Chemical Weapons of WWI
- Albert Armin
- Jun 12
- 6 min read
“Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
- Lt. Wilfred Owen MC
The development and deployment of brutal chemical weapons, the first true weapons of mass destruction, throughout World War I most certainly prove the deadly capabilities of chemistry. During World War I, after the Western Front had ground to a slog of static trench warfare through the failure of the Schlieffen Plan and the unsuccessful Race to the Sea, German leaders looked for a new way to break the stalemate.
Tear gas had already been used by both the French and the Germans early in the war to limited success, mainly ethyl bromoacetate (C4H7BrO2) and o-Xylyl bromide (C8H9Br), colorless liquid lachrymators (eye irritants) that had been atomized to be dispersed as weapons.[1][2][3] Germany then turned to a new poisonous gas program, headed by German chemist Fritz Haber, the so-called “father of chemical weapons.” Through his work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin, Haber proposed weaponizing chlorine gas (Cl2), a pale green gas that is two and a half times denser than air. When chlorine gas is inhaled, it reacts with the water in the mucus of the lungs to form hydrochloric acid (HCl) and hypochlorous acid (HClO), which are extremely corrosive substances that will destroy the inside of the lungs and cause death in high enough concentrations (1,000 ppm for a few minutes or 400 ppm for thirty minutes).[1][5]
The first use of chlorine gas occurred during the Second Battle of Ypres, under the direct supervision of Haber. Special German gas units released 6,000 cylinders of pressurized liquid chlorine against the unsuspecting French defensive positions around Ypres, Belgium, on April 22, 1915, at the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres. Within ten minutes, 160 tons of chlorine were released upon the French, with devastating results.[4]
The French, completely unprepared for the poison gas, became casualties in droves, while the survivors panicked and chaotically dragged their way to British positions to their rear. A British soldier described the deadly effect of the poison gas, saying, “[I watched] figures running wildly in confusion over the fields. Greenish-gray clouds swept down upon them, turning yellow as they touched and shriveling up the vegetation….Then there staggered into our midst French soldiers, blinded, coughing, chests heaving, faces an ugly purple color, lips speechless with agony, and behind them in the gas soaked trenches, we learned that they had left hundreds of dead and dying comrades.”[4]
After mere minutes, the wall of gas killed 1,000 French and Algerian soldiers while wounding 4,000 and breaking the French line across a six-kilometer front.[4] Although the Germans failed to effectively take advantage of this success because of a lack of reserves, it proved the impact of poison gas on the battlefield. Later, realizing the water-solubility of chlorine, the British simply covered their faces with wet rags to minimize the effects of chlorine gas. Later, the British adopted thiosulfate-laced pads to completely neutralize the chlorine. Because of this development, along with the limitations of chlorine gas in its easy-to-detect color and odor, a new, more effective poison gas had to be developed.
This led to the introduction of phosgene (carbonyl dichloride, COCl2) to chemical warfare as a pulmonary agent in 1915 by French chemist Victor Grignard, a much more deadly gas than chlorine.[4] When inhaled, the heavy, colorless gas did not cause symptoms for up to 48 hours, causing soldiers to unknowingly inhale more. If inhaled in lethal concentrations, the phosgene reacts with fluids in the lungs to form carbon dioxide and hydrogen chloride, which would become hydrochloric acid. This would severely damage the alveoli of the lungs and lead to severe pulmonary edema (the build-up of fluid in the lungs) and heart failure, causing a slow, agonizing death as soldiers drowned within their own lungs hours after exposure.
Additionally, the heavy nature of phosgene made it settle into depressions and ditches easily, compounding its effect on entrenched soldiers, while its colorlessness made it much harder to detect than chlorine gas. It was also used in combination with chlorine to help spread the denser phosgene, which was first applied by the Germans on December 19, 1915, when they deployed 88 tons of combined chlorine-phosgene against British troops at Wieltje, Belgium. While the attack’s effects were minimized by the new anti-gas British Phenate Helmet (a flannel hood soaked with sodium phenolate and glycerine), it still inflicted 1,069 casualties and 69 deaths. Although the least famous of the poisonous gases, phosgene is estimated to have caused 85% of chemical weapon deaths during World War I.[5]
In 1916, German chemists Wilhelm Lommel and Wilhelm Steinkopf developed mustard gas (or sulfur mustard), the so-called “king of battle gases.” Mustard gas ((Cl-CH2CH2)2S), really a viscous liquid suspended in the air in tiny droplets rather than a gas, is almost odorless, extremely fat-soluble, can penetrate clothing, and is absorbed easily in the skin. Although not as deadly as phosgene, mustard gas was particularly effective due to its ability to severely wound large contingents of combatants at once due to it being a vesicant, or blister agent, and to contaminate equipment and the battlefield for weeks because of its qualities as a liquid. Mustard gas was primarily spread via artillery shells, as opposed to the gas canisters used at times for chlorine gas.
No symptoms occur until a few hours after exposure, after which the skin will become extremely irritated and red before beginning to severely blister and bleed, particularly in areas where uniforms have been contaminated.[4] Those exposed would then experience vomiting, eye irritation, and temporary blindness. The blisters would get larger and larger, causing unbearable pain, and would oftentimes become infected due to the abysmal conditions of trench warfare. Over time, the mucus layers of the lungs would be stripped away, resulting in immense pain and internal bleeding. In high enough doses, this would become fatal, causing the mortally wounded casualty to suffer excruciating pain for weeks before finally succumbing to death.
Vera Brittain, a British nurse working on the Western Front, described the horrifying effect of mustard gas on soldiers, writing: "Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke." As a vesicant, mustard gas was much more effective on the Western Front, as the developments of modern warfare had proven that the ability to wound had far greater strategic value than to kill, as a severely wounded soldier took more than just himself out of the battle, as he would require support and advanced medical care in the form of mobile shower units to wash the sulfur mustard off the skin. Because mustard gas blistered skin in addition to damaging the lungs, it necessitated the establishment of special shower units and specialized medical personnel, further draining Allied supplies.
Even after the use of mustard gas, it still posed a significant threat to Allied positions. Being a liquid, sulfur mustard droplets settle into the ground after their use as a vapor and stay for weeks or even months, thus severely contaminating Allied positions. This oily liquid can then be spread again by subsequent shelling, inflicting additional casualties on Allied troops. Even simply lying down in the trenches or using equipment contaminated by sulfur mustard could cause exposure, thus rendering scores of supplies and many positions useless. Besides these three main weapons, the most produced chemical weapons of the war, several other lethal gases were developed and used, including diphosgene (related to phosgene), chloropicrin, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic trichloride, and lewisite (chlorvinyldichlorarsine).[5]
Chemical weapons not only caused a devastating psychological effect in the horrifying state of gas fright that pervaded the First World War, also known as “The Chemists’ War,” but also inflicted 91,000 deaths and 1.3 million casualties by the war’s end in 1918, displaying the deadly power of chemistry.
Bibliography
Patton, James. “Gas in the Great War.” KU Medical Center, www.kumc.edu/school-of-medicine/academics/departments/history-and-philosophy-of-medicine/archives/wwi/essays/medicine/gas-in-the-great-war.html#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%20as,%2C%20diphosgene%20(trichloromethane%20chloroformate).
“2-Methylbenzyl Bromide.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Compound Database, U.S. National Library of Medicine, pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/2-Methylbenzyl-bromide.
“Ethyl Bromoacetate.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Compound Database, U.S. National Library of Medicine, pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Ethyl-bromoacetate.
Fitzgerald, Gerard J. “Chemical Warfare and Medical Response during World War I.” American Journal of Public Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 June 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2376985/.
Padley, A. P. “Gas: The Greatest Terror of the Great War.” Sage Journals, 2016, journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0310057X1604401S05.
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