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The history of chemical On this page: Early History | World War I | World War II | Between the wars | After the war | Further reading The history of use of chemical and biological warfare is quite long, but it isn't until the early history that it has become a more sever problem. Below is the story from the time of the Roman empire until the Gulf war and how things has evolved during that time. The first recorded use of biological agents is when the Romans used dead animals to contaminate their enemies water supply. This had the effects of decreasing enemy numbers and also lowering their morale. The idea behind this kind of attack is that a weakened enemy is an easily defeated enemy.The Tartars had the idea of infecting the enemy by catapulting bodies infected with bubonic plague over the walls of the city of Kaffa (southern Ukraine). Some historians believe that this event was the cause of the epidemic of plague that swept across medieval Europe killing 25 million. A more "recent" use of a biological weapon involves the British during the French-Indian War (1754-63). The Native Americans greatly outnumbered the British and were suspected of being on the side of the French. As an "act of good will" the British give blankets to the Indians, but the blankets came from a hospital that was treating smallpox victims and consequently smallpox raged through the Native American community and devastated their numbers. Modern History |
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| World War I (1914 - 1918) | top | |
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The earliest large-scale use of chemical warfare agents was during World War I. It was sporadicly carried
out by both sides by the use of various tear gases in artillery and other projectiles staring in 1914.
It was the Germans who eventually initiated a more massive use of the agents by releasing clorine gas in
an attack against the front in Ypres, April 22 1915. Thousands of cylinders of the gas was released along
the six-kilometer (four-mile) long frontline, and the wind-bore cloud sussefully broke the line of the
French Territorial and Algerial, but the attackers failed in taking advantage of the situation. Althought numerous attacks were carried out on both sides, they were seldom successful, much due to the introduction of gasmasks and other protective measures. As other gases, eg. mustard gas and more effective ways of used them was introduced, better defences was developed. More that 100 000 tons of chemical warfare agents were used in World War I, but they never became an important weapon, mostly because the effective defence agenst them. |
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| Between the wars | top | |
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In 1925 a worldwide resolution was taken against chemical wepons through the Geneva Protocol, prohibiting
"the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices."
This protocol was signed by more than 140 states, including all major nations. |
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| World War II (1939 - 1945) | top | |
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The chemical side: In World War II, both sides stockpiled chemical weapons, but never used them. The reasons for this was: they were belived to be no more efficient than conventionel wepons and would complicate and delay operations where used, fear of retaliation with the same means and, political leaders did not want to go agains the Geneva Protocol. The Germans had produced more leathal agents which were organophoshorus nerve agents. It was developed from insecticides, but much more leathal to man than insect. They caused intense sweating, dimming of vision, uncontrollable vomiting and defecation, convulsion, and finally paralysis and respetory failure. Death would generally come within a few minutes after respitory exposure and within hours if exposure was throught liquid nerve agents on the skin. Fortunately, Adolf Hitler never used these weapons during the war. The reason why he made this decision is still a subject of controversy for modern historians. The most popular explanation for Hitler's apathy stems back to the previous World War where toxic gases were used in combat. Hitler had been victimized by these chemical agents and was unwilling to introduce new and more toxic agents. There is also evidence that suggests that Hitler was advised against using the agents and even stopped their production. Hitler's Minister of Production, Albert Speer, said after the war, "All sensible army people turned gas warfare down as being utterly insane, since, in view of America's superiority in the air, it would not be long before it would bring the most terrible catastrophe upon German cities." The U.S. stockpiles included the nerve agents sarin and VX, while the Sovjet Union's also included soman. The U.S. developed in 1987 a 'binary sarin artillery projectile', in which two relative nontoxic precursors of sarin was held in separate containers. When the piece was fired, the two liquids combined to create sarin. This principal was used with other chemical agents as well. The biological side: From 1918 a special group in Japan secretly reserched biological weapons, they were called UNIT 731. In 1942 Japanese planes, on five occations, sprayed bobonic plauge over parts of China. In 1942 "bacterial bombs" was dropped over the mainland of China, but were found to be inefficient. By this time, the U.S. had become aware of the Japanese efforts and decided to start their own program. It would later be seen that the U.S. gained important information from the Japanese as the test carried out by the Japanese on American POW (Prisoners Of War) was known by the U.S. Government. They did nothing to prevent them, instead they offered immunity to those who would be war criminals in exchange for the testresults! At this time Great Britain was also developing a Biological Warfare program. It was started because they feared that the Germans and the Japanese would have an advantage. The program was focused on anthrax spores and the ability to spread them when used in a conventional bomb. An island of the cost of Scotland was chosen as testing ground. It was thought that the island was far enought off the coast for any contamination to reach mainland, a thought that later would be found to be wrong. The testresults was used by both the Great Britain and the U.S. to develope bombs that would spread the spores more efficiently. As sheep and cattle on the mainland facing the island was affected by anthrax in 1943, the testing was stopped. An attempt to decontaminate the island by burning of the top soil failed as the spores unexpectedly had found there way down in the soil. The island is now forbidden to visit. | ||
| After the war | top | |
The U.S. biological warfare program accelerated in activity and grew size, both because the cold war and the the aquering of the data from Japan. In 1956 the former Soviet Union accused U.S. of using biological weapons in Korea which lead them to threaten future use of Chemical and Biological weapons. This changed the focus of the U.S. program to a more defensive one. Before this, the research was based at Ft. Detrick and used "surrogate biological agents" to model more deadly organisms. Most of the offensive tests were based on "secret spraying" of organisms over populated areas. This program was shut down in 1969. One of the biggest experiments involved the use of Serratia marcescens being sprayed over San Francisco. This organism is especially nice because it produces a red/pink pigment when grown on certain media, which makes identification very easy. At one point, 5000 particles/minute were sprayed from the costal areas inward. During this time, 1 man died (in the hospital) and 10 others became infected in what was described as "a mystery to doctors." Although the military never did many follow up studies on these tests, one result was that it showed that nearly every person became infected with the test organism. As this information has become declassified it's been shown that during periods following spraying tests, there were 5-10 times the normal infections reported. Other experiments included tests on Minneapolis that were disguised as "smoke screen tests" because residents were told a harmless smoke was being tested so that cities might be 'hidden' from radar guided missiles. In 1966 Bacillus subtilis was released into the subway system of New York to determine how vulnerable it was to attack. Results showed that the entire underground tunnel system could be infected by release in only one station due to the winds created by trains! The bulk of the biological warfare experiments conducted by the U.S. during this time all pointed to two things: the U.S. was highly susceptible to a biological weapon attack and that there was really nothing they could do about it. On the Sovjet side of things, aside from a few allegations of use, the biological warfare program of the U.S.S.R was kept relatively quiet. In 1979, however, there was an explosion at a plant in Sverdlovsk and an outbreak of anthrax followed. At the time, all accusations af biological warfare research were vigorously denied by Soviet officials, with the explanation that anthrax outbreaks can occur naturally and that the explosion was merely a coincidence. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin confirmed that anthrax was being researched at Sverdlovsk and vowed to stop all "Soviet" biological warfare research. Unfortunately, defectors have contradicted Yeltsin and there are rumors that although the "offical government" statement and ideal may be an elimination of biological weapons, the military is still actively pursuing a biological warfare program of its own. Supposedly they are working independently of any governmental control and are seeking to develop a "super virus" of unknown capabilities. The most recent concern of biological warfare has come from developing countries. During the Persian Gulf War to liberate Kuwait, U.S troops were immunized against anthrax (contrary to official statements) because it was known that Saddam Hussein had a biological warfare program. |
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| Further reading: Timeline | Tokyo Subway Gas Attack | The Rajneeshee Cult | The Ustinov Incident | ||
| By: Jan Olofsson, June 2001 | <<back | top | |