Chemical Warfare
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What is Chemical Warfare?
Chemical
warfare is warfare (and associated
military operations) using
non-explosive chemical agents to kill, injure or incapacitate the
enemy. Living organisms (including viruses) are not considered chemical
warfare: their use is instead labelled biological warfare.
Chemical weapons
are classified as weapons of mass destruction by the
United Nations according to UN Resolution 687, and its production and
stockpiling was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.
Chemical Warfare
Agents
The
chemical used is called a chemical warfare agent (CWA), and is usually
gasseous at room temperature, or is a liquid that evaporates quickly
and generates toxic fumes (such liquids are said to be volatile or have
a high vapor pressure).
The main types of
chemical warfare agents are as follows:
Blood agents,
usually based on cyanide, that prevent the normal use of
oxygen by the body tissues, resulting in chemical asphyxiation.
Vesicants (or
blister agents), such as mustard gas and Lewisite, that
cause blistering of the skin. They are designed to incapacitate rather
than kill, with the goal of overloading the medical facilities of the
region.
Pulmonary agents
(or choking agents, lung toxicants) that impede a
victim's ability to breathe, resulting in suffocation. Examples include
chlorine and phosgene. These were commonly used in World War I, but
were rendered mostly obsolete by the more effective nerve agents.
Nerve agents,
such as sarin and VX, inhibit the breakdown of the
neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the victim's nerves. Nerve agents are
hundreds to thousands times more lethal than blister, pulmonary or
blood agents.
Incapacitating
agents are less-lethal agents that produce temporary
physiological or mental effects in their victims, making them unable to
perform organized actions. An example is BZ, which produces massive
hallucinations in those exposed to it.
Lachrymatory
agents that sting and irritate the eyes to cause pain and
temporary blindness, such as tear gas and pepper spray. In recent
decades these agents are usually used for riot-control purposes,
therefore they are also often called riot control agents.
Not considered to
be chemical weapon agents are:
Defoliants that
destroy vegetation, but are not immediately toxic to
human beings.
Viruses, bacteria, or other organisms, or
their toxic products.
Their
use is classified as biological
warfare.
Chemical warfare
in ancient and classical times
Chemical
weapons have been used for millenia
in the form of poisoned
arrows, but evidence can be found for the existence of more advanced
forms of chemical weapons in ancient and classical times.
Dating from the
4th century BC, writings of the Mohist sect in China
describe the use of bellows to pump smoke from burning balls of mustard
and other toxic vegetables into tunnels being dug by a beseiging army.
Even older Chinese writings dating back to about 1000 BC contain
hundreds of recipes for the production of poisonous or irritating
smokes for use in war along with numerous accounts of their use. From
these accounts we know of the arsenic-containing "soul-hunting fog",
and the use of finely divided lime dispersed into the air to suppress a
peasant revolt in 178 AD.
The earliest
recorded use of gas warfare in the West dates back to the
5th century BC, during During the Peloponnesian War between Athens and
Sparta. Spartan forces besieging an Athenian city placed a lighted
mixture of wood, pitch, and sulfur under the walls hoping that the
noxious smoke would incapacitate the Athenians so that they would not
be able to resist the assault that followed. Sparta wasn't alone in its
use of unconventional tactics during these wars: Solon of Athens is
said to have used hellebore roots to poison the water in an aqueduct
leading from the Pleistrus River around 590 BC during the siege of
Cirrha.
The rediscovery of
chemical warfare
During
the Renaissance, people again began to
consider the use of
chemical warfare. One of the earliest such references is from Leonardo
da Vinci, who proposed a powder of sulfide of arsenic and verdigris in
the 15th century:
throw poison in
the form of powder upon galleys. Chalk, fine sulfide of
arsenic, and powdered verdegris may be thrown among enemy ships by
means of small mangonels, and all those who, as they breathe, inhale
the powder into their lungs will become asphyxiated.
It is unknown
whether this powder was ever actually used.
In the 1600s, it
was a common practice during seiges to attempt to
start fires by launching incendiary shells filled with sulphur, tallow,
rosin, turpentine, saltpeter, and/or antimony. It was quickly observed
that even when fires were not started, the resulting smoke and fumes
would provide, at the very least, a considerable distraction. Although
the primary function as fire starters was never abandoned, a variety of
fills for shells were developed that were intended to maximize the
effects of the smoke.
In 1672, during
his siege of the city of Groningen, Christoph Bernhard
van Galen, the Bishop of Münster, employed several different
explosive and incendiary devices, some of which had a fill that
included belladonna, intended to produce toxic fumes. Just three years
later, August 27, 1675, the French and the Germans concluded the
Strasbourg Agreement, which included an article banning the use of
"perfidious and odious" toxic devices.
In 1854, Lyon
Playfair, a British chemist, proposed a cacodyl cyanide
artillery shell for use against enemy ships as way to solve the
stalemate during the siege of Sevastopol, a proposal backed by Admiral
Thomas Cochrane of the Royal Navy. It was considered by the British
Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, but the British Ordnance Department
rejected the proposal as "bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells
of the enemy." Playfair’s response was used to justify chemical warfare
into the next century:
There was no
sense in this objection. It is considered a legitimate
mode of warfare to fill shells with molten metal which scatters among
the enemy, and produced the most frightful modes of death. Why a
poisonous vapor which would kill men without suffering is to be
considered illegitimate warfare is incomprehensible. War is
destruction, and the more destructive it can be made with the least
suffering the sooner will be ended that barbarous method of protecting
national rights. No doubt in time chemistry will be used to lessen the
suffering of combatants, and even of criminals condemned to death.
Later, during the
American Civil War, a New York school teacher named
John Doughty proposed the offensive use of chlorine gas, delivered by
filling a 10-in. artillery shell with 2 to 3 quarts of liquid chlorine.
When released, such a shell would produce many cubic feet of chlorine
gas. Doughty’s plan was apparently never acted on, as it was probably
presented to Brigadier General James W. Ripley, Chief of Ordnance, who
was described as being congenitally immune to new ideas.
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