When we think of gas in the Great War, the Western Front comes to mind. To a degree, this is understandable. But what about the extent of its use on other fronts ?
Italian gas casualties were severe, especially in regard to a higher rate of fatalities among those who were gassed : while the USA reported 70,000 plus cases with fewer than 1,500 deaths, the Italians are supposed to have suffered 60,000, of whom more than 4,600 died - the discrepancy in the fatality rate is striking. Most astonishing of all is the alleged Russain figure of nearly 420,000 cases of whom 56,000 are supposed to have died !
The Russians are said to have been the first to have faced gas attack, a couple of months before chlorine was unleashed at Ypres. Apparently, the Germans were disappointed at the result of this attack, and concluded that the weather had been too cold to allow the poison to do its work.
By and large, the great preponderance of gas casualties occurred in the last year of fighting : more than half of all British gas cases were reported in 1918, and the US figure speaks for itself. In view of this, the Russian figure seems preposterously high, since the war on the Eastern Front had diminished drastically by the summer of 1917 - although, I suspect, the Germans made intensive use of gas at Riga in September.
Was gas used in the Balkan fronts ? Is there information about the Bulgarian, Serbian and Romanian experience ? Significant Austro-Hungarian gas casualties were reported.
It's strange how little we hear about the use of gas on fronts other than the Western, and, to a lesser degree, the Italian. And what of the Turks ?
Phil
Full Version: Prevalence of gas warfare
Phil, there is a whole thread on gas warfare (or the dearth thereof) in the Middle East. It is in the forum on other fronts. There was some feedback on this from Dr Yigal Sheffy here.
Robert
Robert
Phil
I am not trying to divert attention away from the original question, but my experience of the gas casualty statistics question is that this particular branch of the subject is unreliable. There are are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, in the early days of chemical warfare casualty figures may have been mis-recorded because of the lack of knowledge of the actual effect of mass gas attacks, and that it suited both sides to exaggerate figures for home consumption. Secondly, books published, quite quickly in the aftermath of the war, tended to support this in attempt to justify the use of chemical weapons. Also, the long term effects of this type of warfare were not known, and there is a paucity of official information which may formally attribute death directly or indirectly to the effects of gas in later life.
There are some areas that explain the variations in statistics, like the introduction of improved protection or new weapons. Mustard gas for instance, was a mass casualty producer in the last 12 months of the war, but not necessarily a mass fatality producer.
TR
I am not trying to divert attention away from the original question, but my experience of the gas casualty statistics question is that this particular branch of the subject is unreliable. There are are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, in the early days of chemical warfare casualty figures may have been mis-recorded because of the lack of knowledge of the actual effect of mass gas attacks, and that it suited both sides to exaggerate figures for home consumption. Secondly, books published, quite quickly in the aftermath of the war, tended to support this in attempt to justify the use of chemical weapons. Also, the long term effects of this type of warfare were not known, and there is a paucity of official information which may formally attribute death directly or indirectly to the effects of gas in later life.
There are some areas that explain the variations in statistics, like the introduction of improved protection or new weapons. Mustard gas for instance, was a mass casualty producer in the last 12 months of the war, but not necessarily a mass fatality producer.
TR
QUOTE (Terry_Reeves @ Oct 16 2009, 06:20 PM) 
There are some areas that explain the variations in statistics, like the introduction of improved protection or new weapons. Mustard gas for instance, was a mass casualty producer in the last 12 months of the war, but not necessarily a mass fatality producer.
In the short term - the long term effects of mustard gas (along with trench fever) were contributory causes of my Grandfather's death in 1939. This would not show in the stats.
It's the extraordinary figure for the Russian gas casualties that troubles me. What do we have here...a valid record of outrageous suffering, in which one belligerent suffered more than all the rest combined; or a grossly exagerated estimate ? This goes beyond the specifics of gas warfare : it's almost a caricature of the way Russia's ordeal in the Great War is perceived by different commentators. A.J.P. Taylor, recounting the human cost of the war, opined that
" Russia probably lost more than all the rest put together." John keegan cites an estimate that places the total of Russian battlefield deaths to have been " about the same as the French". No one should expect accuracy when it comes to the reckoning of the millions of lives lost in the conflict, especially in the case of Russia, where statistical imprecision was compounded by the ravages of defeat, revolution and civil war ; but we might expect some agreement on the general order of magnitude. Relatively little is mentioned about gas in accounts of the Great War on the Russian Front: if the figure cited is remotely plausible, then the experience of Russian soldiers 1914-1917 was uniquely terrible.
Phil
" Russia probably lost more than all the rest put together." John keegan cites an estimate that places the total of Russian battlefield deaths to have been " about the same as the French". No one should expect accuracy when it comes to the reckoning of the millions of lives lost in the conflict, especially in the case of Russia, where statistical imprecision was compounded by the ravages of defeat, revolution and civil war ; but we might expect some agreement on the general order of magnitude. Relatively little is mentioned about gas in accounts of the Great War on the Russian Front: if the figure cited is remotely plausible, then the experience of Russian soldiers 1914-1917 was uniquely terrible.
Phil
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