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The modern notion of chemical warfare emerged from the mid-19th century, with the development of modern chemistry and associated industries. The first recorded modern proposal for the use of chemical warfare was made by Lyon Playfair, Secretary of the Science and Art Department, in 1854 during the Crimean War.
The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against and using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons.The Chemical Warfare Service was established on 28 June 1918, combining activities that until then had been dispersed among five separate agencies of the United States federal government.
Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. [1] [2] This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare, biological warfare and radiological warfare, which together make up CBRN, the military acronym for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (warfare or weapons), all of which are considered "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs), a ...
World War II was seen as a significant success for chemical arms control as none of the belligerents made significant use of chemical weapons. [10] In the immediate aftermath of the war, arms control efforts focused primarily on nuclear weapons given their immense destructive power, and chemical disarmament was not a priority. [11]
In spite of this, the First World War saw large-scale chemical warfare. France used tear gas in 1914, but the first large-scale successful deployment of chemical weapons was by the German Empire in Ypres, Belgium in 1915, when chlorine gas was released as part of a German attack at the Battle of Gravenstafel.
It was one of the first large-scale biological weapon trials that would be conducted under a "germ warfare testing program" that went on for 20 years, from 1949 to 1969.
This was about 4% of the total chemical weapons produced for that war and only just over 1% of the era's most effective weapon, mustard gas. (U.S. troops suffered less than 6% of gas casualties.) [3] The U.S. also established the First Gas Regiment, which left Washington, D.C., on Christmas Day, 1917, and arrived at the front in May 1918. [2]
During the First World War, in retaliation for the use of chlorine gas by Germany against British troops from April 1915 onwards, the British Army deployed chlorine themselves for the first time during the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915. By the end of the war, poison-gas use had become widespread on both sides.