CHAPTER XXVI

THE FUTURE OF CHEMICAL WARFARE

The pioneer, no matter what the line of endeavor, encounters difficulties caused by his fellow-men just in proportion as the thing pioneered promises results. If the promise be small, the difficulties usually encountered are only those necessary to make the venture a success. If, however, the results promise to be great, and especially if the rewards to the inventor and those working with him promise to be considerable, the difficulties thrown in the way of the venture become greater and greater. Indeed whenever great results are promised, envy is engendered in those in other lines whose importance may be diminished, or who are so short-sighted as to be always opposed to progress.

Chemical warfare has had, and is still having, its full share of these difficulties. From the very day when chlorine, known to the world as a benign substance highly useful in sanitation, water purification, gold mining and bleaching was put into use as a poisonous gas, chemical warfare has loomed larger and larger as a factor to be considered in all future wars. Chlorine was first used in the cylinders designed for shipping it. These cylinders were poorly adapted for warfare, and made methods of preparing gas attacks extremely laborious, cumbersome and time-consuming.

It was not many months, however, until different gases began to appear in large quantities in shells and bombs, while the close of the war, 3½ years later, saw the development of gas in solid form whereby it could be carried with the utmost safety under all conditions—a solid which could become dangerous only when the heating mixture, that freed the gas, was properly ignited.

While some of the chemicals developed for use in war prior to the Armistice have been made known to the world, a number of others have not. More than this, every nation of first class importance has continued to pursue more or less energetically studies into chemical warfare. These studies will continue, and we must expect that new gases, new methods of turning them loose, and new tactical uses will be developed.

Already it is clearly foreseen that these gases will be used by every branch of the Army and the Navy. While chemicals were not used by the Air Service in the last war, it was even then realized that there was no material reason why they should not have been so used. That they will be used in the future by the Air Service, and probably on a large scale, is certain. The Navy, too, will use gases, and probably on a considerable scale. Thus chemical materials as such become the most universal of all weapons of war.

Some of the poisonous gases are so powerful in minute quantities and evaporate so slowly that their liberation does not produce sufficient condensation to cause a cloud. Consequently, we have gases that cannot be seen. Others form clouds by themselves, such, for instance, as the toxic smoke candle, where the solid is driven off by heating, while still others cause clouds of condensed vapor. This brings the discussion into the realm of ordinary smokes that have no irritating and no poisonous effects.

These smokes are extremely valuable where the purpose is to form a screen, whether it be to hide the advance of troops or to cut off the view of observers. These smokes are equally useful on land and on sea. So great is the decrease in efficiency of the rifle or machine gun, and of artillery even when firing at troops that cannot be seen, that smoke for screening purposes will be used on every future field of battle. When firing through a screen of smoke, a man has certainly less than one-quarter the chance to hit his target that he would have were the target in plain view. Since smoke clouds may or may not be poisonous and since smoke will be used in every battle, there is opened up an unlimited field for the exercise of ingenuity in making these smoke clouds poisonous or non-poisonous at will. It also opens up an unlimited field for the well-trained chemical warfare officer who can tell in any smoke cloud whether gas be present and whether, if present, it is in sufficient concentration to be dangerous.

At the risk of repetition, it is again stated that there is no gas that will kill or even permanently injure in any quantity that cannot be detected. For every gas, there is a certain minimum amount in each cubic foot of air that is necessary to cause any injury. In nearly all gases, this minimum amount is sufficient to be readily noticeable by a trained chemical warfare officer through the sense of smell.

It would be idle to attempt to enumerate the ways and means by which chemicals will be used in the future. In fact, one can hardly conceive of a situation where gas or smoke will not be employed, for these materials may be liquids or solids that either automatically, upon exposure to the air, turn into gas, or which are pulverized by high explosive, or driven off by heat. This varied character of the materials enables them to be used in every sort of artillery shell, bomb or other container carried to the field of battle.

Some of the gases are extremely powerful as irritants to the nose and throat in very minute quantities, while at the same time being highly poisonous in high concentrations. Diphenylchloroarsine, used extensively by the Germans in high explosive shell, is more poisonous than phosgene, the most deadly gas in general use in the past war. In addition, it has the quality of causing an intolerable burning sensation in the nose, throat, and lungs, in extremely minute quantities. This material can be kept out of masks only by filters, whereas true gases are taken out by charcoal and chemical granules.

There is still another quality which helps make chemical warfare the most powerful weapon of war. Gas is the only substance used in war which can be counted on to do its work as efficiently at night as in the daytime. Indeed, it is often more effective at night than in the daytime, because the man who goes to sleep without his mask on, who is careless, who loses his mask, or who becomes excited in the darkness of night, becomes a casualty, and the past war showed that these casualties were decidedly numerous even when the troops knew almost to the minute the time the gas would arrive.

Accordingly, chemical warfare is an agency that must not only be reckoned with by every civilized nation in the future, but is one which civilized nations should not hesitate to use. When properly safe-guarded with masks and other safety devices, it gives to the most scientific and most ingenious people a great advantage over the less scientific and less ingenious. Then why should the United States or any other highly civilized country consider giving up chemical warfare? To say that its use against savages is not a fair method of fighting, because the savages are not equipped with it, is arrant nonsense. No nation considers such things today. If they had, our American troops, when fighting the Moros in the Philippine Islands, would have had to wear the breechclout and use only swords and spears.

Notwithstanding the opposition of certain people who, through ignorance or for other reasons, have fought it, chemical warfare has come to stay, and just in proportion as the United States gives chemical warfare its proper place in its military establishment, just in that proportion will the United States be ready to meet any or all comers in the future, for the United States has incomparable resources in the shape of the crude materials—power, salt, sulfur and the like—that are necessary in the manufacture of gases.

If, then, there be developed industries for manufacturing these gases in time of war, and if the training of the army in chemical warfare be thorough and extensive, the United States will have more than an equal chance with any other nation or combination of nations in any future war.

It is just as sportsman-like to fight with chemical warfare materials as it is to fight with machine guns. The enemy will know more or less accurately our chemical warfare materials and our methods, and we will have the same information about the enemy. It is thus a matching of wits just as much as in the days when the Knights of the Round Table fought with swords or with spears on horseback. The American is a pure sportsman and asks odds of no man. He does ask, though, that he be given a square deal. He is unwilling to agree not to use a powerful weapon of war when he knows that an outlaw nation would use it against him if that outlaw nation could achieve success by so doing. How much better it is to say to the world that we are going to use chemical warfare to the greatest extent possible in any future struggle. In announcing that we would repeat as always that we are making these preparations only for defense, and who is there who dares question our right to do so?

INDEX

Absorbents, Requirements of, 237 Testing, 259 Absorptive activity, 237 Absorptive capacity, 238 Aeroplane, Smoke screen, 309 American Tissot mask, 224 Ammonia canister, 230 Ammonium chloride smoke, 327 Animals, Susceptibility to mustard gas, 173 Anthracite coal, Activation of, 249 A. R. S. mask, 203 Arsenic derivatives, 180 Arsenic trichloride, Manufacture, 180 Arsenic trifluoride, Manufacture, 180 Arsine, proposed use of, 180 Artillery, Gas, use of, by, 396 Aviation, Gas, use of, by, 380, 399

Baby Incendiary bomb, 340 Barrages, Gas, use of, in, 376 Benzyl bromide, 16, 141 Benzyl chloride, 16 Berger mixture, 290 Black signal smokes, 331 Black veiling respirator, 195 Blue cross. _See_ Diphenylchloroarsine Blue pencil, German, 346 Bombs, incendiary, 337 Box respirator, American, 209 English, 198 Break point of canisters, 262 Bromoacetone, 16, 138 German manufacture, 140 Bromobenzyl cyanide, 16, 142 Bromomethylethyl ketone, German manufacture, 140 Bullets, incendiary, 344

Camouflage gases, 23, 416 Canister, life of, Gas concentration and, 132 Temperature, effect of, 132 Testing, 260 Carbon dioxide, Manufacture, 129 Carbonite, 250 Carbon monoxide, 190 Canister, 191 Manufacture, 128 Cavalry, Gas, use of, by, 378 Cement, Soda-lime, function in, 257 Charcoal, 239

## Active, 242

German, 251 Inactive, 242 Manufacture, 242 Raw material, 239 Substitutes, 249 Tests of, 253 Theory of action, 241 Chemical Service Section, Organization, 34 Chemical Warfare, Future of, 435 Gases used in, 24 Historical, 1 Officers, duties of, 369 Strategy, relation to, 363 Chemical Warfare Service, Administrative division, 36 A. E. F., organization, 72 Development division, 61 Edgewood arsenal, 53 Gas defense division, 48 Liaison officers, 70 Medical division, 68 Organization, 35 Proving division, 63 Research division, 38 Training division, 65 Chemical Warfare troops, 92 Chenard bomb, 340 Chlorine, 116 Manufacture, 117 Properties, 123 Chloroacetone, 16 Chloroacetophenone, 16 Chloromethyl chloroformate, 21 Chloropicrin, 21 Manufacture, 145 Physiological test, 146 Properties, 146 Protection, 147 Tactical use, 148 Chlorovinyldichloroarsine, 188 Chlorosulfonic acid, Smoke material, use as, 286 Cloud gas, 10, 116, 390 Coalite, 250 Cocoanut shell charcoal, 239 Cohune nut charcoal, 240 Complexene, 201 Horse masks, use in, 278 Cottrell Precipitation Tube, 299

Darts, incendiary, 343 Density of smoke clouds, 295 Development Division, C. W. S., 61 Dichloroethyl sulfide, 22, 80, 105 Detection, 166 Historical, 151 Manufacture, 152, 161 Mixtures, melting point of, 164 Properties, 163 Tactical use, 175, 417 Toxicity, 168 Vesicant action, 171 β, β′-Dichlorodivinylchloroarsine, 189 Dihydroxyethyl sulfide, 160 Diphenylchloroarsine, 22, 182 Manufacture, 183 Diphenylcyanoarsine, 185 Diphosgene. _See_ Trichloromethyl chloroformate Dog mask, 280 Doughnut filter, 324 Dressler tunnel kiln, 248 D-Shell, 134 Dugout blankets, 283 Dyes for signal smokes, 333

Edgewood arsenal, C. W. S., 53 Efficiency test, Absorbents, 259 Canisters, 262 Ethyldichloroarsine, 185 Ethylene, Manufacture of, 155, 158 Ethylene chlorhydrin, 158 Ethyl iodoacetate, 16, 141 Explosive dispersion, 314

“First gas attack,” 10 First gas regiment, 93 Flammenwerfer, 349 Flaming gun, 347, 401 Food, protection of, against mustard gas, 422 French artillery mask, 202

Gas, Defense against, 405 Effectiveness of, 375, 385 Humanity of, 13, 370, 387 Offensive use of, 385 Permanency of, 378 Requirements of, 116, 395 Gas alarms, 422 Gas cloud, height and spread, 394 Smoke in, 311, 403 Gas cylinder, Mobile, 17 Gas defense division, C. W. S., 48 Gases, Detection of, 415 Peace uses of, 427 Pharmacology, 353 Gas and Flame Regiment, 34 Gas mask, Development, 195 Physiological features, 232 Testing, 259 _See also_ names of various masks Gas shell, Markings, 28, 404 Value, 18, 396 Gassing chamber, 354 Gas training, 413 In France, 81 Value in peace, 373, 383 Gas warfare, Fundamentals, 388 Humanity, 13, 370, 387 German mask, 205 Greasene, 201 Green Cross shell, 148 Green T-Stoff, 142

Hand grenade, incendiary, 345 Hanlon field, 111 Hardness, Absorbents, test of, 259 Hague conference, Poison gases, action on, 6 Homomartonite, 16, 138 Hopcalite, Carbon monoxide absorbent, 193 Horse boots, 280 Horse mask, 277 Humanity, Gas warfare, 13, 370, 387 Hypo helmet, 196

Incendiary materials, 336 Tactical use of, 402 Infantry, Gas, use of, by, 377, 400 Intelligence section, 113 Inter-allied gas conference, 79 Irritants, Efficiency of, 389 Testing, 359 Ivory nut charcoal, 241

Kieselguhr, Soda-lime, function in, 257 Kupramite, 230

Lachrymators, 15, 137 Comparative value, 143 Protection, 143 Testing, 356

Lachrymatory shell, Tactical value, 15 Lamp-black, Charcoal from, 250 Lantern test, Mustard gas, 166 Leak detecting apparatus, 266 Leakage, Canister, testing of, 261 Levinstein reactor, 158 Lewisite, 23, 187 Liaison officers, 70 Lime, Soda-lime, function in, 257 Livens’ projector, 18, 391 Livens’ smoke drum, 304

M-2 Mask, 201 Man test, 262 Martonite, 16, 138 Mask, Development, 405 Disinfection, 269 Field tests, 270 Issuance, 423 _See also_ Gas mask _See also_ Names of masks Mechanical dispersion, 313 Medical division, C. W. S., 68 Medical section, A. E. F., 114 Methyldichloroarsine, 181 Moisture, Absorbents, tests of, 259 Mustard gas. _See_ Dichloroethyl sulfide.

Navy, Canister, 230 Gas, use of, by, 381 Smoke funnel, 305 Nelson cell, 117 “Nineteen nineteen” canister, 325 “Nineteen nineteen” Model American Mask, 225

Odors, Testing of, 358 Oleum, Smoke material, use as, 286 Overall suit, 273

Palite. _See_ Chloromethyl chloroformate Penetration apparatus, Toxic smoke, measurement of, 315 P-Helmet, 197 PH Helmet, 197 Phosgene, 14, 126 Manufacture, 127 Properties, 130 Protection, 131 Shell filling, 132 Tactical use, 134 Phosphorus, Smoke material, 286, 382 Stokes’ mortar, use in, 393 _See also_ Smoke Physiological action, Phosgene, 135 Mustard gas, 168 Toxic Smokes, 316 Pressure drop apparatus, 266 Protective clothing, 272 Protective gloves, 274 Protective ointments, 275 Proving division, C. W. S., 63 Pumice stone, Phosgene shell, use in, 130, 135

Research division, C. W. S., 38 Resistance, Canister, test of, 261 Decreased, 410 Respirator, _See_ Gas mask, Mask

Sag paste, 277 Screening smokes, 285 _See also_ Smoke Screening power, Smoke cloud, 285 Selenious acid, Mustard gas detector, 166 Shell, Gas, Filling of, 132 Value, 18, 396 Incendiary, 344 Markings, 28, 404 Pumice stone and phosgene in, 130, 135 Smoke, 303 Ships, Screening Smoke, 299, 305 Shrapnel, Gas in connection with, 379 Signal smokes, 330 Tactics, 333 Silicon tetrachloride, Smoke material, use as, 290 Smoke, Intensity, measurement of, 296 Tactical value, 310, 402 Use in offense, 401 _See also_, Screening, Signal and Toxic Smokes Smoke box, 299 Smoke candle, 301, 372 Toxic, 318 Smoke cloud, Properties, 116, 285, 395 Smoke drum, 304 Smoke filters, 322 Felt, 324 Paper, 323 Testing, 327 Theory, 326 Smoke funnel, 305 Smoke grenade, 302 Smoke knapsack, 306 Smoke particles, Measurement of, 292 Size of, 291 Smoke screen, Purpose of, 309 Smoke shell, 303, 307 Smoke signals, 333 Sneezing gas. _See_ Diphenylchloroarsine Soda-lime, Composition, 256 Requirements, 255 Sodium hydroxide, Soda-lime, function in, 257 Sodium permanganate, Soda-lime, function in, 257 “Solid oil”, 336 Spray nozzles, 357 Staff troops, C. W. S., 92 Standard Box respirator, 198 Stokes’ mortar, 20, 392 Sulfur chloride, Manufacture, 157 Sulfuric acid smoke, 328 Sulfur trioxide, Smoke material, use as, 289 Superpalite. _See_ Trichloromethyl chloroformate

Tactical use, Chloropicrin, 148 Dichloroethyl sulfide, 175, 417 Gases in offense, 385 Incendiary materials, 402 Lachrymatory shell, 15 Phosgene, 134 Screening smokes, 310, 402 Signal smokes, 333 Tactics, Chemical Warfare and, 363 Tanks, Smoke screen for, 309 Thermal dispersion, 313 Thermit, Uses, 393 Tin tetrachloride, Smoke material, use as, 289 Tissot mask, 202 Titanium tetrachloride, Smoke material, use as, 290 Tobacco smoke, 328 Total obscuring power of smoke, 295 Touch method, Irritants, testing of, 362 Toxicity, Gases, testing of, for, 353 Toxic smoke, 313 Candle, B. M., 319 Candle, Dispersoid, 320 Penetration, 314 Quantitative relationship, 316 Training division, C. W. S., 65 Trench mortar, 20, 392 Trichloromethyl chloroformate, 20 Trichloronitromethane. _See_ Chloropicrin β, β′, β″-Trichlorotrivinylarsine, 189 T-Stoff, 141 Tyndall meter, 299

Ultramicroscope, Smoke particles, measurements of, 292

Vapor tests, Irritants, testing of, 359 Versatility of absorbents, 238 Vincennite, 15, 180 Vision chart, 271 “Vomiting gas.” _See_ Chloropicrin

War gas. _See_ Gases War, humanity of, 6 Wave attack, Disadvantages, 16

Xylyl bromide, 16, 141

Yellow cross. _See_ Dichloroethyl sulfide Yellow smoke, 331 Yperite. _See_ Dichloroethyl sulfide