Review of Michael Freemantle, Gas! Gas! Quick, Boys! How Chemistry Changed the First World War (original) (raw)
Related papers
Chemical Weaponry and Warfare in The Great War
Chemical Weaponry and Warfare in The Great War. ππ³πͺπ¨πͺπ―π’πππΊ π±π°π΄π΅π¦π₯ π°π― π΅π©π¦ ππ―π΄π΅πͺπ΅πΆπ΅π¦ π°π§ ππ―π΅π¦π³π―π’π΅πͺπ°π―π’π ππ¦ππ’π΅πͺπ°π―π΄, 2019
World War I has been called the Β«The Chemist's WarΒ»; not only for the extend of the use of the chemical weapons in the war, but also for the complicity of the scientific and engineering efforts to create and select the most appropriate chemical agents for military use, to improve the procedures of their production, and to discover the most lethal and effective techniques for their usage and deployment in warfare. The involvement of chemical weaponry was deemed necessary at the first stages of war, given the devastating effects that the trench warfare had induced on the troops, where battles lasted months and hundreds of thousands of casualties had to be suffered for a warring side to advance merely several kilometers. While the effect that the chemical weapons had for the termination of the trench warfare is debatable, they constituted the terror of the soldiers at the trenches 1 .
One hundred and one years after a milestone: Modern chemical weapons and World War I
While chemical weapons have been used since the beginning of armed struggles, either for their flammable or toxic properties, it was only during World War I when what is known as ''modern'' chemical warfare began. July 28 marks the one hundred and one anniversary of the beginning of what is also known as ''The Great War''. This conflict created enormous consequences for society at the time, marking a before and after in the history of mankind, as well as being the genesis of modern
Terror weapons: the British experience of gas in the First World War
Chemical weapons accounted for only 1 per cent of the 750,000 British troops killed in the First World War and yet caused disproportionate casualties (estimated at 180,100). The considerable investment in the development of new toxins and methods of delivery was designed to maintain the elements of surprise and uncertainty as these accentuated their psychological effect. Soldiers were continually challenged on the battlefield by combinations of different types of agent designed to undermine their confidence in respirators, disorientate them, and erode their morale. At first, army doctors practised defensive medicine, invaliding their patients for protracted periods to the UK or base hospitals. By 1917, progressive study of the physical and psychological effects of different types of toxin allowed physicians to design new management strategies. Borrowing ideas from shell shock, specialist units were set up closer to the front line and medical officers taught to identify crucial points in the course of illness to accelerate recovery times and forestall the accretion of psychosomatic symptoms.
The Origins of Chemical Warfare in the French Army
2013
Following the Germansβ first use of chlorine gas during the second battle of Ypres, the Entente had to develop means of protection from future poison gas attacks as well as systems for retaliation. This article, through the analysis of heretofore unexamined archival sources, considers early French attempts at engaging in chemical warfare. Contrary to the existing historiography, the French army aggressively adapted to, and engaged in, chemical warfare. Indeed, the French army would be the first to fire asphyxiating gas shells from field guns and, by June 1915, would pioneer the use of gas as a neutralization weapon to be used in counter-battery fire, as opposed to unleashing gas via canisters to engage enemy infantry. Such innovation invites a rethinking not only of French gas efforts but also of the role and evolution of the French army as a whole on the Western Front, a topic which the Anglophone world is in great need of examining further.
WAR OF NERVES: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda
Military review, 2007
the authors also address medical contributions, including Walter Reed's efforts to suppress typhoid and yellow fever, and scientific contributions, notably J. Robert Oppenheimer's work on the atomic bomb. For the most part the authors avoid controversy. In a statement of breathtaking simplicity, they note that a uranium bomb "destroyed Hiroshima, a plutonium bomb Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered" (p. 104). No mention is made of opposition to or criticism of the use of atomic bombs, whether by scientists before August 1945 or by postwar critics citing Cold War imperatives. Perhaps the authors believe enough ink has been spilled on this controversy, but some reference to the intense debate surrounding the Fiftieth Anniversary exhibit at the Smithsonian would have highlighted the ironies, tragedies, and emotions generated by modern weaponry and war. Sidebars that highlighted salient issues in the historiography of technology and the U.S. military would have enhanced the value of this book. Notably absent is any critical discussion of biological and chemical weaponry. Meanwhile, the select bibliography fails to list works by Lewis Mumford (perhaps the most incisive critic of the U.S. military's "megamachine") or relevant articles from the Journal of Military History, Technology and Culture, and similar scholarly journals. While a book that takes time to define terms like "bullet" and "bayonet" is obviously intended for the uninitiated, one might also expect guidance with respect to more advanced themes. Controversial themes and issues such as interservice rivalries, political and economic pressures, and President Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex are not developed fully. Curiously, although published in 2006, the timeline of this book ends in 1999 with air attacks in Kosovo. Similarly, the last chapter ends with a rushed account of the Gulf War of 1991 and the concept of a "Revolution in Military Affairs." One might imagine a different (and timelier), post 9-11 conclusion, perhaps stressing the difficulties of asymmetrical warfare and the unpredictable and often surprisingly labile nature of technology (e.g., "civilian" cell phones used as triggers for roadside bombs). The American military's enormous investment in high-tech weaponry in the 1980s and 1990s was geared primarily to conventional conflicts against like-minded opponents; the wisdom of this investment is now being tested in low-intensity conflicts and messy urban settings like Iraq. Here the authors could have built on their discussion of the Vietnam War, where they note that American technical virtuosity did not produce victory, forcing the military to reconsider its emphasis on superior technology as uniquely efficacious. Nevertheless, the strength of this volume is that it provides solid historical underpinnings for more advanced discussions about, and research into, these and similar subjects.
A NEW TYPE OF WARFARE: Chemical Filling Facilities in Istanbul, 1914-1918
Journal of International Committee for the History of Technology , 2023
In the total war era, states committed their scientific research to rapidly changing warfare conditions, making the management of war the primary goal of contemporary states. The weakness of primary weapons in neutralising the enemy (or enemies) was obvious from the beginning of the First World War. Constantly changing war strategies, integration of civilians into warfare, and the growing sense of impotence as the war proceeded longer than expected, prompted a return to the components of violence. Although research into the use of different chemicals, gases, and suffocating substances in weapons was not something new, its successful employment climaxed during the First World War. This study provides an analysis of the employment of chemical weapons during the First World War and revisits the scarce arguments on whether the Ottomans had taken part in producing chemical weapons. The primary focus here is the gasfilling facilities established in Istanbul under the supervision of German efforts for military purposes. Additionally, the unanticipated extraordinary effects of the use of chemical weapons, the strategies employed to cause attrition in trenches, and its effects on the Ottoman army are within the scope of this article.
One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences, 2017
In the course of the First World War, scientists who would in peacetime generate new knowledge assumed the role of experts, i.e., professionals who made extant knowledge accessible to non-scientist clients. The deepest conviction of Fritz Haber, the 1918 Chemistry Nobel laureate, was that problems faced by mankind could be solved by means of science and technology. Herein, Haber is interpreted as a personification of an early German expert culture. Acting as both mediator and organizer, Haber coaxed politicians, generals, industrial leaders, and scientists to join forces in developing new processes for the mass-production of war-relevant chemicals and in establishing large-scale industries for their manufacture. Among the chemicals produced were poison gases-the first weapons of mass extermination. Haber's leadership resulted in a conglomerate of enterprises similar to what we now call "big science". In close contact with "big industry", traditional science was transformed into a new type of applied research. With borderlines between the military and civilian use blurred, Fritz Haber's activities also represent an early example of what we now call "dual use". He initiated modern pest control by toxic substances, whereby he made use of a military product for civilian purposes, but went also the other way around: During the Weimar era, he used pest control as a disguise for illegal military research. Having emerged under the stress of war, scientific expertise would remain ambivalent-a permanent legacy of the First World War. The first major poison gas attack, at Ypres, on April 22, 1915 is irrevocably linked with Fritz Haber, the 1918 Nobel laureate in chemistry. The developments that connect the place, time, and person, are paradigmatic. They had their origins in the late nineteenth century and came to full fruition in the Great War. They shaped new trends that would leave a deep imprint on the twentieth century. Rather than M. SzΓΆllΓΆsi-Janze (&)
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 1998