The Riddle of the Rhine:
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Victor LeFebure >> The Riddle of the Rhine:
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We have seen how the possible development of a persistent lethal compound
may produce an infected and wide No-Man's-Land. Imposed on this,
there will, no doubt, be "gas alert" conditions of great depths.
How do these conceptions work out for the war of movement?
It would appear that the possession of such a compound and the means of
producing and using it on a very large scale could determine the stationary
or open nature of warfare, if other forces were not too unequal.
A new military factor emerges, the artificial, permanent, unmanned obstacle,
which can be laid down at will on areas whose magnitude depends finally
on manufacturing capacity. The germ of the idea appeared during
the war at Kemmel and in the various mustard gas barrages formed by
artillery or delayed mines used by the Germans in their great retreat.
The sudden development of such barriers will be equivalent in effect
to the creation of strong trench systems, but these could never result,
under war conditions, in time to approach the strategic flexibility
and importance of the persistent lethal infected barrier.
Gas and Aircraft.--The combination of gas and aircraft presents
the possibility of attaining strategic effects by chemical means.
Many rumours were afloat, towards the end of the war, regarding the use
of gas by enemy aircraft, and there was apprehension amongst
the civil populations, which has been reflected in numerous
public utterances. Evidence on the matter is very scanty.
In July, 1917, the use of gas in aeroplane bombs by the Germans
was reported, but not confirmed. Further reports in August
indicated the use of Blue Cross, owing to the sneezing effects
which were produced on those within reach of the air bomb.
In October, the evidence was more conclusive. But the German
aeroplanes left no blind or dud shell, and, beyond the violent nasal
and sneezing effects of Blue Cross, evidence was again absent.
This report was very persistent, for, in July, 1918, there were
again rumours that Blue Cross bombs had been dropped on the British
near Ficheux. The Air Forces of the different armies were,
perhaps, the last to feel the effects of the gas campaign,
but the pilots of low-flying aeroplanes in the 1918 offensive
were constantly crossing pockets of gas, and this, added to
the fact that the pilots were often compelled to land in gas,
led to their equipment with gas masks. A respirator of special type
was taken from a German aviator in April, 1918, after the fighting
at Passchendaele. But the war gave us no direct evidence
of the successful use of gas and war chemicals from aircraft.
This, however, is no criterion as to its eventual importance.
The Allies definitely refrained from employing the combination
until Germany should give them the start in what was regarded
as a new atrocity. The main reason for their lack of development
on these lines was probably the fact that the most suitable
type of gas only developed during the later stages of the war,
when it was required exceedingly urgently on the front.
No really harmful persistent compound appeared before the advent
of mustard gas, and the dangerous non-persistent types,
such as phosgene, could not have been used with great success,
owing to the fact that very considerable quantities
would have been required to produce any serious effect.
Mustard gas, however, which could have haunted a city for days,
would not have been required in such large quantities.
But its more urgent need on the front, and the fact that soon
after it arrived the Germans were sending out feelers to see whether
the Allies would consider the cessation of chemical warfare,
were probably sufficient reasons to explain their failure to use
it from aeroplanes.
Another point must be raised in connection with the use of gas
from aircraft which has not yet received much attention.
We must remember that the use of projectiles from aircraft
over a city was a very different proposition from their use
over a battle-field. One of the advantages of gas over explosives
on the field of battle was its greater range of action.
It produced effects at longer distances from the point of impact,
but no such incentive existed for the use of gas from aeroplanes
over large cities. Explosives, which might miss their
objective on the field of battle, could not do so in a city.
They were bound to hit something. The load of the aeroplane
is always important, and the essential is to carry, weight
for weight, the material which will produce the most effect.
There is no doubt what this will he when the persistent lethal
compound arrives, and mustard gas would probably have been superior
to explosives for use by German aircraft on British cities.
Protective Development;--Individual Protection.--The question of protection
against chemical attack presents some knotty problems for the future. Let us
glance at the broad lines of war development in this field and forecast their
future in a speculative way. Protection developed along two main lines.
Individual protection covered the mask and any other protective appliance
used by the individual soldier, while the term collective protection was
applied to any method or appliance which afforded simultaneous protection
for a number of individuals.
In general, the former represented an attempt to purify the poisoned
air actually inspired by the soldier, whereas the latter was an
attempt to purify the atmosphere of a locality or to prevent its
initial poisoning. How far can the individual form of protection
develop to meet the possibilities of the chemical attack?
It certainly seems to have countered satisfactorily all the war
attacks upon the respiratory system, although, as we have pointed out,
the Germans might have failed, had we been sufficiently prompt
in introducing our arsenic compounds. But we have forecasted the use
of chemicals which may attack human functions hitherto immune.
For the sake of our argument, we can divide these into two classes,
those attained through the respiratory and digestive systems and
those attained through contact with some other part of the body.
The former can probably be satisfactorily met by developments
in the mask. Even that does not appear certain, when we
remember the emphasis laid by Germany upon the possibility
of penetrating the mask by using a particulate cloud.
The last word has certainly not been spoken in the struggle
between the mask and the chemical attempting to penetrate it.
But both the introduction of mustard gas and general speculative
grounds justify us in concluding that attacks may materialise upon
other parts of the human organism, We cannot foresee the actual
point of attack and can, therefore, only view with assurance
some form of protection which covers the whole body.
Collective Protection.--All parties dabbled in such a form of protection,
but the French were the only ones to make a large-scale experiment
on the front. It was not very successful, for the burden of these
oilskin suits was intolerable. It may be that some successful form
of protection for the whole body will materialise, but on general
grounds we can assume that development will follow other lines.
What are the possibilities? They all lie in the direction of
collective protection. The individual cannot be satisfactorily
protected from the new gas and remain an efficient soldier.
We must, therefore, see whether it is not possible to protect numbers
of men by removing them from contact with the poisoned atmosphere.
A stationary form of such protection was used by all the armies,
but emphasised by the French, by the creation of a large number of enormous
underground chambers, some capable of holding more than a thousand men,
the entries to which were carefully protected by special filtering
devices to prevent the entry of the poisoned external atmosphere.
On the British front these enormous dug-outs, although not absent,
were largely replaced by the efficient gas-proof organisation
of the smaller dugouts. The use of impregnated blankets for this
purpose must be well known to any who visited the front or took part
in hostilities. But you cannot imprison a whole army in this way.
The value of these collective protective chambers depended on the fact
that a certain number of men were always on the alert in the defensive
systems outside and around the chambers, exposed to those gases
against which the latter chambers were devised.
In my opinion, the further intensive development of gas warfare,
such as would have accompanied, say, the doubling or quadrupling
of the German factory output, would have forced us into realising
the limit of this collective protection. It would have compelled
us to immobilise, in these shelters, more men than was consistent
with the safety of the zone in question. Undoubtedly, the future
of collective protection lies in some form which will leave
the soldier his combatant powers, in other words some mobile form.
This has already been forecasted by Colonel Fuller in his book on
_Tanks in the Great War_. But he passes lightly over the protection
of the tank against gas. With the increase in depth of infected zones,
through the increasingly lethal nature of the persistent compound,
the tank will he compelled to rely on filtration methods of protection,
instead of the use of compressed oxygen in a gas-tight compartment.
Once committed to the use of oxygen, the only safe procedure will
be to close up the tank and employ the oxygen while there is any
suspicion of the presence of gas, and, under these conditions,
oxygen transport would become a factor militating against
the prime purpose of the tank, the transport of troops and arms.
It is safe to forecast a tense struggle between chemical weapons
and protective tank devices in the event of future wars.
Conclusion.--The facts which we have surveyed in early chapters,
and the development foreshadowed above, form part of a much
wider subject, for they are but one aspect of scientific warfare.
In what main directions has science modified or revolutionised
modern war? Its influence has touched practically every weapon
in manufacture or design, introducing profound modifications in
many cases. The sum total of such changes may be claimed to have
revolutionised warfare, but the term revolution should be reserved,
for some more specific scientific innovation, which threatens to change
the nature of war rather than merely improve existing weapons.
Modern wars have all echoed the popular cry for some new scientific
principle or device to settle hostilities with one sharp stroke.
This conception has been the sport of writers of fiction
and others for many years. The "electric" death-dealing ray,
the all-powerful gas, the deadly bacteria, and the "explosion"
wave have all shared in buoying up the hopes or quickening
the fears of warring peoples. Contrary to popular supposition,
a decisive scientific military surprise of this nature is not likely
to follow close on the heels of the discovery of a new phenomenon.
It is more than eighty years since the mind of a Faraday delved
so fruitfully into electrical science, yet the oft prophesied
large scale direct use of high voltage electricity, or some
other form in war has not materialised. Organic chemistry was
a well-founded branch of science early in the nineteenth century,
and flourishing industries, fostered by it, were in existence
thirty years ago, yet it was not until the early twentieth century,
and the recent war, that we witnessed the rapid growth of organic
chemical warfare, which, I claim, was as revolutionary as any
other war development. The physical sciences, have left their
mark on every weapon and mechanical appliance, and the cumulative
effect of these changes is indeed large, but the most revolutionary
upheaval in warfare, with permanent results, came from chemistry.
The flexible nature of organic chemistry must not be lost sight of.
In the physical sciences, electricity, for example, years of
co-ordinated world progress are required to produce an epoch-making
discovery which might have critical and direct war significance.
Radioactivity has shown us what undreamt-of energy is bound up
in the atom, and many are the prophesies regarding the harnessing
of these forces for constructive activities. At least one prominent
novelist has pictured their destructive use in the radioactive bomb.
But the use of this wonderful store of energy for peace and war
can only result from years of costly and voluminous research,
and we have no idea of the difficulties involved in production,
without which any invention, however telling and revolutionary,
has no incidence on war. But in organic chemistry a single worker,
following up some rare family of compounds, may stumble
upon a substance pot far removed chemically from related
compounds yet infinitely more potent for war. Mustard gas,
or B:B dichlordiethylsulphide, is a member of a group of compounds
differing only slightly in chemical structure the one from the other.
Yet its nearest chemical relative is comparatively harmless.
The persistent lethal compound which will vastly change the nature
of warfare will probably be but a slight chemical modification
of some harmless substance, Thus, by comparison with other
branches of science as the handmaids of war, organic chemistry
is sympathetic, flexible, and theoretically capable of yielding
revolutionary discoveries in a relatively short time.
We can only base such speculations on general grounds.
Circumstances may disprove our contention over a short historical period,
but it will be borne out in the long run. This is not the only reason,
however, for the unique war importance of organic chemicals.
It so happens that many of them are essential to our daily life,
as dyes, drugs, photographic and other synthetic products.
Industries, therefore, have arisen for their manufacture.
And this is not all. Organic chemical factories have proved to be
not only arsenals in disguise but endowed with the flexibility
of their parent, the science itself. The factories and plants
ignore the war significance of the problems put to them.
They can develop the production of practically any chemical
which research can produce. The will of man can thus silently
and swiftly convert the dye factory into an arsenal.
These inherent possibilities of organic chemistry, flexibility in research
and production, make chemical warfare the most important war problem
in the future reconstruction of the world.
CHAPTER XI
HUMANE OR INHUMANE?
A good deal of abuse has been showered on chemical warfare
methods by those who understand very little about them.
It has been claimed by such that gas is particularly atrocious.
Feeling on the matter has been so strong in certain
quarters that the fact that all war is particularly vile
and atrocious seems to have been completely lost sight of.
Let us take up this matter in a rational way. In the first place,
what do we mean by the atrocity or inhumanity of a weapon?
We can either appeal to the imagination or the reason, in the
first case, by visualising the battlefields, or, in the second,
by making a cold analysis of the casualties caused by gas.
Nature of Gas Casualties.--Every normal person who experienced
and survived the throes of the different stages of the war,
and of the different gas surprises, mainly German, which were
sprung upon us, finds it difficult to think out, or express,
a cool and balanced view on the question of poison gas.
But such a balanced view is most important for the future.
It must be remembered that the official protests in 1915 arose
on the grounds, to use Lord Kitchener's words, that "they
employed these poisonous methods to prevail when their attack,
according to the rules of war, might have otherwise failed."
Had the rules of war permitted their use, we should, no doubt,
have been protected. But these protests, submerged in popular
sentiment, became an outcry against the atrocity of the new weapon.
This, a just criticism at the time, became inaccurate
when the Allies reacted, methods of protection developed,
and the specific tactical uses of gas were realised.
The view of the peculiar atrocity of gas has outlived the truth
of war experience with regard to it. We agree that chemical
warfare is atrocious. But it is no exception, for thus are all
the aggressive methods of warfare. Indeed, when we attempt
to interpret atrocity in terms of available casualty statistics,
we find that gas is slightly less atrocious than the other weapons.
We must either incline to this view or dispute the figures,
which are authoritative. Consider the American figures.
These will he more truly representative than our own,
because their troops were only exposed during the later
and more developed phases of the war. Of the total strength
of the A.E.F., the number gassed was about six per cent., wounded
by rifle and machine-gun fire about one per cent., wounded
by high explosive one and a half per cent., shrapnel wounds
three percent., and bayonet wounds less than one half per cent.
But although enemy gas caused more than 70,000 casualties, yet of
these only one and a half per cent. were fatal, while the total
number of deaths for all types of casualties was thirty per cent.
Thus against the American army, measured by casualties produced,
gas was by far the most effective, and yet by far the least
deadly weapon. What can be more atrocious than the actual cone
of tens or even hundreds of dead and wounded invariably left
before an untouched machine-gun emplacement in an assault?
What is more horrible than the captured first line trench after
its treatment by the preparatory bombardment, or the mutilation
of men peacefully sleeping in billets behind the battle front
and thrown, broken and bloody, through their billet walls
under the wheels of passing transport, as one has seen them?
The whole experience of real war is beyond adjectives.
But, leaving impressions, let us turn to facts.
With regard to the future and from the point of view of atrocity,
gas has a hopeful outlook as compared with other weapons.
This may seem a curious statement to make, but consider the following.
We cannot envisage advances in the use of explosives in shell or bomb
to render them more humane. Explosives, if their development be pressed,
can only become more violent, with a wider range of action.
Chemical warfare may follow the same lines, but it has
the unique possibility of developing on more humane lines.
The vesicant action of mustard gas produced huge casualties with
relatively little permanent harm. Chemicals may be found which
temporarily influence human functions, enabling military objectives
to be attained with a remarkably small amount of pain and death.
In a fair review of the whole situation, this possibility cannot
be overlooked. It is more than possible that a League of Nations,
compelled to employ an element of force in its eventual control
of peace, may find its most effective and humane weapon in some
chemical development. However visionary these views may appear,
they are not unjustified as scientific possibilities.
Analysis of war gas casualties reveal two main trends.
As the struggle became more intense the number of casualties multiplied.
They were considerable during the first period of cylinder attack,
and the rate remained steady until the beginning of the mustard
gas period. From the summer of 1917 to November, 1918,
there were more than ten times as many gas casualties as for
the preceding three years of war. But the percentage mortality,
the number of deaths amongst each hundred men attained,
decreased considerably. As high as twenty-five per cent.
during the early cylinder attacks, it decreased to two and a
half per cent. for the huge number of mustard gas cases.
Yet mustard gas was an exceedingly important military factor.
It illustrates the possibility of development on these lines,
but we must by no means disregard the atrocity of chemical warfare,
and safeguards are required for the future.
We cannot do better than conclude by quoting from General Hartley's
report to the British Association. He says:
"The general impression that gas is an inhumane weapon is derived partly
from the German breach of faith in using it contrary to the Hague Convention,
and partly from the nature and number of casualties in the earliest cloud
attacks which were made against unprotected troops. Under the stress of a
long war the individual is apt to forget the physical and mental sufferings
it involves, unless he is daily in contact with them, but a dramatic
occurrence such as that of the first gas attack forces on the imagination
the brutal significance of war--the struggle for victory by killing--and the
new weapon is judged as inhumane, like gunpowder in the fifteenth century.
If we accept war as a possibility, the most humane weapon is that which leads
to a decision with the smallest amount of human suffering and death.
Judged from this standpoint, gas compares favourably with other weapons during
the period when both sides were fully equipped for offence and defence.
The death-rate among gas casualties was much lower than that among casualties
from other causes, and not only was the death-rate lower, but a much
smaller proportion of the injured suffered any permanent disability.
There is no comparison between the permanent damage caused by gas,
and the suffering caused to those who were maimed and blinded by shell
and rifle fire. It is now generally admitted that in the later stages
of the war many military objects could be attained with less suffering
by using gas than by any other means.
Sargent's Picture.--"The judgment of future generations on the use
of gas may well be influenced by the pathetic appeal of Sargent's
picture of the first `Mustard Gas' casualties at Ypres, but it must
not be forgotten in looking at that picture that 75 per cent.
of the blinded men he drew were fit for duty within three months,
and that had their limbs and nerves been shattered by the effects
of high explosive, their fate would have been infinitely worse."
Need for Safeguards.--We have continually referred to the need
for safeguards instead of mere reliance on prohibition.
Such views and facts as the above should be more generally
known in order that very worthy sentiments may not impel us
to adopt an unsound solution for future peace. However alarmed
and revolted we may have been in 1915 and later during the war,
it is essential to take a balanced view in the present critical
period of reconstruction.
CHAPTER XII
CHEMICAL WARFARE AND DISARMAMENT
Preceding chapters have shown how chemical warfare has now
become a normal, technical, and increasingly important part
of the science of war. Further, it has opened vast possibilities,
the limits of which it is very difficult to fix.
The Treaty of Versailles.--Chemical warfare received definite attention
in the formulation of the Treaty of Versailles. Lord Moulton,
one of the few Allied representatives who realised the full importance of
the matter, has drawn attention to its Treaty aspect in a recent speech.
He lays emphasis on the fact that the full significance of the German
dye industry was not realised during the war. Referring to its
chameleon-like nature in peace and war, Lord Moulton says:
"All this was imperfectly present to my mind throughout the war,
and I was aware of the gravity of the matter, but until I learnt
what had passed in Germany I could not appreciate it fully.
I have spoken to you of the extent to which the Germans turned
their chemical works into general works for supplying explosives.
I have not touched the part in which they played the most deadly
game against us, and that was where they used their chemical works
to produce those toxic gases."
The same statement tells us, "The knowledge that I have gleaned
as to what was going on in Germany during the war makes me
feel that all my anticipa-tions of the importance of chemical
industries in time of war, all the views that I expressed
of that importance, did not nearly approach what has been
proved to have gone on in the enemy's country during the war."
He then proceeds to explain how a clause was inserted in the
treaty--"whereby the Germans have to tell us all the secrets of their
manufacture of explosives, all their methods of making toxic gases--
in fact, all the military secrets that made them so terrible.
This clause was a very just one. It is not fair that when we
have gone through this agonising struggle, and when we are still
suffering from the consequences of all the wealth of knowledge
and ingenuity which they employed for their infamous purposes--
it is not fair, I say, to allow them to keep these secrets
to themselves, and I think you will agree with me it was in the highest
degree consonant with justice that we should make them reveal
them all to us." Small wonder that we missed this vital point,
that we failed to fathom the force behind the German chemical war,
if such an eminent authority was left groping for the truth.
There was no time for mature reflection with the problems
of war supply pressing forward in an endless stream.
Lord Moulton was himself responsible for the brilliant solution
of the most important, the problem of explosives supply.
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