On the night of July 12-13, 1917, the German army used the poisonous gas mustard gas (a liquid poisonous substance with a blister effect) for the first time during the First World War. The Germans used mines that contained an oily liquid as a carrier of the toxic substance. This event took place near the Belgian city of Ypres. The German command planned with this attack to disrupt the offensive of the Anglo-French troops. When mustard gas was first used, 2,490 military personnel suffered injuries of varying severity, of whom 87 died. UK scientists quickly deciphered the formula for this agent. However, the production of a new toxic substance was launched only in 1918. As a result, the Entente was able to use mustard gas for military purposes only in September 1918 (2 months before the armistice).
Mustard gas has a clearly defined local effect: the agent affects the organs of vision and breathing, the skin and the gastrointestinal tract. The substance, absorbed into the blood, poisons the entire body. Mustard gas affects human skin when exposed, both in droplet and vapor states. The usual summer and winter uniform did not protect the soldier from the effects of mustard gas, as did almost all types of civilian clothing.
Conventional summer and winter army uniforms do not protect the skin from drops and vapors of mustard gas, just like almost any type of civilian clothing. There was no complete protection of soldiers from mustard gas in those years, so its use on the battlefield was effective until the very end of the war. The First World War was even called the “war of chemists”, because neither before nor after this war were chemical agents used in such quantities as in 1915-1918. During this war, the fighting armies used 12 thousand tons of mustard gas, which affected up to 400 thousand people. In total, during the First World War, more than 150 thousand tons of toxic substances (irritant and tear gases, blister agents) were produced. The leader in the use of chemical agents was the German Empire, which had a first-class chemical industry. In total, Germany produced more than 69 thousand tons of toxic substances. Germany was followed by France (37.3 thousand tons), Great Britain (25.4 thousand tons), USA (5.7 thousand tons), Austria-Hungary (5.5 thousand), Italy (4.2 thousand . tons) and Russia (3.7 thousand tons).
"Attack of the Dead" The Russian army suffered the largest losses from exposure to chemical agents among all participants in the war. The German army was the first to use poison gas as a means of mass destruction on a large scale during the First World War against Russia. On August 6, 1915, the German command used explosive agents to destroy the garrison of the Osovets fortress. The Germans deployed 30 gas batteries, several thousand cylinders, and on August 6 at 4 am a dark green fog of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed onto the Russian fortifications, reaching the positions in 5-10 minutes. A gas wave 12-15 m high and up to 8 km wide penetrated to a depth of 20 km. The defenders of the Russian fortress had no means of defense. Every living thing was poisoned.
Following the gas wave and a barrage of fire (German artillery opened massive fire), 14 Landwehr battalions (about 7 thousand infantrymen) went on the offensive. After the gas attack and artillery strike, no more than a company of half-dead soldiers, poisoned by chemical agents, remained in the advanced Russian positions. It seemed that Osovets was already in German hands. However, Russian soldiers showed another miracle. When the German chains approached the trenches, they were attacked by Russian infantry. It was a real “attack of the dead,” the sight was terrible: Russian soldiers walked into the bayonet line with their faces wrapped in rags, shaking with a terrible cough, literally spitting out pieces of their lungs onto their bloody uniforms. It was only a few dozen soldiers - the remnants of the 13th company of the 226th Zemlyansky infantry regiment. The German infantry fell into such horror that they could not withstand the blow and ran. Russian batteries opened fire on the fleeing enemy, who, it seemed, had already died. It should be noted that the defense of the Osovets fortress is one of the brightest, heroic pages of the First World War. The fortress, despite brutal shelling from heavy guns and assaults by German infantry, held out from September 1914 to August 22, 1915.
The Russian Empire in the pre-war period was a leader in the field of various “peace initiatives”. Therefore, it did not have chemical weapons in its arsenals or means to counter such types of weapons, and did not conduct serious research in this direction. In 1915, it was necessary to urgently establish a Chemical Committee and urgently raise the issue of developing technologies and large-scale production of toxic substances. In February 1916, the production of hydrocyanic acid was organized at Tomsk University by local scientists. By the end of 1916, production was organized in the European part of the empire, and the problem was generally solved. By April 1917, the industry had produced hundreds of tons of toxic substances. However, they remained unclaimed in warehouses.
The first use of chemical weapons in the First World War
The 1st Hague Conference in 1899, which was convened at the initiative of Russia, adopted a declaration on the non-use of projectiles that spread asphyxiating or harmful gases. However, during the First World War, this document did not prevent the great powers from using chemical warfare agents, including on a massive scale.
In August 1914, the French were the first to use lachrymatory irritants (they did not cause death). The carriers were grenades filled with tear gas (ethyl bromoacetate). Soon its supplies ran out, and the French army began to use chloroacetone. In October 1914, German troops used artillery shells partially filled with a chemical irritant against British positions at Neuve Chapelle. However, the concentration of OM was so low that the result was barely noticeable.
On April 22, 1915, the German army used chemical agents against the French, spraying 168 tons of chlorine near the river. Ypres. The Entente powers immediately declared that Berlin had violated the principles of international law, but the German government parried this accusation. The Germans stated that the Hague Convention prohibits only the use of explosive shells, but not gases. After this, chlorine attacks began to be used regularly. In 1915, French chemists synthesized phosgene (a colorless gas). It has become a more effective agent, having greater toxicity than chlorine. Phosgene was used in pure form and in a mixture with chlorine to increase gas mobility.
The First World War was going on. On the evening of April 22, 1915, opposing German and French troops were near the Belgian city of Ypres. They fought for the city for a long time and to no avail. But that evening the Germans wanted to test a new weapon - poison gas. They brought thousands of cylinders with them, and when the wind blew towards the enemy, they opened the taps, releasing 180 tons of chlorine into the air. The yellowish gas cloud was carried by the wind towards the enemy line.
The panic began. Immersed in the gas cloud, the French soldiers were blind, coughing and suffocating. Three thousand of them died from suffocation, another seven thousand received burns.
"At this point science lost its innocence," says science historian Ernst Peter Fischer. According to him, if before the goal of scientific research was to improve the living conditions of people, now science has created conditions that make it easier to kill a person.
"In war - for the fatherland"
A way to use chlorine for military purposes was developed by the German chemist Fritz Haber. He is considered the first scientist to subordinate scientific knowledge to military needs. Fritz Haber discovered that chlorine is an extremely poisonous gas, which, due to its high density, concentrates low above the ground. He knew: this gas causes severe swelling of the mucous membranes, coughing, suffocation and ultimately leads to death. In addition, the poison was cheap: chlorine is found in waste from the chemical industry.
“Haber’s motto was “In peace for humanity, in war for the fatherland,” Ernst Peter Fischer quotes the then head of the chemical department of the Prussian War Ministry. “Times were different then. Everyone was trying to find a poison gas that they could use in war.” And only the Germans succeeded."
The attack at Ypres was a war crime - already in 1915. After all, the Hague Convention of 1907 prohibited the use of poison and poisoned weapons for military purposes.
Arms race
The "success" of Fritz Haber's military innovation became contagious, and not only for the Germans. Simultaneously with the war of states, the “war of chemists” began. Scientists were given the task of creating chemical weapons that would be ready for use as soon as possible. “People abroad looked at Haber with envy,” says Ernst Peter Fischer. “Many wanted to have such a scientist in their country.” In 1918, Fritz Haber received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. True, not for the discovery of poisonous gas, but for his contribution to the implementation of ammonia synthesis.
The French and British also experimented with poisonous gases. The use of phosgene and mustard gas, often in combination with each other, became widespread in the war. And yet, poisonous gases did not play a decisive role in the outcome of the war: these weapons could only be used in favorable weather.
Scary mechanism
Nevertheless, a terrible mechanism was launched in the First World War, and Germany became its engine.
The chemist Fritz Haber not only laid the foundation for the use of chlorine for military purposes, but also, thanks to his good industrial connections, contributed to the mass production of this chemical weapon. Thus, the German chemical concern BASF produced toxic substances in large quantities during the First World War.
After the war, with the creation of the IG Farben concern in 1925, Haber joined its supervisory board. Later, during National Socialism, a subsidiary of IG Farben produced Zyklon B, which was used in the gas chambers of concentration camps.
Context
Fritz Haber himself could not have foreseen this. "He's a tragic figure," says Fisher. In 1933, Haber, a Jew by birth, emigrated to England, exiled from his country, to the service of which he had put his scientific knowledge.
Red line
In total, more than 90 thousand soldiers died from the use of poisonous gases on the fronts of the First World War. Many died from complications several years after the end of the war. In 1905, members of the League of Nations, which included Germany, pledged under the Geneva Protocol not to use chemical weapons. Meanwhile, scientific research on the use of poisonous gases continued, mainly under the guise of developing means to combat harmful insects.
"Cyclone B" - hydrocyanic acid - insecticidal agent. "Agent Orange" is a substance used to defoliate plants. Americans used defoliant during the Vietnam War to thin out dense vegetation. The consequence is poisoned soil, numerous diseases and genetic mutations in the population. The latest example of the use of chemical weapons is Syria.
“You can do whatever you want with poisonous gases, but they cannot be used as targeted weapons,” emphasizes science historian Fisher. “Everyone who is nearby becomes victims.” The fact that the use of poisonous gas today is “a red line that cannot be crossed,” he considers correct: “Otherwise the war becomes even more inhumane than it already is.”
Early on an April morning in 1915, a light breeze blew from the German positions opposing the Entente defense line twenty kilometers from the city of Ypres (Belgium). Together with him, a dense yellowish-green cloud that suddenly appeared began to move in the direction of the Allied trenches. At that moment, few people knew that this was the breath of death, and, in the terse language of front-line reports, the first use of chemical weapons on the Western Front.
Tears Before Death
To be absolutely precise, the use of chemical weapons began back in 1914, and the French came up with this disastrous initiative. But then ethyl bromoacetate was used, which belongs to the group of chemicals that are irritating and not lethal. It was filled with 26-mm grenades, which were used to fire at German trenches. When the supply of this gas came to an end, it was replaced with chloroacetone, which has a similar effect.
In response to this, the Germans, who also did not consider themselves obliged to comply with generally accepted legal norms enshrined in the Hague Convention, fired at the British with shells filled with a chemical irritant at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, which took place in October of the same year. However, then they failed to achieve its dangerous concentration.
Thus, April 1915 was not the first case of the use of chemical weapons, but, unlike previous ones, deadly chlorine gas was used to destroy enemy personnel. The result of the attack was stunning. One hundred and eighty tons of spray killed five thousand Allied soldiers and another ten thousand became disabled as a result of the resulting poisoning. By the way, the Germans themselves suffered. The cloud carrying death touched their positions with its edge, the defenders of which were not fully equipped with gas masks. In the history of the war, this episode was designated the “black day at Ypres.”
Further use of chemical weapons in World War I
Wanting to build on their success, a week later the Germans repeated a chemical attack in the Warsaw area, this time against the Russian army. And here death received a bountiful harvest - more than one thousand two hundred killed and several thousand left crippled. Naturally, the Entente countries tried to protest against such a gross violation of the principles of international law, but Berlin cynically stated that the Hague Convention of 1896 only mentioned poisonous shells, and not gases themselves. Admittedly, they didn’t even try to object - war always undoes the work of diplomats.
The specifics of that terrible war
As military historians have repeatedly emphasized, in the First World War the tactics of positional actions were widely used, in which continuous front lines were clearly defined, characterized by stability, density of concentration of troops and high engineering and technical support.
This greatly reduced the effectiveness of offensive actions, since both sides encountered resistance from the enemy’s powerful defense. The only way out of the impasse could be an unconventional tactical solution, which was the first use of chemical weapons.
New war crimes page
The use of chemical weapons in the First World War was a major innovation. The range of its impact on humans was very wide. As can be seen from the above episodes of the First World War, it ranged from harmful, which was caused by chloroacetone, ethyl bromoacetate and a number of others that had an irritating effect, to fatal - phosgene, chlorine and mustard gas.
Despite the fact that statistics show the relative limitation of the gas’s deadly potential (only 5% of deaths out of the total number of those affected), the number of dead and maimed was enormous. This gives us the right to claim that the first use of chemical weapons opened a new page of war crimes in the history of mankind.
In the later stages of the war, both sides were able to develop and introduce fairly effective means of defense against enemy chemical attacks. This made the use of toxic substances less effective, and gradually led to the abandonment of their use. However, it was the period from 1914 to 1918 that went down in history as the “war of the chemists,” since the first use of chemical weapons in the world occurred on its battlefields.
The tragedy of the defenders of the Osowiec fortress
However, let us return to the chronicle of military operations of that period. At the beginning of May 1915, the Germans carried out an attack against Russian units defending the Osowiec fortress, located fifty kilometers from Bialystok (present-day territory of Poland). According to eyewitnesses, after a long period of shelling with shells filled with deadly substances, among which several types were used at once, all living things at a considerable distance were poisoned.
Not only did people and animals caught in the shelling zone die, but all vegetation was destroyed. Before our eyes, the leaves of the trees turned yellow and fell off, and the grass turned black and lay on the ground. The picture was truly apocalyptic and did not fit into the consciousness of a normal person.
But, of course, the defenders of the citadel suffered the most. Even those who escaped death, for the most part, received severe chemical burns and were terribly disfigured. It is no coincidence that their appearance inspired such horror on the enemy that the Russian counterattack, which eventually drove the enemy away from the fortress, entered the history of the war under the name “attack of the dead.”
Development and beginning of use of phosgene
The first use of chemical weapons revealed a significant number of its technical shortcomings, which were eliminated in 1915 by a group of French chemists led by Victor Grignard. The result of their research was a new generation of deadly gas - phosgene.
Absolutely colorless, in contrast to the greenish-yellow chlorine, it betrayed its presence only by the barely perceptible smell of moldy hay, which made it difficult to detect. Compared to its predecessor, the new product was more toxic, but at the same time had certain disadvantages.
Symptoms of poisoning, and even the death of the victims themselves, did not occur immediately, but a day after the gas entered the respiratory tract. This allowed poisoned and often doomed soldiers to participate in hostilities for a long time. In addition, phosgene was very heavy, and to increase mobility it had to be mixed with the same chlorine. This hellish mixture was given the name “White Star” by the Allies, since the cylinders containing it were marked with this sign.
Devilish novelty
On the night of July 13, 1917, in the area of the Belgian city of Ypres, which had already gained notorious fame, the Germans made the first use of chemical weapons with blister effects. At the place of its debut, it became known as mustard gas. Its carriers were mines that sprayed a yellow oily liquid upon explosion.
The use of mustard gas, like the use of chemical weapons in general in the First World War, was another diabolical innovation. This “achievement of civilization” was created to damage the skin, as well as the respiratory and digestive organs. Neither a soldier's uniform nor any type of civilian clothing could protect him from its effects. It penetrated through any fabric.
In those years, no reliable means of protection against getting it on the body had yet been produced, which made the use of mustard gas quite effective until the end of the war. The very first use of this substance disabled two and a half thousand enemy soldiers and officers, of whom a significant number died.
Gas that does not spread along the ground
It was not by chance that German chemists started developing mustard gas. The first use of chemical weapons on the Western Front showed that the substances used - chlorine and phosgene - had a common and very significant drawback. They were heavier than air, and therefore, in a sprayed form, they fell down, filling trenches and all kinds of depressions. The people in them were poisoned, but those who were on higher ground at the time of the attack often remained unharmed.
It was necessary to invent a poisonous gas with a lower specific gravity and capable of hitting its victims at any level. This was the mustard gas that appeared in July 1917. It should be noted that British chemists quickly established its formula, and in 1918 they put the deadly weapon into production, but large-scale use was prevented by the truce that followed two months later. Europe breathed a sigh of relief - the First World War, which lasted four years, was over. The use of chemical weapons became irrelevant, and their development was temporarily stopped.
The beginning of the use of toxic substances by the Russian army
The first case of the use of chemical weapons by the Russian army dates back to 1915, when, under the leadership of Lieutenant General V.N. Ipatyev, a program for the production of this type of weapon in Russia was successfully implemented. However, its use at that time was in the nature of technical tests and did not pursue tactical goals. Only a year later, as a result of work on introducing developments created in this area into production, it became possible to use them on the fronts.
The full-scale use of military developments coming out of domestic laboratories began in the summer of 1916 during the famous It is this event that makes it possible to determine the year of the first use of chemical weapons by the Russian army. It is known that during the military operation, artillery shells filled with the asphyxiating gas chloropicrin and the poisonous gases vencinite and phosgene were used. As is clear from the report sent to the Main Artillery Directorate, the use of chemical weapons provided “a great service to the army.”
Grim statistics of war
The first use of the chemical set a disastrous precedent. In subsequent years, its use not only expanded, but also underwent qualitative changes. Summing up the sad statistics of the four war years, historians state that during this period the warring parties produced at least 180 thousand tons of chemical weapons, of which at least 125 thousand tons found their use. On the battlefields, 40 types of various toxic substances were tested, causing death and injury to 1,300,000 military personnel and civilians who found themselves in the zone of their use.
A lesson left unlearned
Did humanity learn a worthy lesson from the events of those years and did the date of the first use of chemical weapons become a dark day in its history? Hardly. And today, despite international legal acts prohibiting the use of toxic substances, the arsenals of most countries in the world are full of their modern developments, and more and more often reports appear in the press about its use in various parts of the world. Humanity is stubbornly moving along the path of self-destruction, ignoring the bitter experience of previous generations.
The first gas attack in World War I, in short, was carried out by the French. But the German military was the first to use toxic substances.
For various reasons, in particular the use of new types of weapons, the First World War, which was planned to end in a few months, quickly escalated into a trench conflict. Such hostilities could continue for as long as desired. In order to somehow change the situation and lure the enemy out of the trenches and break through the front, all kinds of chemical weapons began to be used.
It was the gases that became one of the reasons for the huge number of casualties in the First World War.
First experience
Already in August 1914, almost in the first days of the war, the French in one of the battles used grenades filled with ethyl bromoacetate (tear gas). They did not cause poisoning, but were capable of disorienting the enemy for some time. In fact, this was the first military gas attack.
After supplies of this gas were depleted, French troops began using chloroacetate.
The Germans, who very quickly adopted advanced experience and what could contribute to the implementation of their plans, adopted this method of fighting the enemy. In October of the same year, they tried to use shells with a chemical irritant against the British military near the village of Neuve Chapelle. But the low concentration of the substance in the shells did not give the expected effect.
From irritating to poisonous
April 22, 1915. This day, in short, went down in history as one of the darkest days of the First World War. It was then that German troops carried out the first massive gas attack using not an irritant, but a poisonous substance. Now their goal was not to disorient and immobilize the enemy, but to destroy him.
It happened on the banks of the Ypres River. 168 tons of chlorine were released by the German military into the air towards the location of the French troops. The poisonous greenish cloud, followed by German soldiers in special gauze bandages, terrified the French-English army. Many rushed to run, giving up their positions without a fight. Others, inhaling the poisoned air, fell dead. As a result, more than 15 thousand people were injured that day, 5 thousand of whom died, and a gap more than 3 km wide was formed in the front. True, the Germans were never able to take advantage of their advantage. Afraid to attack, having no reserves, they allowed the British and French to fill the gap again.
After this, the Germans repeatedly tried to repeat their such a successful first experience. However, none of the subsequent gas attacks brought such an effect and so many casualties, since now all troops were supplied with individual means of protection against gases.
In response to Germany's actions at Ypres, the entire world community immediately expressed its protest, but it was no longer possible to stop the use of gases.
On the Eastern Front, against the Russian army, the Germans also did not fail to use their new weapons. This happened on the Ravka River. As a result of the gas attack, about 8 thousand soldiers of the Russian imperial army were poisoned here, more than a quarter of them died from poisoning in the next 24 hours after the attack.
It is noteworthy that, having first sharply condemned Germany, after some time almost all Entente countries began to use chemical agents.
On April 24, 1915, on a front line near the city of Ypres, French and British soldiers noticed a strange yellow-green cloud that was rapidly moving towards them. It seemed that nothing foreshadowed trouble, but when this fog reached the first line of trenches, the people in it began to fall, cough, suffocate and die.
This day became the official date of the first massive use of chemical weapons. The German army, on a six-kilometer-wide front, released 168 tons of chlorine towards enemy trenches. The poison affected 15 thousand people, of which 5 thousand died almost instantly, and the survivors died later in hospitals or remained disabled for life. After using the gas, the German troops went on the attack and occupied enemy positions without losses, because there was no one left to defend them.
The first use of chemical weapons was considered successful, so it soon became a real nightmare for soldiers on the opposing sides. All countries participating in the conflict used chemical warfare agents: chemical weapons became a real “calling card” of the First World War. By the way, the city of Ypres was “lucky” in this regard: two years later, the Germans in the same area used dichlorodiethyl sulfide against the French, a blister chemical weapon called “mustard gas.”
This small town, like Hiroshima, has become a symbol of one of the worst crimes against humanity.
On May 31, 1915, chemical weapons were used against the Russian army for the first time - the Germans used phosgene. The gas cloud was mistaken for camouflage and even more soldiers were transferred to the front line. The consequences of the gas attack were terrible: 9 thousand people died a painful death, even the grass died due to the effects of the poison.
History of chemical weapons
The history of chemical warfare agents (CWA) goes back hundreds of years. Various chemical compounds were used to poison enemy soldiers or temporarily incapacitate them. Most often, such methods were used during the siege of fortresses, since using toxic substances during a war of maneuver is not very convenient.
For example, in the West (including Russia) they used artillery “stinking” cannonballs, which emitted suffocating and poisonous smoke, and the Persians used an ignited mixture of sulfur and crude oil when storming cities.
However, of course, there was no need to talk about the massive use of toxic substances in the old days. Chemical weapons began to be considered by generals as one of the means of warfare only after toxic substances began to be obtained in industrial quantities and they learned how to store them safely.
Certain changes were also required in the psychology of the military: back in the 19th century, poisoning one’s opponents like rats was considered an ignoble and unworthy thing. The British military elite reacted with indignation to the use of sulfur dioxide as a chemical warfare agent by British Admiral Thomas Gokhran.
Already during the First World War, the first methods of protection against toxic substances appeared. At first these were various bandages or capes impregnated with various substances, but they usually did not give the desired effect. Then gas masks were invented, similar in appearance to modern ones. However, gas masks at first were far from perfect and did not provide the required level of protection. Special gas masks have been developed for horses and even dogs.
The means of delivering toxic substances did not stand still either. If at the beginning of the war gas was easily sprayed from cylinders towards the enemy, then artillery shells and mines began to be used to deliver chemical agents. New, more deadly types of chemical weapons have emerged.
After the end of the First World War, work in the field of creating toxic substances did not stop: methods of delivering chemical agents and methods of protection against them were improved, and new types of chemical weapons appeared. Tests of combat gases were carried out regularly, special shelters were built for the population, soldiers and civilians were trained to use personal protective equipment.
In 1925, another convention was adopted (the Geneva Pact) prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, but this in no way stopped the generals: they had no doubt that the next big war would be a chemical one, and were intensively preparing for it. In the mid-thirties, German chemists developed nerve gases, the effects of which are the most lethal.
Despite their lethality and significant psychological effect, today we can confidently say that chemical weapons are a passed stage for humanity. And the point here is not in the conventions prohibiting the poisoning of one’s own kind, or even in public opinion (although it also played a significant role).
The military has practically abandoned toxic substances, because chemical weapons have more disadvantages than advantages. Let's look at the main ones:
- Strong dependence on weather conditions. At first, poisonous gases were released from cylinders downwind in the direction of the enemy. However, the wind is changeable, so during the First World War there were frequent cases of defeat of own troops. The use of artillery ammunition as a delivery method solves this problem only partially. Rain and simply high air humidity dissolve and decompose many toxic substances, and air updrafts carry them high into the sky. For example, the British lit numerous fires in front of their defense line so that the hot air would carry enemy gas upward.
- Unsafe storage. Conventional ammunition without a fuse detonates extremely rarely, which cannot be said about shells or containers with explosive agents. They can cause massive casualties, even from deep behind the lines in a warehouse. In addition, the cost of their storage and disposal is extremely high.
- Protection. The most important reason for abandoning chemical weapons. The first gas masks and bandages were not very effective, but soon they provided quite effective protection against chemical agents. In response, chemists came up with blister gases, after which a special chemical protection suit was invented. Armored vehicles now have reliable protection against any weapon of mass destruction, including chemical weapons. In short, the use of chemical warfare agents against a modern army is not very effective. That is why in the last fifty years, explosive agents have been used more often against civilians or partisan detachments. In this case, the results of its use were truly terrifying.
- Inefficiency. Despite the horror that gases caused soldiers during the Great War, analysis of casualties showed that conventional artillery fire was more effective than firing chemical weapons ammunition. A projectile filled with gas was less powerful, and therefore did a worse job of destroying enemy engineering structures and barriers. The surviving fighters quite successfully used them in defense.
Today, the greatest danger is that chemical weapons could end up in the hands of terrorists and be used against civilians. The toll in this case can be horrific. A chemical warfare agent is relatively easy to produce (unlike a nuclear agent), and it is cheap. Therefore, threats from terrorist groups regarding possible gas attacks should be taken very carefully.
The biggest disadvantage of chemical weapons is their unpredictability: where the wind will blow, whether the air humidity will change, in which direction the poison will flow along with the groundwater. In whose DNA the mutagen from the combat gas will be embedded, and whose child will be born crippled. And these are not theoretical questions at all. American soldiers crippled after using their own Agent Orange gas in Vietnam are clear evidence of the unpredictability of chemical weapons.
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