Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare (2008) - The Black Vault

Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfareify every man for service that was within the circleof its influence; rendering the disarming and capturingof them as certain as though both their legs werebroken. 11(p27)Although Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton apparentlynever answered it, Doughty‘s letter waslater published in the Journal of the American MilitaryInstitute. 9 The idea was one of many suggestionsand inventions flooding the War and Navy Officesduring the time, including a proposal by Joseph Lottof Hartford, Connecticut, for using hand-pumpedfire engines to spray chloroform on Confederate garrisonsto anesthetize troops prior to their capture. 12Over 50 years after Doughty’s original proposal, theGerman army developed chlorine gas cylinders andeventually chlorine bombs to combat trench warfarein World War I.During the 1864 siege of Petersburg, General UlyssesGrant’s army was stalled outside the city. ForrestShepherd, a professor of agricultural chemistryat Western Reserve University, proposed mixinghydrochloric and sulfuric acids to create a toxic cloudto defeat the entrenched Confederate defenders. 11Because chemical warfare was viewed as inhumaneat the time, Grant never acted upon the plan. Othersuch ideas were recorded during the war. UnionArmy Captain EC Boyton proposed the use of acacodyl glass grenade for ship-to-ship fighting. 11Lieutenant Colonel William W Blackford, a Confederateengineer, designed a sulfur cartridge for use asa counter tunneling device. 13 The Confederates alsoconsidered using Chinese stink bombs against theUnion troops. With the possible exemption of Blackford’scartridge, none of the proposals were appliedon the battlefield.World War IChemical Warfare Use by France, Great Britain,and GermanyMost casualties in warfare from the Middle Agesuntil the First World War were the result of cold steel,wooden projectiles, and fast-moving metals propelledby explosives. World War I ushered in a new style offighting involving stalemates of trench warfare (Figure2-1), and synthetic chemists tested new chemical weaponsin the arena of “no man’s land.” Trenches madebullets less useful and reduced mobility, but poisongas could uproot a well-entrenched enemy.All of Europe was caught in the crisis of 1914 afterthe murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo.Declarations of war among Austria-Hungary, Serbia,Germany, France, Russia, and Great Britain soon followed(Figure 2-2). The United States remained neutralfor several years under President Woodrow Wilson’spolicy. Although few expected the 19th century chemicalproposals to become instrumental in tactical operationson the battlefield, the highly skilled researchscientists and chemists of the principal combatantsquickly adapted chemicals as primary weapons. Earlyin the war, French intelligence and captured Germanprisoners warned the Triple Entente (the United Kingdom,France, and Russia) of the numerous Germanfactories being built along the Rhein that were capableof synthesizing vast quantities of toxic chemicals foruse on the battlefield. Despite international efforts torestrict chemical weapons in the late 19th and early20th centuries (see Chapter 4, History of the ChemicalThreat, Chemical Terrorism, and Its Implications forMilitary Medicine), as both sides became rooted intheir labyrinth of trenches in the early stages of WorldWar I, the armies turned to chemical warfare.Early Allied Chemical Warfare PlansFig. 2-1. Trench warfare. American Expeditionary ForcesSecond Division soldiers alerted to the sounds of gas alarms.US Signal Corps photograph.Photograph: Courtesy of US Army Military History Institute,Carlisle, Pa.Despite the long-held belief that Germany was thefirst to use chemical agents during World War I, theFrench were actually the first; in August 1914, theyfired toxic gas from rifles in the form of ethyl bromoacetatetear gas grenades. The French had tested12