History
Chemical warfare in ancient and classical times
Chemical weapons have been used for millennia with poisoned arrows, but evidence of the existence of more advanced devices can be found in ancient and classical times.
A good example of the early use of chemical weapons was the hunter-gatherer societies of southern Africa and the late Stone Age, known as San. They soaked the wood, bone and stone tips of their arrows with poisons they obtained in their natural environment. These poisons came mainly from scorpions and snakes, but it is believed that they also used some poisonous plants. Arrows were shot at the selected target, usually an antelope, and then the hunter followed the doomed animal until the poison caused it to fall.
In the century BC. C., some writings of the Moist sect in China describe the use of bellows to introduce the smoke of mustard seeds and other toxic vegetables into the tunnels dug by enemy armies during sieges. Some even older Chinese writings, dated around 1000 BC. C., contain hundreds of recipes for producing toxic or irritating fumes for use during war, as well as numerous records of their use. Thanks to these records we know of the use of “spirit-catching fog” that contained arsenic, and the use of pulverized quicklime spread with the help of the wind to break up a peasant revolt in the year 178.
The first news of the use of gas in the West dates back to the century BC. C., during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Spartan forces during the siege of an Athenian city lit a fire at the foot of the walls made of wood, tar, and sulfur, hoping that the noxious smoke would incapacitate the Athenians to resist the assault that followed. Sparta was not alone in using these unconventional tactics during such wars: Solon of Athens is said to have used hellebore roots to poison the water of an aqueduct fed by the Pleistos River") around 590 BC, during the siege of Cirra.
There is archaeological evidence that the Sassanids used chemical weapons against the Roman Army in the century AD. C. Research carried out on the collapsed Dura-Europos tunnels in Syria suggests that the Iranians used bitumen and sulfur crystals to burn them. When ignited, the materials produced dense clouds of asphyxiating gases that killed 20 Roman soldiers in two minutes.[1].
Chemical weapons were known in ancient and medieval China. Polish historian Jan Długosz mentions the use of poison gas by the Mongol army during the Battle of Legnica in 1241.
At the end of the century, the Spanish faced a rudimentary chemical weapon on the island of Hispaniola. The Taínos threw gourds full of ash and pulverized chili at them, in order to create a curtain of blinding smoke before attacking them.[2].
The rediscovery of chemical warfare
During the Renaissance the use of chemical warfare was again considered. One of the first references comes from Leonardo da Vinci, who proposed the use of arsenic sulfide powder and verdigris in the century:.
It is not known if said powder was ever used.
In the century during sieges, armies attempted to start fires by launching incendiary projectiles filled with sulfur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, rock salt (sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate), and antimony. Even if they did not cause fires, the resulting fumes caused considerable distraction. Although its primary function was never abandoned, new products were developed to fill the projectiles to maximize the effects of the smoke.
In 1672, during the siege of the city of Groningen, Christopher Bernhard van Galen (Bishop of Munich) used various explosives and incendiary devices, some of which included belladonna in their composition, with the intention of producing toxic fumes. Exactly three years later, on August 27, 1675, the French and Germans reached the Strasbourg Agreement), which included an article prohibiting the use of "perfidious and hateful" toxic devices.
In 1854, Lyon Playfar"), a British chemist, proposed an anti-ship artillery shell loaded with cacodyl cyanide as a way to break the deadlock during the siege of Sevastopol. The proposal was supported by Admiral Thomas Cochrane of the Royal Navy. Prime Minister Lord Palmerston considered it, but the British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal as "a type of warfare as pernicious as poisoning the wells of the enemy." Playfar's answer was used to justify the use of chemical weapons during the following century:
Later, during the Civil War, New York schoolteacher John Doughty proposed the offensive use of chlorine gas, delivered by 10-inch (254-millimeter) projectiles filled with varying amounts of 2 to 3 liters of liquid chlorine, which would produce several cubic meters of chlorine gas. Doughty's plan was apparently never carried out, as it was probably presented to Brigadier General James W. Ripley, Chief of Artillery, who has been described as congenitally immune to new ideas.
Chemical warfare in World War I
The first time chemical agents were used on a large scale was during the First World War, beginning with the Second Battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915, when the Germans attacked French, Canadian and Algerian troops with chlorine. Since then, a total of 50,965 tons of respiratory agents, lachrymators and vesicants were used by both sides, including chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas. Official figures speak of around 1,176,500 injuries and 85,000 deaths directly caused by chemical agents during the war.
Even today, unexploded World War I chemical munitions are frequently unearthed when excavating former battlefields or storage areas, and they continue to be a danger to the civilian population of Belgium and France. The governments of these countries have launched special programs to deal with discovered ammunition.
After the war, most of the Germans' unused chemical agents were dumped into the Baltic Sea. Over time, salt water corrodes the casings, and mustard gas spilled from such containers occasionally washes up on beaches as solid, waxy, amber-like objects. Even in its solidified form, the agent has enough activity to cause severe burns to anyone who handles it.
Chemical warfare in the interwar period
After World War I, the United States and most European powers attempted to take advantage of the opportunities the war had created by establishing and maintaining colonies. During this interwar period, chemical agents were occasionally used to subjugate populations and quell rebellions.
After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, the Ottoman Government disappeared completely and the former empire was divided between the victorious powers in the Treaty of Sèvres. The British occupied Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and established a colonial government.
In 1920, the Arab and Kurdish peoples of Mesopotamia rebelled against British occupation, with heavy losses on the part of the Europeans. As the Mesopotamian resistance gained strength, the British repressed it with increasingly aggressive measures, and even Winston Churchill himself, as Secretary of the Colonies, authorized the use of chemical agents, mainly mustard gas, against the resistance. Mindful of the economic expense of suppressing dissidents, Churchill hoped that chemical weapons could be used economically against Mesopotamian tribes, saying: "I don't understand the revulsion about the use of gas. I am very much in favor of the use of gas against uncivilized tribes. So much so that in 1925 sixteen of the world's largest nations signed the Geneva Protocol, pledging never to use gases or bacteriological weapons. Although the United States signed the protocol, the Senate did not ratify it until 1975.
During the Rif War, in Morocco occupied by Spain (1921-1927), German companies advised and supervised the research, production and use of chemical weapons by Spanish forces in Africa. As the experimentation and production of this type of weaponry was prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles "Treaty of Versailles (1919)"), the work was carried out in the Spanish protectorate. The combined Franco-Spanish forces fired mustard, yperite and phosgene gas bombs mainly in an attempt to quell the Berber rebellion (Berber (ethnicity)); However, the success of the chemical campaign was not so much the use against the Riffian Kabilas, but rather against their crop fields, depriving them of their crops. In this way, the Riffian rulers had to attack French territory to, among other objectives, obtain food, which led to the Franco-Spanish alliance.
In 1935, fascist Italy used mustard gas during the invasion of Ethiopia. Ignoring the Geneva Protocol, signed seven years earlier, the Italian military used mustard gas bombs, dropped from airplanes and disseminated it in the form of dust. There were reportedly 15,000 casualties from chemical weapons, most from mustard gas.
Chemical warfare in the Spanish civil war
During the Second Spanish Republic, a National Committee was in charge of preparing citizens in matters of aerochemical defense. Its purpose was merely informative, since only the Assault forces, in practice, were instructed in the use of gas masks. More than enough time had passed since the end of the great European war for awareness regarding lethal gases to be reduced to an anecdote regarding a citizenry increasingly alien to this type of Dantesque violence, so that the instructional material consisted of a school propaganda pamphlet that, duly translated into Spanish, had been published by the Military Chemical Service of Italy. Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, the Franco side prepared to report on possible republican air attacks, using said pamphlet, duly added, to make pocket editions and distribute them in the towns that were being 'liberated'. In Huelva, one of the first provinces to succumb to the 'national' cause, in the first months of 1936 the constitution of an Anti-Aircraft Defense Board was ordered and the printing of the pamphlet entitled Instructions to the civilian population in the event of an aircraft attack, which today constitutes a bibliographical rarity.[5] In the Siege of the Alcázar of Toledo, the republican forces used "war gases", as the Toledo Column report literally says, as possible solution to the siege of the Alcázar (two French representatives of a chemical products company offered them to the republican forces).[6].
Chemical warfare during World War II
Although the use of chemical weapons did not spread during World War II, there are documented cases in which the Axis powers used chemical agents.
Japan used mustard gas and another agent called lewisite (which was a vesicant agent) in some battles it fought against China. The works of Yoshiaki Yoshimi") and Seiya Matsuno") show that Hirohito authorized through specific orders (rinsanmei) the use of chemical weapons against the Chinese.[7] For example, during the invasion of Wuhan, from August to October 1938, the emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions,[8] despite the resolution adopted by the League of Nations on May 14 condemning the use of toxic gas by the army. Japanese.
During these attacks they also used biological weapons (Squadron 731) as they intentionally spread cholera, dysentery, typhus, bubonic plague and anthrax (anthrax). Even in 2005, sixty years after the Second Sino-Japanese War, containers of chemical agents that were abandoned by the Japanese when they undertook their withdrawal are still being found; These containers have caused harm to people and deaths.
Nazi Germany revolutionized chemical warfare by accidentally discovering the nerve agents now known as tabun, sarin, and soman. The Nazis developed and manufactured large quantities of these agents but neither side of the war used them on a large scale. Some Nazi documents that have been recovered suggest that within the Abwehr, the German intelligence agency, it was believed that the Allies also had access to these agents and that the fact that they were not mentioned in the scientific reports was because it was confidential information. The reality is that the Allies had not discovered these gases and the Abwehr interpreted the lack of information incorrectly. Germany ultimately chose not to use these nerve agents as they feared that the Allies would counterattack by using their own chemical weapons against the Third Reich.
According to William L. Shirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the United Kingdom's highest officers chose to leave chemical warfare as the last option in the defense of the island in case Nazi Germany decided to invade British lands.
The use of chemical agents occurred especially when there was no fear of a counterattack and some instances in which they happened were:
• - In 1944 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni, the Islamic religious leader of Palestine and also an ally of Adolf Hitler, began a campaign against the Jewish community of the region and during this he attempted to use chemical weapons. Five paratroopers, with maps of Tel Aviv and containers containing a white powder manufactured in Germany, were instructed to deposit the powder in the wells of Tel Aviv. According to Fayiz Bey Idrissi, police commander in At that time, each container stored enough poison to kill 25,000 people. There were at least ten containers.[9].
Chemical weapons during the Cold War
After World War II, the Allies recovered projectiles containing the three nerve agents of the day (tabun, sarin, and soman), boosting nerve agent research across the former Allies. Although the threat of thermonuclear annihilation was on most minds during the Cold War, both Soviet and Western governments spent many resources developing chemical and biological weapons.
In 1952 the United States Army patented a procedure for the "preparation of Toxic Ricinus," publishing a method of producing this powerful toxin.
Also in 1952, researchers at Porton Down, England, invented the nerve agent VX, but soon abandoned the project. In 1958 the British Government sold its VX technology to the United States in exchange for information on thermonuclear weapons. Its development produced at least three more agents; All four (VE, VG, VM, VX) are known as the "V Series" class of nerve agents.
During the 1960s, the United States explored the use of anticholinergic delusional incapacitating agents. One such agent, designated BZ, is believed to have been used experimentally during the Vietnam War. These assumptions inspired the 1990 film Jacob's Ladder.
Between 1967 and 1968, the United States decided to get rid of obsolete chemical weapons in an operation called CHASE, an acronym that corresponds to "Cut holes and sink 'em" in English. CHASE operations also included many conventional ammunition loads. As the name suggests, the weapons were shipped on old Liberty ships that were sunk at sea.
In 1969, 23 American soldiers and one civilian stationed in Okinawa, Japan, were exposed to low levels of the nerve agent sarin while repainting warehouses. The weapons had been kept hidden from Japan, sparking anger in Japan and an international incident. These munitions were moved in 1971 to Johnston Atoll under Operation Red Hat.
A United Nations working group began work on chemical disarmament in 1980. On April 4, 1984, United States President Ronald Reagan called for an international ban on chemical weapons. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the bilateral treaty on June 1, 1990, ending chemical weapons production and beginning the destruction of their nations' stockpiles. The multilateral Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.
In a report issued by the United States Senate in 1994, titled Is military research hazardous to veterans health? Lessons spanning a half century, detailed the fact that the United States Department of Defense had carried out experiments on animals and humans on several occasions and the latter would not have known what they were really being subjected to. Some of these experiments were:[10].
• - Approximately 60,000 members of the United States military participated in experiments conducted in the 1940s to see the effects of chemical agents such as mustard gas and lewisite.[10].
Use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war
The Iran-Iraq War began in 1980 when Iraq attempted to invade Iran. In the early phases of the war, Iraq began using mustard and tabun gas in the bombs it used in its air attacks; It has been estimated that 5% of Iranian deaths were caused by these agents. Iraq and the United States announced that Iran was also using such weapons, but to date this statement has not been corroborated by any outside sources.
Approximately 100,000 Iranian soldiers are said to have been victims of Iraq's chemical attacks. Many suffered the effects of mustard gas. The official figures do not include civilians who were affected by living in the towns involved in the conflict nor the children or relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed complications in their blood, lungs or skin (according to data from the Organization for Veterans). The nerve agents are said to have killed approximately 20,000 Iranian soldiers immediately (according to official figures). Of the 80,000 people who survived these attacks, it is estimated that 5,000 must undergo regular medical treatment and 1,000 are still hospitalized due to the severity of their conditions.[11][12][13].
Shortly after the war, in 1988, the Iraqi village of Halabja suffered a chemical attack in which 5,000 of its 50,000 Kurdish inhabitants perished. After this incident, traces of mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX were found. Although the attack appeared to have been the work of Iraqi government forces, this is still under debate and the question remains as to whether it was an accident or a premeditated act.
During the first Gulf War in 1991, Coalition troops launched a ground war against Iraq. Although Iraq had a chemical arsenal, it never used it against the army. Coalition Commander Norman Schwarzkopf stated that this was the case as Iraq feared a nuclear counterattack.
Although the United States and its allies overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime, the United States, Germany and France are still blamed in Iran for helping Iraq develop its chemical arsenal. Furthermore, the fact that Iraq has not been sanctioned for having used chemical weapons is also an issue that remains on the minds of the Iranian people.
Chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War
In 2013, several Syrian opposition sources claimed that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against the population in the Syrian Civil War. Much of the international community had warned that the use of this type of weapons would bring severe consequences and the United States even dared to talk about military intervention in Syria in case it proved the use of chemical weapons. Syria has been one of the few countries that did not sign the Treaty for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an agreement that condemns their use. On March 18, 2013, there was an alleged chemical weapons attack in the city of Aleppo, in the north of the country, where 26 people were killed and another 86 were injured.[14][15] The United States, along with other countries and members of the UN, began a series of operations to investigate whether chemical weapons were indeed used in the war and to discover if it was the rebels or the Syrian government itself who used them.[16][17] More Later, on April 13, the government was accused of using chemical weapons against rebels on the outskirts of the capital Damascus. The journalist Jean-Philippe Rémy and the photographer Van der Stockt claimed to have been victims of these attacks and the symptoms they cause, in addition to accusing the Syrian government of Bashar Al-Assad of being responsible. Other rebels of the Free Syrian Army have also claimed to be victims of these chemical weapons attacks.[18] These incidents caused the United Nations to send personnel to the country to investigate the situation. There is increasing evidence that insurgents in Syria have chemical weapons and some rebels have even admitted responsibility for using chemical weapons.[19].
On August 21, 2013, 1,400 people were killed and 3,000 injured in Ghouta, south of Damascus, in a sarin gas attack known as the Ghouta massacre, the worst chemical weapons attack in 25 years and the worst human massacre of 2013. The brutality of the attack had a huge impact on the international community. Western nations, led by the United States, accused the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad of being responsible and Barack Obama announced that his country could attack Syria for having carried out the massacre. France and Türkiye also gave their support to a military intervention. Due to the escalation of tension and the imminent attack by the Americans, Russia, Syria's main ally, devised a chemical disarmament plan in early September, in which the Syrian government should give up its arsenal of chemical weapons and systematically destroy them. The United States accepted the plan and announced that it would no longer attack Syria if this country complied with the agreement. The chemical disarmament of Syria is in force and is expected to be completed in mid-2014. However, more than one source denounced new chemical attacks after the massacre of August 21.[20][21][22][23].
Chemical weapons and terrorism
Many terrorist organizations consider chemical agents as their weapon of choice when designing their attacks. Usually such weapons are cheap, relatively accessible and easy to transport. A chemistry expert can easily formulate chemical agents if he or she has access to the formulas and materials.
Some political commentators have argued against the notion that biological and chemical weapons are actually the most practical for terrorists. These analysts have reported that the use of such weapons is much more difficult than handling conventional explosives and that weapons of mass destruction can inspire more fear than biochemical weapons.[24].
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- In July 1974 a group that called itself "Aliens of America") —Aliens in this case referred to the English term for a foreigner, therefore the group would be called something like Aliens of the United States— burned down the houses of a judge, the houses of two police commissioners, the car of one of them, two apartment buildings and also detonated a bomb in the Pan Am terminal at the International Airport. Los Angeles; three people died and eight were injured. The "organization" turned out to be a single foreign resident named Muharem Kurbegovic), who claimed to have in his possession certain quantities of sarin and four nerve agents called AA1, AA2, AA3 and AA4S. Although no such agents were found at the time of his arrest in August 1974, it was reported that he only needed to acquire an ingredient to create a nerve agent. During the search of his apartment, several raw materials were found, including phosgene precursors and also a 25-pound container of sodium cyanide.[25].
On March 20, 1995, a group of Japanese terrorists, who believed in the imminent destruction of the entire planet, called Aum Shinrikyo, used sarin in the Tokyo subway system. This attack caused 12 deaths and more than 5,000 injuries. Aum Shinrikyo had already attempted this type of attack on ten previous occasions but in each of them only members of the cult had been affected. In June 1994 the group launched a chemical attack, using sarin, against an apartment building in Matsumoto (Nagano).
• - Chemical risk.
• - PITA, RENÉ (2008). Chemical weapons. Science in the hands of evil. Madrid: Plaza y Valdés Editores. ISBN 978-84-96780-42-2.
• - Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category on Chemical Weapon.