact of gas. Visual images used chemical weapons as an example of how warfare, civilization, and the world had changed during the conﬂict. The War Illustrated ’s

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Gas as a Symbol

cover on August , , featured a drawing of a uniformed soldier holding his bayoneted riﬂe at the ready.96 Next to it is the version, a man wearing a gas mask (which makes him look bug-eyed) and the satchel over his neck that normally houses it. He carries grenades in his jacket pockets and one in his hand for throwing. Flames roar behind him. His riﬂe still carries a bayonet, but it is pointed downward, indicating that it is not the most important weapon anymore. The simple caption reads: “I=:C: The Recruit of —The Veteran of : CDL.” Warfare had moved away from the traditional tools and seemed more impersonal. The modern soldier’s face cannot be seen. In fact, his mask makes him look scared and inhuman, whereas the man is handsome and stern in his appearance. War had become more complicated and less glorious. Other illustrations and photographs carry this theme further. (Humor seemed inappropriate for this topic, thus the lack of cartoons.) In Three Grenadiers: Civilisation at Lowest Ebb, three uniformed and masked Germans stand in a trench in front of a cloudy background.97 One has his riﬂe pointed at the enemy, the other is in the act of throwing a grenade, and a third seems to be holding his head. Because of the artist’s shading and the organization of the picture, the masks capture the viewer’s attention. The caption indicates that noble warriors are reduced to huddling in greatcoats and masks in a trench. Can civilization go any lower? The text below the picture states, “By various deeds has Germany forfeited her claim to be regarded as civilised, but perhaps the most poignant expression of her barbarity is the ugliness with which she hopes to frighten her enemies into submission. Poison gas, Germany’s great surprise, has given her every opportunity to look thoroughly monstrous. One wonders what a human being of 69 will think of the nation whose ﬁghting men looked as sinister as these specimen grenadethrowers in the German lines.” With the calculated use of words such as “ugliness,” “monstrous,” “barbarity,” and “sinister,” hostility toward the Germans for introducing gas and grenades becomes clear. Although possibly propagandistic as well as informative, this illustration captures public sentiment about poison gas: dislike of it and disdain for the nation that invented it. There is also a fear, though, that Britain herself will lose her status as a (if not the most) civilized country. She, too, had to engage in gas warfare. In a photograph of two soldiers wearing bulky respirators, the caption asks, “To What has War Reduced Mankind[?] These are not mythical monsters . . .

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but civilised Christian human beings . . . possibly the unrecognisable husbands, brothers, or sons of readers of this journal engaged in the protection of their throats and nostrils against the poison gases.”98 Has Germany degraded Britain, a country that prided herself on civilizing portions of her world in the nineteenth century? Is the natural drive toward progress being reversed? The presence of gas questioned not simply the noble, face-to-face nature of battle, but basic principles of British society. Beliefs in progress, Christian ethics, and the modern age had been attacked in the new art styles and in society; chemical warfare raised all of those questions, too. Similar drawings appealed to the same theme and appeared immediately after the Germans ﬁrst used gas. The cover of the May , , issue of the Illustrated London News depicts a masked German soldier carrying ﬂamethrowing apparatus, standing above a caption that states, “What War has Become! The Fighting Man in this Civilised Twentieth Century! . . . The Germans’ ideal . . . is suggestive rather of some Frankenstein’s monster . . . equipped with all of the devilish devices that could emanate from a chemical laboratory.”99 The author directs anger at science and at a sense that man has moved backward from the days of the “chivalrous knight.” The same magazine offered comparisons between medieval warriors and their equipment and modern soldiers’ armor of gas masks, knapsacks, and guns.100 It notes, “Features of war which have attracted universal surprise and attention have been the way in which long-obsolete battle-weapons and defensive armour have again been resorted to.” Civilization had returned to a time when men needed elaborate war dress to survive. Gas became a symbol for the British people of bravery, of fears, and of the new world created by World War I. Europe was now a place in which the British represented the high moral ground and the Germans the low. It was also a place in which Britain, as well as all civilization, was at risk of sliding down to the level of the Central Powers as the combatants became more and more deeply involved in the methods of modern war. To defend themselves against a foe using despicable weapons, the British had to use those same tools. The visual images of gas published in the popular press each week offered the public opportunities to consider these issues and to form their beliefs. It also ensured that they, too, confronted the meaning of gas in ways that had an impact on them even though they never experienced the new weapon physically. Yet mentally and emotionally they fought the gas war. Chemical

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weapons threatened everyone in this total war—they were a total weapon, one to which some became desensitized, as can be seen by the range of tones in the images, from horrifying to outraged to neutral to humorous. The effects lingered after the war, too. Although the images suggest that the British took some pride in the way their soldiers withstood gas and that they learned to laugh at the new weapon, other pictures repeatedly bombarded the population with the atrocious nature of gas and reasons to fear it. Repeatedly viewing the messages sent by these images helped the British to comprehend the horrors of World War I. In fact, some scholars have argued that one change brought about by the conﬂict was the ability to understand a new range of brutality; gas was one of these new outrages.101 Still, given that the public was involved in the gas war and that there were mixed messages about gas appearing in British society throughout World War I, it is not surprising that there was a public debate about the nature and future use of gas during the interwar period.

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. The Reestablishment of the Gas Taboo and the Public Debate Will Gas Destroy the World?

The chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, although frustrated that Britain’s chemical warfare service was deteriorating because of lack of funding and support after World War I, indicated to the government that he understood some of its reluctance. He wrote to the cabinet, “I realize the political expediency of [the British government’s] not appearing as [international] pioneers [in favor of gas] warfare which . . . has the reputation of being barbarous.”1 Later in the interwar period, though, Sir Maurice Hankey, the secretary to the cabinet, “made it plain that the Cabinet had been unanimous and emphatic in their determination not to renounce the right of retaliation” in any international treaty banning gas.2 The government’s desire to fulﬁll these contrasting sentiments of not standing alone globally in protecting the right to use gas, yet also not wanting to give up the ability to defend the nation against a chemical attack, illustrates the balancing act that it performed during the interwar period. The legitimacy of chemical warfare was on the minds of political leaders and the general public in the years after the armistice. As the images in the popular press showed, by the end of World War I almost everyone expected that gas was going to become a permanent weapon of war. In the last years of the conﬂict, and the ﬁrst ones after it, periodicals depicted future uses for gas; disarmament proponents and diplomats discussed weapons in print and at conferences; scientists and the military negotiated the postwar future of the Porton Down chemical research and experimental grounds; and politicians deliberated about future gas policy.3 These conversations did not mean that gas was universally feared. Memories of World War I gas experiences lingered and speculations about the future evolution of chemical weapons abounded.

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| Reestablishment of the Gas Taboo

Pundits suggested that gas would become an even more terrifying weapon in the future; the capacity that developed during World War I to envision a new scale of atrocity and novel kinds of wartime horrors heightened postwar fears that the frightening events of the sort seen in that conﬂict could, and would, occur again. For example, new chemicals might be discovered, ones immune to neutralization by respirators or capable of permanently destroying life on any land they touched.4 Another worry was that an enemy would not hesitate to drop gas bombs from airplanes onto civilian populations, ensuring mass destruction. Even General Foulkes, former head of the Special Brigade, director of Gas Services, and generally a proponent of gas warfare, expressed concerns. He noted in postwar correspondence to Field Marshal Cavan, “I am afraid that gas defence will never be so effective that the use of gas will not be thought worthwhile.”5 It is no wonder that these concerns about future uses of gas led to a public debate about the nature of the weapon as well as the means—and the necessity—of preventing future deployment of it. The fact that gas had been a total weapon in the First World War meant that almost every segment of society had interacted with gas on a mental, physical, or emotional level and thus had developed an opinion of it. Furthermore, the broad impact of World War I, and particularly gas, helped democratize war; every person, even those on the home front, had a role and could potentially be a target. As a result, both gas specialists—the men who had physically and professionally interacted with chemical weapons, such as chemists and Special Brigade members—and laypeople developed opinions about the use of gas in the future. Some were in favor of continuing to use gas, but others wanted to ban it; each side wanted to shape public policy about the weapon.6 The terms of the debate become clear, as do the reasons for the eventual triumph of the antigas contingent, by looking at the arguments of some of the loudest speakers.7 The antigas lobby was not a monolithic group, but its supporters’ focused message and sensationalist tone, along with the seeming support of the government, allowed it to overwhelm its opponents. The most vocal participants in the interwar public conversation about gas were men who spoke with authority; they not only set the main arguments of the debate, but their ideas spread widely throughout society. The gas-tolerant side—those who felt gas was a manageable, or even a positive, weapon in the nation’s arsenal, and are called gas-tolerant or progas for the purposes of this discussion—included J. B. S. Haldane, an expert on respirators; Victor

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Will Gas Destroy the World? |

Lefebure, a specialist in the chemical industry; and Henry Thuillier, a veteran of the World War I gas program and an interwar Air Raid Precautions analyst. On the antigas side, crusaders included laymen who commanded attention, such as the Second Earl of Halsbury, formerly Lord Tiverton, a World War I air strategist whose social position and military expertise gave him access to the public media.8 More famous was novelist H. G. Wells. These men’s words represent the tenor as well as the terms of the debate. These individuals’ ideas spread in writing and orally, reaching large segments of the British population. The Times, for example, covered speeches by Halsbury and Thuillier, men on opposite sides of the debate. The former addressed the League of Nations Union, a powerful peace organization, in London arguing that in future wars “the weapon which would be chieﬂy used would be poison gas [and] . . . there was no defence whatever.”9 Thuillier’s lecture to the Royal United Service Institution was on the same topic, titled “Can Methods of Warfare Be Restricted?” Noting the power of modern weapons and the desirability of effective international treaties controlling them, he thought that “gas was the most humane weapon of all.”10 The spokesmen’s monographs and novels drew attention, too; the Times Literary Supplement, among various well-known periodicals, helped spread the authors’ messages in favorable book reviews.11 Other famous ﬁgures acknowledged and further transmitted the arguments; Foulkes, a progas speaker, read and considered Lord Halsbury’s and H. G. Wells’s ideas. He addressed and dismissed them in a letter to the Times as “rightly ridiculed” in the House of Lords and the visions of a “scaremonger,” respectively.12 The government was also aware of the contributions men on both sides made to the gas debate. Not only did it consider the antigas position, as noted in Foulkes’s letter, but it recognized the views and expertise of the gas-tolerant. Victor Lefebure was nominated to be one of the government’s experts on the commercial chemical industry for the British delegation at the Washington Naval Conference in .13 Other people spoke about gas, from activist groups like the Union of Democratic Control and the paciﬁst No More War Movement to individuals in the street.14 The Union of Democratic Control was a paciﬁst body founded in and supported by the politician Ramsay McDonald and the author Norman Angell. Among other activities, the group published tracts during the interwar period to educate the masses so that they could critically evaluate their government’s attempts to protect them from future gas attacks

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| Reestablishment of the Gas Taboo

and wars.15 Armed with knowledge, presumably the people could pressure politicians into taking appropriate action. Most interesting was the fact that the Union of Democratic Control truly saw a gas war as a democratic issue whose menace should be understood and whose future should be decided by the people. Studying the most vocal individuals offers a focused window into the debate. During the two decades following the armistice, the government, the ultimate policy maker, considered the issues; its role was critical to the future of British policy and the taboo. The government was not quite a third party in the public debate, since most of its discussions occurred behind closed doors in meetings of the cabinet or its advisory group, the Committee of Imperial Defence.16 Understanding how the government reacted to the wider debate, and how the gas-tolerant and antigas groups inﬂuenced its policies in clear but limited ways, shows the full power of the public debate. Public opinion restrained the government’s actions regarding gas, but did not dictate them.17 In the end, although the antigas contingent overwhelmed the gas-tolerant group, it did not do so easily. The taboo against gas became reestablished during the interwar period in Britain (and in most of the world) as popular attitudes about gas, international treaties to ban it, and the failure to use it in World War II demonstrate. However, the debate about the nature and future use of gas continued throughout the interwar period precisely because the issues were not easily settled. The taboo against gas was neither automatic, inevitable, nor an immediate response to World War I, nor should it have been, considering society’s range of perceptions of gas and of experiences with it during the conﬂict. With that in mind, it is important to understand the arguments expressed in the public debate about gas. These focused on whether gas was a humane weapon and the implications of the answer to that question. If gas were humane, although it might be beneﬁcial to outlaw it, just as one might want to outlaw war, a failure to do so would not be catastrophic. On the other hand, if gas were inhumane, then it was important to determine how dangerous it was and what would be the consequences of failing to ban it adequately. By publicizing the stakes in global gas disarmament efforts, it might be possible to bring public pressure to bear on political decision makers so that an effective means of avoiding gas use in future wars could be developed. Consequently, during the s disarmament efforts and the s fear that a new war was approaching, the debate raged.

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The antigas and gas-tolerant sides perceived the nature of gas in diametrically opposite ways. The former thought that gas was inhumane and that an attack would be catastrophic for British civilization, whereas the latter believed that gas was at least as humane as other weapons and a manageable threat. As the two groups hashed out their questions, the twentieth-century concerns about civilization, barbarity, and terror came to the forefront and were debated explicitly; they were not simply the context for discussing gas, as they were, for the most part, during World War I. Beyond concerns about civilization and horror, though, both sides shared some of the core assumptions on which they based their discussion. The ﬁrst was that there would be another war in the future. The second was that airplanes would play a larger role in the next war, probably by targeting civilian populations, much as German zeppelins did when they bombed London during World War I. The third was that planes would probably carry gas bombs.18 Ironically, World War II proved that they were wrong only on the last count. Finally, the focus of the debate was on lethal, or potentially deadly, chemicals, such as mustard, although the language of the conversation sometimes broadened to include all toxins, even tear gases, usually because it was difﬁcult to separate compounds that could vary in intensity and effect.19 This sweeping characterization of all gases, even the nonlethal ones, as barbaric proved challenging to those in the gas-tolerant group. They were the ones who wanted to use tear gases, if not deadly ones, in the future in colonial riot control or border wars.20 What sparked these rumors and beliefs? For some, it was simply logic: using planes to drop gas bombs on civilians seemed to be the next step in the evolution of warfare. World War I had broken several of the traditional barriers in war, such as using gas itself and targeting civilians in zeppelin raids on London, so why would that trend not continue in the next conﬂict?21 Air power was in its infancy, but unlikely to stay there; by Stanley Baldwin, the president of the council, expressed a popular fear that “the bomber would always get through.”22 It made sense to combine these concerns about the future use of gas, civilian targets, and developments in air power—and it created a nightmare. The idea of mass destruction appearing suddenly out of the sky made many people feel helpless and vulnerable; the effects would be catastrophic with regard to suffering and the destruction of society.23 Some believed, therefore, that nations had to be convinced not to use gas again. On the other hand, a few agreed with the underlying assumption that gas would

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be dropped on the home front, but they differed in their predictions about the effects; gas, they thought, was not torturous, nor would air attacks be inevitably destructive.24 The groups were not monolithic, though. The two sides of the debate grew out of the multiple groups who had participated in the – gas war. The World War I groups, such as scientists and industrialists, had had speciﬁc interests with regard to gas arising out of their particular experiences with the weapon, and they differed from those held by other segments in society. However, once the immediate need to use or respond to gas was removed in , the more general issues of the nature and future of gas came to the forefront as most people considered gas from the perspective of future targets, a way they all expected to experience it during the next war. Thus, the multiple Great War groups largely solidiﬁed into the gas-tolerant and antigas bands. On both sides there were socialists such as H. G. Wells and J. B. S. Haldane and men interested in disarmament or collective security, such as Victor Lefebure and Lord Halsbury. Despite the variety within the two groups, the members in each shared some characteristics. Those who found gas to be intolerable were generally laypeople in terms of gas, although they could be military experts, such as Halsbury, who emphasized the catastrophic nature of future gas battles and the suffering that such weapons would cause. Accounts by members of this camp tried to elicit visceral repulsion toward chemical weapons with emotional and graphic stories, but they often included some quantiﬁable facts in their arguments. These vivid words were bolstered by art, such as John Singer Sargent’s painting Gassed and Wilfrid Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est.” These artworks, in fact, have proven to be longer lived than the words of the other spokesmen and are still one of the easiest ways to see some negative interwar perceptions of gas. Their opponents, the gas-tolerant, were usually scientiﬁc and military gas experts, frequently those who had hands-on knowledge of the weapon. They based their authority on their wartime experiences, their specialized training, and their objective evidence. They looked at World War I events and then extrapolated from them to make predictions about gas use in future wars. The tone of their written work was calmer, because they saw gas as less dangerous than did their adversaries. This did not mean that the men who argued that gas was a relatively humane weapon wanted another gas war; generally they did not.25 However, they thought that another chemical war could be com-

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bated without destroying civilization; they strove to educate the public and reduce panic as much as to avoid future gas use per se. Thus, the two sides approached the debate from dissimilar backgrounds using different evidence for their arguments and different tones for their presentations. Both groups of speakers wanted to educate the public about the “truth” of gas, based on their own predictions: the antigas side wanted to convince its audience of the destructiveness of chemical weapons, and their opponents wanted to demonstrate the limited damage that gas could cause, especially if appropriately combated. Gas: A Humane Weapon Prominent scientiﬁc and military experts promoted their own arguments as they tried to convince the public to view gas less apocalyptically. While the progas supporters did not agree on all particulars, they generally addressed three questions. First, was gas inhumane? They agreed that gas, even a lethal mixture, was no more inhumane than any other modern weapon of war. Second, would gas be used in the next war? There was no doubt that there would be a new conﬂict and that there was at least a probability that gas would be used. Third, could international agreements on disarmament effectively stop the use of gas in a future war? The consensus was that the treaties could not, as least as they were currently written. Opinions varied about whether, and how, these treaties could be improved, and if not, what else could be done to minimize casualties from a chemical attack or to prevent a gas war at all. The members of this group were not necessarily hawks or warmongers; no one publicly welcomed war or even the use of gas in a conﬂict.26 That was not surprising; after all, it is often people who have fought wars who are least likely to agitate for new ones. Besides, these speakers were gas experts, knowledgeable from personal experience gained during World War I or professional training. They respected the capabilities of chemical weapons, although they did not panic at the thought of them. They knew when and how gas could be safely contained as well as when it could be dangerous. They also knew that the general public viewed chemical warfare very differently. Their spokesmen feared that, as matters stood, a large portion of society would become hysterical if gas were used, especially on the home front. That was when this group thought gas could be dangerous, since World War I demonstrated that successful antigas measures depended at least partially on calm, deliberate steps

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taken by those under attack. For example, a respirator would be helpful only if a solider calmly and quickly donned it when an alarm sounded.27 What worried the members of the progas group was that the panicked tone in antigas literature written by their contemporaries, such as Wells and Halsbury, would blind masses to logic and truth.28 In general, therefore, the progas authors wanted to clear gas of the stigma that shadowed it in order to vindicate gas as a weapon and to protect society from frenzied behavior in the face of a gas attack.29 Although the gas champions did not hold identical views, there were commonalties in their arguments. They approached the issues from similar backgrounds and with comparable knowledge; several discussed the issues in detail in lectures and publications. But three stand out: the scientists J. B. S. Haldane and Victor Lefebure and the soldier Henry Thuillier. J. B. S. Haldane published Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare in . The author adopted the title in honor of an “eighth century 6 9 . . . Syrian . . . who had prolonged the life of the Eastern Roman Empire for another years and saved a large part of Christendom from Mahommedan domination by his invention of ‘Greek Fire,’ an inﬂammable liquid.”30 Haldane saw that potion as the precursor to modern chemical warfare. In his opinion, gas did not deserve its status as a pariah among armaments. Haldane was a biochemist, for a time at Cambridge, and spoke periodically on the subject of war and science in the future.31 He based his views on the fact that he was a trained scientist and thus truly understood chemicals and their potential. Furthermore, he had practical experience, having served in World War I as both a soldier and a scientist. In fact, during the conﬂict he worked with his father, J. S. Haldane, the ﬁrst scientist sent to France to study the situation after the gas war started. He also was the nephew of Lord Haldane, a prominent World War I politician. He ﬁrmly believed that a logical analysis would prove that gas was humane. It would also demonstrate that many parties on the antigas side of the debate were victims of a variety of inﬂuences, such as irrational sentimentalism and scientiﬁc ignorance, none of which deserved respect. Yet, like his opponents, he believed that chemical weapons would certainly be used in the next war, making it quicker and less deadly—providing preparations were made for defensive readiness to ward off the most permanent and serious results of a gas attack. Because of this, it was not in Britain’s interest to outlaw gas; he dismissed the importance of disarmament talks and favored antigas measures such as distribution of respirators to civilians, the likely future targets.32

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Another scientist, Victor Lefebure, wrote The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War. This work was reprinted four times by and had the sponsorship of Marshal Foch, who wrote the preface, and Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, who wrote the introduction.33 In he wrote Common Sense about Disarmament in which his ideas solidiﬁed and his desire intensiﬁed to wake up the world to the chemical “menace” that still existed.34 Lefebure combined a scientiﬁc background with military experience. He had served on the Western Front with the Special Brigade as the ofﬁcial liaison between the Ministry of Munitions’ chemical war efforts and those of the Allies, particularly France. After the war he worked on the Continent, where he became familiar with the state of the chemical industries in Europe and with questions of disarmament.35 His professional experiences made him aware that gas could be more or less humane than other arms, depending on the gas and the defensive readiness of the targets. Lefebure also knew that the postwar treaties had not eviscerated the German chemical industry. Theoretically, that was not a problem since it produced goods necessary for peacetime life in an industrialized country. The trouble, as Lefebure argued, was that the plants could be quickly restructured to manufacture war gases.36 Disarmament per se would not correct this problem.37 He therefore craved the safety that the international agreements offered but felt that they were not the entire solution to the interwar threats. Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Thuillier represented the military point of view, publishing his tracts and lecturing about his ideas in the s. He was head of the Gas Services, including overseeing defensive and offensive activities in France, and later the supervisor for the research and manufacture of gases and equipment in Britain. A professional soldier with practical experience of gas combined with intimate exposure to the science behind chemical warfare, he thus possessed valuable credentials on which to base his work and conclusions. His ideas were generally conservative and supportive of government policy, as his background might suggest. For instance, he dedicated efforts to publicizing the government’s air raid defense policy.38 Thuillier offered lectures and articles on the topic of gas warfare during the interwar period, but his ideas received wide circulation in Gas in the Next War, a volume in The Next War series edited by Capt. Basil Liddell Hart. The general’s goal was to educate the public about gas so that people did not unreasonably fear it and panic. In addition, although he thought that gas was not inhumane compared with other contemporary weapons, removing

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any weapon would at least lessen the total amount of destruction. Thus he believed that banning gas from the international arsenal was desirable. As it stood, though, international agreements were unlikely to be effective.39 A desperate country would probably break the law in order to save itself, if gas were the only option.40 However, that was not calamitous because gas was unlikely to develop into a catastrophic weapon in the next war.41 Thuillier was more optimistic than Lefebure about the defensive developments in gas and its future, and his level of concern was similar to Haldane’s. Was gas an inhumane weapon? Clearly the antigas side believed it was; its members saw it as a painful weapon of mass destruction. Using casualty statistics and their wartime experiences, the spokesmen for the other side disagreed. By deﬁnition no weapon was innocuous; however, in many minds, gas was at least as humane as conventional arms.42 The gas-tolerant not only saw the issue from a different perspective than their opponents, but they believed that the question possessed nuances that needed thorough analysis. They wondered whether the correct question was not, Is gas cruel? but, Is gas more inhumane than conventional weapons of modern war? And if more humane, how would one prove that point?43 They did so by relying on numbers of those killed and injured instead of degrees of pain caused by the weapon; the numbers, in general, were in their favor. In addition, calculations appeared to provide rational evidence for their arguments, unlike the necessarily emotional evaluations of pain used by the other side. In fact, J. B. S. Haldane conﬁdently stated that lachrymatory gas could be the most humane weapon ever invented, providing that the enemy did not wear eye-gear to protect himself. Using only tear gas allowed one side to incapacitate the enemy without killing. If the targets did wear adequate helmets, then tear gas, and even some lethal chemicals, were relatively ineffective, if not harmless. During World War I, even when more sophisticated chemicals were used, ones that overwhelmed the contemporary antigas measures, the casualty statistics remained lower than those produced by conventional weapons. Haldane ﬁrmly announced that mustard gas, widely recognized as the most injurious poison of the World War I arsenal, “kills one man for every forty it puts out of action; shells kill one for every three.”44 At ﬁrst this reasoning seemed convincing, although statistics did not reﬂect the fact that the gas war was constantly changing as new chemicals, defenses, and soldiers participated; they did not show, conclusively, that gas was the

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least injurious weapon available, all conditions on the battleﬁeld being equal. Also, Haldane’s argument rested on the assumption that targets of chemical attacks would have effective antigas equipment to limit suffering and death; in reality that was not always the case. Russia, for instance, was unable to equip her troops properly.45 Yet without appropriate antigas equipment, gas could cause great pain. Even Haldane noted that arsenic compounds could produce agony, the kind that Lord Halsbury feared. In his book, Haldane stated that “within forty-eight hours [of being poisoned] the large majority had recovered, and practically none became permanent invalids.” Until then, “some soldiers poisoned by these substances had to be prevented from committing suicide; others temporarily went raving mad, and tried to burrow into the ground to escape from imaginary pursuers.”46 Thus, Haldane’s argument contained ﬂaws, mainly because of the assumptions, not because of the reasoning based on them. If his conjectures about the presence of antigas training and masks held true, and one deﬁned a humane weapon as one that produced as few deaths or permanent injuries as possible, then basically gas was just as humane as more conventional weapons. The problem was that he did not always make realistic assumptions about the likelihood of combatants to restrain themselves and stay within these rules. Furthermore, the key to his reasoning was that gas was humane in comparison to other modern weapons because the guns and artillery of World War I maimed as well as killed soldiers.47 So, although Haldane had little conﬁdence in disarmament treaties, it did not matter; in his eyes, defense did not depend on conferences but rather on effective antigas equipment and training.48 Regardless of the ﬂaws in his reasoning, Haldane contemptuously dismissed the arguments of his adversaries who believed gas was an unusually dreadful weapon with regard to the suffering it caused and the potential number of casualties it could inﬂict. He categorized his opponents’ reasons as based on emotion and lack of knowledge. Even worse, from his professional point of view, they lacked any scientiﬁc grounding. Haldane directed his greatest scorn toward professionals who should have known the truth about gas; they were the ones who made the policy he disliked, such as the decisions at the Washington Conference to ban gas. For that reason, Haldane called the misconceptions of both politicians and the military “shameful.” What made this worse was the fact that the same ofﬁcers who abhorred and feared gas, according to Haldane, put Britain in a position in which she needed to

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tremble at the thought of chemical warfare. To prove his point, he noted that in the early s, the army stopped antigas training because it was not capable of being molded into a neat, precise drill.49 In reality, some of the military endorsed gas, and at times the training stopped for ﬁnancial reasons.50 Still, in Haldane’s view, misguided individuals had made poor and thus ineffective policy; Britain could not deter gas attacks nor withstand them effectively because of her unprepared status. In Haldane’s eyes, ignorance was the primary sin, but sentiment was similarly ﬂawed; both characteristics were the antitheses of those used by scientists. Compounding politicians’ and soldiers’ crimes was their tendency to dismiss gas simply because it was not part of the traditional arsenal.51 Some soldiers accepted that the new machine guns were related to other guns, but chemical weapons were unique. Adding insult to injury, in Haldane’s view, was the fact that the favored weapons were the really “cruel and obsolete killing machines.” Drawing on history, he compared the dislike of the new chemical weapons to the period in which gunpowder and infantry seemed repugnant to chivalrous warriors.52 Clearly, in Haldane’s eyes, emotion clouded logical reasoning and led to incorrect conclusions. Haldane displayed his cynicism and scorn in his statement that his arguments would “not be believed because a belief in them would do violence to the sentiments of most people.”53 He offered the view of a few logical men who knew best and yet would not be heard—rather like Cassandra predicting the future. As one reviewer noted, Haldane’s conclusions “run directly counter to current opinion not only among the people at large . . . but also among those who do pretend to know, and still more perhaps among those who know everything by the light of nature.”54 Haldane set himself up as a martyr, proclaiming his beliefs as if to demonstrate his superiority rather than to plead for acceptance by his readers. Unlike Haldane, Thuillier explicitly stated that he wanted to outlaw gas. Thuillier was still a gas-tolerant spokesman, though, because he thought gas was manageable, but unnecessary; he did not think its use in future conﬂicts would be catastrophic. Gas was “not a substitute for the older [more conventional] weapons, but an addition to them.” In that case, why not limit the scale of war by prohibiting chemical weapons? The general knew that it was almost impossible for nations to refrain from war, but they might be capable of limiting it. Efforts had been made through The Hague Conventions before

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World War I as well as the Treaty of Versailles and other international agreements after the war; no one wanted a catastrophic conﬂict. The problem was that the agreements had not proved effective. Thuillier did not believe that the postwar treaties would work either. Events such as the Italian conquest of Ethiopia had proven that rogue states possessed cavalier attitudes toward treaties and that other countries were reluctant to enforce them.55 But also unlike Haldane, Thuillier did not despair. In his opinion, even if disarmament treaties failed, civilization could survive a gas attack. He believed that chemical weapons were unlikely to advance much. He noted that gas might be dispersed at longer distances by artillery, but that was not revolutionary. Air bombs were possible, but he reasoned that they would be ineffective. For planes to survive their runs, they would have to drop the gas from high altitudes. After falling a long distance, the chemicals would disperse in the air and prove almost harmless.56 If that were the case, then antigas equipment should be sufﬁcient to counteract any attacks; during the Great War it had kept pace with offensive inventions and the pattern was likely to continue. Therefore, Thuillier prioritized antigas preparation over negotiation. Both soldiers and civilians had to be drilled in antigas measures; then they would be ready for an attack, and perhaps their very readiness would deter one. If the enemy thought that the gas would not be effective, then he would not bother to deploy it. Thus, Thuillier encouraged the air raid precautions the government promoted.57 Although agreeing with Haldane that antigas equipment would save more people from chemical injuries than treaties would, Thuillier, now a major general, disagreed with Haldane’s view of the civilians who might have to weather those gas attacks. He was more moderate than his colleague. He agreed with the scientist that gas had a reputation that it did not deserve; more than any other weapon it had been “subject to . . . misrepresentation and . . . persistently viliﬁed.” He blamed the public’s misapprehensions on their lack of knowledge, but he did not attribute this to sheer irrationality. Instead, he thought that the negative attitude arose from vivid memories of the horrors gas produced in the early days of gas warfare in . Thuillier, too, relied on statistics to prove his point. According to his count, the “ratio of deaths, and of permanent disablement, among gassed men is only about one-seventh of the ratio of deaths and permanent disablement among men wounded by other weapons of war.”58 His task in , therefore, was to educate people. They had lived in fear for two decades, and now they could, and,

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because of the dangerous international situation of the s needed to, correct their view of gas.59 They had to be prepared to understand the reality of their world. Perhaps Thuillier believed that his military training and his wartime experience with scientists made his opinions credible to his audience. Victor Lefebure, too, believed that gas was a relatively humane weapon, if a humane weapon was one that produced a lower “death-rate . . . [and] a much smaller proportion of the injured suffered any permanent disability.”60 As a scientist, he, like Haldane, evaluated the effect of the poisons quantitatively and objectively rather than qualitatively and emotionally. He gave less attention to questions of horror or pain. Lefebure was unusual in believing that although chemical warfare was “atrocious,” at least it had the potential to become less lethal and painful. For example, disabling gases, such as lachrymatory ones, could overcome an enemy’s opposition without killing, maiming, or even permanently injuring him. Looking at the results of World War I, Lefebure’s hope had some foundation. In the last two years of the war the military used increasing amounts of gas. As a result, casualties grew, but mortality from toxins did not.61 Although he hoped that chemical warfare would develop along increasingly humane avenues, with countries limiting their gas use, he did not truly believe that would happen; like his colleagues, he thought disarmament conferences and treaties were ineffective, if laudable in theory. For instance, he did not believe that they could restrict nations from using all of the gases at their disposal since the documents did not contain effective enforcement mechanisms (except, perhaps, retaliation).62 Of course, Lefebure also considered the issue of gas bombs dropped from airplanes, a possibility that worried many at the time. Unlike Thuillier, he was concerned not with the distance from the objective but with the number of targets: it would be easy for a planeload of bombs to cause damage to a city.63 (Halsbury agreed.) 64 The opportunity for harm would increase if the enemy used persistent gas since the danger would linger long after the bombers returned home. Lefebure truly feared the future, as the mood of his work indicates. His tone is one of desperate pleading because he thought that although future gas injuries could be prevented with the proper precautions, people were unlikely to react appropriately, such as calmly donning respirators. In addition, gas, and war in general, had proved to be a traumatic experience for Britain

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in –. He explicitly blamed Germany for much of that. He felt that the enemy had deliberately followed a “chemical policy making for world domination in the organic chemical industry, which greatly hampered the military effectiveness of other countries, and directly strengthened the military resources of Germany. On broad lines, the pre-war and war activities of the [German chemical industry combine] I. G. [Farben] produced the same result as an attempt to strangle the economic life of possible opponents” for approximately two decades. The execution of this plan was one reason Britain was left in such a weak state at the beginning of the war. She did not have the industrial capabilities to make pharmaceuticals, dyes, or, when it became necessary, chemical weapons. Instead, she frantically had to develop the abilities to do all of that under the pressures of war. It is clear why Lefebure held a grudge against Germany, but his wariness continued into the interwar period. He thought that German industrial might remained. Furthermore, it was impossible to run a modern society without the products of organic chemistry. The real problem arose during peacetime, when innocuous plants could be quickly and quietly converted to wartime purposes; after all, that is what had happened during World War I on both sides. The world was still at the mercy of a German threat; it had not been neutralized.65 He proposed a novel solution: end Germany’s control over so much of the global chemical industry and transfer it to an international body.66 Lefebure recognized the unique qualities of gas; it could not be treated in the same way as other weapons. Yet, to end war, all weapons either would have to be eradicated or at least severely limited. His solution was as idealistic as the existing disarmament agreements were ﬂawed. To achieve success he would have to convince several strong groups: politicians, wealthy businessmen, and the military. He wanted, after all, to infringe upon the sovereignty of nations by ending their control over a necessary and proﬁtable industry. The economic powers of countries would ﬁght the loss of their private dominions and control over their proﬁts. Even the military would be unlikely to trust the removal of a portion of its arsenal from its own control. Lefebure’s plan may have been a good one, but its success was improbable even if he could have found champions for it. His proposals, therefore, like those of his colleagues, were products of both hope and despair. These men attempted to ﬁnd solutions, but their ideas were not necessarily any more practical than the ones they rejected. The gas-tolerant speakers had a single core message: gas was a manageable threat. However, they of-

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fered varied reasoning for that conclusion and differing recommendations to ensure the weapon’s manageability. Both made it harder for followers to unite behind the gas-tolerant group and to echo a clear goal and plan. In addition, the antigas lobby pushed the government to make policy and sign treaties prohibiting chemical weapons; when it did so, it seemed as if the government was supporting and reinforcing their point of view. Gas and the End of Civilization Spokesmen for the antigas side of the argument ranged from sensationalists to the misguided, to some genuinely frightened people with loud voices, according to the gas-tolerant. They included conservatives such as Lord Halsbury. In speeches on disarmament, in articles in popular magazines, and in novels, he voiced his fears before a wide range of audiences.67 H. G. Wells popularized his argument against gas in his novel The Shape of Things to Come. This utopian socialist did not believe gas would necessarily cause the destruction of civilized society, but he did abhor the weapon and suggest that it had the potential to become increasingly dangerous. Like Halsbury, Wells based his analysis on an understanding of World War I gas and extrapolations of how gas might evolve in the future. Both men, despite their contrasting backgrounds, received widespread public attention because of their social positions and popularly accessible vehicles for discourse. Lord Halsbury was active throughout both decades of the interwar period. He published an article entitled “Gas!” in the British Legion Journal of January as the World Disarmament Conference failed. This essay, only two pages in a military magazine, expressed his fear of future war succinctly. His mission was to remind people, if they had forgotten, of the terrors of the recent war and impress upon them the nightmares of a future one. He argued that “another war would be worse, incomparably worse, than the last. . . . War on a large scale to-day would mean a conﬂict in which large masses of civilians were blotted out in scarcely conceivable conditions of horror. It would be war in which civilisation as we know it might be utterly destroyed.”68 Lord Halsbury laid out the two main concerns of the antigas side. Like almost everyone else in Britain, he assumed that there would be another war and that the gassing of civilians would be a part of it. Those who agreed with him thought that gas would be used on a scale, or at a level of sophistication, such that it would destroy civilian populations; it would be catastrophic and destructive beyond the belief even of survivors of World War I’s chaos:

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“One single bomb ﬁlled with modern asphyxiant gas would kill everybody in an area from Regent’s Park to the Thames.”69 The second concern was the process by which such horror would be wrought. Gas would kill and burn excruciatingly. The result and the means horriﬁed Lord Halsbury and his colleagues. He felt that he had to warn civilization in order to save it, and, unfortunately, threatening retaliation might be the only way to accomplish that.70 The author did not base his article on groundless fears. He cited the evidence that German chemical ﬁrms, speciﬁcally Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik of Ludwigshaven, Meister Lucius of Hoeschst, and Bayer of Leverkusen, had the capability to transform quickly from producers of peacetime to wartime chemicals.71 Halsbury then gave another example: the Germans in May had developed an arsenic-cyanide compound, diphenylcyanoarsine, an irritant that would penetrate masks and force people to remove respirators.72 Another wave of lethal poison, released simultaneously, would then attack and kill unprotected people. Halsbury wrote, “If severely gassed, people would be driven mad by pain and misery and would lose all mental control.”73 If these developments were known, what else could or would happen in the future as gas evolved further? Lord Halsbury proceeded to inform readers that they had no hope for protection. He proclaimed, “The [government’s practice] air measures of were intended to reassure the public that our defence measures against hostile air attacks were adequate. Actually they proved that London cannot be defended against such attacks. Defence squadrons cannot protect towns from aerial bombers.”74 Publicly he painted a demoralizing picture of future conﬂict, and did so just as events in Europe begin to become increasingly dangerous in . To reach a wider audience, Halsbury had earlier written a novel, , published and reprinted in .75 On the surface this book was a piece of popular ﬁction, a thriller and romance combined. Three friends—a British politician, Sir John Blundell; a military man, Capt. Rory Scott; and a French diplomat, Pierre de Marnac—believe that a future war will arrive and destroy civilization. They prepare an escape route, via a plane, much as Noah readied the ark; Halsbury made the analogy clear, along with the fact that wise men might have to withstand years of derision by unbelievers. (Perhaps he felt like a lonely voice of truth himself.) The three twentieth-century men work to avoid future war at the same time that they try to glean intelligence that will

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tell them when it will occur. In , the charismatic Russian leader Kornilov attacks Western Europe by surprise, destroying the urban centers of Britain with poison gas bombs dropped by a ﬂeet of airplanes. Soon the war becomes global and destroys the bastions of society. So that the reader could not simply shrug off the massacre, Halsbury gave a detailed account of the destruction of London through the eyes of Sir John’s son, Dick, and de Marnac’s daughter, Sylvie. The young couple ﬂee the capital, avoiding several life-threatening dangers on the way. Halsbury intensiﬁed the story by describing mobs pushing their friends off the roof of the Savoy in their panicked search for clean air. He described well-known sites as pitfalls for the unwary, such as the Hammersmith tube station and Kew Gardens; readers familiar with London could follow Dick and Sylvie’s progress quite easily and imagine themselves there with them. To emphasize the danger of a gas war, the author included scenes that depict the ramiﬁcations of a society halted by chemical weapons. He even included villagers who resort to cannibalism because of a shortage of food; Sylvie narrowly escapes a gruesome fate. The suspense grows as Dick and Sylvie are continually delayed as they try to rendezvous with their parents and their families’ loyal followers; the plan is to ﬂy to a safe spot in the world and restart civilization. A large portion of the plot focuses on the melodramatic question of whether the two young lovers meet their parents in time, before the older generation has to depart to save their companions. For a happy ending, Halsbury reunited all the family members and their followers, sending them back to London once the gas had dispersed. There they plan to restart world civilization from England’s center. The power and barbarity of gas had nearly destroyed society completely. Although the plot showed that the author clearly structured the book for popular appeal, its serious messages shine through. This novel made the same basic argument that Halsbury’s British Legion Journal article did: a gas war was coming and it would destroy civilization painfully and thoroughly. To make his point, Halsbury emphasized horror and suffering, whether he used ﬁction or nonﬁction. He also indicated that whatever measures Britain was undertaking at the time, from air raid drills to disarmament talks, were ineffective. Preparations, as Sir John Blundell demonstrated, had to be taken, but they had to be the right ones. Halsbury, for all of this doom-saying, hinted that Britain could be saved, but she needed to take a different path than simply relying on the government to handle the situation through ineffective

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international talks. He tried to help society take the ﬁrst step on that path by educating and convincing people of the scope of the danger. He relied on his aristocratic background, a range of genres through which to spread his message to the widest audience, and graphic imagery that would elicit attention and interest in avoiding a gas war. He also conveyed persuasiveness and urgency derived from his personal convictions and knowledge of World War I. In the Great War he had suggested bombing for material and morale effects; he had even proposed using biological warfare in the form of Colorado beetles dropped from planes to ruin German potato ﬁelds.76 Still, Halsbury was not a gas expert and thus did not fully understand the characteristics of chemical weaponry; for example, he argued unreasonably that mustard gas would “in hours [kill] every man, woman and child” in London.77 He had military expertise, but spoke as a gas layman. At the other end of the spectrum of antigas literature was H. G. Wells’s The Shape of Things to Come. Wells had already developed a reputation as a proliﬁc author of novels, especially science ﬁction, as well as nonﬁction, and his views enjoyed wide circulation. In he wrote a “history” of the world from to , recounting the establishment of a global, socialist society. He presented the information as being the result of respected statesman Dr. Raven’s dreams. The narrator, probably intended to be Wells himself, describes his role as the transcriber and editor of Raven’s notes after the latter’s death in . At the end of the long work, the narrator questions whether previous pages formed “a dream book . . . or . . . a vision of the shape of things to come? Or—there is a third possibility . . . a theory of world revolution. Plainly the thesis is that history must now continue to be a string of accidents with an increasingly disastrous trend until a comprehensive faith in the modernized World-State, socialistic, cosmopolitan and creative, takes hold of the imagination.”78 Wells saw the fearsome potential of gas and war, as did Lord Halsbury. He thought that both were destructive and would lead to the ruin of existing civilizations, despite the attempts of the League of Nations to outlaw gas warfare. Yet while Wells disapproved of World War I gases, he was also more optimistic than Halsbury; war was not necessarily an odious occurrence because it might be possible for a better form of society to arise after the current one expired. While Wells disapproved of the process of destruction, he also disliked the current culture that existed. The novel states that early

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twentieth-century humans were barbaric; they started World War I, failed to correct the economic and political problems of the interwar society, and— in Raven’s dreams—engaged in a ruinous conﬂict in the mid-s. Thus, according to the dreams, after the catastrophic wars and repercussions of those conﬂicts in the mid-twentieth century, a new modern state would be born that would better mankind. Before the advent of this utopia, The Shape of Things to Come recounts several violent episodes in the future of civilization, most of which include chemical weapons and airplanes. The novelist explored in detail the military strategies and weapons developed by the major powers from World War I onward. He dismissed the methods used in the Great War as “uncongenial to humanity. . . . What an angry man wants to do is to beat and bash another living being, not to be shot at from ten miles distant or poisoned in a hole.” Furthermore, the gases destroyed victims painfully: “We have heard the stories of men who fell into heaps of rotting dead, and lay there choking. . . . The tortures of gas were already many and various.”79 Wells expressed some of the commonly held reasons behind the popular dislike of gas: its impersonal method of killing and its ability to inﬂict pain. Despite the destruction of World War I, caused partially by the sophisticated weaponry, the book imagines that the trend toward technical innovation continues after as least as extensively as it did in reality. The result is a period of history in which the danger from unconventional weapons shapes the design of clothes and architecture; as in World War I, the threat of gas inﬂuences daily life whether or not it is used. As the narrator summarizes, “It was a ‘gas-minded’ world.”80 It was this portion of the novel that readers would ﬁnd most applicable to contemporary events, set as it was in the immediate past and future. If Wells’s account did not already dismay his audience, then his picture of the next hundred years would; the “history” grows darker and gas continues to play a role in the horrors that occur. Some of Raven’s predictions, as recounted by the narrator, proved to have elements of accuracy. The novel suggests that Japan would use gas on northern China in , forecasting Japan’s use of gas in Manchuria. Wells, however, enhanced the gases to make them instinctively more horrifying to the reader. In the novel, a retaliating China drops “Sterilizing Inhalation” gas, an unexpected invention that prevents reproduction of animals and humans.81 The ability to procreate generally has been viewed as an inviolate human

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right; the thought that it could be taken away, en masse and at a distance, by an enemy was viscerally disturbing, particularly during the pronatalist interwar period.82 A contemporary reader of The Shape of Things to Come would have been deeply troubled. After that traumatic scene, Wells sets a war in that begins as a conﬂict between the Poles and Germany and that soon spreads. The future warriors use it to create an impassable toxic zone that Germany cannot cross despite her efforts to protect East Prussia. Once again, Wells took an actual gas and enhanced it in order to create a realistically frightening scenario; Permanent Death Gas could be described as an improved mustard gas. It is a more persistent and more lethal toxin that produces a longer lasting buffer zone between enemy lines. With mustard gas, the chemicals would burn anything that touched them until the compound wore off. Permanent Death Gas creates a barren zone that will not support life for decades, if not forever. Wells managed to top this horror with another one by destroying society as his readers knew it. In the novel, the wars of the “Fighting Forties” (the s) continue. Even years into it, “a whiff of gas could still cause a panic, a headlong rush of tormented people coughing and spitting through the streets to the shelter pits.” Perhaps because of the strain constant battle puts on populations, this period also launches a series of epidemics, from inﬂuenza to cholera; the s become the “Pestilential Fifties” as the germs become a central obstacle in human struggles to survive.83 The civilization alive in is disappearing and has to be replaced. Wells, however, like revolutionaries who tolerate the bloodshed necessary to form their ideal society, thought that gas served a worthy goal in destroying warring national states and permitting the formation of a global socialist community. Thus, gas proves to be a ubiquitous weapon, one that constantly evolves and serves as an essential tool of civilization’s destruction, crushed to allow a necessary rebirth. In his story recounting that transformation, Wells managed to include arguments condemning World War I chemical warfare and imagine realistic forecasts of future gases. Although his plot did not include the destruction of global civilization through gas alone, unlike Halsbury’s novel, its realistic tone seemed at least as disturbing as Halsbury’s drama. As one reviewer commented, it “had the power to persuade [the reader] of some of the more immediate and disastrous developments.”84 Even so, the response by those on the other side of the debate included vociferous at-

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. John Singer Sargent’s Gassed. Courtesy of the Art Archive/Imperial War Museum.

tacks by Charles Foulkes, commander of the Special Brigade. He dismissed Halsbury and Wells and their camp as irresponsible “prophets of doom,” basing their predictions on rumors and inaccuracies and needlessly panicking the public.85 Reinforcement of the Antigas Message Artists reinforced the antigas writers’ messages and helped keep fear of chemical weapons embedded in society during the interwar period and beyond. John Singer Sargent painted one of the most famous visual representations of the chemical war in Gassed. Commissioned by the British War Memorials Committee, he traveled to the Western Front in to record the conﬂict.86 A scene in which a medic led a line of blinded men, each soldier with his hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him, caught Sargent’s attention and is the central focus of the artwork. As two art critics noted, “Sargent deliberately draws on the religious associations of the processional form to give his painting spiritual weight and meaning”; the tone as well as the content of the picture is powerful.87 The ﬁnished painting, nearly life-size, shows the wounded, helpless men as they slowly cross the Western Front; behind them, in a contrast that serves to emphasize the gassed men’s vulnerable condition, the artist captured healthy, active men playing soccer. Sargent’s painting became famous when it won the prize as the “Picture of the Year” during an exhibit at the Royal Academy in and has become a symbol of the pathos of war, as well as of gas war speciﬁcally.88 Gassed remains in the public eye; it has been featured in exhibits from the Imperial War Museum in London to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.89 It is such a well-known symbol of torment that it graced the cover of a book about a completely different tragedy of the war, shell shock, which was similar to

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. Men blinded by mustard gas in a scene replicated in Sargent’s Gassed. Photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London, negative no. F.

gas only in the pity it evokes for sufferers.90 On the other hand, art historian M. R. D. Foot refused to include Gassed in a book on war art, dismissing the painting as “hackneyed” because the scene was so familiar; while many would disagree that the picture has lost its power, Foot’s comment does reinforce the work’s celebrity.91 Ironically, Gassed ’s accuracy has been debated by artists, soldiers, and chemical warfare experts. Novelist E. M. Forster thought it romanticized war, although Sargent himself did not agree.92 Another critic wondered, “Surely, in the agony of the struggle for breath, the ﬁrst instinctive action is to throw off every encumbrance?” thus questioning the line of well-equipped soldiers in the painting.93 In contrast, one military nurse who saw it at the Royal Gallery thought it “the greatest picture here,” and her companion, a soldier, praised it, too, especially in comparison to the other war paintings on the wall.94 While those who served on the Western Front acknowledged that it captured a scene that did occur, Foot, the son of a veteran, disliked the painting because “it gives a false impression. My father once stood in one of those pathetic-seeming queues of men blinded by mustard gas . . . [and he] was back in action with his battery a week later.”95 Henry Thuillier called the painting “sloppy sentimentalism” for the same reason.96 Charles

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Foulkes “hated the picture and thought it was demoralising,” according to his son.97 Foot, Thuillier, and Foulkes were correct that mustard gas usually blinded temporarily, whereas the painting suggests long-term disability and has been used as a way to demonstrate the helplessness of the victims of war. Gassed does not show the gore of war or the destruction, but it does elicit fear at the human cost of it. More important, the perception of gas that Sargent captured, whether or not it is physically or emotionally accurate, has helped shape public beliefs about gas for decades. Sargent’s work was not alone in associating gas with negative emotions and outcomes; Wilfred Owen’s did the same. In the poet’s case, gas illustrates the barbaric horror of war. His work, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” famous since its publication, describes the struggles of a band of soldiers suffering in a gas attack.98 The narrator watches his gassed comrade: . . . I saw him drowning . . . He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. . . . the white eyes writhing in his face, . . . If you could hear . . . the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria mori.99 Owen’s messages about the horror of gas and about war’s lack of glory ﬁt the widespread disillusionment many people had about ﬁghting after World War I.100 What is unusual about Owen’s work, and explains its lingering popularity, is the vivid, unforgettable language he uses.101 His message is convincing, particularly since he died during the last weeks of the war. For those who fear gas anyway, or those who have been introduced to it solely through Sargent or Owen, it is no wonder that chemical warfare can seem indefensible. Nobel Prize winner Rudyard Kipling also used gas negatively in a poem. Although his writing is not as graphic as Sargent’s or Owen’s work, because he associates gas with the betrayal of Christ he condemns chemical weapons at least as thoroughly as the other artists do. In “Gethsemane,” he describes Christ’s reluctance to suffer, just as many gas victims wanted to avoid an at-

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tack. The poet describes a soldier on a break from the front in “the Garden called Gethsemane” who “prayed my cup might pass.” Instead, “It didn’t pass from me./I drank it when we met the gas/Beyond Gethsemane!”102 Gas brought unavoidable, dreaded death. Kipling also emphasizes the random nature of chemical attacks; gas is not aimed at a particular person, and its fumes may overwhelm one soldier but not another. It is not a fair weapon; it is beyond control and thus frightening. Although conventional artillery is arguably as unpredictable, Kipling does not mention it; in his mind and in the minds of many of his readers, gas is worse. Although some of this artwork is more well-known than others, all of it reinforces the negative sentiments about gas: Sargent sees its demoralizing aspects, Owen its brutality, Kipling its unjust nature. Raemaekers, in The Gas Fiend, discussed in the introduction, depicts its treachery. The skill of the artists in portraying gas and the resonance of their messages kept some of these images in the public eye. They also reinforced negative characterizations of gas, accurate or not, and fed fears of chemical weaponry well beyond the interwar period. Inﬂuence on the British Government From the Treaty of Versailles in to the World Disarmament Conference talks about weapons in the early s, the British government worked to ban the use of gas, but it did not have a clear and consistent antigas policy in the early postwar years. In the immediate aftermath of the war, elements in the British government indicated a strong desire to continue to use gas. For example, on July , , the Holland Committee, composed of military men and academics and led by Lt. Gen. Sir A. E. Holland, completed its study of chemical warfare and made its recommendation to the government. The report began, “Ample and generous provision must be made for the continuous study of chemical warfare both as regards offence and defence during peace, in order to ensure the future safety of the ﬁghting forces of the Empire” because “gas is a legitimate weapon in war . . . [and] history shows that in no case has a weapon which has proved itself to be successful in war ever been abandoned by nations ﬁghting for existence.”103 The experts had concluded that not only was gas a fair weapon, but for Britain’s own safety, she needed to maintain her gas program. Perhaps more interesting is the pressure from the politicians, led by Winston Churchill in , to use gas in new arenas, particularly the empire, and to

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do so immediately. In his usual forthright manner, Churchill captured the sentiments of many of those who were enthusiastic about, not just tolerant of, gas. He saw it as a useful weapon as well as a unique one whose reputation was unnecessarily negative. In a memo of May , , in which Churchill discussed the desirability of sending mustard gas to India, he said it would be “too silly” not to use the weapon and that any objections were “unreasonable.” Gas would permit the British forces to defend themselves against the Afghanis on India’s restless northern border. Furthermore, gas could replace men, allowing weary soldiers to be demobilized after the war.104 Churchill even addressed the issue of the humanity of gas, “pointing out that the effects of gas were no more cruel than the effects of modern high explosive shell.”105 In the end, the viceroy of India permitted London to send out gas and advisors, namely, Charles Foulkes of the Special Brigade, to demonstrate the new weapon.106 However, that was the extent of the new strategy. The viceroy was reluctant to use gas, and enough of the British government was hesitant to continue to use gas in the postwar international environment.107 The antiwar element was already developing in Britain and abroad at this point. In fact, Clause of the Treaty of Versailles prohibited Germany from making, keeping, or deploying gas.108 Within Britain, internal discussions made it clear that some members of government were strongly against gas. In the same discussion in which Churchill argued that gas was no worse than high explosives, Herbert Fisher, a Liberal reformer and president of the Board of Education, argued that “the British Empire had everything to gain by human valour and to lose by the adoption of barbarous methods [i.e., gas].”109 It was not enough for Britain to abandon gas; she must also persuade other nations to outlaw it, too: that was “a duty . . . the British Government owes civilization.”110 There were also disagreements about speciﬁc circumstances, whether in India or elsewhere in the empire, in which gas might be used. In a memorandum on the subject, Fisher argued that it was “open to special objections” to deploy gas against “an uncivilized enemy possessing little or no medical equipment,” while Henry Wilson retorted that some of those “uncivilized” enemies, the Afghanis, “before killing our wounded perpetrate such horrors as it is unnecessary to dwell upon here.”111 Even if gas were barbaric, in other words, it was appropriate to use it in certain situations, such as this one in which chemical weapons would serve as retribution, as they did in World War I.

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This was not the only time that elements of the British government advocated gas use or argued to protect Britain’s right to deploy it. There have been suggestions that the army considered using it against the Bolsheviks in northern Russia in ; it was used by the Royal Air Force in Iraq in ; and in the acting governor of Southern Rhodesia requested permission to use “innocuous gases” (tear gases instead of lethal ones) to “expel natives taking refuge in caves in the hills” during rebellions.112 The governor’s plea was denied; even though the gases considered were used in riot control by police in the United States and elsewhere, the government memos discussing the topics explicitly refused permission: because of “existing [international] pledges . . . [to refrain from using gas], the time had not yet come when they [Britain] could openly countenance the use of [even nonlethal] gas in native rebellions.”113 This was not the only time in which tear gases were considered for use in the colonies during peacekeeping missions. In , the British government gave permission for gas to be used in India as an experiment “in situation[s] such as arise when armed criminals are brought to bay in a house or place of refuge,” although, in the end, it was not used because of fears that stampedes by panicked crowds would result.114 That same year, the cabinet approved tear gas use in Palestine “in dealing with mobs and riots in cases where it would otherwise be necessary to shoot”; that is, it was seen as a safer weapon than guns to keep the peace.115 While it is certainly possible that some of the willingness to deploy gas in the empire arose from a belief, as implied in Wilson’s comments, that colonials (and imperial enemies such as the Afghanis and even the Bolsheviks) were less civilized than Europeans and thus deserving of a brutal, uncivilized weapon, that does not entirely explain the calls for gas in these situations. In the Afghan situation, for example, one reason the government considered allowing India to use gas was fear that the Afghanis could acquire gas from Russia.116 Furthermore, these were the only enemies with whom Britain wanted to wage war at this date; she was not picking one weapon for imperial targets and another for Western. Also, some proponents, like Churchill, had been advocates of gas during the Great War, too. They did not see it as barbaric, nor did they see imperial enemies as the only suitable victims. Other people may certainly have believed that, though; the traditional theory of bellum romanum permitted the use of any means to defeat barbaric enemies; recently enacted laws of war, such as The Hague Conventions, would not apply.117 On the other hand, as gas’s reputation as a barbaric, inhumane weap-

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on solidiﬁed in the public interwar debate, it became harder for a government to suggest gas use, let alone condone it, on anyone, even non-Westerners who were often seen as less civilized.118 Still, the few conﬁrmed times gas was used on a grand scale during the interwar period, the perpetrators were industrialized nations who considered their enemies inferior and unable to retaliate: the Italians in Ethiopia in and the Japanese in China.119 Scholar Gerrit Gong suggested that one reason Japan was able to gas the Chinese was that the Japanese “experienced difﬁculty in perceiving and exercising the Western concept of international equality.” With regard to the Italians, the motivation to conquer Ethiopia was based partly on a desire to avenge their humiliating loss to the “barbaric” nation at Adowa. Italy had strong reasons to resort to gas despite the fact that general international opinion condemned chemical weapon use by . She needed to best Ethiopia with ﬁnality; this weak and “inferior” country could not be allowed to have defeated her without punishment, and Italy certainly could not afford to lose to that country again. If gas was what was needed to win, especially against a “barbaric” country, then it would be used.120 In intragovernmental British communications about requests to use gas and about negotiations for treaties to ban it, the British cabinet and the Committee of Imperial Defence acknowledged there was public sentiment against gas.121 These concerns developed early after the war and were present by the time the government was discussing the gas protocol drafted at the Washington Naval Conference in –. Antigas activists continued to speak out during the next two decades; so did gas-tolerant advocates of the new weapon. The government itself remained silent in public, for the most part, and though it did sign international treaties that banned gas, it did so ambivalently. Politicians expressed concerns in meetings behind closed doors and maintained the country’s legal rights to defend Britain from gas and to retaliate. It would be inaccurate to characterize the British government as a uniﬁed and true member of the antigas contingent.122 This policy was made by politicians who held personal as well as professional views about gas, some in favor of it and some disliking it. The former tended to be Conservatives such as Churchill, and the latter Liberals or Labourites, such as Fisher.123 Conservatives were more likely to be in favor of the empire and military strength and were willing to consider using lethal or innocuous gases, especially to protect the colonies. Their political opponents

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tended to support disarmament and peace. Each party was aware that the others differed in their opinions about gas, but in the closed-door meetings of the cabinet and the Committee of Imperial Defence, which were the locales for establishing disarmament policy, that was not relevant. The politicians discussed gas in terms of practicalities, not party platforms.124 They rarely considered the question of the humaneness of gas or mentioned personal views for or against it. The government as a whole—during Conservative, Labour, and National administrations—focused on protecting Britain’s rights to protect herself against gas and to use it, if necessary, regardless of personal opinions of the weapon. The leaders wondered whether international treaties banning gas could actually protect Britain.125 If not, should Britain tie her own hands and agree to abandon gas?126 Were other countries, especially Russia, the most worrisome country of all, making gases, and should Britain follow suit?127 The government was aware of humanitarian concerns about gas, but, since it agreed with the public that gas would appear in the next war, it concentrated on how to handle gas both offensively and, especially, defensively in the face of domestic and international public opinion, rather than debating its nature.128 For example, even though the Conservative government in power during the Geneva Gas Protocol negotiations was not philosophically inclined to approve an extensive ban on gas, for public opinion reasons it signed the treaty; still, to protect the country, it demanded the power to retain the right of retaliation.129 On the other hand, the Labour government of did not ratify the Washington gas treaty signed by the Conservative government in . As busy as the British government was during the interwar years making decisions regarding gas in internal imperial matters, albeit ones with international political and public opinion ramiﬁcations, it also had to wrestle with international chemical weapons diplomacy and treaties during that period. The two types of decision making were not completely separate in time or with regard to issues, but Britain’s freedom of movement was more constrained when she had to negotiate with other great powers. The ﬁrst postwar international agreement banning gas, the Treaty of Versailles, limited only one country, Germany, from using, making, or importing gas. Speciﬁcally, Article stated, “The use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and all analogous liquids, materials or devices being prohibited, their manufacture and importation are strictly forbidden in Germany

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[as are] materials speciﬁcally intended for the manufacture, storage and use of the said products or devices.”130 The deﬁnition and the restrictions were broader than those in The Hague treaties of and ; the goal was to eliminate chemical weapons of all sorts, not simply narrowly banning projectiles or, more broadly, eradicating inhumane weapons of all kinds. By the interwar period, it was clear that “asphyxiating gases” did not encompass everything that was popularly associated with chemical weapons; it was also understood that bans should not limit gases simply by their methods of deployment. World War I had taught a costly lesson. Furthermore, the ban prohibited acquisition and storage as well as use of gases. Article limited only Germany, though, not any of the other major powers, as might be expected in a treaty written by the victors. Soon, though, delegates at the Washington Naval Conference of – negotiated a gas protocol as part of the treaty restricting submarines, arguing that “chemical warfare should be abolished among nations as abhorrent to civilization.”131 Although the American representatives surprised the other delegates with the chemical weapons proposal, they signed it with little resistance. The language was familiar to the delegates from Article .132 However, it did have some crucial additions; it banned biological as well as chemical weapons, and it tied the hands of all the signatories, unlike Versailles. British political concerns included the effectiveness of the treaty, but not the morality of it. In the end her objections subsided because of international public pressure. In a telegram sent from Washington, British Empire delegate Arthur Balfour noted a reality with which his colleagues agreed: “If [the] British delegation were to resist on some technical grounds . . . they will be charged with appealing to sentiments of humanity [only] when it suits them. . . . In that case its rejection will justly be laid wholly at our door and an intolerable situation will be created.”133 Yet the government remained reluctant; in it was still discussing ratiﬁcation of the agreement at the same time it was considering the next international treaty against gas.134 However, since the French refused to ratify the submarine sections, in the end the gas clauses did not come into force.135 The League of Nations, which had been considering gas and arms almost since its formation, made the next attempt to prohibit chemical weapons.136 The Geneva Gas Protocol of was perhaps the most successful interwar effort to ban this weapon. It noted that gas “has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world,” and it banned biological as well as

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“asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and . . . all analogous liquids, materials or devices.”137 Beyond explicitly stating that the contemporary view of gas was that of a barbaric weapon, it retained the deﬁnition of chemical weapons from the Washington Naval Conference.138 The Protocol also included biological weapons for the ﬁrst time.139 Although they had been linked unofﬁcially with chemical weapons, this was the ﬁrst treaty to make the connection ofﬁcial. In the years between drafting the Geneva Gas Protocol in and ratifying it in , the British expressed reluctance to bind themselves without seeing peers similarly constrained.140 Furthermore, they maintained a cynical attitude toward the treaty, understandable since the last ratiﬁed treaty that explicitly prohibited gas use by multiple nations, The Hague Declaration of , failed to prevent its deployment. As the Air Staff noted in , “The extent to which reliance can safely be placed on international agreements prohibiting the use of particular weapons of war is a question of considerable difﬁculty. . . . Certain of the signatories [to the Geneva Gas Protocol] might not on [sic] emergency honour their undertaking.”141 Thus, the British and some of their peers insisted on reserving the right of retaliation; they were willing to try the rule of law, but not to give up deterrence.142 During the period in which the government considered whether to ratify the Geneva Gas Protocol, there was even a suggestion in the cabinet to change Britain’s gas policy completely from “denouncing Gas” to “future advoca[cy of] the international recognition of this weapon as legitimate and not necessarily inhumane.”143 This was actually quite important because the Geneva Gas Protocol had a fatal ﬂaw: there was no real enforcement mechanism (short of retaliation claimed by some signatories), nor was there any particular protection granted to civilians who were vulnerable targets.144 While the League of Nations would, hopefully, prevent most or all conﬂicts, there was nothing about prevention in the Protocol itself. The British government also felt frustrated that its hands were tied regarding nonlethal gases. As one memorandum noted, “It is hardly to be expected that public opinion would countenance our using even non-lethal gases in small [colonial] wars, where it might be of immense value, when we have publicly proclaimed that its use against Great Powers, who are in a position largely to protect themselves, is barbarous.”145 Britain therefore felt compelled to accept the Geneva Gas Protocol, but only with legal and mental reservations that, at their core, had nothing to do with the nature of gas and everything to do with the effectiveness of the treaty. By ,

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| Reestablishment of the Gas Taboo

then, the taboo was in place legally, although the treaties in which it rested had clear weaknesses. This was the situation when the League of Nations began to wrestle with gas again a few years later at the World Disarmament Conference, more formally known as the Conference on the Reduction and the Limitation of Armament.146 Although the British cabinet decided to support another gas ban, the agreement never came to a vote.147 During negotiations, Britain’s policy dilemma about how to balance national security and public opinion remained. Anthony Eden noted in a letter that “the Cabinet had been unanimous and emphatic in their determination not to renounce the right of retaliation” since that threat might be the only one that compelled countries to obey the treaty.148 Yet, if it did so, the government worried about being blamed for being half-hearted about the goals behind the treaty, because, the cabinet noted, “as usual . . . other Delegations have shirked the true issues, and have left it to the representatives of this country to state the realities and to incur the odium of rejecting impractical proposals” that would make the treaty useless, such as banning retaliation. Britain, concerned about public opinion at home and abroad, preferred not to have to ensure national security at the cost of “ﬁnd[ing its delegation] in a minority of one.” The result was to “press” the other delegates about the sincerity of their promise not to retaliate, an attempt to keep a realistic treaty on the table without incurring international wrath.149 Britain never had to ﬁnd out if this was the best strategy. Unfortunately, this meeting failed to draft successful legislation, not necessarily because of conﬂicting views about gas, but because the talks themselves broke down as the League lost power. The year the World Disarmament Conference opened, , was also the year Hitler led Germany out of the League and Japan withdrew.150 Gas would not be the subject of a major treaty until the Chemical Weapons Convention, which became active in .151 Conclusion Both sides in the debate on the character and future use of gas agreed on several points. They did not encourage war, but they felt it was inevitable. Based on the nature of the upheaval in –, the assumption was that the next war would be at least as pervasive and horrifying as the last one; it would be another total war involving civilians, and air power would have come into its own. Those conclusions were correct. Next, the consensus was that the

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bomber would always get through, and it would often carry gas bound for civilian targets. On these points, both sides erred; bombers sometimes got shot down, and gas did not become a common means of terrorizing civilians. Their reasoning was somewhat logical, however: ﬂying had continually improved during the interwar period; Lindbergh’s ﬂight across the Atlantic caught the imagination; and planes wrought destruction in Spain during the Civil War. The interwar period was the time before radar, and the level of devastation that bombers could bring to Manchuria or Spain was very visible. Planes could be dangerous, even when every bomber did not reach its target successfully. Londoners during the Blitz, as well as Germans and Japanese in –, could vouch for that. Each side in the debate thought it truly understood gas and consequently the impact of the inevitable chemical attacks that would occur during a future war. Both sides thought that they had to educate the public and each other about the truth of what would happen. The two sides generally split according to their conclusions about how painful and lethal an attack would be and therefore how best to counteract it. Also, they differed with regard to the evidence used to support their conclusions; one side focused on pain and suffering and the other on statistics and personal experience. Yet both sides speculated; no one knew what another gas war would really be like, what sort of gases scientists would develop, or if antigas measures to neutralize new chemicals would evolve as fast as they had during World War I. Considering the accuracy of the other widespread assumptions about future wars, it is odd that gas was not used widely and not used frequently in aerial bombardments.152 Granted, almost no one wanted to see gas deployed, and international efforts worked toward its eradication.153 Diplomats attended disarmament conferences and politicians signed international treaties from Versailles to Geneva. People such as Thuillier spoke out on the need to make antigas preparations, and Lefebure’s colleagues warned that Germany’s peacetime industrial chemical might could be converted to a wartime gas arsenal. Although the gas-tolerant spokesmen did not convince public opinion that gas was manageable, their beliefs that practical measures, not just legal ones, were necessary to prepare and survive a gas war were adopted by the government. This was apparent in Britain’s Air Raid Precautions plans to protect the general population with gas masks. There was little conﬁdence among the public or in government in Britain that these defensive efforts would avert a gas war, as is clear from the despair-

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ing and pleading tone of the tracts published during this period as well as in cabinet and Committee of Imperial Defence private meetings on the subject. Still, the antigas contingent spoke loudly and used terms that demonstrated the importance of the debate. They were explicit about their humanitarian concerns for the future of civilization as well as the need to diminish suffering, and they managed to pressure, although not dictate to, the British government.

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Epilogue

Chemical weapons have posed a menace to soldiers and civilians since their inception. The popular dislike of gas in Britain and other countries, which had subsided occasionally during World War I, grew during the interwar period and led to attempts to eradicate the danger from chemical weapons by condemning them and those who would use them. Lord Halsbury, H. G. Wells, and their peers were only the most vocal opponents, and public pressure made it difﬁcult for a government openly to support chemical armaments. The context in which these ideas about chemical weaponry ﬂourished augmented their power and visibility. The interwar period was rife with groups, in Britain and abroad, that worked for arms limitations or paciﬁst goals and, certainly in Britain, lobbied with humanitarian concerns in mind.1 Organizations whose members feared gas may also have had broader concerns about other weapons, or war as a whole, but even those who focused solely on chemicals overlapped with other groups’ interests; thus, they worked with, rather than against, some of the prevalent trends and debates in British interwar society.2 Several international treaties were designed to ban gas, thus providing additional safeguards against its use. The Treaty of Versailles, ending the war with Germany, prohibited that country’s involvement with gas; the Washington Naval Conference Gas Protocol tried to constrain nations from using chemical weapons; the Geneva Gas Protocol broadened the restrictions by including biological weapons in the ban and binding more countries. Responding to these popular and legal pressures, as well as the need to cut military budgets, the army in Britain reduced research into and training for offensive and defensive gas warfare.3 Practically speaking, public opinion and international treaties clearly lessened the threat of chemical weapons. Yet a fear of gas, emotionally and rationally based, remained in Britain and abroad.4 To those who were rationally and intellectually inclined, although

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| Epilogue

the treaties offered legal protection against chemical warfare, the documents were riddled with weaknesses. Some were not ratiﬁed, and thus not binding; others had loopholes. The gas protocol drafted at the Washington Naval Conference, for example, never came into force because the submarine treaty to which it was attached was rejected by the French.5 On the other hand, by World War II thirty-nine countries had ratiﬁed or acceded to the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, but this document lacked enforcement mechanisms (as did most chemical warfare prohibitions), and two of the great powers, the United States and Japan, failed to ratify it.6 Finally, a treaty is only as strong as the signatories’ respect for it. Germany had started the gas war in 1915 by breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of The Hague treaties; why should interwar nations assume that postwar pacts would restrain belligerents from using gas? Diplomats and civilians might have hoped the agreements would be effective, but there was no reason to believe that the treaties, especially weak ones, could absolutely guarantee safety.7 Still, the interwar period was the era of collective security and multinational organizations, such as the League of Nations, and agreements, such as the Locarno Pact, so the drive for multiparty treaties banning gas ﬁt the mood of the time. There were also fears tied to other lessons from World War I. It was obvious that weapons and technology had become increasingly sophisticated during the course of the war. Gas had not been the only new weapon developed; tanks, ﬁghter planes, and ﬂame throwers were others. There was no reason to believe that this trend would not continue during the current peace and any future war. For instance, a popular fear was that the plane and the gas bomb would meld. In Britain, the politician Stanley Baldwin articulated a common concern: “The bomber will always get through.”8 This short statement encapsulated a broader fear; the real dread was that, in the next war, and many believed that there would be another one, unstoppable bombers would target civilians.9 Not only would the planes be impossible to block, but they would cross an ethical and legal line by targeting the home front. These monstrous machines would be armed with gas as well as conventional bombs, which, some worried, would increase their deadliness. Lord Halsbury may have been hyperbolic, but he was not alone in fearing that one gas bomb dropped in central London could destroy an entire neighborhood.10 It was understandable that emotional as well as rational fears about gas persisted in the interwar period; the thought of facing destruction even more catastrophic than that seen in World War I was terrifying. The belief that helpless civilians would

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be targets of airborne gas explains the widespread concerns about chemical warfare during that period. Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, expressed this fear explicitly. He noted that responses to a questionnaire on chemical warfare at the Geneva Protocol meetings had indicated that “there was no means of protection against the conversion of ordinary factories to the production of poisonous gases” and “no difﬁculty whatever in devising means for spraying gas from the air.”11 (It was not only governments that questioned whether there were effective defensive measures against aerial gas bombs. The Union of Democratic Control said that its booklet, Poison Gas, “has been published to expose the futility of measures against gas.”)12 A technical committee at the conference concluded that the only way to use international treaties to prevent gas attacks would be “a special international agreement to retaliate on any country which made use of gas.” The American and British delegates would not commit to this conclusion, however, since it was a “political and not a technical matter.”13 In other words, there was no technical means of defense, but perhaps a political one, which further helps explain the public lobbying for arms limitation treaties and the politicians’ concerns about not waiving national rights of self-defense in case the treaties proved ineffective. The fact that governments themselves did not dismiss the possibility of gas warfare, despite the international agreements, added legitimacy to the lingering fears.14 The British government, like others, did not trust the effectiveness of the treaties and recognized the potential power of bombers. Domestically, it encouraged treatises that reassured the public that they could survive a gas war, rather than assuring them that one would never occur.15 As World War II approached, the government passed out gas masks, set up gas drills, printed posters, and otherwise tried to prepare and educate the public for chemical warfare.16 In the military and scientiﬁc worlds, the government continued to engage in some research and training, particularly to maintain defensive capabilities. This was occasionally sporadic and was hampered by the budget and arms cuts of the interwar period, but it continued. More telling, the government deliberately protected its right to conduct defensive research in international agreements, fearing it would need the results.17 Thus, the British governments of the interwar period were realistic about the fact that gas might well be used in the next war, whether or not they approved of chemical weapons or thought their use in the future would be catastrophic.

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Epilogue

Belligerents avoided using gas on the battleﬁeld during World War II, and once the cold war began, perceptions of gas were modernized. Chemical and biological weapons had been perceived as similarly abnormal weapons; though the latter had never been used, except by the Japanese in China, they had certainly been considered as early as World War I and were seen as an outgrowth of chemical weapons.18 At the request of the British government, the Royal Society, an eminent organization of scientists, had investigated the ramiﬁcations of biological weapons in case they were dropped on British civilians.19 Interwar treaties eventually began to ban biological weapons as well as gas, starting with the Geneva Gas Protocol. Then, once the atomic age began, nuclear bombs and missiles proved to be a unique type of weapon. However, their unusual nature led them to be classiﬁed with chemical and biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction; all have been seen as weapons beyond the pale of conventional warfare.20 U.S. policy, in fact, equated the three arms such that the government declared that an attack with one would be equivalent to an attack with any.21 Thus, interwar fears that use of chemical weapons on a grand scale after World War I would lead to catastrophic destruction, barbarity, and terror helped create the taboo against lethal gas. Perceptions and fears of chemical weapons during and after the interwar period have reinforced it. The taboo has been effective, remaining in place for nearly a century after the end of World War I, much longer than the Treaty of Versailles. Although gas has not been totally abandoned as an instrument of war, it has rarely been used. It certainly has not been deployed regularly by major belligerents against each other as it was in the Great War. It has been released a few times in battle by developed nations, but it has been used in very limited circumstances even then. Italy used it against Ethiopia in 1935–36, and Japan wielded it against China in the same decade, but in both cases the victims could not retaliate in kind. In the ﬁrst case, it seemed to be a weapon of desperation; Italy had unexpected trouble subduing her enemy. In both situations, the enemy was seen as inferior, racially and culturally. Perhaps more interesting, neither Japan nor Italy, even during the days before their defeats in World War II, used chemical weapons against an enemy who could deploy it against them. It is not just that users have restricted themselves. The external pressure to refrain from using gas has remained, too, as public opinion and international organizations have condemned its use. Viscount Cecil in the House of Lords said that gas use by Italy in Ethiopia was “indefensible,” and

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the League of Nations demanded an explanation from Italy in light of the Geneva Gas Protocol.22 Decades later, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq earned a global reputation as a rogue state partly because he released mustard gas, a World War I weapon, against the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War and against his own Kurds in 1988.23 But despite the few failures, the taboo against lethal gas has been remarkably constant.24 Gas lost the place it had earned in World War I in the panoply of acceptable weapons. The more intense fears today are, of course, that terrorists and insurgents, not nations, will resort to chemical and biological weapons. These groups represent the most frightening opponents because they are hard to ﬁnd and identify, unlike a foreign army, and are the ones most likely to use what remains one of the most horrifying weapons. They also act by a different set of rules than most nations do, rejecting states’ boundaries between civilized and atrocious behavior. Gas has already been used by one group, Aum Shinrikyo, in Japan in 1995. That organization released sarin, a nerve gas, on the Tokyo subway.25 The trepidation that others may imitate Aum Shinrikyo is not absurd, as proven by the June 2006 news of a canceled al Qaeda plan to use gas on New York subways and the spring 2007 deployment of homemade chlorine bombs by Sunni insurgents in Iraq.26 As some researchers have noticed, it is easier and less expensive to make gas than it is nuclear weapons, yet both have the advantages of lethality and fearsomeness. Gas therefore has been called the “poor man’s atomic weapon.”27 Gas is still a weapon of terror and barbarity because of popular perception of it and because of its association with the rogue groups who are expected to use it. Yet, just as was the case during the interwar debates, it is unclear how effective these weapons would be; to cause harm, a terrorist would not only have to acquire gas, but would have to deliver it effectively. There has never been a test of chemical or biological weapons on a prepared civilian population, so it is not clear whether the damage would be manageable (as some scientiﬁc and military experts during the interwar period thought) or catastrophic (as others believed). Scientists have developed more sophisticated gases in the lab since World War I, such as binary nerve agents, but the civilian defenses against gas have not improved since the pre–World War II period.28 Just as the World War II government warned civilians in London to wear masks and go upstairs (because gas usually sinks), experts in 2001 warned the American population to do the same if an attack occurred.29

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Epilogue

Taboo or Deterrence? The taboo itself is a moral and emotional rejection of gas, one that has been codiﬁed in the Geneva Gas Protocol, among other international treaties.30 What is unclear, though, is whether it has been the taboo alone that has prevented governments from actually deploying gas on the battleﬁeld. If the taboo or a legal ban were so powerful, why did the Germans use gas in 1915? A dislike of chemical weapons and The Hague treaties both discouraged gas use, but that did not keep gas off the Western Front. Perhaps gas has stayed out of war partly because of the widespread popular sentiment against it that appeared after citizens experienced gas in the war. This is the attitude seen during the interwar efforts to ban gas. Perhaps the taboo has simply strengthened over time; the longer it remained unbroken, the harder it became to violate. Breaking it also required the “civilized” nations who did so to question their status as civilized, much as they did Germany’s during World War I.31 The fact that there was global condemnation the few times a nation did defy the legal and moral bans, such as in Ethiopia, in the end simply reinforced the taboo. In fact, to most who do not know about the mixed perceptions of gas during World War I, the taboo against it seems timeless, instinctive, and inevitable. Still, despite the taboo’s continuation and the general abandonment of gas, some have wondered if nations’ abandonment of gas stems more from deterrence, a very practical threat, than from the abstract taboo.32 As early as 1924, the Committee of Imperial Defence considered adopting the French policy of extracting a promise from the enemy at the start of the next war “not to use offensive gas as a weapon of war” or else reserving the right “to act according to circumstances.” Although the immediate goal of the Committee was to justify increased defensive research, this policy presumably would retain the right to retaliate and even the threat of ﬁrst strike if the enemy did not forswear chemical warfare.33 Lord Halsbury, in spite of his vehement dislike of gas, argued once that the only effective way to stop an enemy’s gas attack would be to threaten him with reprisals.34 In a Committee of Imperial Defence meeting, Sir John Anderson suggested that the international treaties would similarly discourage chemical attacks on Britain. The minutes of the June 27, 1929, meeting state that Sir John “emphasise[d] . . . that the fact of the general ratiﬁcation of the Geneva Gas Protocol could not be regarded as providing any absolute guarantee against attack by gas, but it was felt that it would act as a strong deterrent to any nation who might contemplate such

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action.”35 The fact that Japan and Italy did not use gas in World War II against nations who could retaliate suggests that this theory about the power of deterrence might be well-founded. Roosevelt and Churchill certainly relied on it to prevent their enemies from starting a gas war, as did Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush when ﬁghting Iraq.36 Still, the taboo is important. One scholar, Richard Price, does not believe in the effectiveness of deterrence; he says that it does not explain why gas has not been used on targets who do not have chemical weapons with which to retaliate.37 For example, gas was not used in Korea or Afghanistan by the United States. This does not mean that deterrence has not had an effect, but it suggests that the taboo also has had a role in inhibiting chemical warfare. The United States had not ratiﬁed the Geneva Gas Protocol by the time of the Korean War, although it had by the opening of the conﬂict in Afghanistan. Regardless, the impetus to sign the legal treaties springs from the taboo, from claims that chemical warfare is barbarous and uncivilized.38 Furthermore, if a taboo did not exist, public opinion would not have protested against the very existence of defensive chemical warfare research facilities, such as Britain’s Porton Down, which were legal under the treaties. In addition, using deterrence is not important unless there is concern that gas will not only be used, but will be effective and barbarous. Deterrence itself, therefore, is motivated partly by the taboo, but they are not the same. Most important, because of the taboo and deterrence, government policy—even today—dictates that countries that technically can manufacture and use gas, such as the United States and Britain, do not, even if it would be militarily convenient. Using lethal mustard gas on al Qaeda members hiding in deep caves might well be more effective than dropping bombs on them. It also might be less costly, in terms of money and men, than sending soldiers in to ﬁnd the enemy. Gas can, after all, sink into crannies and lingers in low ground. Still, because of the taboo, gas is not a realistic option. In terms of deterrence, the fear that another, well-armed country might use gas or give it to a client, whether another nation or a group like al Qaeda, means that no belligerent will carelessly escalate a conﬂict by introducing chemical weapons. This was the case in Korea and Vietnam.39 Even if the taboo has not instilled complete conﬁdence in modern society that gas will never be used again, today there is a fair amount of popular certainty that gas will not be a regular weapon of war used by nations in good

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standing. There were no guarantees that this belief would or could develop, though. The taboo did not develop immediately after World War I in Britain, let alone in the world. Nor was it instinctive; there were many rational arguments for keeping gas in the repertoire of weapons, as Haldane, Churchill, and others demonstrated during the interwar period. The British taboo was not inevitable. If Britain had continued to accept gas rather than reject it, so might the rest of the world. After all, in the decades between the World Wars, Britain was still one of the most inﬂuential global leaders. If she had refused to abandon gas, perhaps others would not have embraced arguments against gas and emphasized its negative characteristics. Yet, because they did so strongly, only the destructive story of gas has been remembered and told; the part of its history in which gas has been accepted and even embraced has been forgotten, and thus the taboo seems inescapable. It is the taboo, and particularly its role in making gas a weapon of mass destruction, that makes gas nearly unique. We tolerate other weapons, even the conventional bombs dropped from airplanes, the very danger that Baldwin prophesied in the 1930s. The United States used the atomic bomb (before it was labeled a weapon of mass destruction), even though it was a novel armament and one much more powerful than any chemical weapon. Since then, there has been even more desensitization to bombing; it is a standard component of a war fought by a modern military. Yet gas, and the associated biological and nuclear weapons, remains fearsome. The fact that societies have suffered more from aerial bombing than gas, yet the latter is banned and the subject of a taboo, makes it all the more important to understand why chemical weapons became outlawed and terrifying. The rejection of gas was not inexorable, nor is the future of the taboo guaranteed. Ironically, although gas has frightened many, and for good reason, since World War I, it has also brought pervasive beneﬁts that many do not recognize. It is not the quintessential ill wind that blows no good. Although people may argue about the use of pepper spray, mace, and tear gas during particular situations, most would agree that compared to bullets they can be a relatively harmless way to stop an attacker or break up a mob.40 On the medical side, chemotherapy is a derivative of chemical weapons.41 Capsicin, roughly speaking a pepper treatment for sore muscles, is similar to the peppers with which chemists experimented during World War I.42 Pesticides, controlled poisons, were considered for use as weapons in the British Empire during the interwar period, although they were deemed ineffective.43 With differ-

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Epilogue |

ent chemicals and more advanced distribution mechanisms, pesticides have protected humans and their food from insects and disease not only today, but in the Paciﬁc during World War II.44 Even research into defensive measures has given rise to a number of applications. Currently, scientists have begun creating air analyzers to detect biological weapons and to analyze the breath of patients. Apparently, these devices will be able to help doctors quickly diagnose diabetes as well as anthrax attacks.45 These developments prove, yet again, that scientiﬁc research can be put to both positive and negative uses. It also shows that chemical, and the related biological, weapons, whether feared or embraced, have penetrated society through their positive derivatives, too. Clearly, it is important to know the entire history of gas, a weapon that was justly condemned by many for producing only misery when it was used on the battleﬁeld. When the negative perceptions of gas became dominant over the gas-tolerant or cautiously positive views in the interwar period, though, half of gas’s history was largely forgotten: the portion in which gas was seen as humane and a legitimate tool.46 However, the potential for future use, by terrorists, rogue states, or insurgents means that societies will probably have to face the threat of gas, emotionally, physically, or mentally, at some point.47 Understanding that different groups in society had varying perceptions about chemical weapons during World War I suggests that separate segments of the population will probably react in multiple ways to gas in the future, too. Finally, knowing that gas is not inevitably and absolutely frightening may help people prepare for, and lessen the fear of, future attacks. Whether gas deployment remains a threat or becomes a reality on the home front and on traditional battlefronts, it remains a total weapon.

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Abbreviations

867 868 89H 8=6G 8>9 8D 8E 8GD 9D ;D LB A=8B6 Liddle

BJC E>C EGD

G6B8 GH GH8 Special

HH HJEE LA=JB

LD

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Records of the Cabinet Churchill Archives Centre Central Distribution Section Chartwell Trust Papers Committee of Imperial Defence Colonial Ofﬁce Cabinet Papers – Cheshire Record Ofﬁce Dominions Ofﬁce Foreign Ofﬁce General Routine Order Cabinet Papers – Hartley Collection House of Lords Record Ofﬁce Imperial War Museum Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London Liddle Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds Ministry of Munitions Ministry of Pensions National Archives (formerly, Public Records Ofﬁce) of the United Kingdom Royal Army Medical Corps Royal Society Royal Society of Chemistry Special Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds Stationery Services Ministry of Supply (including Quinan papers) Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine War Ofﬁce

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Acknowledgments 1. United Kingdom, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 105 (April 25, 1918), col. 1152. Introduction 1. Elmer Wilgrid Cotton diary, May 24, 1915, Imperial War Museum Document Collection, Imperial War Museum (iwm). 2. Cotton diary, undated and unpaginated entry. 3. Raemaekers, The First Twelve Months, 1:vii–xiii, 142–43. This image probably circulated earlier as an individual cartoon, as did many of the other pictures in the volume. 4. Sir Harold Hartley, “Lecture on Chemical Warfare to Staff College,” February 27, 1925, Hartley Collection (=6GI) 71(15), 14, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge University (868). 5. Frank Reynolds, The Old Formula, Punch, July 14, 1915, 47. 6. Maj. E. S. B. Hamilton diary, September 8, 1916, iwm. 7. Brigadier A. E. Hodgkin diary, May 17, 1917, iwm. 8. Winston Churchill, Minute 8, May 22, 1919, War Ofﬁce (LD) 32/5185, National Archives (formerly, Public Records Ofﬁce, EGD). 9. A reviewer of the book written by the head of Britain’s offensive gas unit during World War I, Charles Foulkes, explained that “British [chemical warfare] technique advanced until it was far ahead of the German, not only in defence . . . but in offence.” Review of “Gas! ” by Charles Foulkes, London Times, October 30, 1934, 89. 10. There have been, of course, soldiers and physicians who wrote institutional histories of the army’s experiences. For example, Edmonds, Military Operations; MacPherson, Herringham, Elliott, and Balgour, Medical Services: Diseases of the War. 11. The classic is Haber, The Poisonous Cloud, written by the son of the German scientist who founded chemical warfare. 12. Union of Democratic Control, Poison Gas, 51; Murphy, Hay, and Rose, No Fire, 1. These concepts also are considered by scholars, including Omar Bartov and George Kassimeris, on a wider scale, looking back at the large and small wars of the twentieth and twenty-ﬁrst centuries. The conﬂict between civilization and barbarity traditionally has been seen as a ﬁght to keep the latter from encroaching on the former. However, there are some with a pessimistic (or perhaps re-

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13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

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alistic) view who wonder, in contrast to the view embraced by many, especially Europeans immediately before World War I, if it is possible to have war that is civilized and without barbarity, or if barbarity in war is here to stay and, in fact, has increased because of technology, the intersection of international and civil wars, or other reasons. Bartov, The Eastern Front; Kassimeris, “The Barbarisation of Warfare”; Bourke, “Barbarisation vs. Civilisation in Time of War,” 20, 21; Winter, “Epilogue,” 254–55. Clearly, the British before, during, and after World War I thought that barbarity was not a necessary component of warfare, although it was seen by some as a feature of that conﬂict that deepened the war, according to AudoinRouzeau and Becker (14–18: Understanding the Great War, 102–3). They did worry, though, that the barbarities that appeared in the conﬂict would triumph over civilization. With respect to chemical warfare, the outrage at the German introduction of poison gas (discussed in chapter 1), popular press images such as What War has Become that lament the threat of barbarity to civilization (chapter 5), and concerns expressed by Lord Halsbury about post–World War I gas use (chapter 6) all demonstrate this. Still, some Britons as well as governments opted to reestablish a taboo against gas with the help of international interwar treaties and popular odium toward chemical warfare. These groups would argue that the trend toward barbarization in warfare can be resisted, at least with regard to certain weapons and behaviors. Some books broaden their approach, but usually in the last chapter. See Brown, Chemical Warfare; Lepick, La Grande Guerre Chimique. General overviews of gas are valuable, too, but cannot, by their very nature, peer deeply into the World War I experience. See, for example, Coleman, A History of Chemical Warfare; J. B. Tucker, War of Nerves. Marwick, The Deluge. Förster, introduction, 2. The concept of a “total” aspect to the World War can be extended. Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker discuss the idea of a “total battle” to distinguish World War I’s extensive and inconclusive battles from the relatively short and decisive ones in previous wars (14–18: Understanding the Great War, 28). Some historians of more recent conﬂicts are starting to note that “the great majority of wars fought since 1980 have been fought within nation states, not between them. . . . Such wars are ‘total’ but in a very different ways from 1939–1945 [and 1914–1918], which saw the mobilization of the resources of sophisticated, industrial societies.” Reid, “‘A Signpost That Was Missed’?” 414. F. L., “Science Jottings: Chemicals from the Air,” Illustrated London News, June 5, 1915, 733. Janet Watson, in her book Fighting Different Wars on World War I Britain and memories of the conﬂict, makes an excellent point that people experienced and

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perceived the conﬂict differently, although she emphasizes the gender and class distinctions that can have an impact on perception and experience. I am looking at different kinds of divisions among society, namely, jobs and levels of familiarity with gas, since those are more relevant for the issues I am examining. 19. United Kingdom, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 105, (April 15–May 19, 1918), col. 1152. 20. See J. B. Tucker, War of Nerves, 267–88, for more details about Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. 21. Claims of chemical or biological use since World War I have been accurate at times, but their correctness depends on deﬁnitions of wartime gas use. For example, does use of tear gas for civil riot control count? Is agent orange, which targets ﬂora, a biological weapon? In addition, because gas is so reviled, announcing that an enemy has used it can be part of a propaganda campaign. 22. “Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II),” hereafter “Hague II”; Utgoff, The Challenge of Chemical Weapons, 4–5. Utgoff notes that the high cost of modern weapons was also a motivation behind Tsar Nicholas II’s interest in calling a conference to limit armaments. 23. Note that the French in the original document may be translated differently in various published versions. In Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff’s edited collection, Documents on the Laws of War (36), the relevant language is “The contracting Powers agree to abstain from the use of projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases,” wording that emphasizes that weapons intended to deploy gas are the target of the declaration. Another translation omits “sole,” although this does not change the basic meaning (“Declaration on the Use of Projectiles”). 24. “Declaration on the Use of Bullets”; “Hague II,” art. 23. 25. Central Distribution Section (CDS) 307: Defensive Measures against Gas Attacks (n.p., December 1915), 1, hereafter cited as CDS 307, Document Collection, Imperial War Museum (IWM). Most of the 89H pamphlets can be found in the Imperial War Museum, including this one. Others are in the Wellcome Library. 26. “Treaty of Versailles,” arts. 171, 172, 178; Conference on the Limitation of Armaments, “Treaty Relating to the Use of Submarines”; “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare,” hereafter “Protocol for the Prohibition.” The Washington Protocol never entered into force because of French rejection of it. 27. See, for example, Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Secretary of State for War, “Chemical Warfare Policy,” Committee of Imperial Defence (8>9), Paper 723-7, October 8, 1926, 3, Cabinet (867) 4/15, EGD. 28. The Holocaust is remembered for the millions of deaths the Nazis caused, some by Zyklon b, a gas used in the concentration camps. In general, it is the deaths

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29. 30.

31. 32.

33. 34.

35.

36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

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by gassing that capture the popular imagination, not by other means such as shooting. However, these deaths can be viewed separately from other gassing casualties in war; these were part of a deliberate policy of genocide rather than part of warfare targeting enemy belligerents. V. Adams, Chemical Warfare, 71–73; Robinson, Chemical and Biological Warfare Developments, 3–13; Murphy et al., No Fire, 16. Price, who has made an in-depth study of the taboo throughout the twentieth century, argues that “at these conferences [e.g., The Hague] expression was given to the emerging standards of ‘civilized’ international society, and it is within this context of civilized international behavior that the ban on chemical weapons was implicated from the beginning.” The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 12. Machine-gun section masked, ready for the enemy, War Illustrated, August 12, 1916, 607. W. Warde Fowler wrote a letter to the Times expressing his shame that the civilized, Christian West was “barbarizing” itself on the world stage. W. Warde Fowler, letter, London Times, January 8, 1915, 9. These and related issues are addressed in more detail in Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, 14–18. As Geoffrey Best, a scholar of law and war, argued, “Part of the case against recourse to new and nastier or more awful weapons is, precisely, that humanity’s threshold of shock, in that sense, can be lowered just like an individual’s.” Humanity in Warfare, 162–63. Although he was not discussing chemical weaponry, his comment reinforces the idea that people could adjust to gas, whether or not it was worse than contemporary weapons. Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, 14–18, 69; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Rise of CB Weapons, 141, quoted in Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 66, See, for example, Reynolds, The Old Formula. General Staff, Stationery Services (SS) 138/3: Effect on Enemy of Our Gas Attacks, September (N.p., France: Army Printing and Stationery Services, September 1917), 6, hereafter SS 138/3. Also see SS 535, which states, as do many pamphlets, that soldiers should don helmets immediately after an alarm is sounded. SS 535: Gas Defence (n.p., March 1917), 2 hereafter cited as SS 535. Hartley, “Lecture on Chemical Warfare,” 14–18. Union of Democratic Control, Poison Gas, 46. These are also issues we wrestle with today, not simply in regard to gas, but also in terms of terrorism, technology, and even violent television. “Chemical Warfare Records of Chemical Supplies for Offensive Purposes,” 140, LD 142/251, EGD. Warning to Householders, Punch, June 16, 1915, 479; copy of Col. Sir Arthur Davidson to Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, January 18, 1917, War Committee BH 658, folder IV, Royal Society Archives (GH).

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43. F. H. Townsend, Nah, Then, What Abaht Yer Bloomin’ Respirator?, Punch, June 16, 1915, 465. 44. For example, see Frank Holland, “Sowing the Wind,” John Bull, May 15, 1915, 17. See chapter 5 for further examples. 45. See J. B. S. Haldane’s book Callinicus, especially 27–35, in which he criticized those who are opposed to the use of gas on the grounds of ignorance, tradition, religion, and other emotional or qualitative grounds. 46. See Halsbury, 1944, a novel in which the author graphically portrays the destruction of civilization in a future gas war. 47. Best, Humanity in Warfare, 203–6, discusses other actions taken by Britain to defeat Russia; V. Adams, Chemical Warfare, 26. 48. Miles, “The Idea of Chemical Warfare,” 297–99. 49. Fitzgerald, “Gas! ” 49; V. Adams, Chemical Warfare, 26. 50. War Ofﬁce, Medical Manual, 7. 51. V. Adams, Chemical Warfare, 5. 52. V. Adams, Chemical Warfare, 5. 53. Foulkes, “Gas!” 239. 54. General Staff, SS 534: Defensive Measures against Gas Attacks (n.p., November 1918), 31, hereafter SS 534 (1918). 55. Hessel, Martin, and Hessel, Chemistry in Warfare, 95. 56. V. Adams, Chemical Warfare, 7–8. 57. Thomas, Effects of Chemical Warfare, 5. 58. Maj. H. Moreland, “Chemical Warfare Record of Offensive Supplies for Offensive Purposes,” c. June 1918, 217 LD 161/1, EGD; The Supply of Munitions, vol. 11 of The History of the Ministry of Munitions (n.p., 1921), 92, hereafter History of the Ministry of Munitions. 59. Ministry of Munitions of War, Trench Warfare Department, Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee, Chemical Sub-Committee, “2nd Report of the Chemical Sub-Committee Containing a Record of Work Completed to 1st October, 1915,” 4–5, LD 142/168, Box 171, Folder 8A/52/5, EGD. 60. Louis Jackson et al., February 26, 1916, “The Possible Use of Prussic Acid (Hydrocyanic Acid) by the Germans,” Ministry of Munitions (BJC) 4/2709, EGD. 61. V. Adams, Chemical Warfare, 12–16, 12–13. 62. Thomas, Effects of Chemical Warfare, 5. 63. Price notes this but restricts his comparison to other World War I weapons. The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 68. 64. A. L. Robins memoir, Gas, General Aspects File, Liddle Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, 2, hereafter cited as Liddle. 65. Haber, The Poisonous Cloud, 259. 66. Foulkes, “Gas!” 334. Foulkes lists other factors as being crucial to victory, in-

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67.

68.

69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74.

75.

76.

77. 78.

79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

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cluding Lloyd George’s leadership abilities, the efforts by British civilians and troops, the blockade, and the tank. Although he does not include gas on this list, he notes that it could not be defeated, unlike tanks (334–35). Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 671; “Comments on Report by Colonel Requin on Chemical and Biological Warfare,” n.d., wo 188/142, pro. Haber does suggest that casualty statistics are not precise, but that, “set against the millions killed and wounded on the Eastern Front, the casualties of chemical warfare were insigniﬁcant.” The Poisonous Cloud, 239, 245. Foulkes offers slightly different numbers. See p. note . Harris and Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing, 34. The authors are skeptical of the accuracy of the numbers. Still, there is an enormous gap between the number injured and those killed by gas. Haber, The Poisonous Cloud, 239. Foulkes, “Gas!” “British Gas Casualties, 1915–1918,” chart opposite 332; A. Fairley, “Disabilities Due to Gas Poisoning,” June 16, 1927, wo 188/265, pro. The introduction of mustard gas in 1917 produced a rise in casualties as Britain learned how to respond to it. Foulkes, “Gas!” 323–25. Foulkes, “Gas!” 208. Foulkes, “Gas!” 91. Winston Churchill, “
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84. Hicks to Cummins, April 24/May 7, wo 142/156, Box 164-8A/31/17, pro; Foulkes, “Gas!” 30; Trumpeter, “The Road to Ypres,” –, . 85. “French Retreat near Ypres,” London Times, April 24, 1915, 88; Edmonds and Wynne, Military Operations, 176–78; Copy of Extract from Minutes of the 67th Conference of the British Empire Delegation, Washington, January 6, 1922, reporting a Statement by Sir Maurice Hankey in 8>9, Paper 354-b, 1, cab 4/8, pro. 86. Foulkes, “Gas!” 19; Haber, The Poisoned Cloud, 35. 87. “Canadian Saved by Vinegar,” Scotsman, April 29, 1915, 7. 88. See Foulkes, “Gas!” 66–84, for an account of the gas portion of this battle. 89. “Respirators for Our Troops,” South Wales Argus, April 29, 1915, 2; Richter, Chemical Soldiers, 11. 90. MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 459; Barnett, The Collapse of British Power, 87–88. 91. See chapter 1 for details. 92. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 23. 93. Dispatch from British Embassy Petrograd on Subject of M. Albert Thomas’s visit, May 19, 1916, 9, Lloyd George 9/12/3/15, House of Lords Record Ofﬁce (=AGD). 94. War Cabinet Meeting 355, February 28, 1918, cab 23/5, pro; Pickett, Don’t Be Afraid, 8. 95. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 12–23. 96. Hodgkin diary, October 18, 1917. 97. “British Gas Warfare Mission to the USA,” Booklet 1, 1–2, wo 142/9, pro. Note that gas has proved a fascinating subject for contemporary scholars studying other nations and their interactions with gas. See Lepick, La Grande Guerre Chimique, for the French perspective; Haber, The Poisonous Cloud, to learn more about the German and Allied roles; and T. Cook, No Place to Run, for the Canadian experience. 98. Haber, The Poisonous Cloud, 226–29, also discusses the limited impact of gas on the length of the war.

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1. The Political Challenge 1. Report of the Committee of Prime Ministers, Preliminary Draft as a Basis for Consideration, based upon discussions of Imperial War Cabinet of c. June 1917, 7, Lloyd George ;/117/4, =AGD. 2. Cronin, The Politics of State Expansion, 65. 3. For example, chemists afﬁliated with the government inspected plants producing poison gas. See chapter 4 for more details. 4. See, for example, the 1915 posters “The ‘Scrap of Paper,’” about the violation of Belgium’s neutrality, and “Men of Britain! Will You Stand This?,” about German brutality, in Paret, Lewis, and Paret, Persuasive Images, 15, 20. See also

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“Remember Scarborough!,” about German bombing in Britain. Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, “Remember Scarborough!” 1915, Library of Congress, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?pp/PPALL:@ﬁeld(NUMBER+@1 (cph+3g10890)), (accessed July 5, 2006). 5. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram. 6. Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” 141. 7. Mazlish, Civilization and Its Contents, 22, 24. 8. M.B.R., letter to the editor, London Times, May 7, 1915, 9. 9. See, for example, Will Irwin, “Third Drive for Calais Is Made by the Germans,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1915, 1; “How Gas Affected Men,” New York Times, April 28, 1915, 2; “Germans Admit Using Poisonous Gas Bombs,” New York Times, April 26, 1915, 2. 10. See, for example, “Germans Admit Using Poisonous Gas Bombs,” New York Times, April 26, 1915, 2; “Through German Eyes,” London Times, June 11, 1915, 7. 11. Compare “Chlorine or Bromide Gases Used by Germans on Allies,” Los Angeles Daily Times, April 29, 1915, sect. 1, p. 12, and “Deadly Bronchitis Kills Victims of Huns’ Poisonous Gases,” Daily Sketch, April 29, 1915, 4. Both include Dr. J. S. Haldane’s report on his investigation of the gas situation at Ypres. 12. “Latest News,” Scotsman, April 26, 1915, 7; F.L., “Science Jottings: War by Chemicals, and Reprisals,” Illustrated London News, May 22, 1915, 672. Wyndham Miles also discusses changes in chemistry leading up to the use of poison gas as well as ﬂirtation with the idea of chemical weapons between the late eighteenth century and World War I. “The Idea of Chemical Warfare.” 13. There had been some intelligence that hinted that the Germans might introduce gas, but the army did not believe it. Richter, Chemical Soldiers, 8. 14. “Respirators,” Irish Times (Dublin), April 30, 1915, 4; Hartcup, The War of Invention, 98. 15. Foulkes, “Gas!” 28–29; Auld, Gas and Flame, 13–14. 16. For a discussion of The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, see Barclay, International Law and Practice, 1–7; Legal Aspects of the use of Poison Gas, c. 1917, 1–2, wo 32/5177, pro. For a British understanding of the 1907 Convention, see Sir Lamin Worthington Evans, Minutes of the 217th meeting of the 8>9, November 23, 1926, 7, cab 2/4, pro. 17. “Through German Eyes,” London Times, June 11, 1915, 7; Foulkes, “Gas!” 31–32. For a story on German prisoner of war admissions about gas plans, see “Germans Admit Using Poisonous Gas Bombs,” New York Times, April 26, 1915, 2. 18. Quotation of Professor Wegner of Cologne Gazette in “Through German Eyes,” London Times, June 11, 1915, 7. 19. Read, Atrocity Propaganda, 96, 102, 210–16. Today a memorial to the martyr-

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20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38.

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dom of Edith Cavell still stands in the street in front of the National Portrait Gallery in London. The phrasing is: “The contracting Powers agree to abstain from the use of projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.” “Hague II.” Hartcup, The War of Invention, 95. United Kingdom, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 71 (April 14–May 19, 1915), col. 2119. Foulkes, “Gas!” 21. Fujitani “The United States and Chemical Warfare,” 34–35. “Battle in Belgium,” South Wales Argus, April 24, 1915, 3. Also see Colossal Impudence: “Protection against English Gas-Bombs!” Illustrated London News, July 3, 1915, 13; Cool Cheek! An Enemy Photograph Purporting to Show the Oxygen Treatment of Germans Gassed by the British Bombs!, Illustrated War News, July 14, 1915, 9. United Kingdom, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 71 (April 14–May 19, 1915), col. 1205. Asquith to King George V, April 27, 1915, cab 37/127/40, also listed as cab 41/36/18, pro. Hartcup, The War of Invention, 94. Fujitani expressed the argument that this was the “ﬁrst successful gas attack,” but the fourth one to take place. “The United States and Chemical Warfare,” 34. The general historical view, though, is that Ypres is the ﬁrst one to count, since it was the earliest recognized and documented use of gas by contemporaries. Sir John French to Lord Kitchener, April 23, 1915, 20, wo 142/240, pro. Lord Kitchener to Sir John French, April 24, 1915, 20–21, wo 142/240, pro. “Lethal Gases in War,” London Times, April 29, 1915, 9. wo 142/240, 25, pro; “Chemical Warfare Supplies,” in History of the Ministry of Munitions. F.L., “Science Jottings: German Fire-Raising,” Illustrated London News, June 19, 1915, 806. M.B.R., letter to the editor, London Times, May 7, 1915, 9; United Kingdom, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 71 (April 14–May 19, 1915), cols. 1467, 1287; vol. 72 (June 3–July 2, 1915), col. 649. War Cabinet Meeting 61, November 16, 1932, 14, cab 23/73, pro. United Kingdom, Parliamentary Debates, Lords, vol. 18 (1915), cols. 1017–1018. Examples include “British Guns Replying,” South Wales Argus, March 21, 1918, 1; “British Ofﬁcial Reports,” Scotsman, July 28, 1915, 5. See defensive developments in chapter 5 for an in-depth discussion of visual imagery of gas and a more detailed description of government and self-censorship. In a 1919 memo, the legal advisor to the Foreign Ofﬁce stated, “The use of poi-

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son gas by the Allies has hitherto been justiﬁed as an act of retaliation against the enemy.” This makes sense in terms of traditional interpretations of wartime behavior, although Richter says that The Hague Convention did not explicitly permit retaliation. C. J. B. Hurst, Copy of memorandum, September 4, 1919, in War Cabinet Paper
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54. In January 1917, a German prisoner indicated that he had been told by his superiors that neither side could protect against prussic acid. Auld to 9
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71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83. 84.

85. 86. 87.

88.

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Hamilton to Kitchener, Telegram 66, July 8, 1915, wo 32/5172, pro. Hamilton to Kitchener, Telegram 66. Hamilton to Kitchener, Telegram 106, August 4, 1915, wo 32/5172, pro. Hamilton to Kitchener, Telegram 116, August 4, 1915, wo 32/5172, pro. Hamilton to Kitchener, Telegram 126, August 4, 1915, wo 32/5177, pro. Chemical Sub-Committee Minutes V, December 22, 1915, wo 142/56, pro. Minutes of Meeting 126 of the War Committee, October 26, 1916, cab 42/22/8, pro. War Ofﬁce to General Smuts, October 30, 1916, in War Committee Minutes, cab 42/22/8, pro. War Committee Meeting, October 31, 1916, cab 42/22/13, pro. War Cabinet 38, January 19, 1917, cab 23/1, pro. Berry, War and the Red Cross, 7–8. The >G8’s inﬂuence has encouraged international treaties and organizations, especially after World War I, that work against the existence of war itself. The Red Cross itself never did that, partially because “it was created in order to mitigate the consequences of war; and, in order to concentrate its strength upon that task—which it can only discharge with the consent and good will of the governments that make war—it has to accept war itself as a cataclysm arising out of the nature of the world in which its duties are undertaken. . . . It remains by its nature an intervention by a power that repudiates the spirit of war, serves a higher cause, and appeals to profounder sanctions.” Morrah, The British Red Cross, 18–19. See also Moorhead, Durant’s Dream, 21–22. Berry, War and the Red Cross, 8, 9; Willemin and Heacock, The International Committee of the Red Cross, 20. Hutchinson, Champions of Charity, 283. A copy of the appeal can be see in Le Comité International de la Croiz Rouge aux Belligérants, “Appel Contre L’emploi des Gaz Vénéneux,” February 6, 1918, wo 32/5177, pro. Willemin and Heacock, The International Committee of the Red Cross, 20. Hutchinson, Champions of Charity, 283, 284. The original language was: “On peut dire que les progrès de la science dans . . . la chimie, n’ont fait qu’en aggraver les souffrances et surtout les é tendre à toute la population, en sorte que la guerre ne sera beintot plus qu’une oeuvre do destruction générale et sans merci.” Le Comité International de la Croix Rouge aux Belligérants, “Appel Contre L’Emploi des Gaz Vénéneux,” and “. . . nous n’hesitons pas à demander hautement qu’on renonce à cette manire atroce de faire la guerre,” February 6, 1916, wo 32/5177, pro. After the war, the International Red Cross did continue to encourage international treaties that outlawed poison gas. In the 1925 Geneva Protocol, for example, it achieved part of its goal. Willemin and Heacock, The International Committee of the Red Cross, 23.

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89. Charles H. Foulkes, “Report on the Activity of the Special Brigade during the War,” December 19, 1918, Foulkes 6/4, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives (A=8B6), King’s College, London, 3. 90. “Legal aspect of the use of ED>HDC<6H,” March 18, 1918, wo 32/5177, 3, pro. 91. War Cabinet Meeting 355, February 27, 1918, cab 23/5, pro. 92. The original language was: “L’un des caracteres les plus douloureux de la guerre qui desole actuellement l’humanité, c’est la violation journalière des conventions les plus solennelles, de ce qu’on a appelé les lois de la guerre, de ces accords par lesquels on espérait en diminuer la cruauté. Bien loin d’atténuer les maux qu’entraine la guerre, on peut dire que les progrès de la science dans l’aéronnautique, la balistique ou la chimie, n’ont fait qu’en aggraver les sourffrances et surtout les étendre à toute la population, en sorte que la guerre ne sera d’beintot plus qu’une oeuvre de destruction générale et sans merci.” International Red Cross, Appel Contre L’emploi des Gaz Vénéneux, February 6, 1918, wo 32/5177, pro. 93. Untitled document begins “On the 7th February 1918,” n.d., wo 32/5177, pro. 94. “Legal aspect of the use of ED>HDC<6H,” March 18, 1918, wo 32/5177, pro. 95. Document 58, n.d., wo 32/5177, pro. 96. Untitled document begins “On the 7th February 1918,” n.d., 3, wo 32/5177, pro. 97. “Press Bureau” statement, May 21, 1918, wo 32/5177, pro; “Battle in Belgium,” South Wales Argus, April 24, 1915, 3. 98. Untitled document begins “On the 7th February 1918,” 3, wo 32/5177, pro. 99. Untitled document begins “On the 7th February 1918,” 3, wo 32/5177, pro; Document 19a, n.d., wo 32/5177, pro. 100.
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2. The Army’s Experience 1. For discussions of the spirit of the offensive in World War I, see, for example, Jack Snyder, “Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914–1918,” International Security 9, no. 1 (1984): 108–46. 2. Cavan, introduction to “Gas!” v; Foulkes, “Gas!” 175; Smithells to Lowther, December 10, 1918, BH 391/77/1, 4, Special Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, hereafter cited as Special.

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3. Sir John French to [Lord Kitchener], April 23, 1915, , wo 142/241, pro. 4. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 19. 5. Foulkes, “Gas!” 208. Donald Richter, who studied the men of the Special Brigade, criticizes Foulkes’s book because he believes that Foulkes was “too closely associated with the brigade to make the necessary critical judgments. His account is pervasively immodest, self-justifying, and serf-serving.” Chemical Soldiers, 3. Foulkes did promote his war work, and thus one might question the tone of some of his comments, but the basic facts in the book are accurate and serve as an unmatched account of the institutional development and life of the Special Brigade and its leader. 6. General Staff, SS 138/3, 6. Also see SS 535, which states, as do many pamphlets, that soldiers should don helmets immediately after an alarm is sounded (and thus before an attack is conﬁrmed). 7. SS 138: Effect on the Enemy of Our Gas Attacks, Second Report (n.p.: Army Printing and Stationery Services, April 1917), 6, hereafter SS 138. 8. SS 138, 9; Charles Foulkes, “Report on the Activity of the Special Brigade during the War,” December 19, 1918, 2, BJC 7/548, pro; Foulkes, “Gas!” 37. 9. Hodgkin diary, vol. 3, April 25, 1917, iwm. 10. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 21. Gas became the province of a segment of the Royal Engineers called the Special Brigade. Later developments included gas weapons for use by the artillery and the infantry. Foulkes noted that in 1916 “Haig agreed that it was desirable to treat gas as a distinct arm.” “Gas!” 97. This apparent contradiction can be explained: although gas was a separate service, it remained part of the Royal Engineers. 11. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 7–8. Palazzo uses the word “ethos,” distinguishing it from “doctrine.” He explains that the former is “the characteristic spirit and the prevalent sentiment, taste, or opinion of a people, institution, or system.” Doctrine, however, is “the distillation of ideas into a framework that an army uses to train its forces to achieve maximum battleﬁeld potential. They [scholars deﬁning doctrine] stress uniformity and an acceptance that commanders must train the entire army within a consistent system following standardized goals, so that the degree of success during training . . . is measurable. . . . The British did not use such terms in their training, nor in analyzing the capabilities of their forces” (8–10). Also see General Staff, Operations, part 1 of Field Service Regulations (London: =BHD, 1909), 107, quoted in Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 17. 12. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 18, 19. 13. Foulkes, “Report on the Activity of the Special Brigade during the War,” 2–3; Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 32–34. 14. Foulkes, “Report on the Activity of the Special Brigade during the War,” 1–2; Foulkes, “Gas!” 314; Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 150, discusses the expansion of gas

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15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

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deployment to include infantry grenades, for example. The Special Brigade was originally “Special Companies.” However, the unit soon expanded in size and changed its name. Foulkes, “Gas!” 94. For instance, not enough phosgene would ﬁt into shells to allow a phosgene shell attack to produce the concentration of poison gas needed for an effective attack. Foulkes, “Gas!” 319–20. Foulkes, “Gas!” 183. Foulkes, “Gas!” 236–37. This assisted in technical discussions of policy, too. At the beginning of the gas war, Special Brigade men wore brassards indicating their unit so that they would not be interrupted by local ofﬁcers and BEs who might want to assign them other tasks or assume that the gas men were loaﬁng. Foulkes, “Gas!” 62. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 19, 21. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 36, 37. Foulkes, quoting his conversation with Sir John French, in “Gas!” 17. The Army Council in London had started taking its own steps to respond to gas, but French’s simultaneous actions replaced their plans. Richter, Chemical Soldiers, 17–18. Foulkes, “Gas!” 265. The problem with ignorant ofﬁcers was the danger they caused when gas was near them as well as the lack of respect that they showed Foulkes’s weapon. Foulkes, “Gas!” 116. Foulkes, “Gas!” 183, 276, 274, 276. Foulkes, “Gas!” 335–36. See Wright, Tank, for the history of the tank. Foulkes and chemical weapons received mixed reactions by British ofﬁcers during World War I. Some praised the new tool. Others did not feel that it met their expectations, probably based on the horrible accounts of the ﬁrst attack at Ypres. In fact, Foulkes felt that he had to produce “propaganda” to promote gas. Foulkes, “Gas!” 177–78, 174, 138, 187. Foulkes, “Gas!” 120, 207–8. Foulkes, “Report on the Activity of the Special Brigade during the War,” 2. Pickett, Don’t Be Afraid, 8; Haber, The Poisonous Cloud, 197, 229. Captured German records and interviews with prisoners of war indicated that the enemy was concerned about the effects of surprise attacks on his soldiers. The German reports emphasized repeatedly the need for men to put their masks on promptly. See, for example, SS 138/3, 7. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 32–33; Richter, Chemical Soldiers, 224. Foulkes refers repeatedly to the “harassing” effects of gas, which seems to be an understatement. Foulkes, “Gas!” 318–19, 321.

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32. Palazzo, Seeking Victory, 33. 33. Foulkes, “Gas!” 301, 302, 327, 337–38; SS 138, 6–7. 34. See Richter’s excellent chapter on Loos for a more detailed account of that battle and the potential perils of launching a gas attack. Chemical Soldiers, 61–86. 35. Foulkes, “Gas!” vii. 36. See chapter 6 in this book for details. 37. Foulkes, “Report on the Activity of the Special Brigade during the War,” 1. 38. Letter from J. A. O. to Hartley, May 10, 1965, =6GI, Box 44, 868; Richter, Chemical Soldiers, 2. 39. J. C. Hill interview with Peter Liddle, Tape 516, 5,
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59. There was a series of pamphlets on this and other topics. In general, they were identiﬁed by “HH” and a number. A sampling of them exists in the Imperial War Museum Library. For examples of the gas defense pamphlets, see SS 136: Defensive Measures against Gas Attacks (London: Harrison and Sons for =BHD, 1916), hereafter cited as SS 136; CDS 307; SS 534 (1917); SS 534 (1918); SS 535. 60. SS 534 (1917), cover; SS 534 (1918), cover. 61. For a sample, see SS 534 (1918). 62. SS 534 (1918), 1. 63. Foulkes, “Gas!” 338. Foulkes estimates three thousand deaths during the April and May 1915 attacks, but the number is speculative. It is difﬁcult to count the number of deaths that occurred after the war because of gas, since it was not always clear whether someone sickened or died because of gas or because of another pulmonary ailment. 64. CDS 307, 1. 65. “Defensive Measures against Gas Attacks,” Handwritten notes, September 1916, 1, iwm. 66. SS 535, cover. 67. SS 534 (1918), 1, 41. 68. CDS 307, 1. 69. French reported that ofﬁcers did not always understand when to use gas masks. French, Memorandum D7/987, July–September 1915, wo 95/1911, 15th Div. Folder, pro; Chemical Advisory Committee, Minutes, August 1, 1916, 142, wo 142/58, pro. 70. Foulkes, “Gas!” 117. 71. Lieutenant Colonel Cummins, Memorandum, May 19, 1917, wo 142/156, Box 158, 8A/13/17, pro. 72. Cummins, Note, December 6, 1917, 6, wo 142/166, pro. 73. Cummins, Note, December 6, 1917, 6, wo 142/166, pro. 74. Capt. H. J. C. Leland, September 21, 1916 and December 30, 1916, 53, Leland 96/5/1, iwm. 75. “Diary of Development of British Respirator,” Foulkes 6/44, A=8B6 contains a chronology of World War I British gas mask evolution. 76. Luther Gordon Mitchell, Trooper in Essex Yeomantry and later Corporal in Royal Engineers, Diary, September 25, 1915, 371, iwm. 77. Leland, September 21, 1916. 78. Parker reported that men would remove helmets if they felt uncomfortable or could not function while using them. L. H. Parker, “Observations on the Origins of Gas Helmets, Appendix a,” February 17, 1921, 2, wo 142/254, pro. 79. Lt. Col. Kenneth H. Cousland, “‘The Great War,’ 1914–1918: A Former ‘Gunner’ of the First World War looks back,” 56, A=8B6, speaks about the “suffocating” feeling that wearing a mask could produce. Parker, “Observations,”

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discusses the difﬁculties in designing helmets for British soldiers because of their unpopularity. 80. SS 136, 37; illegible signature, probably Lt. Col. B. Tullorh[?], 1st Division No. 1709/65, October 11, 1915, wo 142/90, Folder 9
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107. Signalers did have to learn how to talk with their helmets on in order to pass along and receive directions during an attack; this was dangerous and difﬁcult, though. 108. SS 534 (1918), 21–22, 54. 109. Foulkes, “Gas!” 239. 110. Clegg diary, 62; SS 534 (1918), 30–31. 111. SS 534 (1918), 23–28, 53. 112. SS 534 (1918), 31. 113. This is suggested in SS 534 (1918), 30–31, and reported in Capt. H. H. MacMahon, Memorandum, October 13, 1918, wo 142/109, Folder 9
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3. The Scientiﬁc Divide 1. This chapter compares the wartime experiences of research chemists and the army’s clinical physicians because they were the subsets of chemists and doctors who interacted most with gas. The words “chemists” and “researchers” are generic terms referring to all nonmedical scientiﬁcally trained experts involved in the gas war. Both are considered scientists for the purpose of this chapter since they use many of the techniques and approaches of the modern scientiﬁc era, such as rational approaches to problem solving, laboratories, and scientiﬁc instruments. 2. Rationality can be a debated term, but in this case “rational” means logical and reasoned as opposed to emotional. 3. Lane, A Social History of Medicine, 178–80. 4. See, for example, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 80 (February 15–March 16, 1916), cols. 2123–38.

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5. Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 154. 6. A few individual experts enjoyed visible roles in the war effort. For example, the War Ofﬁce requested Dr. John Scott Haldane to go to France immediately after the Germans ﬁrst released gas at Ypres. “Lethal Gases in War,” London Times, April 29, 1915, 9. Lt. Col. Edward Harrison became recognized, particularly by his peers, for his dedication to the antigas helmet development process. F. H. Carr, “The Harrison Memorial Lecture,” 12–13. 7. F. H. Carr, “The Harrison Memorial Lecture,” 14. 8. Margaret Baker, “Henry Baker, 1859–1935,” 1947–48, 34, 22, 9>8/7B/20/154, Cheshire Record Ofﬁce, hereafter 8GD. 9. See, for instance, the number of chemists from the Royal Society of Chemistry who did join the war effort and the professional praise they received from their peers. Institute of Chemistry, “Report of the Council,” Proceedings, part 1, 1919, 5–7, Royal Society of Chemistry, hereafter GH8. See also John B. West, “Sir Joseph Barcroft,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at University of New Hampshire, http://www.oxforddnb.com.libproxy.unh.edu (accessed May 19, 2007). 10. Hardie and Pratt, Modern British Chemical Industry, 110. 11. Turner, “Public Science,” 201–27, 204. Turner focuses on “public scientists,” those particularly interested in participating in government and seeing the scientiﬁc method adopted for decision making. However, many of the motivations for public scientists apply to the ﬁeld of science and scientists in general, especially the advances in the ﬁeld and the struggle to gain recognition as a valuable profession or subject. 12. Hardie and Pratt noted that even “in 1919–20 not a single member of Parliament had had a scientiﬁc education.” Modern British Chemical Industry, 110. Mr. J. A. Pease lamented in the House of Commons in 1915, “Whereas four ﬁrms in Germany employ 1,000 chemists in connection with their dye works [alone], in the whole of our [British] industries there are only 1,500 chemists employed.” Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 71 (April 14–May 19, 1915), col. 1905. 13. Hardie and Pratt, Modern British Chemical Industry, 81, 83. 14. Turner, “Public Science,” 226. Mr. A. Lynch, in the House of Commons, reminded his colleagues that J. A. Pease, the president of the Board of Education, had just “said that the number . . . of research students in chemistry is only 350.” Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 71 (April 14–May 19, 1915), cols. 1926–27. 15. MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 456. Steve Sturdy notes that physiologists contributed to the war effort too, especially with regard to chemical warfare. Their work led to developments in the gas war, and “they also revealed a considerable talent both for organizing their own work within the evolving structures of the wartime administration, and for showing how those structures

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16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

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might best be integrated and even reorganized so as to make the most effective use of their skills.” “War as Experiment,” 77. MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 459; Royal Society, “Report of the Council, 1915” in Year-Book (1916), 173. Capt. J. Davidson Pratt, “Report on the Chemical Warfare Organization,” n.d., 2, wo 142/239, Folder 142/239, pro. Royal Society, “Report of the Council, 1915,” in Year-Book (1916), 173. In response to the Royal Society’s offers, “the Admiralty, and somewhat later the War Ofﬁce and the Board of Trade, responded to this offer” of “scientiﬁc assistance.” According to the “Proceedings of the Council,” in Proceedings of the Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1914, part 4, 3: “The Secretary of State, in reply, intimated that the offer [by the Institute of available scientists] was appreciated and would be noted.” “John Scott Haldane,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at University of Hampshire, http://www.oxforddnb.com.libproxy.unh.edu/ (accessed July 7, 2006). “Lethal Gases in War,” London Times, April 29, 1915, 9. Pratt, “Report on the Chemical Warfare Organisation,” wo 3–4, 142/239, pro. Lloyd George opened the Ministry before ﬁnal, ofﬁcial approval of the new agency had been granted. R. J. Q. Adams, Arms and the Wizard, 37–39. R. J. Q. Adams, Arms and the Wizard, 35–37. Corelli Barnett notes that Kitchener no longer supervised “munitions production” after the opening of the Ministry of Munitions. Britain and Her Army, 387. BJC 5/177/1200/21 EGD, in R. J. Q. Adams, Arms and the Wizard, 242–43. Statistics regarding the production of gases can be found in The Supply of Munitions, vol. 11 in History of the Ministry of Munitions, part 2, 97. Although the manufacturing of chemicals increased over the course of the war, the amount of any particular chemical did not necessarily rise since its production depended on the demand for it in a constantly evolving gas war. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 13. wo 5, 8, 142/239, pro. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 19–21. Royal Society (War) Committee, Sectional Committee on Physiology, “First Interim Report,” January 23, 1918, 2, GH. “Section III: Works of the Chemical Advisory Committee (2nd Feb. 1916–17th Oct. 1917),” n.d., 168, wo 142/247, pro. Foulkes, “Gas! ” vii–viii. Minutes of the Chemical Warfare Committee, October 27, 1917–May 24, 1918, October 27, 1917, 1, wo 142/71, pro; wo 118–21, 142/239, pro. wo 1, 142/71, EGD. wo 18, 142/239, pro; Carter, Chemical and Biological Defence, 6–8.

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34. An indication of the nebulous nature of this fear is that politicians and scientists did not specify the kinds of germs they feared. Because not all germs present the same degree of danger, the threat of biological warfare could be minimal or catastrophic. 35. Copy of Col. Sir Arthur Davidson to Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, January 18, 1917, War Committee BH 658, Folder IV, GH. 36. Committee of Imperial Defence to R. W. Harrison, January 25, 1917, War Committee BH 658, Folder IV, GH. 37. Appendix II: Dropping of Germs from the Air, War Cabinet Meeting 59, February 9, 1917, Lloyd George, ;/103, =AGD. 38. A. Schuster and W. B. Hardy to Secretary, Copy of “Committee of Imperial Defence, Appendix II: Dropping of Germs from the Air, 1 February 1917,” in War Cabinet Meeting 59, February 9, 1917, Lloyd George, ;/103, =AGD. 39. See chapter 5 for cartoons on this subject. 40. War Cabinet 59, February 9, 1917, cab 23/1, pro. 41. Cronin, The Politics of State Expansion, 65. 42. wo 142/247, 168, pro. 43. “Report of the Chemical Sub-Committee containing a record of work completed from October 1, 1915 to January 10, 1916, with which is incorporated the 1st Report of the Chemical Advisory Committee of the Trench Warfare Research Department of the Ministry of Munitions of War covering the period January 10th to February 29th,” 1916, 7, Folder 8A/52/16, Box 171, wo 142/168, pro. 44. “Report of the Chemical Sub-Committee.” 45. Minutes of the Administrative Sub-Committee of the Chemical Advisory Committee, July 31, 1916, 52 wo 142/66, pro. 46. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 50; Foulkes, “Gas!” 263. 47. Chemical Sub-Committee of the Chemical Advisory Committee, “2nd Report of the Chemical Sub-Committee. Containing a record of work completed to 1st October, 1915,” wo 4–5, 142/168, Box 171, pro. 48. “Kelp as a possible source of Iodine,” 8L9/56 (from 7B/1492), wo 4, 142/112, pro. 49. This was an ongoing process. See GH8, “Proceedings, 1915,” part 3, 7–9; GH8, “Proceedings, 1915,” part 4, 3; GH8, “Proceedings, 1916,” part 1, 6. 50. The Royal Society was also involved in this process, as was the Institute of Chemistry. See “War Executive Committee Minute Books,” November 19, 1915, 1, GH; GH8, “Proceedings of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland,” 1917, part 1, 8. 51. Some, of course, were lost either in the trenches or in the laboratories. The Royal Society of Chemistry in London has a memorial on the wall of the main hall honoring chemists who lost their lives during the war. The GH8’s Council Minutes note that ﬁfty-ﬁve of the seven hundred members and students of the Institute of Chemistry who served in the war died. GH8, “Proceedings of the

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Council,” in Proceedings of the Institute of Chemistry, part 6, October–December 1920, 310–11. 52. Lawrence. Medicine, 55, 58, 72. Physicians and other scientists are often seen as separate groups doing different kinds of work, which helps explain why British doctors could have more prestige and respect than other scientists during this period despite the fact that advances in science itself helped both chemists and healers. 53. Lawrence, Medicine, 60, 64, 59, 64, 72, 75, 61. 54. Hardy, Health and Medicine, 30, 60–61. A lot of Victorian public health reforms focused on environmental issues, such as sewage, as a means of increasing the health of the population. See Hamlin, “State Medicine.” 55. Hardy, Health and Medicine, 81. 56. MacLeod notes that this celebrity later became tainted by notoriety, as people questioned the beneﬁt of advancing the horrors of chemical warfare. “The Chemists Go to War,” 480. 57. For numbers regarding men and supplies, see Gabriel and Metz, Military Medicine, 247. 58. See Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 132, for some of the plans. 59. Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 166. 60. Gabriel and Metz, Military Medicine, 247. 61. Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 168, 169, 171, 172–73. 62. Whitehead, “The British Medical Ofﬁcer,” 164, 168–69, 166–67. 63. Lawrence, Medicine, 48–49, 61, 171. 64. Lawrence, Medicine, 171. For an example, see Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 224. 65. Whitehead writes, “In particular, service in the G6B8 involved a modiﬁcation to the doctors’ ethical code, with loyalty to the needs of the State taking precedence over those of the individual.” “The British Medical Ofﬁcer,” 163. 66. Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 170, 154, 162, 197–98. 67. Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 154–55; Lord Knutsford to Lord Derby, July 30, 1917, G6B8 446/20, LA=JB. 68. After the ﬁrst gas attack, Sir Maurice Hankey criticized, “Medical science has been . . . ill-equipped . . . to deal with this form of attack.” Sir Maurice Hankey, “Extract from Minutes of the 67th Conference of the British Empire Delegation, Washington, January 6, 1922, reporting a Statement by Sir Maurice Hankey,” in 8>9, Paper 354-b, July 19, 1922, 1 cab 4/8, pro. 69. Whitehead, “The British Medical Ofﬁcer,” 171; A. T. Sloggett, SS 452: Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare with notes on its Pathology and Treatment (General Headquarters, 2nd Echelon, April 1, 1918), 5, hereafter SS 452 (1918). Authors emphasized the importance of physicians’ observations by printing two vertical lines in the margin next to the request to draw the reader’s attention.

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70. Medical Research Committee, “Reports of the Chemical Warfare Medical Committee. Nos. 1–20,” January 1918–March 1920, LA=JB. 71. Capt. H. W. Kaye, “A Report on 5 Autopsies on cases of Poisoning by Chlorine Gas in which death took place within 72 hours,” G6B8 739/11/4, LA=JB. 72. SS 452 (1918), cover. 73. SS 111A : Lessons from the German Gas Attack on 16/17 June 1916, June 1916, hereafter SS 111A ; SS 469: Hints on Cooking in the Field, n.d.; SS 137: Recreational Training—1917, January 1917. See the Imperial War Museum collection of World War I pamphlets. 74. For examples, see SS 125: Instructions regarding New Small Box-Respirator (August 1916); SS 111A ; SS 308: Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Mines (July 1917), hereafter SS 308. 75. SS 452 (1918), cover. 76. SS 452 (1918), cover; Sloggett, SS 452: Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare with notes on its Pathology and Treatment (General Headquarters, 2nd Echelon, July 20, 1916), hereafter SS 452 (1916). 77. SS 452 (1918), 3–4. 78. SS 452 (1918), 8–13, 28; SS 452 (1916), 17–18. 79. SS 452 (1918), 28. 80. Macpherson et al., History of the Great War, 249. Note the inﬂuence of mining research in the G6B8’s bibliography. 81. Haller, “Gas Warfare,” 504. Physicians made links, for instance, between soldiers’ lungs ﬁlled with gas and drowning victims’ lungs awash with water. The ﬂuid had to be removed in both cases. 82. Macpherson, et al., History of the Great War, 506. 83. Haller, “Gas Warfare,” 503–4, 502. 84. SS 452 (1918), 5. Physicians undertook research and observations to solve other medical problems, too. See Blair, In Arduis Fidelis, 170, for a discussion of the development of the delayed primary suture technique for preventing wound infection. 85. “Report on Gas Cases Treated in No. 8 Casualty Clearing Station,” 1–3, G6B8 739/11/5, wlhum. 86. Capt. Elliott T. Glenny and Capt. H. W. Kaye, “Notes and Observations on 321 Cases of Asphyxia caused by an enemy gas attack on April 30th 1916,” 3, 4–7, ramc 739/11/4, wlhum. Also see H. W. Kaye, “A Report on 5 Autopsies on cases of Poisoning by Chlorine Gas in which death took place within 72 hours,” ramc 739/11/4, wlhum. 87. Whitehead, “The British Medical Ofﬁcer,” 174. 88. J. S. Haldane et al., “Report No. 5: The Reﬂex Restriction of Respiration after Gas Poisoning,” in the Medical Research Committee, Reports of the Chemical Warfare Medical Committee, April 1918, 3, wlhum.

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89. Physicians Glasier and Logan acknowledge Dr. J. S. Haldane’s role in studying gas poisoning of miners. Gas Poisoning, 6. Haldane was the scientist sent to the Western Front to investigate the ﬁrst gas attack. 90. Haller, “Gas Warfare,” 504. 91. MacPherson et al., History of the Great War, 322. 92. “The Symptoms and Treatment of the Late Effects of Gas Poisoning,” 8, 9, ramc 2045, wlhum. 93. SS 452 (1918), 25. 94. General Routine Order (
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No Place to Run, 145. Although Cook focused on Canadian physicians, he also discussed the British physicians, since the two countries were closely aligned during the war. It is true that the ramc provided some help for patients, but they were not able to conquer gas, and much of their most effective aid was allowing the soldiers to rest rather than actively treating them. 115. SS 452 (1916), 15, 16. 116. McPherson et al., History of the Great War, 271. 117. McPherson et al. note that approximately 25 percent of the shells ﬁred in 1918 contained gas. History of the Great War, 298. 4. Whose Business Is It? 1. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall, 224, 226. 2. MacLeod, “The Chemists Go to War,” 459. 3. This is contrary to the usual British philosophy, in which private trade was assisted by, not led by, government policy. 4. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 34, 35. 5. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 9, 68. 6. Harold Moreland, “Chemical Warfare Record of Chemical Supplies for Offensive Purpose, April 1915–April 1916,” c. June 1918, 139–40, wo 161/1, pro; History of the Ministry of Munitions, 50; “Chairman’s Address, Annual Meeting,” April 19, 1917, 1, 9>8J6 3/7, cro. 7. Cronin, The Politics of State Expansion, 65. 8. “Report of the Chemical Sub-Committee containing a record of work completed from October 1, 1915 to January 10, 1916, with which is incorporated the 1st Report of the Chemical Advisory Committee of the Trench Warfare Research Department of the Ministry of Munitions of War covering the period January 10th to February 29th, 1916,” c. March 1916, wo 142/168, Box 171, Folder 8A/52/16, pro. Also see, for example, Harold Moreland to Castner-Kellner Alkali Co., Ltd., April 3, 1918, 9>8/7B/20/52/17, cro. 9. Works such as those by scholars Gail Braybon, Penny Summerﬁeld, and Arthur Marwick have scrutinized many of these issues, particularly female labor issues. Braybon and Summerﬁeld, Out of the Cage; Marwick, Women at War. 10. For example, see History of the Ministry of Munitions, 35. 11. R. J. Q. Adams, Arms and the Wizard, 29–35. 12. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 97, 27–29; History of the Ministry of Munitions, vol. 1, Industrial Mobilisation, part 4, The Munitions of War Act, 1915 (n.p.: c. 1922), 55–60. This was not a wholly negative development for industrialists since the government took over the managing of labor relations in the factory at the same time. 13. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 27–29, 59–60. 14. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 31, 50, 60–63. 15. Labor Department of the Ministry of Munitions, Memorandum, December

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16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

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1915, BJC 5/49/300/23, pro, quoted in R. J. Q. Adams, Arms and the Wizard, 86. For more information on factories controlled by the Ministry of Munitions, see Handbook on Controlled Establishments (London: =BHD, 1916). Chairman’s Address, Annual Meeting, April 19, 1917, 1, 9>8J6 3/7, cro. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 59. This appointment is another example of the inﬂuence of scientists on the British government during the war. It was the Physiology Committee of the Royal Society, a voluntary scientiﬁc group, that requested Shufﬂebotham to inspect the factories. Louis Jackson et al., February 26, 1916, “The Possible Use of Prussic Acid (Hydrocyanic Acid) by the Germans,” 2, mun 4/2709, pro. Minutes from Chemical War Committee Meeting, March 10, 1915, mun 4/2706, pro; Jackson, “Possible Use of Prussic Acid.” Jackson, “Possible Use of Prussic Acid,” 1, 2. Foulkes, “Gas!” 29; Charles Foulkes, “Report on the Activity of the Special Brigade during the War,” December 19, 1918, 2, mun 7/548, pro. Jackson, “Possible Use of Prussic Acid,” 3. wo 161/1, 212. wo 161/1, 211, 212. Phipps at [Department of Munitions Requirements and Statistics?] 9BGH to Secretary War Ofﬁce, June 2, 1916, mun 4/2709, pro. Memorandum, c. February 12, 1917, mun 4/2709, pro. C.A., Memorandum, February 5, 1917, mun 4/2709, pro. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 29. In Smith to the Ministry of Munitions, July 16, 1918, 9>8/7B/20/52/16 8@, cro, the Castner-Kellner company blames production delays on the government’s failure to ensure that the company received enough lumber. Of course, there were other reasons for delays, too. Professor Cadman, at the Conference on Gas Measures on May 23, 1916, blamed labor shortages for the delays in gas production at the Calais and Lyons sites. Minutes of the ﬁrst meeting of the Conference on Gas Measures, May 23, 1916, 2, wo 32/5174, pro. Most discussions referred to the gases jellite, K C , and prussic acid almost interchangeably, especially among nonscientists and industrialists. The discussion in this chapter does the same. The navy’s investigations into chemicals led to ? A (jellite), which was “50% Hydrocyanic Acid and 50% Chloroform,” which they began to manufacture before ﬁnding a use for it. Other versions of prussic acid compounds followed, such as 7 G (arsenious chloride) and even, eventually, ? 7 G (20% arsenious chloride, 55% hydrocyanic acid, and 25% chloroform). A more advanced product, K C (50% hydrocyanic acid, 30% arsenious chloride, 15% stannic chloride, and 5% chloroform), was the invention of the navy. This was just on the British side; the French Allies called their prussic acid compound, vincennite. The Ministry and participants in the produc-

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tion process had to agree on nicknames, the formulas, and even the identifying marks (for example, one shell was identiﬁed by “three red bands painted round body of shell .5" broad, and .5" apart”). wo 161/1, 211–12; “Symbols for Chemicals,” wo 142/248, pro; C.A., Memorandum, February 5, 1917, mun 4/2709; “List of French Shell and Bomb Fillings,” pro 142/118, Folder 8L9128, pro; Appendix A: “Symbols for Chemicals,” 1, wo 142/248, pro; Newton to 9BGH, Memorandum, January 15, 1917, mun 4/2709, pro. 30. General Manager’s Report for 25 October 1916, 2, 9>8/7B/20/52/15, cro. 31. General Manager’s Report for September 27, 1916, 2, 3, 9>8/7B/20/52/15, cro; “Langworth proposition by Smith,” July 8, 1918, 3, 9>8/7B/20/55, cro. 32. General Manager’s Report for September 27, 3; Commercial Advisory and Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee Minutes, June 7, 1916, wo 142/52, pro. On the other hand, it is only fair to note that the chemical industry itself, as Dr. Addison, the minister of reconstruction, noted, might beneﬁt from “an enormous amount of information [gathered by the Ministry of Munitions’ experts] from the observation of processes carried on in Government factories, and from other sources, which would be of use and probably new to the Chemical trade.” From General Manager’s Report, August 8, 1917, 3, 9>8/7B/20/52/16, cro. 33. “Lethal Artillery Shell,” February 12, 1917, mun 4/2709, pro. 34. Alexander Roger, [Director General Trench Warfare Supply] 9
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Munitions, 24–25; General Manager’s Report for May 22, 1918, 2, 9>8/ 7B/20/52/17, cro; Minister of Munitions and the Castner-Kellner Alkali Company Limited, “Agreement Revising Contract of 13th March, 1917, etc.,” December 10, 1917, 3, 9>8/7B/20/50, cro. 45. wo 161/1, 215; History of the Ministry of Munitions, 46. 46. wo 161/1, 215. 47. Jackson, “Possible Use of Prussic Acid.” 48. wo 161/1, 216. 49. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 24, 25, 30; wo 161/1, 137. Moreland concluded that industrialists were “actuated mainly by patriotic motives.” wo 161/1, 138. 50. For example, companies manufactured mustard gas to government speciﬁcations, but Castner-Kellner had begun producing liquid chlorine commercially before the war. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 34, 48–52, 27. 51. Jackson to Castner-Kellner Alkali Co. Ltd., April 25, 1918, 14, 9>8/7B/20/114, cro. 52. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 51. 53. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 27. 54. wo 161/1, 137. 55. “Chemical Warfare Records of Chemical Supplies for Offensive Purposes,” 139–40, wo 142/251, pro. 56. wo 161/1, 139, 140; Smith to Ministry of Munitions, July 16, 1918, 9>8/ 7B/20/52/16 8@, cro. 57. Smith to Ministry of Munitions. Owing to the range of dilemmas involved in coordinating government agencies with the armed services’ demands and the contractors’ inclinations, the chemical industry became increasingly controlled by government regulations authorized by the Munitions of War Act. Although this could solve some problems, such as enabling government to use its weight to prevent strikes, it was generally unpopular with private businesses, which resented incursions into their sovereignty. The need to pool information about manufacturing new products in order to increase efﬁciency and decrease accidents required sharing of information; the government, acting as a supervisory body, could expedite this. 58. Smith to Ministry of Munitions, 26, 45–47. 59. Richmond for 9
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65. Roger to Carson, June 4, 1917, mun 4/5710, pro; Roger to Minister of Munitions, June 7, 1917, mun 4/5710, pro. 66. wo 161/1, 217. 67. Chemical Supply Committee, Notes and Minutes, June 8, 1917, wo 142/75, pro. 68. Roger to the Minister of Munitions, Memorandum, June 7, 1917, mun 4/2710, pro. 69. Work of the Chemical Warfare Committee, 5, 47, wo 142/248, pro. 70. Foulkes, “Gas!” 107. 71. wo 161/1, 217; History of the Ministry of Munitions, 92. 72. For discussion of the Munitions of War Acts, see Industrial Mobilisation, 1914–1915, vol. 1 of History of the Ministry of Munitions, part 4, 55–65; Man Power and Dilution , vol. 6 of History of the Ministry of Munitions, parts 2 and 3, The Control of Industrial Man Power, 1917–1918 (n.p., 1922), 96–98. 73. wo 161/1, 218. 74. For example, see Braybon and Summerﬁeld, Out of the Cage. 75. Captain Moreland argued that civilians were “frequently exposing themselves . . . to risks at least as great as they might have had to face in the Field.” wo 161/1, 134. 76. Ministry of Munitions of War, Controller of Gun Ammunition Filling, “Technical reports on Gas Charging: No. 1.: Report of Conference on = H [Hun stuff, also known as mustard gas] held on Thursday, 11th July, 1918, at 28 Northumberland Avenue, L82,” 6, Documents Collection, iwm, hereafter “No. 1: Report of Conference on = H ” 77. wo 142/251, 25. 78. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 59. 79. Thom and Ineson, “TNT Poisoning.” 80. F. M. G. Micklethwait, “Note on the Evolution in Chemical Warfare July to August 1915,” 1–2, mun 5/197/1650/1, pro. 81. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 58. 82. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 59. 83. wo 142/251, 25. 84. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 59–60. 85. Frank Shufﬂebotham, “Report on Poisoning by Arsenious Chloride by Dr. F. Shufﬂebotham,” October 11, 1917, mun 4/6908, Folder: 7 G Poisoning, pro. 86. wo 152/251, 25; wo 161/1, 25; History of the Ministry of Munitions, 60. 87. wo 142/251, 25. 88. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 58. 89. Smith to Shufﬂebotham, September 19, 1917, mun 4/6907, Folder: Medical Reports on Cases of E H Poisoning (chloropicrin), pro. It is interesting that the question indicates a concern about shamming by the patient. The issue of faking an injury arose on the battlefront with regard to diagnoses of soldiers with questionable cases of gassing. See chapter 3.

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90. Shufﬂebotham to Smith, September 26, 1917, mun 4/6907, Folder: Medical Reports on Cases of E H Poisoning (Chloropicrin), pro. 91. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 59, 96; Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 138. Thyliodoacetate refers to ethyliodoacetate. 92. Chemical Supply Committee, Minutes, May 25, 1917, LD 142/75, pro; Adrian Corbett to Frank Shufﬂebotham, June 20, 1918, mun 4/6908, pro. 93. Corbett to Shufﬂebotham, June 20. 94. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 58–59. 95. Shufﬂebotham to Secretary, Chemical Advisory Committee, July 24, 1916, mun 4/6907, pro. 96. wo 142/251, 143. 97. Shufﬂebotham to Secretary, Chemical Advisory Committee, July 24, 1916, mun 4/6907, pro. 98. Frank Shufﬂebotham, “Report on Compensation for Accidents and Diseases arising out of the employment of Workpeople engaged in the manufacture of Poison Gases and Liquids,” November 29, 1916, 1–2, 6, 1, 3, 3–4, mun 4/6908, pro. 99. Shufﬂebotham to Secretary, Chemical Advisory Committee, July 24, 1916, mun 4/6907, pro. 100. Shufﬂebotham, “Report on Compensation,” 6, 7. 101. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 28. 102. wo 161/1, 25. 103. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 61, 62. 104. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 62; Foulkes, “Gas!” 112. 105. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 62. 106. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 62, 61–62, 62. 107. Controller of Gun Ammunition Filling, “No. 1: Report of Conference on = H ,” 2. 108. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 61. 109. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 61. 110. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 63. 111. Captain Roberts, “= H Manufacture at Avonmouth from the Medical Aspect,” 15–16, 11, wo 142/225, pro. Captain Roberts, ramc, was not identiﬁed by a ﬁrst name in this report. 112. Captain Roberts, “= H Manufacture at Avonmouth,” 14, 15. 113. Captain Roberts, “= H Manufacture at Avonmouth,” 15; History of the Ministry of Munitions, 63. 114. wo 142/225, 17. Oddly enough, exposure to certain chemicals could actually increase health at times. Physicians found that chlorine workers had a greater immunity to inﬂuenza than others. History of the Ministry of Munitions, 63. 115. wo 142/225, 1.

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116. wo 142/225, 19. 117. At times, legislation supported physicians’ public health work concerning workers. See Hardy, Health and Medicine, 36. 118. Hardie and Pratt, Modern British Chemical Industry, 110. 5. Gas as a Symbol 1. For example, see F.L., “War by Chemicals, and Reprisals,” Illustrated London News, May 22, 1915, 672. 2. G. K. Chesterton, “Our Notebook,” Illustrated London News, May 22, 1915, 653. 3. Bairnsfather, Bullets and Billets, 118–19, 160. 4. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 11; Lewinski, The Camera at War, 63. 5. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 9. 6. Reed, The Popular Magazine, 108–9. He also indicates that circulation ﬁgures for Britain may not be precise, but they are broadly accurate (106). 7. Private/Captain Sidney Smith, 14th Battalion Ox and Bucks, L.I. to parents, 26–214, No. 34, Liddle. 8. See, for example, A. Forestier, What War has Become! The Fighting Man in this Civilised Twentieth Century! Illustrated London News, May 1, 1915, cover. 9. Cooke, The Press, 83; Rose, Aspects of Political Censorship, 17, 18, 20, 107–10. 10. Cooke, The Press, 57; Rose, Aspects of Political Censorship, 20. 11. Lewinski, The Camera at War, 63. 12. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 30. 13. The government even instituted a propaganda agency, the National War Aims Committee, when it became clear in the second half of the war that the British people needed more motivation to continue the war effort. Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning, 4, 22. 14. Cooke, The Press, 3. 15. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 142 discusses the policy for truthful photographs. 16. For example, The Great Offensive, Bystander, April 3, 1918, 18. 17. Cooke, The Press, 127; Rose, Aspects of Political Censorship, 109–10. 18. Rose, Aspects of Political Censorship, 109, 110. 19. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 11, 34. 20. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 14, 16, 30, 60, 71. 21. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 9, 35, 53. Some photographs were taken for record-keeping purposes, others with an eye to publication (21, 64). 22. Gas-Masked Serbian Colonels on the British Front, Illustrated War News, February 20, 1918, 24; A British Ofﬁcer in his New Anti-Gas Helmet: In a Trench in France, Illustrated War News, September 29, 1915, 45; Gas-Clouds Photographed for the First Time, Illustrated London News, October 23, 1915, 518.

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23. Basil Clarke, “Camera Correspondents,” War Illustrated, July 7, 1917, 453; Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 6, 17, 144. 24. Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 71, 74, and 144. 25. Bairnsfather, Bullets and Billets, 28, 79; Bryant and Heneage, Dictionary, 9. 26. Bairnsfather, Bullets and Billets, 160; “‘Editor’ of The Bystander,” introduction to Bairnsfather, Fragments from France, 2. 27. Bairnsfather, Bullets and Billets, 118–19, 176. 28. Bryant, Dictionary, 11–12. 29. Smith letter No. 34. 30. Bryant and Heneage, Dictionary, 9. 31. Bryant, Dictionary, 61–62, 114, 217. 32. For a discussion of the challenges reporters faced, see Carmichael, First World War Photographers, 30. 33. Raven-Hill, The Elixir of Hate, Punch, May 5, 1915, 343. 34. The Devil at Work, Tatler, May 12, 1915, 162, reproduced from People. The devil imagery appeared outside of cartoons, too. In an excerpt from an article by a chemical engineer, the author stated, “We [The British] may be conﬁdent that the [German] devil will be fought with ﬁre hotter than any he has used and be made to regret the day the world was challenged by gas.” H. E. Howe, “The Service of the Chemist: A Department Devoted to Progress in the Field of Applied Chemistry,” wo 1, 142/221, pro. 35. Hugh, The Great Offensive. 36. Lunt and WFB, The Festive Bored, Bystander, September 25, 1918, 544. 37. Lunt and WFB, Double-Dyed, Bystander, September 18, 1918, 494. 38. Bernard Partridge, Retribution, Punch, July 7, 1915, 1. 39. Frank Holland, Sowing the Wind, John Bull, May 15, 1915, 17. 40. This policy is discussed in 8>9 Paper: G8/8/19, Proof, November 1924, 2, wo 188/142, pro. 41. Fighting the Fiend, Tatler, May 19, 1915, 194, reproduced from People. 42. W. Heath Robinson, Lachrymosing the British by Onion-Whittling under Cover of Night, Sketch, August 11, 1915, 119; Laughing-Gassing the British before an Advance in Close Formation, Sketch, August 18, 1915, 139. 43. A famous British propaganda poster commented with outrage that Germany viewed the Belgian protection treaty as “a scrap of paper.” Paret et al., Persuasive Images, 15. 44. “The Poisoning of Langemarck”: A Scene of the Gassing, Illustrated London News, May 22, 1915, 661. 45. Gas-Clouds Photographed for the First Time, Illustrated London News, October 23, 1915, 518. 46. John De G. Bryan and unknown, The German Poison Belt: Colour-Effects of the Enemy’s Diabolical Asphyxiating Gases near Ypres, Illustrated London News, May 8, 1915, between pages 588–89.

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47. From a War-Sketch: The German “Poison Belt”—A Picture Reproduced in Colours in the “Illustrated London News,” Illustrated War News, May 5, 1915, 48. 48. The Oncoming of the German Poison-Cloud: A Turco Regiment’s Fate, Illustrated War News, May 19, 1915, 16. See also Illustrated War News, February 16, 1916, 28, 29. 49. Poison-Gas from a Hillside Tunnel—An Austrian Experiment in one of the Recent Russian Battles in Bukovina, Illustrated War News, February 16, 1916, 29; Russian Soldiers Sheltering Their Heads behind Their Steel Shields to Let the Gas-Cloud Pass Over, Illustrated War News, February 16, 1916, 30. 50. Poison-Gas from a Hillside Tunnel. One reason this did not become standard defensive practice was that later gases, such as mustard, sank into the ground and contaminated it. It burned anything that touched it, even eating through shoe leather. See the excerpt from H. E. Howe, “The Service of the Chemist: A Department Devoted to Progress in the Field of Applied Chemistry,” wo 1, 142/221, pro. 51. “The Breach in the Line,” London Times, April 26, 1915, 9; Foulkes, “Gas!,” 19. 52. Germany’s Pride in her Poisoning Tactics Shown in Illustration: An Enemy Drawing of Canadians “Gassed” at St. Julien, Illustrated War News, July 21, 1915, 33. 53. Hun Sneers at British Victims of Poison Gas, War Illustrated, May 29, 1915, 341. 54. “The Wind that Bloweth from the East”: A Gas Alarm in a French Village; Children with Masks, Illustrated War News, March 21, 1917, 20–21. 55. Colossal Impudence: “Protection against English Gas-Bombs!,” Illustrated London News, July 3, 1915, 13; Cool Cheek! An Enemy Photograph Purporting to Show the Oxygen Treatment of Germans Gassed by the British Bombs!, Illustrated War News, July 14, 1915, 9. 56. Gassed by their Own Gas, London Illustrated Weekly, September 30, 1915, 125. 57. A.W.M., Untitled, Punch, May 26, 1915, 401. 58. Lucien Jonas, “Kamerad!” Germans Surrendering on the Western Front, Illustrated London News, January 27, 1917, 104–5. 59. Ricardo Brook, Tactless Questions, Punch, July 28, 1915, 98. 60. Caught in Their Own Trap—The Horrors of Poison Gas, War Pictures Weekly and The London Illustrated Weekly, July 15, 1915, 390. 61. The Charge of the Hooded Men, War Pictures Weekly and the London Illustrated Weekly, October 28, 1915, cover. 62. S. Begg and Unknown, “Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils”: Masked British Territorials Charging German Trenches at Loos, Illustrated London News, October 30, 1915, 560–61. This illustration is of the battle of Loos in the fall of 1915, the engagement at which British used gas offensively for the ﬁrst time. The fact that Britain wielded gas was rarely, if ever, reported in the newspapers at the time. 63. The caption also offers other indications of accuracy. It describes the uniform of one of the British soldiers, claiming that this is what a man on the front would look like. S. Begg and Unknown, “Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils,” 561.

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64. The battle of Loos is also depicted in other cartoons. See When British Appeared to a German “Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils”! Gas-Masked Territorials Charging, Illustrated War News, October 27, 1915, 41. It, too, describes the helmeted British men as “appear[ing] to a German ‘Not like soldiers, but like devils’!” 65. When British Appeared to a German “Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils!”, 41. 66. A Charge Through the German Poison Gas, Illustrated War News, May 22, 1915, 666–67. 67. Fighting Foul Fumes and Fiends: The British Soldier still a match for coward Germans, War Illustrated, May 15, 1915, cover. 68. A Hero of Heroes, War Illustrated, July 24, 1915, cover. 69. Labour that Paves the Way for Further Progress, War Illustrated, January 26, 1918, 471. 70. Heroic Work at the Front: Making Wire Entanglements on Newly-Captured Ground, War Illustrated, October 20, 1917, cover; In a Gas-Stricken Area: A Sketch from a Soldier at the Front, London Illustrated News, January 22, 1916, 117. 71. In a Gas-Stricken Area: A Sketch from a Soldier at the Front. 72. A British Ofﬁcer in His New Anti-Gas Helmet: In a Trench in France and The Modern Warrior! A British Soldier in the New Anti-Gas Helmet, Illustrated War News, September 29, 1915, 45. 73. Wearing the Respirators which Saved Them: Wounded British Soldiers, Illustrated War News, June 9, 1915, 40. 74. Clarke, Hyde, and Topic, War by Noxious Gas: Possible Enemy Ways and Means, Illustrated London News, May 1, 1915, 553. 75. Bruce Bairnsfather, The Candid Friend, Bystander, November 1, 1916, 239. 76. Edwin Morrow, Passed by the Censor, Bystander, August 16, 1916, 292. 77. Leonard Raven-Hill, Untitled, Punch, June 30, 1915, 515. 78. Edwin Morrow, Advice to an Instructor on Anti-Gas Course, Punch, September 11, 1918, 161. 79. “‘Ware Gas!” Sounding the Alarm in the Trenches, War Illustrated, August 7, 1915, 581. 80. A German Shell as Tocsin, Illustrated London News, June 26, 1915, cover. 81. Gas-Masked Serbian Colonels on the British Front, Illustrated War News, February 20, 1918, 24. 82. F. H. Townsend, Untitled, Punch, June 16, 1915, 465. 83. Bairnsfather, Fragments from France, 75, 97. 84. Untitled, Punch, July 7, 1915, 40. By May 1915, less than a month after the Germans introduced gas warfare, London newspapers printed stories about the dangers of gas-laden zeppelins targeting the home front. See “The Home Front Diary of Macleod Yearsley, 1914–1918,” Imperial War Museum Document Collection, iwm, 67.

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85. Warning to Householders, Punch, June 16, 1915, 479. 86. Despite the public concern with the threat of gas and masks, the idea of equipping civilians with respirators did not meet with universal approval. The Royal Society, for one, believed that the British people would buy shoddy masks and would rely on them instead of ﬂeeing a contaminated zone. Unsigned letter to Sir Edward Henry, July 5, 1915, Royal Society, Royal Society (War) Committee, Sectional Physiological Committee, GH 1–2. Pvt. Sid Truslow seconded the Royal Society’s opinion of the poor nature of many of the masks sold to civilians. Sid Truslow to sister May, June 26, 1915, Rfn. Sid Truslow, Misc. 242 Box 11, Imperial War Museum Document Collection, iwm, 2. 87. Lewis Baumer, Well, Madam, Punch, August 18, 1915, 107. 88. Frank Reynolds, The Old Formula, Punch, July 14, 1915, 47. 89. J. H. Dowd, The New Photography, Bystander, November 24, 1915, 344. 90. Untitled, Punch, October 11, 1916, 265. 91. F. H. Townsend, A Zeppelin Picnic, Punch, July 7, 1915, 14. 92. Hugh Cecil, Beauty in Eclipse—And Respirators: Who are They? and Beauty Revealed: What Respirators would Hide, Sketch Supplement, August 4, 1915, 9–10. 93. The Horrors of Peace, Punch, January 16, 1918, 39. 94. Bernhard Hugh, A Post-War Prophecy: The Utility of the Gas Helmet, Bystander, May 15, 1918, 291. 95. Bernhard Hugh, Post-War Prophecies. The Utility of Tear Gas, Bystander, May 8, 1918, 244. 96. THEN : The Recruit of 1914—The Veteran of 1917: NOW, War Illustrated, August 4, 1917, cover. 97. Three Grenadiers: Civilisation at Lowest Ebb, War Illustrated, May 27, 1916, 355. 98. To What has War Reduced Mankind, Bystander, August 11, 1915, 185. 99. A. Forestier, What War has Become! The Fighting Man in this Civilised Twentieth Century! Illustrated London News, May 1, 1915, cover. 100. “Battle-Masks; ‘Helmets’; Breastplates: The New Man-at-Arms,” Illustrated London News, August 7, 1915, 184. 101. Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker build on the ideas of George Mosse about the brutalizing effects of war. 14–18: Understanding the Great War, 35. 6. Reestablishment of the Gas Taboo 1. Henry Wilson, Memorandum, April 16, 1920, Cabinet Paper (8E) 1211, 2, cab 24/105, pro. 2. Anthony Eden letter to F.S., November 23, 1932, 1, Foreign Ofﬁce (;D) 800/231, pro. 3. Bernhard Hugh, Post-War Prophecy: The Utility of the Gas Helmet, Bystander, May 15, 1918, 291; Lefebure, Common Sense; Report of the Committee on Chemical Warfare Organization, July 7, 1919, =6GI 71(19), 868; 8>9, Paper 723-b: Chemical Warfare Policy, October 12, 1926, Chartwell Trust Papers (8=6G) 22/102, 868.

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4. See, for example, Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 160–61. Similar fears were expressed in other places, even in nonﬁction. Lord Halsbury worried that there was “no defence” against old or new chemicals if they were dropped by planes on cities. “Air Danger in War,” London Times, February 27, 1929, p. 9, col. <. 5. General Charles Foulkes to Field Marshal Cavan, November 22, 1933, Foulkes Collection, Folder 9/8, A=8B6. He did think that injuries could be minimized through proper air raid defenses, and he worked hard to promote this view and publicize the precautions that were necessary. See Maj. Gen. Charles H. Foulkes, “Common-Sense and A.R.P.” (n.p., December 1938), 852–60, Foulkes Collection Folder 9/27, A=8B6. 6. E. H. Carr noted that “the war of 1914–18 made an end of the view that war is a matter which affects only professional soldiers and, in so doing, dissipated the corresponding impression that international politics could safely be left in the hands of professional diplomats.” The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 2. 7. It is well-recognized by other scholars, too, that public opinion regarding gas had not solidiﬁed by 1918. Marrs, Maynard, and Sidel, Chemical Warfare Agents, 14–15. 8. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality, 38. 9. Ceadel, Paciﬁsm in Britain, 317; “Air Danger in War,” London Times, February 27, 1929, p. 9, col. <. 10. “Methods of Warfare,” London Times, February 6, 1936, p. 16, col. 8. 11. “The Next Two Hundred Years,” review of The Shape of Things to Come, by H. G. Wells, Times Literary Supplement, September 7, 1933, 588; “Defence against Gas,” review of Gas in the Next War, by H. Thuillier, Times Literary Supplement, April 1, 1939, 193; “1944,” review of 1944, by the Earl of Halsbury, Times Literary Supplement, April 22, 1926, 305; “Poisonous Gases and Future Warfare,” review of Callinicus, by J. B. S. Haldane, Times Literary Supplement, February 19, 1925, 112; Arthur Smithells, “The Menace of Chemical Warfare,” review of The Riddle of the Rhine, by V. Lefebure, Yorkshire Post, October 18, 1921, clipped in Smithells Collection, BH 391/112–124, BH 391/11/1, Special. 12. C. H. Foulkes, “Gas Over London,” London Times, December 10, 1936, p. 10, col. a. 13. Copy of Telegram No. 48 to Mr. Balfour of November 24, 1921, in Cabinet Records, L 9 8 -56., Lloyd George Collection, ; 141, Box 25, 1, =AGD. 14. The Union of Democratic Control formed during World War I and remained in existence during the interwar period. Participants included members of government and private citizens. One of the group’s goals was to inform the British population about the “truth” behind important issues so that the public could make informed decisions and inﬂuence the government. The organization often questioned the government’s support of the 1914–18 war as well as the

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15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

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effectiveness of gas preparations. The No More War Movement was an interwar paciﬁst organization. Trevelyan, The Union of Democratic Control, 2; The Union of Democratic Control, Annual Report, 4–5; Union of Democratic Control, Poison Gas, 13. The 8>9, on which members of the British and imperial governments sat, advised the cabinet on defense matters. Cecelia Lynch, a scholar of British disarmament, argues that this is true for the peace movement as a whole during the interwar period. “A Matter of Controversy,” 61, 68. On the assumption that gas would be used in the future with horrendous effects, see Spiers, Chemical Warfare, 49. Richard Price notes that the Geneva Gas Protocol did not specify whether all gases, or only lethal gases, were banned. The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 156. The fact that the British government felt uncomfortable permitting the use of tear gases in the colonies conﬁrms that they believed that the public, if not the treaty, prohibited all gases. 8>9, Minutes of the 221st Meeting, February 25, 1927, 6–8, cab 2/5, pro. Note by the Air Staff, copied in 8>9, Paper 726-7: “Chemical Warfare Policy,” October 15, 1926, cab 4/15, pro. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 270 (1931–32), col. 632. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality, 76; Brock, Twentieth Century Paciﬁsm, 136. The government began considering the use of respirators to protect civilians by 1924. Sir Warren Fisher, 8>9, Minutes of the 183rd Meeting, April 3, 1924, 3, cab 2/4, pro. The government told the public it would provide respirators for them after Italy used gas in Ethiopia in 1936, increasing the likelihood that chemical weapons could be used soon in Europe. Harris and Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing, 50. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 176. For example, see Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 176. CDS 307, 1. Foulkes, “Gas over London.” Some modern authors of chemical warfare set themselves the same mission. See, for example, Hammond, Poison Gas, ix. Haldane, Callinicus, 6. Haldane, Callinicus, title page; Haldane, Daedalus. Haldane, Callinicus, 20, 27–28, 32–33, 38, 41, 2–3, 45–46, 50, 56–57, 60, 19–20, 27–28, 36. Lefebure, The Riddle, title page, 8, 16. Lefebure, Common Sense. Lefebure, Riddle, 5. Recall that Halsbury believed this, too. The Earl of Halsbury, “Gas!” British Legion Journal, January 1933, 239.

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37. Lefebure, Riddle, 248, 252. 38. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, xi, 90–105. 39. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, title page, 2, 173–74, 174–75. 40. Maj. Gen. Sir Henry F. Thuillier, “Can Methods of Warfare Be Restricted?” lecture to the Royal United Services Institution, February 5, 1936, Smithells BH 391/144, 274, Special. 41. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 174. 42. Haldane, Callinicus, 38; Lefebure, Riddle, 238; Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 173. 43. As one scholar of the laws of war has noted, “humane” is a subjective term, and thus it is hard to measure. Best, Humanity in Warfare, 161. 44. Haldane, Callinicus, 20, 41, 33. 45. Dispatch from British Embassy Petrograd on Subject of M. Albert Thomas’s visit, May 19, 1916, Lloyd George 9/12/3/15, 9, =AGD. 46. Haldane, Callinicus, 11, 10–11. 47. Those who disagreed with Haldane on this point tended to claim that gas was more inhumane because of the suffering, not the maiming, it caused. 48. Haldane, Callinicus, 35–50. 49. Haldane, Callinicus, 27–28, 34. Note that Britain maintained some gas defense research throughout the interwar period, though. 50. Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff to Secretary of State, Minute 73, March 30, 1920, wo 32/5185, pro, notes that Britain needs gas and, partly because of ﬁnancial reasons, “the gas organization is . . . threatened with extinction,” much to the country’s detriment. 51. Haldane, Callinicus, 28. Not all soldiers, of course, actually felt this way. Donald Richter, in his study of the men of the Special Brigade, noted that most of the men thought they were engaged in an “honorable contribution to the war effort.” Chemical Soldiers, 2. 52. Haldane, Callinicus, 28, 28–29. 53. Haldane, Callinicus, 83. 54. “Poisonous Gases and Future Warfare,” Times Literary Supplement, 112. 55. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 173–74, 174. 56. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 86. Even if an intense concentration of gas were to gather on the street, a town would be easier to decontaminate than a battleﬁeld (83). 57. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 91, 143, 175. 58. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 1, 1–2, 173. His statistics do not match Haldane’s. That is not surprising, though, considering the challenges of keeping accurate casualty counts and that it could take years to ascertain the full extent of long-term harm caused by gas injuries. The pension records of World War I military gas victims show that doctors constantly reassessed the level of disability of the veterans. The wounded often showed improvements and doctors down-graded the level of disability, but these records do not account for

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any premature deaths from gas damage such as pneumonia in already weakened lungs. See, for example, William Anderson, Ministry of Pensions (E>C) 26/449, pro; Jack Herbert Gough, E>C 26/5970, pro. A 1960 article, decades after World War I, did conclude that mustard gas exposure could increase the risk of lung cancer “slightly” and that “pneumonia, like tuberculosis, caused signiﬁcantly greater mortality in the mustard-gas roster than in the controls (2.9 vs. 1.4%).” Gilbert W. Beebe, “Lung Cancer in World War I Veterans: Possible Relation to Mustard-Gas Injury and 1918 Inﬂuenza Epidemic,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 25, no. 6 (December 1960): 1231, 1250, 1251. 59. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 2. 60. Lefebure, Riddle, 238, 240, citing General Hartley’s undated report to the British Association. 61. Lefebure, Riddle, 238, 239. 62. Lefebure, Riddle, 255; Wiseman, Gas Warfare, 3. 63. Lefebure, Riddle, 231. 64. Halsbury, “Gas!,” 239. 65. Lefebure, Riddle, 187–88, 17–21, 24. 66. Lefebure, Riddle, 271–72. 67. “The Conference on Armaments. Poison Gas Peril,” London Times, December 7, 1928, p. 10, col. 9; Halsbury, “Gas!” 238–39; Halsbury, 1944. 68. Halsbury, “Gas!” 238–39, 238. 69. Halsbury, “Gas!” 239. 70. “The Conference on Armaments”; “Air Danger in War.” 71. Halsbury, “Gas!” 239. This fear was one that Victor Lefebure, on the other side of the debate, shared. Riddle, 248. 72. Prentiss, Chemicals in War, 208; Halsbury, “Gas!” 238–39. 73. Halsbury, “Gas!” 238–39. 74. Halsbury, “Gas!” 239. The Union of Democratic Control held similar suspicions about the British government’s honesty and readiness. Poison Gas, 46–48. 75. Halsbury, 1944. For a book discussing ﬁctional books about future wars written from 1763 to 1990, see Clarke, Voices Prophesying War. There are other novels about poison gas in future conﬂicts that are not discussed in this chapter. Some, such as Stokes’s Air-Gods’ Parade, offer messages about the dangers of chemical warfare, while others, including Channing’s The Poisoned Mountain, are thrillers featuring modern technology. Works of ﬁction that revolve around gas include Hawker, The Great Peril; Dalton, The Black Death; and one about germ warfare: Craig, Plague over London. In fact, L. F. Haber argues that “the anti-gas movement would not have had such a wide following but for” the popularization of emotional novels and other works about chemical warfare. The Poisonous Cloud, –. 76. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality, 38–39, 40.

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77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

“The Conference on Armaments.” Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 13, 430. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 75, 63. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 148, 156, 46–47. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 161. See Grayzel, Women’s Identities. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 196, 203, 206, 216. “Mr. Wells on the Future,” London Times, September 1, 1933, 69. Charles Foulkes, “Prophets of Doom,” January 1933, Foulkes Collection 9/10, 1–4, A=8B6. 86. “John Singer Sargent,” Artist Summary, iwm; Copy of A. Yockney letter to John S. Sargent, April 26, 1918, Sargent Correspondence, part 1, Art Department, iwm; Kilmurray and Ormond, Sargent, 263; Cork, A Bitter Truth, 220–21. 87. Kilmurray and Ormond, Sargent, 265. 88. See, for example, untitled article in the Yorkshire Post, March 1, 1920, in World War I Press Clippings, Book 2, Art Department, iwm; Kilmurray and Ormond, Sargent, 277. 89. It is a regular exhibit in the Imperial War Museum and was part of a Sargent show in the United States in 1999. For information on the latter, see Meisler, “John Singer Sargent,” 64, 75. 90. Holden, Shell Shock. 91. Foot, Art and War, 7. 92. Meisler, “John Singer Sargent,” 75. 93. P. C. Konody, “Art and Artists. War Paintings at the Royal Academy,” Observer, likely date November 14, 1919, Press Clippings, Book 2, Art Department, iwm. 94. Unlabeled article, “Nation’s ‘Freak’ War Pictures. What the Soldier Thinks of Them. ‘Never Looked Like That,’” February 2, 1920, Press Clippings, Book 2, Art Department, iwm. 95. Foot, Art and War, 7. 96. Thuillier, “Can Methods of Warfare Be Restricted?,” 272. 97. Note by T[om] F[oulkes], December 1980, on the cover for “Open Days” for the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment, June 1969, Foulkes Collection, 6/50, A=8B6. Richter notes this and additional criticisms of a similar ilk. Chemical Soldiers, 218. 98. The complete Latin phrase is often translated “How sweet and ﬁtting it is to die for one’s country,” familiar to many British students of the Edwardian era. 99. Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” 141. 100. Janet Watson argues that much of the disillusionment appeared, or at least became the dominant story of the conﬂict, after the war. Fighting Different Wars, 2.

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101. The poem is often included in compilations of literature for students. See, for example, Fiero, The Humanistic Tradition, 52. 102. Kipling, “Gethsemane,” 981. 103. “The Report of the Committee on Chemical Warfare Organization [also known as the Holland Committee Report],” July 7, 1919, =6GI, Box 71, File 19, 1–2, 868. 104. Winston S. Churchill, Memo 8, May 22, 1919, wo 32/5185, pro. 105. “Extracts from the Minutes of the League of Nations Committee,” June 3, 1920, 10, wo 32/5185, pro. Seven years later, then Secretary of State for Air Sir Samuel Hoare expressed similar sentiments; the progas supporters were still expressing their backing of the weapon. Sir Samuel Hoare, Minutes of the 215th Meeting of the 8>9, July 22, 1926, cab 2/4, pro. 106. Letter from A. Lynden Bell, Director of Staff Duties to Chief of the General Staff, Army Headquarters, India, June 11, 1919, 1, wo 32/5185, pro. 107. See, for example, Letter from Lt. Gen. A. S. Cobbs, Acting Secretary, Military Department, India Ofﬁce to the Secretary, War Ofﬁce, April 28, 1920, H8 32/5185, pro; Lord Chelmsford, 8>9, Minutes of the 183rd Meeting, 2, cab 2/4. 108. “The Treaty of Versailles,” June 28, 1919, arts. 171, 172, 178, Avalon Project at Yale Law School, hereafter Avalon Project. Scholar James Avery Joyce argued that the Allies intended to bind themselves to a prohibition similar to the one in Article 171. Broken Star, 132. But R. H. Brade of the War Ofﬁce wrote a letter to Sir Maurice Hankey, secretary to the War Cabinet, in which he said, “As far as is known all the other Allied and Associated Powers intend to study and use gas in future and do not appear to regard the [Versailles] Peace Treaty as forbidding this.” Copy R. H. Brade letter to Sir Maurice Hankey, August 1, 1919, in 9 meeting,

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113. 114. 115.

116. 117.

118.

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February 25, 1927, 7, cab 2/5, pro; Jonathan Glancey, “Our Last Occupation,” Guardian Unlimited, http://www.guardian.co.uk (accessed May 21, 2007); Haber, The Poisonous Cloud, 307; Copy of letter from Murray Bisset, Acting Governor, Southern Rhodesia to Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, June 25, 1926, 8>9 Paper 715-b, 3, cab 4/15, pro. Note that Haber is one of the few chemical warfare scholars to mention that Britain considered mustard gas and tried to use “arsenical smoke-generators,” but he explains that the facts about their use is cloudy and that “the censorship [about this event] was severe and few details . . . have survived in the accessible parts of the pro” (307). “Extract from the Minutes of the 226th Meeting,” 8>9, May 5, 1927, Records of the Dominions Ofﬁce (9D) 117/63, pro. Cabinet (42) (33), June 27, 1933, 14 cab 23/76, pro; cab 70 (33), 5, cab 23/77, pro. cab 70 (33), 6. Interestingly, the government did discuss whether the Palestinians might resent the use of gas as “ungentlemanly,” because there would be no signs of “martyrdom” as there were from gunshots. In the end, the fact that gas would be less lethal trumped the concerns about colonial perceptions of chemical weapons. Viscount Haldane of Cloan, Lord Chancellor, Minutes of the 187th Meeting of the 8>9, July 28, 1924, 5–6, cab 2/4, pro. Howard, “Constraints on War,” 3; “Declaration on the Use of Projectiles.” Even if the British did attempt to use chemical weapons against the Bolsheviks, it is unlikely that they considered their enemy “Western” in the traditional European sense and may even have perceived them as nearly as barbaric as the Afghanis. Even at the end of World War I, and over the course of the twentieth century, the view that non-Westerners, or those who lived in former colonies, were less civilized had decreased. The League of Nations mandate system, while suggesting that many former colonies were not yet ready for self-government, did indicate that they would be at some date. League of Nations, “Covenant.” Two decades later, the United Nations declared that all people were equal. United Nations, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” December 10, 1948, United Nations, http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html (accessed July 7, 2006). Even if one of the reasons it was possible in the immediate aftermath of World War I to consider using gas on colonial peoples was because they were “barbaric,” this justiﬁcation would become more difﬁcult to conceptualize or rationalize over the course of the century. Hence, over time it would make governments less likely to resort to gas. This would apply to liberal governments, although not as strongly to fascist ones, who did not adopt the same ideals of humanity. See Gong, The Standard of “Civilization,” particularly part 1, for a discussion of civilization and barbarity in Western society. See Mazlish,

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119. 120. 121.

122.

123.

124. 125. 126. 127. 128.

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Civilization and Its Contents, in which the author deﬁnes “colonial ideology” as “the use of the concept of civilization to justify domination and superiority over others” (22). Michael Walzer, a well-known scholar, in Just and Unjust Wars also discusses civilization and warfare. Murphy and his colleagues call gases “weapons of imperialism” for this reason. No Fire, 5. Gong, The Standard of “Civilization,” 166, 121. See, for example, L[aming] W[orthington]-E[vans], Memorandum by Secretary of State for War, cid Paper 723-b, October 8, 1926, 3, cab 4/15, pro. They were even aware of international opinion against gas. Copy of Telegram from Mr. Balfour to the Prime Minister, January 7, 1922, cid 327-b, 1–2, cab 4/7, pro. See, for example, the Royal Navy’s concern that it retain the right to conduct defensive research. Memorandum by the Naval Staff, July 17, 1922, cid 355-b, 2, cab 4/8, pro. Sir Austen Chamberlain was another who disliked gas; he thought that there were “horrors inherent” in it. H Creedy, “Extracts from the Minutes of the League of Nations Committee,” June 3, 1920, 9, wo 32/5185, pro. Sir Samuel Hoare thought it was more humane than other weapons. Sir Samuel Hoare, cid, Minutes of the 215th Meeting, 2, cab 2/4, pro. Recognition of Labour’s interest in disarmament was expressed in the cid meetings, too. cid, Minutes of the 221st Meeting, February 25, 1927, 8, cab 2/5, pro. Several prominent members of the Labour Party were also in the No More War Movement. Brock, Twentieth Century Paciﬁsm, 109. McKercher, “Of Horns and Teeth,” 182. The Earl of Balfour, Lord President of the Council, cid, Minutes of the 221st Meeting, 7, cab 2/5. cid, Minutes of the 221st Meeting, 6–9, cab 2/5. Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Secretary of State for War, cid, Minutes of the 215th Meeting, 2, cab 2/4, pro. This continuation of arms limitation policy can also be seen with regard to attitudes toward the World Disarmament Conference of the early 1930s, which considered gas, among other weapons. McKercher, “Of Horns and Teeth,” 182. Also, the cid concluded in 1925 that “the study of offensive gas is necessary to the study of protection against gas, and also . . . [is necessary so that] we may be in a position to retaliate immediately should the use of gas be forced upon us by our opponents.” cid, Minutes of the 193rd Meeting, January 5, 1925, 19, cab 2/4, 19, pro. Concern about public opinion can be seen, for instance, in a discussion about whether to reverse British policy of ofﬁcially condemning gas use. Sir Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, cid, Minutes of the 215th Meeting, July 22, 1926, 2 cab 2/4, 2, pro.

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129. Shotwell and Salvin, Lessons on Security, 25. 130. “The Versailles Treaty,” Article 171, 172. The second clause required Germany to tell the Allies how it made the gases it used during the war. 131. Advisory Committee of the American Delegation, quoted by the Chairman in the Minutes of the Committee on Limitation of Armament, Sixteenth Meeting, January 6, 1922, 24, Record Group 43, File 500a41b/15-A6, Box 5268, Dec. Files 1910–1923, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. 132. Copy of telegram from Mr. Balfour, No. 233, January 7, 1922, in L 9 8 -125, Lloyd George, ; 141, Box 25, 1, 2 =AGD; Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 83; Brown, Chemical Warfare, 67. 133. Copy of telegram from Balfour to Prime Minster, No. 233, January 7, 1922, cid 327-b, cab 4/7, pro. 134. Sir Austen Chamberlain, cid, Minutes of the 234th Meeting, March 29, 1928, 5, cab 2/5, pro. 135. Spiers, Chemical Warfare, 43. 136. The British government hesitated to develop its own gas policy until the League of Nations did. Winston Churchill, Memorandum, May 3, 1920, in 8E 1211, 1, cab 24/105, pro. 137. The Geneva Gas Protocol was signed in 1925 but entered into force in 1928. “Protocol for the Prohibition.” 138. Extract from Conclusions of a Meeting of the Cabinet, March 3, 1927, cid 779-b, 2, cab 4/16, pro. 139. Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 91, also notes some of the similarities in the Geneva Gas Protocol and the previous laws as well as the introduction of a biological warfare clause. 140. L[aming] W[orthington]-E[vans], “Memorandum by the Secretary of State for War,” July 22, 1926, cid 709-b, 1, cab 4/15, pro. 141. Note by the Air Staff, October 15, 1926, cid 726-b, 2, cab 4/15, pro. 142. Wiseman, Gas Warfare, 1; cid, Minutes of the 241st meeting, April 23, 1929, 4, cab 2/5, pro. 143. “Extract from Conclusion of a Meeting of the Cabinet, held on March 3, 1927 (Cabinet 14 (27)),” cid 779-b, cab 4/16. 144. Jonathan B. Tucker, “From Arms Race to Abolition,” 169–70. Seán Murphy and colleagues noted ﬁve problems with the Geneva Gas Protocol: some countries delayed ratiﬁcation for decades; retaliation was permissible; countries who did not sign were not bound by it; there was ambiguity about what gases or related items were included; and it banned use, but not development or storage, of chemical weapons. No Fire, 9. 145. Memorandum, circulated by L[aming] W[orthington]-E[vans], cid Paper 723-b, October 8, 1926, 3, cab 4/15, pro. Price notes that the Geneva Gas

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146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153.

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Protocol does not clearly differentiate between gases of varying toxicities. The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 156. McKercher, “Of Horns and Teeth,” 173. cid, Minutes of the 255th Meeting, March 22, 1932, 14, cab 2/5, pro. Anthony Eden letter to F.S., 1. Cabinet Minutes, cab 61(32), November 16, 1932, cab 23/73, 17, 18, 18–19, pro. Joyce, Broken Star, 169–71; Brown, Chemical Warfare, 120–21. J. B. Tucker, “From Arms Race to Abolition,” 161. Gas was, of course, used in concentration camps in World War II, but it was never used on people who were not prisoners. J. B. Tucker notes that even Hitler disliked gas. War of Nerves, 54. Epilogue

1. Ceadel, Paciﬁsm in Britain, 101–2. 2. Lynch, Beyond Appeasement, 61. Richard Price suggests that the antigas arguments were so loud and successful partly because civilians did not have the chance to experience gas attacks physically and thus to become desensitized to them, as they would in World War II to conventional aerial bombing. The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 12. However, British civilians did not experience many of the weapons of World War I, such as tanks or machine guns, and yet they did not protest against them vociferously. Granted, civil society did not expect to face tanks and machine guns on the home front, but they did loathe submarines, something else they would not expect to harm them at home. 3. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Ernle Chatﬁeld, the First Sea Lord and chief of Naval Staff, noted that the government had not followed through on a 1925 decision to make and store gas because of “ﬁnancial restrictions.” cid, Minutes of the 279th Meeting, June 25, 1936, 6, cab 2/6, pro. The General, the Earl of Davan, chief of the Imperial General Staff, noted “that owing to shortage of money it had been necessary to close down the gas chambers [in India]. . . . [Also,] all gas training throughout the Army in that country had been abandoned. One result of this policy was that the reservist returning to this country [Britain] had no training whatsoever in anti-gas drill.” cid, Minutes of the 183rd Meeting, April 3, 1924, 2, cab 2/4, pro. 4. As Price, a scholar who has studied the taboo, noted, the determination that gas is crueler than conventional weapons “lie[s] not simply with the objective and essential characteristics of the weapons themselves but with how civilizations and societies have interpreted those characteristics and translated them into political and military practice.” The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 6. 5. J. B. Tucker, War of Nerves, 21. 6. The United States and Japan were the two global powers who had not ratiﬁed the treaty; they did so in 1975 and 1970, respectively. By 2006, 130 nations had done so. “Protocol for the Prohibition,” 4–9.

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7. Lord Balfour’s telegram to David Lloyd George during the Washington Naval Conference noted, “No country can allow its safety to be wholly dependent on faithful observance by other States of rules to which they are pledged.” He repeated this sentiment in 1927 when the cid discussed Britain’s gas policy again. cid, Minutes of the 221st Meeting, February 25, 1927, 8, cab 2/5, pro. 8. United Kingdom Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 270 (November 7–17, 1932), col. 632. 9. Members of the British government were already considering the possibility of “providing protection for civilians in those areas which were liable to be attacked by gas bombs dropped from the air.” cid, 183rd meeting, 3. 10. Halsbury, “Gas!” 239. 11. cid, Minutes of the 217th meeting, November 23, 1926, 9, cab 2/4, pro. 12. Union of Democratic Control, Poison Gas, 61. 13. cid, 217th meeting, 9. 14. See note 7 above and J. B. Tucker, War of Nerves, 23. 15. Thuillier, Gas in the Next War, 175. 16. See, for example, the artist Fougasse’s World War II posters about gas alarms, such as “Now, who’s shouting ‘Spray?’” of “Funny, I thought they were all green.” Art Department, iwm. 17. Sir Austen Chamberlain, in a cid discussion about ratifying the Geneva Gas Protocol, said, “It was absolutely impossible for us to undertake to abstain in peace time from continuing our defensive preparations until all other Powers had agreed to do likewise. And even if other Powers did ratify the Protocol, we would scarcely be justiﬁed in entirely abandoning all our research and defensive preparations, since it was incumbent on us to be prepared for a breach of faith.” cid, Minutes of the 241st Meeting, April 23, 1929, 2, cab 2/5, pro. Britain’s formal reservation stated, “The said Protocol shall cease to be binding on His Britannic Majesty towards any Power at enmity with Him whose armed forces, or the armed forces of whose allies, fail to respect the prohibitions laid down in the Protocol.” “Protocol for the Prohibition,” 9. 18. A summary of the history of bans on poisoned weapons included biological weapons in a larger discussion on chemical weapons. Minute 93, May 13, 1920, 2, wo 32/5185, pro. For a discussion of biological warfare in China, see Barenblatt, A Plague upon Humanity, 148–75. 19. cid to R. W. Harrison, January 25, 1917, War Committee BH 658, Folder IV, GH. 20. While popular nomenclature labels chemical arms LB9s, James Hammond notes that technically gas is a weapon of “mass casualties,” not a weapon of “mass destruction.” Poison Gas, x. 21. The United States has had this policy, but did not state it formally until 2002. “U.S. warns potential enemies: retaliation could include nukes,” December 11, 2002, http://www.cnn.com (accessed June 20, 2006). See, for example, the

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language in George H. W. Bush’s letter to Iraq, which was delivered by James Baker to Tariq Aziz in Geneva on January 9, 1991: “The United States will not tolerate the use of chemical or biological weapons. . . . The American people would demand the strongest possible response.” Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 441–42. Presumably, this includes a nuclear response. 22. “Italian Gas Raids Decried in Britain,” New York Times, March 31, 1936, 12. The outcry was worldwide; for example, the American League Against War and Fascism protested Italy’s use of gas in Ethiopia. “Group Assails Italy,” New York Times, April 10, 1936, 17. 23. Warren E. Leary, “Tests Indicating Iraq Gas Warfare: Soil Analysis Finds Residues from ’88 Attack on Kurds,” New York Times, April 30, 1993, a11. 24. There have been claims of gas use, such as North Korea against the United States during the Korean War, but few, if any, have been conﬁrmed. 25. Yukiko Kishimoto, “Living under Terror,” Boston Globe, November 11, 2001, :1. 26. Shirley Hung and Nicole Jackson, “Report: Al Qaeda planned N.Y. subway attack,” June 18, 2006, http://www.cnn.com (accessed July 5, 2006); Damien Cave and Ahmad Fadam, “Iraqi Militants Use Bomb with Chlorine Gas,” New York Times, February 21, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com (accessed February 21, 2007). 27. Livingstone and Douglass, 87L: The Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb. Note the title. 28. For a vivid description of binary nerve agents and defensive military training, see J. B. Tucker, War of Nerves, 3–8. 29. Sir John Anderson, cid, Minutes of the 243rd Meeting, June 27, 1929, 3, cab 2/5, pro; United States, Department of State, “Responding to a Biological or Chemical Threat,” 3. 30. Price argues that “the moral rejection of gas coalesced around the legal proscription.” The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 176. However, it is clear that public sentiment in favor of a multinational postwar taboo began to blossom before the formation of international treaties against gas. See chapter 6 for more details. 31. See chapter 1 and Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 37. 32. Adelman, “Chemical Weapons,” 444; Edward Spiers, Chemical and Biological Weapons: A Study of Proliferation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), vii. 33. cid, 183rd Meeting, 2–3. 34. “Air Danger in War,” London Times, February 27, 1929, p. 9, col. <. 35. Sir John Anderson, cid, 243rd meeting, 3. 36. Bernstein, “Why We Didn’t Use Poison,” 41. And see note 21 above. 37. Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo, 4–5. 38. As Sir Austen Chamberlain notes, even in “the preamble to the [Geneva Gas] Protocol it was deﬁnitely stated that the use of these poisonous gases had been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world.” cid, Minutes of the 215th Meeting, July 22, 1926, 2, cab 2/4, pro.

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39. Although many believe the USSR used gas in Afghanistan, that nation certainly did not do so immediately, nor openly admit to it. 40. The Lake Erie Chemical Co., “Gas! Wonderful New Chemical Weapons Price List,” February 15, 1927, =6GI 71 (18), 868. 41. Benderly, “From Poison Gas to Wonder Drug,” 49. 42. Mary Pat Rowland, “My Tennis Game Is Hurting,” Foster’s Sunday Citizen, July 14, 2002, :1. 43. “Use of Poison Gas for the Extermination of Insect Pests,” November 1919, Colonial Ofﬁce (8D) 323/817/6, pro. 44. Jansen, “Chemical-Warfare Techniques”; Russell, War and Nature, 120. 45. Stephen Smith, “Bioterror Research Spurs Ideas in Medicine,” Boston Globe, July 21, 2004, a1. 46. The history, creation, and use of memories of past events is a fascinating ﬁeld and has been explored in many excellent works, such as Winter, Sites of Memory. Janet Watson in Fighting Different Wars recently wrote on the differences between the British experiences of war and the memories of it later. 47. Hammond said it succinctly: “Gas exists. It is real. It will not go away.” Poison Gas, 111.

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Index

Page numbers in italic refer to illustrations acetic acid, 86. See also chemicals Adams, Valerie, 18, 19 Addison, Christopher, 111 admiralty, 39, 114, 115. See also Avonmouth; Carson, Sir Edward; jellite; Royal Navy Adowa. See Italy aerial spray. See gas deployment aerial warfare, 161, 162, 175, 192, 198; and aerial bombs, 6, 39, 46, 150, 156, 161, 189, 198, 237n4; and germs, 16, 37, 84, 85; in World War II, 246n2. See also Baldwin, Stanley; bombers; Thuillier, Sir Henry Afghanistan, 243n117; and Afghanis, 182, 183; war in, 197 Africa, 41, 43, 44, 45. See also colonies; Egypt; Smuts, Jan aircraft. See aerial warfare; airplanes; Baldwin, Stanley; bombers; gas deployment airplanes, 37, 38, 108. See also aerial warfare; Baldwin, Stanley; bombers; gas deployment air raid precautions: and defenses, 186; policy on, 165; and precautions, 169. See also Poison Gas (Union of Democratic Control); Thuillier, Sir Henry Air Raid Precautions, 159, 237n5 airship. See aerial warfare; airplanes; Baldwin, Stanley; bombers; gas deployment Air Staff. See Geneva Gas Protocol agent orange, 18, 203n21 alarms. See gas defense methods Algerians. See Zouaves allies, 19, 21, 24, 25, 30, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, 126; and audiences, 2; as cartoon subjects, 135, 136; as gas victims, 128, 138–39; Serbian, 150; soldiers of, 29. See also Belgium; France; Portuguese; United States al-Qaeda, 195, 197. See also terrorism Ambrine, 123. See also medicine

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America. See United States ammonia, 98. See also chemicals Anderson, Sir John, 196 Angell, Norman, 159 animals: as cartoon subjects, 151, 152; dogs, 40, 115; masks for, 69 anthrax, 7, 199 antigas methods. See gas defense methods Armenians, 42 arms limitations, 191, 203n22; proponents of, 157. See also disarmament; international law army. See military Army Council, 109, 110 Army Sanitary Committee, 85 arsenic, 23; compounds, 167, 173. See also chemicals Article 171. See international law; Treaty of Versailles artillery, 1, 4, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 46, 52, 53, 54, 61, 62, 72, 106, 137, 167, 181; and artillerymen, 56; and photography, 137; potential deployment of, 169. See also gas deployment; Royal Artillery asphyxiating gas. See gas Asquith, Herbert, 33 atomic bomb. See nuclear weapons; weapons of mass destruction atrocity: acts of, 26, 28, 36, 38, 45, 107, 126, 137, 158; in Belgium, 8, 84; dye and, 135; gas and weapons for acts of, 26, 46, 50, 76, 126, 142, 156, 170. See also barbarity; humanity and inhumanity atropine, 97, 98. See also medicine attacks, 74, 174; air, 162, 173; anthrax, 189; gas, 4, 14, 16, 20, 28, 30, 36, 42, 49, 53, 54, 56–63, 63, 64, 65, 69, 71, 72, 73, 91, 126–27, 137, 138, 150, 159, 167–69, 181, 193, 196, 199; German introduction of gas, 1, 8, 10, 11, 14, 29, 34, 51, 52, 54, 126; sarin, 7; terrorist, 20. See also Loos, battle of

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Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane, 11, 202n12, 202n16 Aum Shinrikyo, 7, 195. See also Japan; nerve gas; Tokyo Austrians, 138–39, 141 autopsy. See post-mortem Avonmouth, 113, 122–24. See also admiralty; factory; jellite; Royal Navy bad air, 22–23, 93 Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik, 173. See also chemical companies; chemical industry Bairnsfather, Bruce, 148, 149, 150; The Candid Friend, 148, 149; Fragments from France, 132, 150; Pushfulness at Plug Street, 150; Tips for Tommies, 150. See also Bystander Baker, Harry, 79. See also Castner-Kellner; chlorine Baker, H. B., 83. See also Imperial College of Science Baldwin, Stanley, 192. See also aerial warfare; bombers; interwar period Balfour, Arthur, 161, 186. See also Washington Naval Conference Bank of England, 39, 112 ban on gas. See international law barbarity: acts of, 26, 28, 36, 45, 47, 187; barbarism, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 40, 45, 50, 76, 128, 132, 136, 137, 142, 154, 157, 161, 176, 183–84, 194, 201–2n12; during war, 9, 26, 180, 201–2n12; weapon, 6, 10, 16, 33, 50, 100, 127, 130, 161, 174, 182. See also atrocity; brutality; civilization; humanity and inhumanity barbed wire, 146 Barcroft, Sir Joseph, 40, 79, 83, 115 Bartov, Omar, 201n12 Baumer, Lewis, 151, 152 Bayer, 173. See also chemical industry beard. See gas mask; Sikhs Beaufort scale, 71. See also wind Beauty in Eclipse/Beauty Revealed (unknown photographer), 152. See also gas masks; photography; Sketch Supplement; socialite Becker, Annette, 11, 202n12, 202n16

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| Index Beggs, S., 143–44, 144. See also When British Appeared to a German Belgium, 49; atrocities in, 84; invasion of, 2, 26; neutrality of, 27, 33, 47, 137; rape of, 8; violations of, 31 bellum romanum, 183 Berber, Lieutenant, 99 Best, Geoffrey, 204n34 biblical. See Christianity bicarbonate of soda, 34. See also chemicals biological chemical weapons (78L), 9, 18, 194, 195, 199. See also biological weapons; gas; weapons of mass destruction biological warfare, 175 biological weapons, 7, 151, 187, 198; and germs, 37, 222n34; Washington Naval Conference and, 186; World War I concerns over, 85. See also biological chemical weapons; weapons of mass destruction Birmingham University, 83. See Frankland, P. F. bleaching powder, 86, 104 blinded men, 178–79, 179. See also gas; Gassed (Sargent) Blitz, 189 blockade, 19, 25, 206n66 bloodletting, 98 Blue cross gas, 19, 71. See also gas Board of Trade, 78, 104, 112; export licenses and, 86, 112 Bolsheviks, 183 bombers, 161, 173, 189, 192, 198. See also aerial warfare; Baldwin, Stanley bombs, gas, 158, 169, 170. See also aerial warfare; gas deployment Bonzo the dog, 132. See also cartoons; Studdy, George booklets. See pamphlets Boston. See Museum of Fine Arts box respirator. See gas mask brandy, 98. See medicine bravery, 10, 23; Canadian displays of, 139, 143; British displays of, 12, 36, 142–45; German lack of, 34 British Army Council, 48–49

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Index | British Empire, 182, 186, 198 British Expeditionary Force (7:;), 51, 60–61, 33–34. See also French, Sir John British Gas Services, 86 British Legion Journal. See Halsbury, Second Earl of British Medical Manual of Chemical Warfare, 17 A British Ofﬁcer in His New Anti-Gas Helmet (unknown photographer), 147–48. See also gas effects; gas masks; Illustrated War News; photography British War Memorials Committee, 178 bromine, 34. See also gas bronchitis, 34. See also gas effects Brook, Ricardo, 141; Tactless Questions, 141 Brooke, F., 119 Brooke, Lieutenant (photojournalist), 131. See also photography Brooks, Lieutenant, 131. See also photography Brown-Jones, Cadet Smith, 134 brutality: acts of, 27; in war, 8, 11, 27, 28, 49, 156; weapons and, 10, 156, 181, 183. See also atrocity; barbarity; humanity and inhumanity Bryan, John De G., 138, 139 burn. See gas effects; gas Bush, George H. W., 197. See also weapons of mass destruction Bush, George W., 197. See also weapons of mass destruction Bystander, 126, 127, 128, 132, 134–35, 148, 149, 152–53, 153, 154–55 cabinet, British, 33, 40, 41, 45, 157, 184, 185, 188, 190. See also Dardanelles Committee; War Committee cable lines, 29 Calder Vale Munitions Works, 199. See also chemical companies; chemical industry Callinicus. See Haldane, J. B. S. Cambridge, 83. See also Barcroft, Sir Joseph; Pope, W. J. camphor, 98. See also medicine Canadians, 24, 30, 139, 141

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The Candid Friend (Bairnsfather), 148, 149. See also Bystander; cartoons; gas deployment; gas masks carbon dioxide, 92. See also chemicals carbon monoxide, 98. See also chemicals Carmichael, Jane. See photography Carson, Sir Edward, 115. See also admiralty cartoons, 4, 16, 126, 130, 131, 132–33, 134, 134–35, 136–37, 136, 141, 148, 150; and cartoonists, 127, 131–32. See also Bystander; Fragments from France (Bairnsfather); Illustrated London News; John Bull; People; Punch; Sketch; Tatler Cassell Cyanide Company, 111, 119. See also chemical companies; chemical industry Castner-Kellner, 79, 113. See also chlorine; chemical companies; chemical industry casualties: evacuation and, 90; non-gas, 28; and World War I, 51. See also gas effects Caught in their Own Trap (unknown artist), 141. See also Austria; civilians; factory; humanitarian aid; illustrations; Italy; War Pictures Weekly and London Illustrated Weekly Cavan, Lord, 115. See also “Gas!” (Foulkes) Cavell, Edith, 31 cayenne pepper, 118. See also gas Cecil, Lord Robert, Viscount of Chelwood, 33, 193, 194 censorship, 27, 110, 129, 130; and censors, 127, 130, 138; and photography, 131. See also Defence of the Realm Act (9DG6); press Central Laboratory, 78. See also research Central Powers, 24, 38, 138, 143, 155. See also Austrians chaplain, 39 charcoal, 66. See also chemicals The Charge of the Hooded Men (unknown artist), 142–43. See also gas deployment; gas masks; illustrations; Scotland; surrender; War Pictures Weekly and London Illustrated Weekly; War Ofﬁce; women A Charge through the German Poison Gas (Villiers), 144, 145. See also Illustrated London News; illustration chemical advisors, 68

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Chemical Advisory Committee, 83, 108, 114. See also Chemical Sub-Committee; Chemical Warfare Committee; Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee chemical companies, 102–25; and control, 229n57. See also Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik; Bayer; Calder Vale Munitions Works; Castner-Kellner, Cassell Cyanide Company; chemical industry; chemistry; chemists; I. G. Farben; Meister Lucius; Snyed Bycar Company chemical industry, 9, 17, 24, 80, 84, 102–25, 159, 171; British, 135; and control, 229n57; German, 134, 171, 173; intellectual property and, 228n32; postwar, 165, 171. See also chemical companies chemical munitions. See gas chemicals, 27, 37, 86, 161; and acetic acid, 86; and ammonia, 98; and arsenic and arsenic compounds, 23, 167, 173; and bicarbonate of soda, 34; and bleaching powder, 86, 104; and bromine, 34; and carbon dioxide, 92; and carbon monoxide, 98; and chlorine, 1, 9, 18, 24, 29, 31, 33, 38, 43, 79, 102, 103, 109, 118, 138; and cyanide and cyanide compounds, 38, 39, 40, 105, 107, 109, 111–12, 114, 227n29; and iodine, 19, 87; and picric acid, 119; and strychnine, 23, 98; and sulfur, 17, 118; and ICI, 104, 117, 118; See also chemical companies; chemical industry; chemists; gas chemicals, neutralizing, 34, 52, 56, 66, 69, 73, 74, 123, 219n120. See also bicarbonate of soda; charcoal; chloride of lime; gas defense methods; hexamine; sodium phenate Chemical Soldiers (Richter), 5. See also Special Brigade Chemical Sub-Committee, 82. See also Chemical Advisory Committee; Chemical Warfare Committee; Ministry of Munitions; Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee Chemical Supply Department, 112 Chemical Warfare Committee, 55, 60, 83, 84, 120, 125. See also Chemical Advisory Committee; Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee

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| Index Chemical Warfare Medical Committee, 120 chemical warfare service, funding of, 157. See also Special Brigade chemical weapons. See gas chemistry, 8, 22, 46, 55, 78, 79, 80, 88, 89, 171, 208n12. See also chemical companies, chemical industry, chemists chemists, 13, 14, 15, 55, 75, 76, 77–88, 100, 102, 109, 125, 158, 198, 222n51. See also scientists chemotherapy, 198. See also gas effects Chesterton, G. K., 126 children, 132, 140, 152, 175, 180 China, 184, 194 chloride of lime, 73, 74, 123. See also chemicals, neutralizing chlorine, 1, 9, 18, 24, 29, 31, 33, 38, 43, 79, 102–3, 109, 118, 138; and chlorine bomb, 195; victims of, 92. See also Castner-Kellner; chemicals; gas chloropicrin, 93. See also gas Christianity, 136–37; biblical, 36; and Hosea, 135. See also Sowing the Wind (Holland) Churchill, Winston, 4, 7, 41, 181–82, 183, 184, 197, 198 civilians, 14, 16, 22, 27, 78, 79, 93, 92, 100, 101, 104, 128, 131, 132, 192; with masks, 4, 85, 151, 158, 161, 164; as targets, 6, 37, 84, 85, 108, 128, 137, 140, 141, 164, 169, 172, 187, 189, 191, 192, 194, 195; in total war, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 16, 17, 55, 57, 78, 83, 84, 100, 124, 128, 150, 151, 158, 159, 162, 188 civilization, 8, 10–13, 16, 17, 28, 31, 46, 128, 136–37, 153, 154, 155, 161, 163, 169, 172–78, 182, 186, 190, 201–2n12: and action by, 47; behavior of, 35, 195; boundaries of, 6; civilized interactions of, 7; entities within, 8, 10, 11, 12, 26, 36, 38, 59, 136, 154, 161, 196; status of, 26, 45, 84, 196; uncivilized status of, 33, 183, 183, 184, 197; See also atrocity; barbarity; brutality; humanity and inhumanity civil war (Spain), 189. See also war civil war (U.S.), 5, 28. See also war civil wars, 202n12. See also civil war (Spain); civil war (U.S.)

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Index | Clapham Commons, 84 Clarke, Hyde, and Topic, 235n74; War by Noxious Gas, 148 Clement, J., 71 climate, for gas use, 41, 44, 211n66. See also wind cloud. See gas cocaine, 123. See also medicine cold war, 5, 9 collective protection, 19, 20. See gas defense methods collective security, 162 Colonial Ofﬁce, 39, 112 colonial troops, 24. See also Canadians; Sikhs; South Africans; Turcos; Zouaves colonies, 10, 161; barbarity in, 243n118; battleﬁelds in, 4; British, 111; in Palestine, 183; in Rhodesia, 183, 243n112; wars in, 187 Colossal Impudence (unknown photographer), 140. See also Illustrated London News; gas masks; propaganda; photography comic. See cartoons Committee of Consultant Physicians and Physiologists, 91. See also physicians; physiologists Committee of Imperial Defence (8>9), 85, 160, 184, 185, 190, 196 Common Sense about Disarmament (Lefebure), 165. See also disarmament; interwar period Conference on the Reduction of the Limitation of Armaments. See World Disarmament Conference conscientious objectors, 79, 94 conscription, 15, 27, 129 contracts, 110, 112, 113; and orders, 111. See also chemical companies; chemical industry controls, 104, 105, 121. See also chemical companies; chemical industry conventions. See international law Cooke, Sir Edward, 130. See also censorship; Press Bureau Cool Cheek! (unknown photographer), 140. See also Illustrated War News; gas masks; propaganda; photography Cooper’s Sheep Dip, 87

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corporal, 58. See also Special Brigade Cotton, Elmer Wilgrid, 1. See also Fifth Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers courage. See bravery court-martial, 96 coward, 23, 95, 141, 142 Crimean War, 17. See also Dundonald, Lord; Playfair, Lord; war Crossley, A., 84 Cushny, A. R., 83. See also University College, London cyanide and cyanide compounds, 38, 39, 40, 105, 107, 109, 111–12, 114, 227n29. See also Cassell Cyanide Company; gas; jellite cylinders. See gas deployment; Special Brigade

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Dardanelles. See Gallipoli Dardanelles Committee, 41. See also cabinet, British; Gallipoli Davan, Earl of, 246n3. See also military Davies, G. T., 12. See also Colonial Ofﬁce debate about future of gas, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16–17, 57, 156, 157–90 decolonization, 11 Defence Against Gas, 69. See also gas defense methods; gas; pamphlets Defence of the Realm Acts (9DG6), 109, 129, 130. See also censorship defensive chemical warfare. See gas defense methods Defensive Measures Against Gas Attacks, 70. See also Stationery Services democratization of war, 158, 237n6. See also total war dentist, 141, 151 Department for Chemical Factories, 118. See also Shufﬂebotham, Dr. Frank Department of Scientiﬁc and Industrial Research, 79–80 Derby, Lord, 97 desensitization, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 53, 76, 94, 127, 145, 151, 156, 198, 204n34, 246n2. See also Price, Richard deterrent, 168, 187, 196, 197. See also Price, Richard; taboo

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The Devil at Work (unknown artist), 233n34. See also cartoons; civilization; devils; kaiser; People; viper; Tatler devils: Germans as, 133, 134, 136, 142, 233n34; British as, 143, 144 digitalis, 98. See also medicine diphenylcyanoarsine, 173. See also gas diplomacy, 185; and diplomatic action, 5; and diplomats, 8, 32, 157, 173, 189, 192, 237n6. See also international law disarmament, 5, 18, 157, 160, 162, 163, 164. See also international law; Lefebure, Victor disease. See gas effects doctors. See physicians dogs. See animals Donnan, F. G., 83. See also University College, London Double-Dyed (Lunt and W. F. B.), 233n37. See also Bystander; cartoons; chemical industry; Hertling, Professor Dowd, James, 132 draft. See conscription dreams. See The Great Offensive (Hugh); The Shape of Things to Come (Wells) drills. See gas defense methods dugouts, 1, 19, 20, 56, 73. See also gas defense methods; trench warfare “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Owen), 28, 162, 180 dum dum bullets, 8. See also Hague Convention Dundonald, Lord, 17. See also Crimean War Durant, Henry, 45. See also International Red Cross Eastern Front, 20, 24, 40 Eden, Anthony, 188 education. See science education Egypt, 45 The Elixir of Hate (Raven-Hill), 132–33, 133. See also cartoons; Hague Conventions; kaiser; kultur; poison; Punch; viper; Western Front Ethiopia, 169, 184, 194, 196, 238n24 ethyl iodoacetate (S.K.), 32, 119. See also gas evacuation methods, 45. See also medicine

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Index experiments. See research export license. See Board of Trade factories: building of, 112; and gas, 39, 60, 105, 113, 115, 116, 120, 125, 141; and government, 113, 114. See also Avonmouth; chemical companies; chemical industry; gas production; labor Factory Acts, 120 false alarms, 71, 72 fans. See gas defense methods farmwoman cartoon, 151 The Festive Bored (Lunt and W. F. B.), 233n36. See also Bystander; cartoons; devils ﬁction about gas. See gas ﬁction ﬁends. See devils Fifth Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, 1. See also Cotton, Elmer Wilgrid Fighting Foul Fumes and Fiends (unknown artist), 144. See also bravery; devils; illustrations; War Illustrated Fighting the Fiend (unknown artist), 136–37. See also allies; barbarity; cartoons; Christianity; civilization; devils; People; Tatler First Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 132. See also Bairnsfather, Bruce Fisher, Herbert, 182, 184 ﬂame-projectors. See gas deployment ﬂame throwers. See gas deployment Foch, Ferdinand, 165 food. See gas defense methods Foot, M. R. D., 179 formula, chemical, 108, 109, 112, 113 Forestier, A.: What War has Become! 155 Förster, Stig, 6. See also total war Foulkes, Charles, 20, 21, 22, 38, 55, 56, 57–63, 158, 159, 178, 180, 215n26; and Chemical Warfare Committee, 83; “Gas!” 5, 57, 221n5; as gas advisor, 54; in India, 182; and Donald Richter, 214n5. See also Special Brigade Fowler, W. Warde, 204n32 Fragments from France (Bairnsfather), 132, 150 France, 29, 49, 54, 55, 60, 67, 164, 192; authorities in, 37; British Expeditionary Force in, 51; chemical needs of, 111, 113, 114; chemicals

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Index | used by, 85, 108, 116; colonial troops in, 24; gas and, 40, 165; gas policy of, 196; government of, 36, 50; Dr. John Scott Haldane in, 138; soldiers in, 2, 33; targets in, 34; Turcos in, 138; Washington Naval Conference and, 186 franc-tireurs, 31 Frankland, P. F., 83. See also Birmingham University French, Sir John, 14, 30, 33, 34, 35, 51, 55, 60, 62 Fuller, J. F. C., 55 See also tanks Gallipoli, 41, 42, 43, 45, 129 gas: 28, 163, 191; and advisers, 4, 54; as auxiliary or additional weapon, 168; and Blue Cross, 19, 71; and cayenne pepper, 118; chamber, 40, 246n3; chlorine, 1, 9, 18, 24, 29, 31, 33, 38, 43, 79, 102, 103, 109, 118, 138; chloropicrin, 93; deﬁnition of, 17–19, 49, 50; demoralizing effects of, 18, 21, 22, 53, 57, 129, 130, 173, 180, 181; diphenylcyanoarsine, 173; 203n21; ethyl iodoacetate, 32, 119; as fashionable, 151; generation of, 19; and geography, 44, 121, 211n66; and Green Cross, 19; history, 17; jellite, 19, 38–40, 105–17, 125, 211n54, 227n29; mustard, 7, 18, 19, 21, 29, 37, 64, 69, 71, 73, 74, 84, 87, 91, 92, 99, 113, 115–17, 122–24, 161, 166, 175, 177, 179, 179, 180, 182, 195, 197; nerve, 7, 195; new, 64, 107–8; pepper, 86, 198; phosgene, 18, 19, 92, 99, 121–22; tear, 18, 30, 32, 37, 66, 87, 94, 117, 119, 161, 137, 153, 166, 170, 183, 198, 238n19; Zyklon 7, 203n28. See also attacks; gas; gas effects; military; persistency; total weapon “Gas!” (Foulkes), 5, 57, 211n5; and Halsbury, Second Earl of, 172. See also gas ﬁction gas, as offensive weapon: decision for, 29; strategy for, 29, 38, 41; use of, 16, 18, 30, 53–63, 143, 150, 196. See also attacks; Loos, battle of gas ban. See international law gas chamber. See gas Gas-Clouds Photographed for the First Time

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(unknown photographer), 137–38. See also gas deployment; Illustrated London News; photography gas defense methods, 14, 30, 39, 54, 63–74; and alarm, 37, 164, 69, 70–73, 95, 148–49, 164; and alert, 67, 70–72, 149; and civilian protection, 193; and cleaning, 69, 73–74; and clothing, 69, 73, 122; and collective protection, 19, 20; development of, 36; and drills, 14, 37, 53, 64, 67, 68, 69–71, 150; equipment for, 14, 19, 41, 43, 67; and eyepieces, 70, 116; and fans, 74; and food, wrapping, 73; futility of, 193; gas mask as, 8, 12, 18, 19, 21, 10, 24–25, 29, 30, 37, 38, 49, 52, 56, 61, 63–71, 66, 74, 103, 118, 140, 142–43, 145–48, 150–54, 170, 173; gas-proof dugouts as, 19, 73; gloves as, 69; goggles as, 122; measures for, 163–64, 169; nose clips for, 68; pamphlets about, 54, 73, 74, 91–98, 100; and personal protection, 19; and prevention, 19; salves as, 69; in schools, 63, 71, 74; and sleep safety, 73; and sprayers, 94; and sterilizing, 65, 73; and Strombos horn, 72; training for, 19, 63, 65–66, 69, 71, 73, 74, 168; ventilators for, 74. See also civilians; gas masks gas deployment, 19, 21, 37, 64, 186; and aerial spray, 19; and artillery, 19, 169; and aerial bombs, 158, 169, 170; and clouds, 32, 58, 61, 71, 72, 127, 137, 138, 141–45; cylinders for, 19, 30, 32–33, 37–38, 44, 53, 55–56, 58–61, 62, 71; ﬂame-projectors for, 11, 60; and grenades, 19, 37, 53; and Livens, 61; and mortars, 19, 56, 60; and projectiles, 33, 47; and projectors, 8, 33, 53, 55–56, 60–62 61; and shells, 19, 30, 32, 33, 38, 39, 45, 54–56, 61–62, 64, 71–73, 108–9; and zeppelins, 84, 150, 235n84 gas effects, 18, 19, 74; and beneﬁts, 198–99, 231n114; and burn, general, 30, 67, 93, 173; and burn, mustard gas, 37, 69, 73, 92, 99, 122–23, 177, 218n90; and casualties, homefront, 106, 119; and casualties, military, 1, 18, 20, 21, 22, 64, 65, 66, 72, 74–75, 90, 147–48, 239n58; and casualties, peacetime, 123, 124; and chemists, 222n51; disease as,

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gas effects (cont.) 34, 118, 122; and effectiveness, 20–22, 25, 40, 56, 195, 206n66; psychological, 12; statistics of, 166, 169, 189, 206n68, 206n70, 217n63; threat of, 74 gas ﬁction, 240n75. See also “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Owen); “Gethsemane” (Kipling); Halsbury, Second Earl of; Kipling, Rudyard; 1944 (Halsbury); Owen, Wilfrid; The Shape of Things to Come (Wells); Wells, H. G. The Gas Fiend (Raemaekers), 2, 2, 3, 181 Gas in the Next War (Thuillier), 165. See also Air Raid Precautions; debate about future of gas Gas Light & Coke Co., 115 gas mask, 8, 12, 18, 19, 21, 10, 24, 25, 29, 30, 37, 38, 49, 52, 56, 61, 63–71, 66, 74, 103, 118, 140, 142, 143, 145–48, 150–54, 170, 173; and box respirator, 68, 69, 70, 146; civilian, 4, 85, 151, 158, 161, 164; dehumanizing effect of, 140, 144, 148; German, 56, 140, 148, 154; hypo helmet, 29; P.H. helmet, 69; and respirator, 12, 18, 19, 30, 37, 52, 61, 63, 66, 67, 143, 145, 147–48, 150, 152, 154, 170, 173; and tube helmet, 68. See also gas defense methods Gas-masked Serbian colonels on the British Front (unknown photographer), 150. See also allies; gas defense methods, drills; gas masks; Illustrated War News; photography; Serbs gas policy: British, 9, 35, 38, 40, 41, 44, 45, 52, 64, 198, 244n128; French, 38, 196; German, 73, 171; postwar, 152–53, 157, 160, 181 gas production, 15, 16, 24, 29, 39, 84, 107, 109, 193; German, 171; industry, 22; mustard, 116–24; process of, 106, 116; Sir Henry Thuillier and, 165. See also chemical companies; chemical industry; factories; labor gas protocols. See international law; Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925 Gassed (Sargent), 162, 178, 178–80, 241n89 Gassed by their own Gas (unknown artist), 141. See also Canadians; gas deployment; illustration; London Illustrated Weekly

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| Index Gas Services, 86, 158, 165. See also Thuillier, Sir Henry General Headquarters, 37, 54, 110 General Routine Order (
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Index | Halsbury, Second Earl of (formerly Lord Tiverton), 17, 159, 162, 164, 167, 172–75, 177–78, 191, 192, 196, 202n12; 1944, 173–74; and aerial gas bombing, 237n4; and British Legion Journal, 172, 174; “Gas!” 172–74 Hamilton, Sir Ian, 41, 42, 43. See also Gallipoli Hammersmith Distillery Company, 118 Hankey, Sir Maurice, 157 Harrison, E., 83 hatefulness, German, 133. See also The Elixir of Hate (Raven-Hill) health, civilian gas workers, 15, 105, 116–24. See also factories; Shufﬂebotham, Dr. Frank helmet. See gas mask hemlock, 134 herbicides, 18 Heroic Work at the Front (unknown), 235n70 A Hero of Heroes (unknown artist), 235n68 Hertling, Professor, 134 hexamine, 69, 219n120. See chemicals high explosives, 11 Hill, J. C., 57 Hill, L., 83. See also Lister Institute Hints on Cooking in the Field, 91. See also pamphlets History of the Ministry of Munitions, 119 Hoare, Sir Samuel, 242n105 Hodges, Frederic James, 5 Hodgkin, A. E., 4, 52 Holland, Frank, 132, 135. See also Sowing the Wind (Holland) Holland, Sir A. E., 181 Holland Committee, 181. See also gas policy Holocaust, 7, 203n28. See also World War II homefront, 5, 6, 54, 100, 102, 126, 128, 130, 150–53, 158, 162, 163, 192, 199 Horrocks, W. H., 83 Horrors of Peace (unknown artist), 153 Hosea. See Christianity; Sowing the Wind (Holland) hospital ship. See medicine House of Commons. See Parliament House of Lords. See Parliament H.S. See mustard gas (H.S.) Hugh, Bernhard, 134; The Devil at Work,

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233n34; A Post-War Prophecy, 152–53; PostWar Prophecies, 236n95 humane and inhumane, 11, 31, 45, 142; gas, humaneness of, 11, 17, 45, 46, 159, 160, 161–72; gas, inhumaneness of, 8, 1, 160, 161, 163, 183; non-gas weapons, nature of 48, 186; war, nature of 28 humanitarian aid, 46, 47, 48, 49, 141, 185, 190, 191 humanity and inhumanity, 7, 8, 12, 31, 119, 140, 176, 182, 186 humor, 11, 130, 150. See also Bystander; cartoons; Fragments from France (Bairnsfather); Illustrated London News; John Bull; People; Punch; Sketch; Tatler Hun, 134, 140. See also gas Hun Sneers at Victims of Poison Gas (unknown artist), 140 Hun Stuff (H.S.). See gas Hussein, Saddam, 195. See also gas; Kurds; rogues hydrocyanic acid, 227n29. See also chemicals I. G. Farben, 171. See also chemical companies; chemical industry Illustrated London News, 35, 126, 137, 137–38, 138, 140, 141, 143–44, 144, 144, 145, 148, 149, 154, 155 Illustrated War News, 138, 138–39, 139, 140, 143–44, 144, 147–48, 150 illustrations, 136, 138–49, 139, 142, 144, 145, 147, 149, 153–55 Imperial College of Science, 83, 84. See also Baker, H. B. Imperial General Staff, 44, 157. See also Wilson, Sir Henry In a Gas-Stricken Area (unknown artist), 146, 147 India, 182, 183, 243n3. See also Churchill, Winston; Foulkes, Charles; gas mask; and Sikhs industrialists, 13, 15, 102–16, 162 infantry, 14, 18, 22, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 70, 72, 143, 214n10 inhumanity. See humanity and inhumanity inspection of factories, medical, 105. See also factories; labor; Shufﬂebotham, Dr. Frank

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Institute of Chemistry, 222n51 insurgents, 7, 20, 195, 199. See also Iraq intelligence, 19, 39, 47, 56, 64, 84, 191, 192–93, 195, 198, 199, 238n14 Intelligence Department, 132 international law, 9, 10, 33, 142, 192–93; and agreements, 35, 46, 169; and pledges, 183; and treaties, 4, 28, 31, 46, 47, 50, 157, 159, 160, 165, 185–88, 189, 191–92, 196, 197; violations of, 35. See also arms limitations; diplomacy; disarmament; Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925; Hague Conventions; Treaty of Versailles; Washington Naval Conference International Red Cross, 30, 45–50, 212n82 interwar period, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 25, 159, 160, 162, 164, 184–86, 191–93, 195, 198, 199, 238n14 introduction of gas. See attacks iodine, 19, 87. See also chemicals Iran, 7, 195 Iraq, 195. See also Hussein, Saddam; insurgents; Kurds; Mesopotamia; mustard gas Islam, 43 Italy, 40, 49, 141, 184, 189, 194–95, 197 Jackson, Louis, 35, 39, 43, 54, 82, 108. See also Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee Japan, 197; and Aum Shinrikyo, 7, 184, 195; and bombing of China, 194; bombing victims in, 189; and Geneva Gas Protocol, 192; and League of Nations, 188 jellite, 19, 38–40, 105–17, 125, 211n54, 227n29. See also gas John Bell, Hills and Lucas, 103 John Bull, 132, 135. See also periodicals Jonas, Lucien, 141 kaiser, 133, 134, 141 Kamerad! (Jonas), 141. See also Illustrated London News; illustrations; Jonas, Lucien; surrender Kassimeris, George, 201n12 Kaye, H. W., 91, 93 kelp, 87 Kipling, Rudyard, 180–81; “Gethsemane,” 180–81

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Index Kitchener, Lord Horatio, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 43, 52, 54 Knutsford, Lord, 97 Korea, 9, 197. See also war Kreuz Zeitung, 31. See also newspapers kultur, 10, 26, 133 Kurds, 7, 195 labor, 13, 15, 16, 100; and cylinder assistance, 59, 62; ﬁnding, 112; numbers, 113; relations problems, 104–5, 116; safety, 105, 116–24; and Special Brigade, 60. See also chemical industry; factories; inspection of factories, medical laboratory. See research Labour that Paves the Way for Further Progress (unknown photographer), 146 lachrymatory gas. See tear gas Lachrymosing the Britsh by Onion-Whittling under Cover of Night (Robinson), 137. See also cartoons; Robinson, W. Heath; Sketch; tear gas Langemarck, 137 “Laughing-Gassing the British before an Advance in Close Formation (Robinson), 137. See also Belgium; cartoons; Hague Convention; Sketch; Schlieffen Plan law. See international law League of Nations, 175, 186, 187, 188, 192, 194, 243n118 League of Nations Union, 159 Lefebure, Victor, 159, 162, 164, 165, 168, 170–71; Riddle of the Rhine, 165 Leland, H. J. C., 66, 67 Lessons from the German Gas Attack on 16/17 June, 1916, 91. See also pamphlets Liddell Hart, Basil, 165 Liddle, Peter, 57 Lindbergh, Charles, 189 liquid ﬁre, 47 Lister Institute, 83. See also Hill, L. Livens. See gas deployment Local Medical Board, 85 Locarno Pact, 192 London, 16, 27, 34, 37, 41, 42, 44, 54, 55, 60, 91, 94, 161, 173, 175, 195; Blitz, 189; germs in, 84, 85, 86; and research, 99, 100

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Index | London Illustrated News, 146, 147 London Illustrated Weekly, 141 London Times, 23, 28, 31, 126, 154, 204n34 Loos, battle of, 18, 24, 57, 58, 60–62, 143, 234n62 Los Angeles Times, 28 louse, 16 Lubbock, C., 12 Lunt, 134–35, 233n36 Lusitania, 8 Lynn, Private, 145 machine guns, 20, 28, 52, 145, 168 Macleod, Roy, 80–81 magazines. See periodicals Manchuria, 189 manuals. See pamphlets manufacturing. See gas production Marwick, Arthur, 6 McCance, H. B., 68 McDonald, Ramsey, 159 Mealing, K. W., 71–72 Medical Research Committee, 91 medicine, 15, 20, 73, 89, 92, 99; advances in, 77; and consultation, 119; and diagnosis, 92, 93–97; gas beneﬁts in, 198, 199; evacuation and, 91, 94, 100; and hospital ships, 46, 47; efﬁcacy of, 92, 97–99; and Salvus, 98; and treatments, 69, 77, 81, 97–99, 118, 123, 127; wartime advances in, 224n84. See also inspection of factories, medical; Royal Army Medical Corps (G6B8); Shufﬂebotham, Dr. Frank Meister Lucius, 173. See also chemical companies; chemical industry Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare. See pamphlets; Stationery Service memory, 157, 249n46 Men of 18 in 1918 (Hodges), 5 Mesopotamia, 43 Micklethwait, F. M. G., 117 military, 157; and budgets, 157, 168, 191, 193, 246n3; censorship, 129; doctrine, 214n11; ethos, 5, 214n11; incorporation of gas by, 52; misconceptions of gas by, 167; policy of, 6,

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9; tactics of, 13, 55; strategy of, 12, 52, 53. See also gas policy; Palazzo, Albert miners, 23, 92, 93, 98 mines, 81 minister of munitions, 42, 104. See George, David Lloyd Ministry of Munitions, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 55, 78, 82, 83, 86, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 120, 121, 122, 124. See also Chemical Advisory Committee; Chemical Warfare Committee; George, David Lloyd; Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee; shell shortage; trench warfare department; Welfare and Health Department Mitchell, Leland, 67 morale, effects of gas on, 27, 56, 65, 119, 129, 130, 175 Moreland, Harold, 113 morphine, 98. See also medicine Morrow, Edwin, 148 mortars. See gas deployment Moynier, Gustave, 45. See also International Red Cross Munitions of War Acts, 104, 229n57 Murphy, Seán, 5 Museum of Fine Arts, 178 mustard gas (H.S.), 7, 18, 19, 21, 29, 37, 64, 69, 71, 73, 74, 84, 87, 91, 92, 99, 113, 115–17, 122–24, 161, 166, 175, 177, 179, 179, 180, 182, 195, 197. See also gas; Hussein, Saddam; Iraq; Kurds; persistency of gas

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National War Aims Committee, 232n13. See also propaganda navy. See Royal Navy Nazi, 7, 203n28. See also Holocaust; World War II; Zyklon 7 nerve gas, 7, 195. See also Aum Shinrikyo; gas; Tokyo neurasthenia, 94, 95. See also shell shock neutrality, 27, 33, 137. See also Belgium; United States The New Photography (Dowd), 152. See also Bystander; cartoons; civilians; and photography

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newspapers, 127; and news accounts, 29. See also Kreuz Zeitung; London Times; Los Angeles Times; New York Times; South Wales Argus; Times Literary Supplement; Turkish War News New York, 195 New York Times, 28 Next War (Liddell Hart), 165. See also Thuillier, Sir Henry 1944 (Halsbury), 173–74. See also gas ﬁction No Man’s Land, 20, 21, 71 No More War Movement, 159, 238n14 nose clip. See gas defense methods “Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils” Masked British Territorials Charging German Trenches at Loos (Beggs and unknown), 143–44, 144. See also bravery; devils, gas masks; Illustrated London News; illustration; Loos battle of; surrender; When British Appeared to a German “Not like Soldiers but like Devils!” nuclear weapons, 7, 198. See also weapons of mass destruction numbness. See desensitization nurse. See Cavell, Edith offensive chemical warfare. See gas, offensive use The Old Formula (Reynolds), 3, 4, 151. See also cartoons; Punch; women The Oncoming of the German Poison Cloud (unknown artist), 138–39 Owen, Wilfrid, 28, 162, 180, 181 oxygen, 52, 97, 98–99, 123. See also medicine; Salvus paciﬁsm, 238n14. See also No More War Movement Palazzo, Albert, 5, 52, 214n11 Palestine. See colonies pamphlets and booklets, 91–98, 100; about defense, 54, 69–71, 73, 74; and medical manuals, 77, 91. See also gas defense methods; Stationery Services Parliament, 17, 77, 125; House of Commons in, 33; House of Lords in, 36, 159, 194

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| Index partisans. See franc-tireurs Partridge, Bernhard, 135, 136 Passed by the Censor (Morrow), 148. See also cartoons; gas masks; Punch patriotism, 15, 51, 88, 105, 110, 116, 129, 130 People, 134, 136–37 pepper, 86, 198. See also gas periodicals, 16, 72, 127, 157. See also Bystander; Illustrated London News; Illustrated War News; John Bull; London Illustrated Weekly; People; Punch; Sketch; Sketch Supplement; Tatler; War Illustrated; War Pictures Weekly persistency, of gas, 18, 19, 69, 73, 115, 124, 170. See also gas pesticides, 198. See also gas effects phanacetin, 98. See also medicine P.H. helmet. See gas masks; gas defense methods phosgene, 18, 19, 92, 99, 121–22. See also gas photography, 127, 130, 131, 137, 137–38, 140, 146, 147–48, 150, 152, 154–55. See also Brooke, Lieutenant (photojournalist); Brooks, Lieutenant; Carmichael, Jane; Clarke, Hyde, and Topic physicians, 13, 14, 76, 77, 79, 81, 88–100, 118–20 physiologists, 77, 81, 89, 98–99, 220n15. See also chemists; research; scientists picnic cartoon, 152 Picric Acid, 119. See chemicals plants. See factories Playfair, Lord, 17 poison, 16, 23, 66–67, 133; and weapons, 31; wells, 8. See also gas poison gas. See gas Poison Gas (Union of Democratic Control), 193. See also Union of Democratic Control Poison Gas from a Hillside Tunnel (unknown artist), 234n49 “The Poisoning of Langemarck” (unknown photographer), 137 poison ivy, 38 politicians, 13, 26, 27, 156, 167, 184, 222n14. See also Asquith, Herbert; cabinet, British; Committee of Imperial Defence (8>9);

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Index | Churchill, Winston; Haldane, Lord; Hoare, Sir Samuel; George, David Lloyd; prime minister Pope, W. J., 83. See also Cambridge Porton Down, 79, 84, 157, 197. See also research Portuguese, 49 post-mortem, 93. See also animals; research Post-War Prophecies (Bernhard Hugh), 236n95. See also Bystander; cartoons; The Devil at Work (unknown artist); A Post-War Prophecy; tear gas A Post-War Prophecy (Hugh), 152–53, 153. See also Bystander; cartoons; The Devil at Work (unknown artist); gas masks; gas policy; Post-War Prophecies (Hugh) potassium cyanide. See chemicals press, 12, 35, 36, 37, 110, 126, 127, 157, 202n12. See also censorship; Press Bureau Press Bureau, 129, 130. See also press Price, Richard, 197, 204n30, 246n2. See also desensitization; deterrent; taboo prime minister, 27, 33. See Asquith, Herbert prisoners of war, 42, 45, 46, 215n30 production. See gas production progress, 10, 12, 155, 202n12. See also civilization projectiles, 33, 47. See also gas deployment propaganda, 9, 13, 27, 29, 47; anti-German, 132, 154; and gas, 215n26; German, 140; and German identity to British; 132–33; and propagandists, 12; and National War Aims Committee, 232n13. See also Foulkes, Charles; National War Aims Committee protocols. See Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925 prussic acid. See jellite psychological warfare, 27; gas as weapon of, 21, 22. See also gas effects public opinion; 26, 31, 36, 43, 160, 185–87, 191, 194, 196, 197, 237n14, 238n19, 244n128; and condemnation, 5, 7; and global censure, 108; and global disapproval, 13; and lobbying, 193 Punch, 3, 4, 126, 132–33, 133, 136, 141, 150–52, 152, 153 Pushfulness at Plug Street (Bairnsfather), 150.

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See also cartoons; Fragments from France (Bairnsfather)

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Raemaekers, Louis, 2, 2, 3, 181 Raven-Hill, Leonard, 132–33, 133, 148; Elixir of Hate, 132–33, 133 rebellions, gas use in, 183 Recreational Training. See pamphlets Red Cross. See International Red Cross Reed, David, 127 regulations, 15, 16, 94, 95, 98, 102, 103, 113, 123 reputation, 9, 46; British, 14, 27, 50; German, 108 research: regarding defense, 64, 82, 89; in experiments, 38, 109; regarding gas, 115; in laboratories, 16, 34, 84, 114; in London, 99; regarding offense, 82; in the postwar, 181; regarding shells, 62; under Thuillier, 165. See also scientists reserved occupation, 87–88, 116 respirator. See gas masks retaliation, 9, 13, 33, 40, 43, 35, 36, 38, 41, 45, 48, 85, 108, 157, 182, 187–88, 194, 196–97, 209–10n38 retribution. See retaliation Retribution (Partridge), 135, 136. See also cartoons; Punch; retaliation Reynolds, Frank, 3, 4, 151 Rhodesia. See colonies Richter, Donald, 5, 57, 214n5. See also Foulkes, Charles; Special Brigade Riddle of the Rhine (Lefebure), 165 riot control, 161, 183, 198; and crowds, 18; with gas, 33 Roberts, Captain, 123 Roberts, Dr., 124 Robins, Pvt. A. L., 20 Robinson, W. Heath, 137 Roger, Alexander, 112, 115 Rogues, 7, 9, 12, 169, 195–99 routine, gas war, 53, 71–74, 145–50 Royal Air Force, 183 Royal Army Medical College at Millbank, 83 Royal Army Medical Corps (G6B8), 77, 89–100. See also physicians; pamphlets

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Royal Artillery. See artillery Royal Engineers, 13, 53, 54, 214n10. See also Foulkes, Charles; Special Brigade Royal Gallery, 179 Royal Navy, 27, 39, 109, 114, 115 Royal Society, 78, 81–83, 118, 138, 194; and civilian masks, 236n86; and physiology committee, 83, 86; and war committee, 81 Royal Society of Chemistry, 87, 88 Royal United Service Institution, 81 rumor, 23, 39, 40, 42, 43, 48, 85, 107–9, 125, 161, 178 Russia, 17, 24, 25, 138–39, 167, 183, 185 Russian Soldiers Sheltering their Heads behind their Steel Shields to Let the Gas-Cloud Pass over (unknown artist), 139 Russo-Japanese War, 5, 28 Safeguarding of Industries Act of 1921, 80 safety: and gas workers, 16, 116–24; and soldiers, 65. See also gas defense methods; inspection of factories, medical salves. See gas defense methods Salvus, 98. See also medicine Sargent, John Singer, 162, 178, 178, 179, 180, 181, 241n89; savagery, 11, 140, 242n11. See also atrocity; barbarity; brutality; civilization; humanity and inhumanity sarin, 7. See also nerve gas Satan. See devils Schlieffen Plan, 137 schools, anti-gas. See gas defense methods science education, 74, 87, 89, 220n12, 220n14 Scientiﬁc Advisory Committee, 38, 39, 43, 44, 78, 82, 83, 86–87, 107, 109, 112. See also Chemical Advisory Committee; Chemical Warfare Committee scientists, 13, 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 27, 39, 40, 44, 54, 55, 60, 69, 74, 134–35, 157, 162, 194. See chemists; Crossley, A.; Haldane, J. B. S.; Haldane, J. S.; Harrison, E.; Hill, L.; Lefebure, Victor; Pope, W. J.; research; physicians; physiologists Scotland, 87; and Scots, 140, 142

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| Index Secretary of State for War. See also Kitchener, Lord Horatio; War Committee Notes Seeking Victory on the Western Front (Palazzo), 5, 214n11 September 11, 2001, 7 Serbs, 150 serpent. See viper Sewill, John, 57 shamming, 94, 124, 190, 230n89 The Shape of Things to Come (Wells), 172, 175–78. See also gas ﬁction shells, non-gas, 28, 35, 40, 43, 56, 100, 146, 149. See also gas deployment shell shock, 90, 94–96, 178. See also neurasthenia shell shortage, 82, 104. See also George, David Lloyd; Ministry of Munitions Shufﬂebotham, Dr. Frank, 106, 118, 119, 120–21, 125. See also factories; inspection of factories, medical; labor; Trench Warfare Supply Department Sikhs, 68–69. See also gas defense methods; gas masks; India S.K. (South Kensington): and ethyl iodoaceate, 32, 119. See also gas; tear gas Sketch, 137 Sketch Supplement, 152 Sloggett, Sir Arthur T., 91 Smith, Dr. Thomas, 119 Smuts, Jan, 44 Snyed Bycar Company, 120. See also chemical companies; chemical industry socialite, 152 sodium cyanide. See chemicals sodium ferro cyanide. See chemicals sodium phenate, 69. See chemicals Somme, 56 South Africans, 68 Southern Rhodesia. See colonies South Kensington. See Imperial College of Science; S.K. South Wales Argus, 33 Sowing the Wind (Holland), 135. See also cartoons; Hosea; John Bull; retaliation Spanish inﬂuenza, 90

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Index | Spanish inquisition, 144 Special Brigade, 5, 11, 14, 53–63, 83, 88, 117, 158, 165, 178, 214n10. See also Foulkes, Charles; “Gas!” (Foulkes); Royal Engineers Spooner, W. A., 23 sprayers. See gas defense methods SS. See Stationery Services Stationery Services pamphlets; 204n37; SS 136, 70; SS 452, 91, 92, 97, 98; SS 534, 64, 65, 69; SS 535, 65. See also Defence Against Gas; Defensive Measures Against Gas; Memorandum on Gas Poisoning in Warfare; Recreational Training strategy. See military Stratford, 114, 115. See also jellite Strombos horn. See gas defense methods strychnine, 23, 98. See also chemicals Studdy, George, 132 submarines, 11, 19, 28, 128 192; and unrestricted submarine warfare, 8, 26; and Washington Naval Conference, 186 sulfur, 17, 118. See also chemicals supplies 39, 41, 42, 110, 112, 113, 114, 124 surprise, regarding gas, 8, 36, 49, 51, 55, 108, 154, 215n30 surrender, 141, 142, 144 Switzerland, 39, 46, 47 taboo 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 25, 31, 51, 160, 188, 194–98, 202n12, 203n30. See also Price, Richard tactics. See military Tactless Questions (Brook), 141. See also cartoons; dentist; kaiser; Punch tanks 55, 128, 192, 206n66, 215n66. See also Fuller, J. F. C. target, gas, 158. See also civilians Tatler, 134 and 136–37 tear gas, 18, 30, 32, 66, 87, 94, 117, 119, 137, 153, 161, 166, 170, 183, 198, 238n19. See also ethyl iodoacetate (S.K.); gas Tennant, H. J., 33 territorials, British, 143 terror, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 22, 52, 142, 161, 189, 192, 195

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terrorism, 20, 197. See also al-Qaeda; terrorists terrorists, 7, 9, 195, 199 THEN: The Recruit of 1914—The Veteran of 1917: NOW, 153–54. See also gas masks; illustration; War Illustrated Three Grenadiers (unknown artist), 154 Thuillier, Sir Henry, 83, 120, 125, 159, 164, 165–66, 168–70, 170, 179, 180, 189, 216n56, 237n5. See also Air Raid Precautions; Gas Services thyliodoacetate. See ethyl iodoacetate (S.K.); gas Times Literary Supplement, 159 Tips for Tommies (Bairnsfather), 150. See also cartoons; Fragments from France (Bairnsfather) Tiverton, Lord. See Halsbury, Second Earl ICI, 104, 117, 118. See also chemicals Tokyo, 7, 195. See also Aum Shinrikyo; Japan; nerve gas “total history,” 6. See also Förster, Stig total war, 6, 27, 202n16. See also Förster, Stig total weapon, 6, 7, 25, 156, 199 To What has War Reduced Mankind? (unknown photographer), 154–55 Townsend, F. H., 150, 152; A Zeppelin Picnic, 152. See also cartoons; gas masks; louse; Punch toxins. See gas Treasury, 39, 111, 112, 121 treaties. See international law treatment. See medicine Treaty of Versailles, 9, 169, 181–82, 185–86, 189, 194, 242n108; Articles 171 and 172 of, 182, 185, 186, 191, 245n130 trench warfare, 8, 20, 26, 28, 63; and trenches, 2, 5, 28, 34, 56, 58, 59–60, 74, 96. See also dugouts Trench Warfare Department, 35, 38, 86; and Trench Warfare Supply Department (ILH9), 105, 114, 119, 120. See also Ministry of Munitions Trench Warfare Supply Department (ILH9). See Trench Warfare Department Turcos, 138

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Turkish War News, 42 Turks, 41, 42, 43, 45 Turner, Frank, 80 U-boat. See submarines Union of Democratic Control, 5, 159, 160, 193, 237n14, 242n11 United States, 9, 25; and anthrax, 7; and atomic bomb, 198; gas use by, 183, 197; and Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, 192; industrial capability of, 103; neutrality of, 27, 28, 29; representative of, 49; being threatened, 195; weapons of mass destruction policy of, 194 University College, London, 83. See also Cushny, A. R.; Donnan, F. G. unrestricted submarine warfare. See submarines utility company, gas, 112 ventilation, 121 ventilators, 74. See also gas defense methods Verdun, 40 Versailles, Treaty of. See Treaty of Versailles Victorian period, 26, 80, 94, 98, 223n5 Vietnam, 197 Villiers, Frederic, 144, 145 vincennite (V.N.) See jellite viper, 2, 133, 134 visual images, 2–4, 126–56, 178–81. See also cartoons; comic; illustrations; photography V.N. See jellite volunteer, mask makers, 29. See also gas masks war, 161; and Afghanistan, 197; civil, 202n112; colonial, 187; escalation of, 13, 26, 29–30, 37–40, 40–45, 48, 50; future, 9, 12, 16, 57, 159–78, 189, 192; Iran-Iraq, 195; Korean, 197; Spanish Civil, 189; World War I, 196; World War II, 197; Vietnam, 197 War by Noxious Gas (Clarke, Hyde, and Topic), 148. See also gas masks; Illustrated London News; photography war cabinet. See War Committee War Committee, 40, 41, 44, 85, 109. See also cabinet, British

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| Index War Committee Notes, 41 “’Ware Gas!” (unknown artist), 148–49. See also alarms; illustration; War Illustrated Weekly War Illustrated Weekly, 126, 140, 144–46, 148–49, 153–54 Warning to Householders (unknown artist), 151 War Ofﬁce, 33, 24, 37, 43, 44, 64, 82, 110, 143; and Intelligence Department, 132 War Pictures Weekly and London Illustrated Weekly, 141, 142–43 Washington Naval Conference, 9, 159, 167, 184, 186–87, 192; and gas protocol, 191, 203n26; and ratiﬁcation, 186 Watson, Janet, 202n8, 241n100, 249n46. See also memory weapons of mass destruction, 7, 137, 166, 194, 198, 247n20; American policy on, 247n21; deﬁnition of, 247n20; and poor man’s atomic bomb, 195. See also biological weapon; biological chemical weapons (78L); gas; nuclear weapons Wearing the Respirators which Saved Them (unknown photographer), 148 weather, 121 See gas; wind Welfare and Health Department, 16, 118. See also Ministry of Munitions; Shufﬂebotham, Dr. Frank Well, Madam (Baumer), 151, 152. See also cartoons; fashion; gas masks; Punch Wells, H. G., 159, 162, 164, 175–78, 191; The Shape of Things to Come, 172, 175–78. See also gas ﬁction Wembley Commons, 84 Western Front, 5, 7, 15, 24, 27, 30, 34, 51–56, 63, 64, 127, 130, 133, 138, 156, 178–79, 196 W. F. B., 134–35; Double-Dyed, 233n37; The Festive Bored, 233n36 What War has Become! (Forestier), 155, 202n12. See also civilization; Forestier, A.; Illustrated London News; illustration When British Appeared to a German “Not Like Soldiers, but Like Devils”! (Beggs and unknown), 235n64. See also dehumanizing; devils; gas deployment, grenade; gas masks;

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Index | Illustrated War News; illustrations; “Not like Soldiers, but like Devils” (Beggs and unknown); Spanish Inquisition white feathers, 79 William Cooper & Nephews, 87 Wilson, Sir Henry, 157, 164, 182, 183 Wilson, Woodrow, 27 wind, 18, 32, 41, 57, 58, 60, 61, 71, 141, 211n66. See also gas; weather “The Wind that Bloweth from the East” (unknown artist), 140 women, 4, 24, 27, 31, 79, 89, 117, 130, 143, 151, 175 Workman’s Compensation Act of 1906, 120; schedule of, 121 World Disarmament Conference, 172, 181, 188, 244n128. See also disarmament

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World War II, 6, 9, 12, 19, 160, 161, 192, 193, 194, 195, 197; bombing during, 189; and gas beneﬁts, 199; gas use during, 194; and Holocaust, 7, 203n28; and Nazis, 7, 203n28 wounded. See gas effects

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Young, Dr. C., 83 Ypres, 1, 24, 32, 33, 42, 108, 139 “Z” Company, 60. See also Special Brigade zeppelin, 84, 85, 86, 150, 153, 161, 235n84. See also gas deployment A Zeppelin Picnic (Townsend), 152. See also cartoons; picnic; Punch; zeppelin Zimmermann telegram, 27 Zouaves, 30, 138, 139 Zyklon 7, 203n28. See also gas

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Studies in War, Society, and the Military Military Migration and State Formation The British Military Community in Seventeenth-Century Sweden Mary Elizabeth Ailes The State at War in South Asia Pradeep P. Barua An American Soldier in World War I George Browne Edited by David L. Snead Imagining the Unimaginable World War, Modern Art, and the Politics of Public Culture in Russia, 1914–1917 Aaron J. Cohen The Rise of the National Guard The Evolution of the American Militia, 1865–1920 Jerry Cooper The Thirty Years’ War and German Memory in the Nineteenth Century Kevin Cramer Political Indoctrination in the U.S. Army from World War II to the Vietnam War Christopher S. DeRosa In the Service of the Emperor Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army Edward J. Drea You Can’t Fight Tanks with Bayonets Psychological Warfare against the Japanese Army in the Southwest Paciﬁc Allison B. Gilmore A Strange and Formidable Weapon British Responses to World War I Poison Gas Marion Girard

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Civilians in the Path of War Edited by Mark Grimsley and Clifford J. Rogers I Die with My Country Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864–1870 Edited by Hendrik Kraay and Thomas L. Whigham North American Indians in the Great World War Susan Applegate Krouse Photographs and original documentation by Joseph K. Dixon Citizens More than Soldiers The Kentucky Militia and Society in the Early Republic Harry S. Laver Soldiers as Citizens Former German Ofﬁcers in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1955 Jay Lockenour Army and Empire British Soldiers on the American Frontier, 1758–1775 Michael N. McConnell The Militarization of Culture in the Dominican Republic, from the Captains General to General Trujillo Valentina Peguero Arabs at War Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 Kenneth M. Pollack The Politics of Air Power From Confrontation to Cooperation in Army Aviation Civil-Military Relations Rondall R. Rice

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Andean Tragedy Fighting the War of the Paciﬁc, 1879–1884 William F. Sater

The Paraguayan War Volume 1: Causes and Early Conduct Thomas L. Whigham

The Grand Illusion The Prussianization of the Chilean Army William F. Sater and Holger H. Herwig

The Challenge of Change Military Institutions and New Realities, 1918–1941 Edited by Harold R. Winton and David R. Mets

Sex Crimes under the Wehrmacht David Raub Snyder

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