100 Years of Chemical Weapons

MTorrice writes This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first large-scale use of chemical weapons during World War I. Sarah Everts at Chemical & Engineering News remembers the event with a detailed account of the day in 1915 when the German Army released chlorine gas on its enemies, igniting a chemical arms race. Read the diaries of soldiers involved in the first gas attack. By the end of WWI, scientists working for both warring parties had evaluated some 3,000 different chemicals for use as weapons. Even though poison gas didn't end up becoming an efficient killing weapon on WWI battlefields—it was responsible for less than 1% of WWI's fatalities--its adoption set a precedent for using chemicals to murder en masse. In the past century, poison gas has killed millions of civilians around the world: commuters on the Tokyo subway, anti-government demonstrators in Syria, and those incarcerated in Third Reich concentration camps. Everts profiles chemist Fritz Haber, the man who lobbied to unleash the gas that day in 1915.

Comments

Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it.

[ShanghaiBill]

If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.

When the Germans first gassed the French, the French were not in Germany. The Germans were in France.

Re:Pesticides for humans

[SEverts]

This is Sarah, the journalist who wrote the chem weapons package. One of the interesting things (in a macabre way) about Tabun (the first nerve agent that then spawned Soman and Sarin) is that it was originally discovered by a chemist trying to create a pesticide to improve food storage. After nearly killing himself and his lab mates, he decided it was probably too potent for the food industry...