The Washington times., 1937-04-29
BY PIERRE J. HUSS
(Copyright. 1887. by international
News service)

BERLIN, April 20 U.N.SO.
Poison gas is the horror weapon
and at the same time most mys-
terious factor around which spec
ulation in connection with the
next war" centers today.
Popular imagination, played
upon by war and postwar exper-
fences and literature, cringeS in
terror when confronted by the
prospects of destruction of whole
armies and cities through air
raids and poison gas. Every in
dividual Immediately envisages
himself or herself choking to
death under the poison fumes.
Military science, on the other
hand, is looking eXpectantly to
chemistry for practical means to
defeat the foe with this weapon
and secondly for effective ways to
safeguard its own civilian popula-
tion from gas warfare while edu-
eating soldiery to Withstand with
out fear the worst Of gas at
tacks.
What History Teaches
Looking back twenty years in
an effort to analyZe the posi-
bilities of poison fumes in any
next conflict brings into view
several clear and undisputable
factors:
First-The moral effect on
civilian and cOmbatant forces
Is by far more effective and
valuable from the military
standpoint than the physical
consequences, the latter being
reducible in the seriousness of
casualties more and more
through anti-gaS methods.
In brief, tests and experiments
during the last decade have
shown that even in the last year
Of the World War, deaths from
gas poisonings were on the de-
cline while poison gas sickness
was on the upgrade. The NOR
tality danger from poison gas,
therefore, would be of negligent
ratio in the next war provided the
correct system of anti-gaS meas
ures is functioning.
MUSTARD GAS WORST
SccOnd-The military power
which springs on its enemy the
most deadly gas adaptable to
ali war circumstances holds an
ace in the hole. Up to now, it
seemed an und0ubtable fact
that Mustard Gas" of world
war nOtOriety remains, despite
all search for Super. poison
fumes, the king of poison gases.
Third-As investigation ex-
tending far afield shows, every
leading power and even the
small ones are franticalIy seek
ing for the deadlieSt weapon of
ala poison fume capable of
penetrating all anti-gaS prOtec-
tive devices such as gas masks
and gas-prOOf suits and thus
crippling any effective anti-gaS
measures now rapidly taking
the terror out of gas warfare.
NULLIFY DEFENSE
Competent authorities in many
lands, according to indications
here, believe thai all the tremen-
dous effort now being devoted by
nations to air-defense protection
will be practically nullified from a
moral standpoint once any power
can boast that its poison gases will
defeat gas masks and other Fro
lection devices. A victory in a
sense would be won before the
next war gets under way. England,
for example, would have to discard
as useless the millions of gas
masks now being distributed to its
civilian population at tremendous
cost and as a moral boost, and
start all over again in plotting its
material and psychological resjs-
tance to gas warfare.
In other words, twenty years of
research and chemical progress
have failed to conquer the gas
masks as a protective device for
the time being, barring possible
closely guarded military secrets,
the gas capable of mastering the
gas mask does not seem to be
near at hand.