Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-05-14
Toxic Warfare

OF poison gas is to be used in the
European phase Of the Second
World War will depend upon the
decision of Adolf Hitler. Reports
already are being circulated to the
effect that chemical attacks have
been made upon the Russians, and
Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
in his radio address Sunday. an
nounced an intention to retaliate
ION the largest possible scale far
and wide against military detectives
in Germany"-unless Der Fuehrer
hereafter abStains from the en-
ployment of this odious weapon"
A similar exchange occurred in
1915, when the Germans allegedly
tried out" gas on the eastern front
as early as January. The first au-
thentic experiment of the same sort
in the west was staged at the height
OF the second battle of Ypres on
April %. H. B. C. Pollard relates of
1t: Trenches on the north of the
canal and on the left of the Cana
dian Third Brigade were held by
the French colonial troops of the
Forty-ifth Division. Turcos and
zouaves. Dusk was falling
when from the German trenches
in front of the French line
rose that strange green cloud of
irh L, II
breeze waited it toward them. and
in a moment death had them by
the throat 1t was a new and devil
iSh engine of warfare. one for which
white troops were wholly unpre-
pared and which held for those
brave Africans a sheer terror of the
supernatural one cannot blame
them that they broke and fed. In
the gathering dark of that awful
night they fought with the terror,
running blindly in the gas cloud
and dropping with breasts heaving
in agony and the slow poison of
suffocation mantling their dark
faces. Hundreds OF them fell and
died. Behind the gas cloud
came the advancing hordes of Ger
mans, under cover of a violent ar
tillery fire"
But was the gain achieved by
such a violation of international
law-as set forth at The Hague Con-
ference Of 1899-worth what 1t cost?
One answer is provided by Prof.
Carlton J. H. Hayes in his Brief
History Of the Great War" as fol-
lows: 1.-THE French troops holding
the line north OF Ypres broke and
fled before this novel and diabol-
1cally cruel form of attack, and
Ypres itself was saved only by the
gallant and logged resistance of
Canadian troops. After a months
incessant fighting the battle of
Ypres died down; the Allies had pre-
vented the Germans from breaking
through but the Germans had
greatly reduced the Allied salient in
front Of Ypres and above all had
put new fear and new terror into
the hearts OF the Allies"
BY the middle Of May, however,
the Canadian troops had been
equipped with respirators, and fac
tories in England were busy produc-
Ing gas for retaliatory purposes.
Brigadier General Sir Harold Brewer
Hartley chronicles the fact that:
1.-The first British gas attack was
made at Loos on September 25 1915,
with cylinders OF chlorine. and from
then to the end Of the war frequent
cloud discharges were made, as the
wind was more often favorable to
the Allies than to the Germans"
The authors of the treaty of Yer
sailles In 1919 attempted to OUTLAW"
chemical warfare. and this view was
confirmed by the nations represented
at the Washington Conference in
1922" But the problem of toxic hos
tlllties-like that of all other varie-
ties OF strife-obviously cannot be
solved so long as any single nation
or any single dictator has the will
and the power to f1out the conscience
of mankind.