The German decision to use gas warfare must have been made some time before April 1915. I`ve never read anything of the discussions that took place about the propriety of its employment or who was/were the driving force behind it or who opposed it, if anyone. And did the Kaiser have the final say so? Anyone know?

Phil,

You might find this article of some interest.

Gloria

Gloria,
I had a wry smile at the section on earlier forms of gas warfare in the Great War, whereby Germany and France produced irritant and teargas shells, and the British a "Stink Bomb". I bet it smelt like modern day ones as well......


"As the war ended, even more dreadful toxic gases were in production of which the American invention Lewisite – a greatly more active form of mustard gas – was under large scale production in America and advance shipments were already at sea in transit to Europe. In their laboratories, the British had developed an arsenical smoke that could penetrate any known design of gas mask. Whilst the Germans had produced a Livens-type projector – the GasWerfer 1918 – that could hurl pumice stone granules impregnated with phosgene over vast areas of the countryside; truly producing ‘a desert of toxic gas’. Fortunately, the end of the war pre-empted these horrors."

This is a chilling thought, really granules of pumice impregnated with phosgene

Now here are some other forms of "chemical" warfare

Gloria

Indeed. As things were, many unexploded gas shells are still being found today. Had that variation been massively used the old battlefields would be like a mix of Sahara & Tchernobil.

Aaah... Nice weapon, isn't it?

Gloria

LF Haber, in his book The Poisonous Cloud (1986) notes that the most plausible version, (there were several) is that in early August 1914, Falkenhayn called a meeting at Wahn, near Cologne to discuss methods of generating smoke or fire and materials that had lachrymatory and other irritating effects which would drive the enemy out ito the open. Amongst those attending were Colonel Bauer of the OHL and two others, Nernst, an eminent physical chemist, and Duisberg,a leading figure in the German chemical industry. However, Haber also notes that there is evidence that the German Army had already conducted experiments with an unspecified gas, prior to August 1914. I can find no evidence in any of my research material that the Kaiser had anything to do with the decision.

Interestingly enough, Britain had also considered the use of lachrimatory agents prior to the war, possibly as early as 1913, and had investigated the use of this type of agent in shell.

Terry Reeves

Hello,

3 main reasons the Germans introduced gas in 1915 :

- the Germans had a shortage of high explosive shells, because they had thought that they would have won the war end 1914, and they had underestimated the expenditure of H.E. ammunition,

- there had been a partial failure of bombardments with high explosive and shrapnel as preparation for an infantry attack

- the Germans would gain an advantage by the surprise of lethal gas, used contrary to the Hague convention.

Regards,

Cnock

I see that Haber, father of asphyxiating gas warfare, received the Nobel Prize later (for unrelated work). Depends how you look at it, of course, but one might think that, particularly in the post WW1 years, his gas work might have made him unsuitable for such an award. If your scientific work has, by design, brought suffering to millions then that should, I believe, disqualify you from further scientific plaudits. Would I feel different if I had been a WW1 German? Who knows!
If the Germans had seen great surprise potential in gas (as there undoubtedly was) it is odd that they didn`t follow up with a major attack to exploit it - otherwise any surprise would be wasted.
Is it possible that the army could introduce gas attacks on a large scale without the Kaiser knowing in advance and giving approval? Doesn`t seem like the kind of thing his generals could bring to his notice after the first use? Phil B

Phil,

maybe not so unbecoming... didn't Nobel, after all, make a fortune from making explosives?

Gloria

That had crossed my mind,Gloria. But I assume Nobel didn`t invent dynamite with the sole intention of harming people, as Haber did with asphyxiating gas. And anyway, two wrongs don`t make a right! Phil B

Haber received is Nobel prize for his pre-war work on the synthesis of ammonia. Many allied scientists objected to his award, however it shouldn't be forgotten that the same people were quite happy play a full part in developing chemical weapons for use by their respective countries. Nor did the allied governments baulk at the idea once the gas came out of the cylinders so to speak. Playing the blame game in this case doesn't actually add to anything. Crude forms of chemical, and indeed, biological warfare, had been used for many centuries before the outbreak of WW1. The use of gas was just a logical extension of warfare brought on by industrialisation as recognised by the Hague I and II Conventions which sought to mitigate this type of warfare. All Haber did was to do his country's bidding, nor more or less than scientists from any other of the combatant nations.

Terry Reeves

Fair comment, Terry. And as I said - would I feel different if I had been German? It still leaves the question of the Nobel Prize though. Can you admire a man`s purely scientific work in one direction and ignore his work, directed towards human suffering, in others? Could the man who pioneered Zyklon B have deserved a glittering prize for some other work? Phil B

Mistrust and fear of the unknown is a possible reason. The history of warfare is littered with similar examples of the lack of exploitation of the effects of a new weapon. Sometimes they are simply more successful initially than expected, being as much a surprise to the user as the victim.

Dave.

Surely they (especially the second example) are more a case of Biological warfare rather than chemical?

Funnily enough, the second example is actually one of the earliest forms of Bio-war (though, obviously not in this case!) and has been used upto the present day in certain scenarios.

Dave.

Dave,

In fact, I linked it more for the first image (a gasthly attack of "foots-gene". Sadly, a weapon still in use today: I have suffered foots-gene attacks on night travels by coach when the tipically uneducated fellow takes out his sneakers and exposes his fellow travellers to it). The second image strikes me as a more agricultural aspect of war. In fact, Chinese peasants have been known for using this organic and home-made rich fertilizer.

Gloria

Hi Phil,
See if you can track down a copy of Gas! The Battle For Ypres 1915
Authors: J McWilliams & R.J. Steel
Vanwell Publishing Ltd. St. Catharines Ontario
ISBN:0-920277-01-2

It covers the development and decision to use poison gas and gives a great account of the rather confused battle it produced.
Take care,
Neil

Phil

Perhaps I can refer you back to your arguement about Alfred Nobel; and Habers prize was for Chemistry , not for peace. Using that logic, Rutherford should not have received his Chemistry laureat for splitting the atom.

Terry Reeves

Hi All
As the gases were 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. This discussion of the British Cabinet was five days after the first use of chlorine on the 23 April 1915.

The Abmiraly had been for some time past experimenting with a view to the production of smoke in large quantites for a screen

Letters from Asquith to the Sovereign, reporting Cabinet meeting of the 28 April 1915. In TNA File CAB 37/127

You`ve lost me there, Terry. What work, designed specifically to harm as many men as possible, was Rutherford guilty of? Or are you suggesting that the atom splitters had principally killing humans in mind all along? Now, if you`d said "Oppenheimer", I might have a problem! Phil B

PS My anti-gas attitude was re-kindled by a recent thread about a man who was gassed in 1918 and died of its effects in 1920. It`s hard to imagine what his suffering may have been.

Crude forms of chemical, and indeed, biological warfare, had been used for many centuries before the outbreak of WW1.

Didn't they fire dead animals and plague ridden corpses into besieged towns in medieval times ?
A sort of downmarket version of modern chemical warfare

William Moore's book, "Gas Attack" (Leo Cooper London, 1987) has an extensive description of the decision process. He presents no evidence that the Kaiser was involved in the decision, though the General Staff under Falkenhayn certainly was. Doc2

Gassing does seem to be a particularly unpleasant way to die. However, this thread has made me wonder - is there any real difference between the invention and introduction of asphyxiating gas and of, say, shrapnel, the machine gun or the atom bomb? Phil B

Phil ... a philisophical question of course. But, think gas or weird weapons DO terrorize. Death is, of course, still death ... and one moment afterwards and it's all the same. But, I think we soldiers were all prepared to be shot ... but not burned or gassed. I know I chose Tanks because, like my father chosing airplanes in WWII, you're either alive or dead ... none of this messy stuff in the middle.

I am sure that Urgg, may his name be reviled forever, who invented the spear thrower - which provided decisive range to the thrown weapon - among the Umqowi people of XXXX, had the same issues attached to his invention.

As I explain to my History class ... Losing at History is not like losing at Football. You don't shake hands and agree to fight it out again next season ...

So one may differentiate between good and bad ways of killing? I can see the argument but the sequitur is that there are good and bad weapons inventors? Maxim good, Haber bad? And some in the middle - Oppenheimer? Phil B

I have been searching for days for a reference but cannot find it. Here goes extremely fallible memory. Haber and his supporters thought of gas as a humane weapon. None of this HE and shrapnel with its terrible wounds and bodies literally torn apart. Soldiers attacked by gas would be defenseless and merely throw down their arms, bringing the war to a speedy end with the good side triumphant. If I may be allowed to parody, Humanity is in the eye of the wielder.

Watched an interesting television program last night on Book TV. Author Daniel Charles has a biography out on Fritz Haber, entitled "Master Mind". Interestingly, Haber DID have a hand in the invention of Zyklon--as an insecticide. Haber himself did not invent the stuff, but his research team working for him did. Towards the end of the war in '17-18, Germany was looking for any way to maximise food production--the blockade having its effect, etc. One of the ways to increase food production was to stop loss from insects, particularly in stored grain---hence the invention of Zyklon for fumigation.

If I remember, the book is published by Harper Collins (didn't write that down--I was busy scribbling the author's name and the title)

Interesting that Haber et al should consider gas a humane weapon. One wonders if this is an attempt to appear a good guy though. His experiments (A lot of animals must have died unpleasant deaths) must have demonstrated that gassing with chlorine, phosgene etc is not a humane weapon?

Yes, Zyklon B was invented as an insecticide. I mentioned "the man who pioneered it" meaning for concentration camp exterminations. Sorry it wasn`t clear! Phil B

Haber in fact referred to gas as "A higher form of killing". That should be seen in the context of the post above though, a recognition that there is little difference between any weapon of war in terms of suffering, just the manner in which it is applied. Singling out individuals in this situation does not take us in anyway further forward. It's a bit like saying Hitler was soley responsible for WW2, when clearly that was not the case.

Terry Reeves

I think it`s fair in this case ,Terry, as Haber seems to have been the chief driver of the gas weapon system and this thread is about that! Phil B

Haber wasn't the chief driver Phil, that was the OHL, influenced by a cartel formed from the major players in the German chemical industry, who effectively operated a cartel. Haber was the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and as such his expertise was uitilised by the the German authorities, as was the scientific community in the UK in this respect.

Terry Reeves

I`ll bow to your greater knowledege, Terry! I got the impression that he was a prime driver from this article.

From www.westernfront.co.uk;-

With Duisberg and the IG Cartel supporting him, Haber had almost unlimited financial and technical support. Also, Duisberg had actively canvassed the development of poison gas as a weapon of war from the outset of hostilities. Indeed, Druisberg had formally urged the use of chemical warfare on the battlefield at an early wartime meeting of the German High Command. He had also begun, on his own initiative and at his own expense, to investigate the potential of known toxic gases as weapons of war on the Western Front.

Haber strongly agreed with Duisberg’s philosophy, and the two forged an on-going collaboration. In the Autumn of 1914, the Wilhelm Institute began the search to find the perfect toxic gas for use in land warfare. Haber and his team worked late into the night testing chemical after chemical. Such was the pressure to succeed that one rushed experiment ended in disaster when Haber’s closest collaborator died in a laboratory explosion.

All the effort eventually bore fruit, and in January 1915 Haber had a chemical agent to offer to the German High Command.

Guys;

An interesting character in the issue of gas, although not a pioneer, was General Amos Fries of the American Army. He was the AEF's counterpart to Foulkes of the Special Brigade. My interest in him flows from the busy work of the two during and especially after the war in distorting and suppressing the history of the flame thrower, especially the successful German flame effort. IMHO, while Foulkes was basically a character, Fries was a positive snake. I have gotten my hands (temporarily, in a rare book room in a library) on some of his private correspondence. One item was the carbon of a memo of about seven pages he wrote to Pershing in the 1920's on the effects of gas. He wrote that in the entire history of WW I, spanning all the combatants, there was not a single case of a victim of gas warfare that suffered long-term harm. Not one!

Fries was literally in the pocket of the US chemical industry and could afford to lie right in the face of Pershing, then Chief of Staff, who certainly knew better about the lingering harm of many gas weapons. When he wanted a second star he simply went to his chemical friends and their friends in Congress and had a law written promoting him to major general, which the president promptly signed. As chief of the chemical section (from memory), in the 1920's, at the behest of the chemical lobby, he was pressing for the resumption of US production of poison gasses, which he was urging should be used to "maintain order in prisons and jails" and exterminate insects. He also was pressing for the US to prepare to defend the US from foreign naval attack by stockpiling enough gas to successfully knock out an approaching enemy fleet. How much gas would that take, on the high seas?

He also wrote a book that supposedly (I have not read it) held that any political activity of any sort on the part of women was Communistic. Basically your cockroach type of guy.

Bob Lembke

I agree that it would be ridiculous to point the finger at Haber alone. He was a part of a war effort and not the leader of it. That said, he was a fairly sophisticated political animal and I think we would do him an injustice to regard him as a simple scientist duped by the warlords of the day. He did press for the use of gas as an alternate weapon.

Hi Phil,

German, British and French scientists working on munitions were awarded Nobel Prizes. Germany was the most scientifically advanced nation in the world in 1914-18 (soon to be replaced by the USA) so one would expect her scientists to be awarded most prizes. Throughout the war thr German swere the leaders in offensive gas tactics while we were ahead on defensive.

Bayne

Thanks for your post:

Hello, I know these comments were made long time ago. The use of poison gas in my opinion was a huge infraction on the literal terms in the existing 1907 convention (just 8 years before thus).
See excerpt attached, article 23:

The article does specifically say "poison gas". Chlorine would fall under that definition in my opinion. In my view irritant gases (smoke screens, zneezing powder etc) are not "poison gases" in today's definition and I don't think they would be under those definitions.

The logical conclusion is:
The Germans and Fritz Haber were willingly commiting war crimes under 1915 laws. In the short term they had some minor successes, in the long term this did massive damage to their stature worldwide. Apart from the legal infringement there was also a huge moral outrage especially as the Germans chose Belgium which was "the neutral country" they invaded.


"CHAPTER I
Means of Injuring the Enemy,
Sieges, and bombardments
Art. 22.
The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.

Art. 23.
In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden -

^{To employ poison or poisoned weapons;}

To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;

To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;

To declare that no quarter will be given;

To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;

To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention;

To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;

To declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party. A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war.