World War I gave birth to some of the most disturbing weapons ever used in warfare. But have you ever wondered just how horrific the effects of chemical weapons were on a human body, how they worked, and how many different types there were? Fair warning: once you read this, you can't unread it.
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| WW1 Soldiers with Gas Masks |
How It Started
Chemical weapons had been used throughout history in isolated cases, poisons in sieges, toxic smoke against stubborn defensive positions. But at the beginning of the 20th century, they were deemed impractical and viewed as a cowardly way to fight. Blasting your enemy with artillery and machine guns was considered honorable. Using poison was not.
When the war began in 1914, the expected short and decisive conflict turned into a stalemate. Armies ran into each other's quick-firing artillery and machine guns, and lines of trenches spread from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Nothing worked to break the deadlock. Tunnels, raiding parties, the first tanks, improvised body armor. Thousands of soldiers were dying each day and the front line barely moved.
So slowly, the idea of using chemicals began sounding more attractive. But projectiles designed to diffuse toxic gas were strictly forbidden by the 1899 Hague Declaration. The 1907 Hague Convention also banned poison weapons. The Germans found a loophole. The conventions only banned gas delivered by projectiles like artillery shells. Nobody said anything about releasing gas from cylinders and letting the wind carry it to the enemy.
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| Windswept Gas Spreading across a Battlefield in Europe |
Operation Disinfection
Throughout early 1915, German pioneers moved over 5,000 gas cylinders into secret forward positions in Flanders. On April 22nd, they opened the valves, releasing about 160 tons of chlorine gas along a four-mile section of the front.
French Captain Gor Lamour phoned his headquarters and screamed that all his trenches were choked and he was falling himself before the transmission ended. Gas masks didn't exist yet. Panic swept through the line. Within 10 minutes, French frontline units ceased to exist as a fighting force. Over 1,000 French and Algerian troops were killed, more than 4,000 seriously injured, and a four-mile defensive sector collapsed.
German infantry followed behind the cloud with improvised gauze pads soaked in bicarbonate solution. They were shocked themselves by what the weapon had created, stepping over piles of dead soldiers. But German command hadn't anticipated such effectiveness and didn't prepare to fully exploit it. Some attacking forces pressed too far and got gassed themselves.
The Allies rushed the first Canadian division to plug the gap. These units also had no gas masks and improvised with urine-soaked cloths held over the nose and mouth to neutralize chlorine. Heavy fighting raged for days as Germany launched three more gas attacks. The Allies held, but now the war had changed.
When the Allies Answered
The world condemned Germany, but it was too late for going back. Under the excuse that the Germans started it, the British formed a special gas warfare unit. Their first attack at the Battle of Loos in September 1915 turned catastrophic. In some sectors, the wind blew chlorine back onto British lines. Many cylinders couldn't be opened because someone issued wrong valve keys. German shelling burst other cylinders among British troops. The attack killed more British than German soldiers.
By late 1915, all major armies were deploying gas. France introduced phosgene, mixed with chlorine to create a far more lethal combination. Germany followed, and the real breakthrough came when they managed to put modified phosgene into artillery shells, finally solving the delivery problem.
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| German Soldiers with Gas Shells |
The Three Killers
Chlorine was the first. When inhaled, it reacts with moisture in the lungs and forms hydrochloric acid, literally burning the tissue from the inside. The lungs respond by filling with fluid. The cause of death is drowning from within.
Phosgene was the deadliest, responsible for an estimated 80% of all gas deaths in the war. It's colorless with a mild smell described as musty hay. Soldiers would inhale enough to be fatal before feeling any effects. Over the next hours they'd seem fine, walking back from the front line, but doctors knew they were dead men walking. By the next day, their lungs had failed. There was no antidote. Gas masks provided less protection against its smaller molecules, and it was fired among standard shells to mask its presence.
Mustard gas, introduced by Germany in 1917 and codenamed Yellow Cross, worked completely differently. Instead of attacking lungs, it was a blistering agent dispersed as a fine mist. Its effects were delayed by hours. Then came redness, itching, and severe deep blisters, worst in warm moist areas of the body. Eyes would swell shut with temporary blindness. Inhalation burned the lungs too. Mustard wasn't as deadly as phosgene, but it incapacitated far more soldiers and overwhelmed field hospitals. In just three weeks after its introduction, Allied gas casualties equaled the entire previous year's total. It could linger for days or weeks, clinging to uniforms and contaminating ground.
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| Different Gasses used in WW1 |
Medical staff described gas casualties as the worst and most heartbreaking they treated. There wasn't much they could do. Soldiers begged doctors to end it for them.
The Attack of the Dead Men
The Eastern Front also saw chemical warfare. At Osowiec Fortress, Germans deployed chlorine against Russian defenders they couldn't capture by conventional means. Russians, lacking proper gas masks, suffered horribly. But surviving half-poisoned soldiers wrapped in bandages and coughing blood exited the fortress and counterattacked. The sight of these men terrified German soldiers so badly they broke and retreated with heavy casualties. It became known as the Attack of the Dead Men.
After the War
By 1918, about 10% of all shells contained chemical agents. Throughout the war, approximately 124,000 tons of chemical agents were deployed, causing roughly 1.3 million casualties and an estimated 90,000 deaths. The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned the use of such weapons, but not development, production, or stockpiling.
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| Soldiers loading Gas Shells into Artillery |
An even darker chapter followed. Nerve agents like tabun, sarin, and soman were developed around World War II, far deadlier than anything from the First World War. They attack the nervous system directly instead of the lungs. Germany produced large quantities of tabun but Hitler never authorized their use, most likely fearing Allied retaliation. He reportedly was himself a WWI mustard gas victim.
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention finally banned not just use but development, production, and stockpiling. But knowing how history tends to repeat itself, that's not necessarily the last we'll see of them.
160 tons of chlorine released along four miles of trenches. Soldiers drowning from the inside as their own lungs filled with acid. Men who seemed fine walking back from the front line, dead by morning. And a weapon that burned skin, blinded eyes, and lingered for weeks. 1.3 million casualties from something that started as a loophole in a peace treaty.
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