Chemical Warfare

Chemical warfare is war that uses asphyxiating, poisonous, corrosive, incendiary, or otherwise debilitating gasses or liquids as weapons. Despite the limited use of such weapons in U.S. history, chemical warfare has been the subject of ongoing controversy in the United States throughout the 20th century. Soldiers and civilians alike have argued about whether or not the United States should develop and produce chemical weapons, what appropriate measures should be taken to protect U.S. troops abroad and citizens at home from enemy chemical attack, how the United States should discourage or prevent other nations from producing or using chemical weapons, whether the United States should destroy its own existing stockpiles of chemical weapons, and how chemical weapons in the United States can be destroyed safely.

The first instance of chemical warfare in modern war occurred during World War I. On April 22, 1915, the German Army released chlorine gas on the battlefield at the beginning of its attack on British and French forces near the town of Ypres in Belgium. While use of the gas did not produce the war-winning victory the Germans had anticipated, the poisonous fumes caused widespread disorder and many casualties among the Allied troops. After the battle at Ypres, chlorine and other poisonous gases and liquids such as phosgene and mustard were used on the battlefield by all the Western powers for the duration of World War I. By the time the United States entered the war, gas masks and poisonous clouds had become prominent features of the Western Front.

The U.S. declaration of war against Germany and the decision to send an American Expeditionary Force to the battlefields in France in 1917 caused the U.S. Army to begin preparing for chemical warfare. On August 17, 1917, Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, requested the creation of a Gas [Page 115]Service and appointed Lt. Col. Amos A. Fries its first chief. The Gas Service was both an offensive and defensive organization. It trained American soldiers to defend themselves against chemical weapons by instructing them in the use of protective equipment such as gas masks and decontamination showers; it also supported the offensive activities of American chemical warfare units in the field, who used war gasses in battle against the Germans. Despite their preparations for chemical warfare, the American Expeditionary Force suffered terribly from gas attacks. American soldiers experienced a much higher percentage of gas casualties than any other belligerent nation.

During the interwar period, a large and vocal group of Americans questioned the wisdom and morality of chemical warfare. They opposed the continuation of the U.S. chemical warfare program, pointing to the suffering experienced by victims of gas attacks in France. Opponents of chemical warfare alleged that people exposed to chemical weapons suffered more than those harmed by more conventional weapons, such as bullets or artillery shells. They urged the abandonment of chemical weapons research, the destruction of existing supplies of chemical weapons, and the formation of international agreements pledging other nations to do the same. Defenders of continued American involvement in chemical warfare research argued that death or illness caused by gas was no worse than those caused by conventional weapons. They doubted that other nations could be trusted to abandon future development and use of chemical weapons, and insisted that the United States continue its own research in order to defend itself.

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