History

A poison gas is any gas which is meant to be used in a war against an enemy to attack them. It upon inhalation affects enemy soldiers by either harassing them or killing them. It has been known for long but previously it wasnt used as weapon because it was considered uncivilized. There are a number of types of poison gases used. Firstly the types will be discussed and then we will shed light on how the poison gases were used in World War I.

Blister Gasses in which we can include the mustard gas which is one of the most lethal ones. This gas is odorless and takes around twelve hours to work. It remains several days on the ground. Most of the times its purpose is to incapacitate troops.

Choking gases are used to attack the respiratory of the enemy. It includes phosgene and chlorine. Its effect is towards the lungs of the victims leading them towards the slow death.

Nerve Gases are also used in war that usually damages the muscles and the nerves of the victims. As soon as the poison enters human blood the person dies in a few minutes. Examples include Tabun, Soman etc.

Vomiting Gases are used not for killing but for creating nausea, vomiting, sneezing etc at a severe level. They were basically developed to control different riots.

Tear gases are also used as a poisonous gas which causes eye irritation. As it name suggests it irritates eye so much that tears start coming out from the eye. Along with eyes it may also affect nose, throat, skin etc. Police and other law enforcement agencies usually use this kind of gas if they want people to leave the place and to stop riots.

Psychochemical gases are also one of the kinds. This gas directly affects the brain causing it to stop working or like short term memory losses. (Hub Pages, 2010)

These were some types of poison gases that actually are used in war fare to disturb and injure enemy soldiers and armies use various methods for gas attacks.

Poison gas in World War I
Poison gas as weapon was first used in World War I along with grenades, firearms and tanks. It was believed necessary by that time to use poison gas a weapon which was previously considered to be at an uncivilized position if an army uses poison gases. The killing by the use of poison gas was limited at that time and only 4 of the deaths were by the use of it.

The concept which is perceived by many is that Germans were the first to use poison gas as a weapon but that belief is wrong as the French were the first to use it. They used it against the Germans in the very first month (august 1914) of the battle when they fired tear-gas at them. Germans were the ones who then gave serious consideration to this new weapon conducted study and they were the ones who first used it at a big scale. (History learning site, 2010)

In October 1914, the Germans attacked by firing gas shells that had a chemical which caused sneezing. This was done against the French at Neuve Chapelle. This act was done to actually disturb the enemy soldiers so that they would leave their positions and get weakened, and not meant for killing them. After three months i.e. in January 1915 Germans for the first time used tear-gas. Another experiment was done against the Russians which didnt prove successful and then they tried again and came up with the improved tear gas against the French in March 1915.

The chlorine gas i.e. poison gas was first used by the Germans on 22nd April 1915. They heavily bombarded the gas at Ypres against the French and the Algerians. The gas is yellowish-green in color and when the clouds of it were seen by the French, they thought that an attack will follow. However it did not follow an attack rather it was the first time that chlorine was used as a weapon. There were severe effects of chlorine gas and upon inhalation enemy faced a major set back. It was an opportunity for the Germans to get to a decisive position but they were not actually prepared for it and the successful experiment came to Germans as a surprise. Although they proceeded reluctantly and were hesitant but they could have done better if they could prepare themselves for this. Still they get a good position and weakened the French and the Algerians. This use of gas was condemned by the neutral nations like USA and others. This was the start of the use of the gas which continued through out the war.

The Allies recovered from the damage and then British planned to respond to the act. They raised Special Gas Companies to develop a gas to be used in Loos in September 1915. The interesting part is that the word gas was not used by them and rather they refer the thing as accessories. British used pressurized cylinders for the purpose of release of the gas as like Germans did. They removed the cork when wind started blowing towards the enemy side but fate did not support them and so the wind changed its direction and started coming towards the British. This resulted in around 2000 casualties to the British. The act proved failure as more damages were done to the British.

Now it was known that there is a need of a better delivery system or we can say a better way to deliver or release the gas so the ones releasing will not be at the defeating side. Number of experiments was conducted for the issue to be solved and so people came up with other poison gases which can be used in war. That was the time when phosgene and the mustard gas were to use for war. Phosgene affected people after 48 hours of its inhalation so it is apparent that nothing can be done for it when its affect is felt and now it is too late. The mixture of chlorine and phosgene was used in war and was called white star mixture.

Mustard Gas was first used in war as a weapon in 1917 against the Russians at Riga. The gas was odorless and the effect of it was internal and external blisters after one is exposed to it for few hours. It was more difficult to protect oneself from mustard gas than the other gases.

The allies copied the use of mustard gas as they did with the previous ones i.e. the chlorine and the phosgene. In 1918 the poison gas was widely used as a weapon of the war. Chloropicrin and bromine were also developed. The French Army at some occasions used nerve gas also. Still the most used gases were mustard gas, chlorine gas and phosgene. Germans were the ones who used the gas at most. Their total usage was about 68000 tons preceding the French and the British which used 36000 tons and 25000 tons respectively.

There were a number of casualties caused by the use of poison gases but its effectiveness diminished slowly and in 1915 the number of deaths reported by the use of poison gases was rare. Gas was not the weapon in the war which proved the most deadly. There were a number of developments on it and so the developments for the protection of people against the gases. And it was frequently copied by the rivals so it did not give edge to any party.

Cotton wads were used for the protection against the first use of chlorine gas in Ypres. Around 100,000 wads were developed for the purpose. They were put on the face after dipping them into the bicarbonate of soda. Many other ways of fighting against the gases were used.

Conclusion
 So to conclude we can say that poison gas was first used as a weapon in the World War I. The damage of it was less than it was believed that it would be a major weapon of war. This was because as soon as the gas was developed the rivals started to make the protective instruments to protect themselves. And the use of the gas had also been copied many times. The total poison gas used in the war was around 129,000 tons. The total non-fatal casualties were around 1,205,655 and fatal were 91,198. The gas proved as one of the weapons which can actually be used in a war to weaken enemy and previous perception that the use of it was uncivilized was now not considered.