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Chemical weapons have since washed up on shorelines and been found by fishers, causing injuries and, in some cases, death. Other disposal methods included land burials and incineration. After World War 1, "chemical shells made up 35 percent of French and German ammunition supplies, 25 percent British and 20 percent American". [96]
The Western Allies did not use chemical weapons during the Second World War. The British planned to use mustard gas and phosgene to help repel a German invasion in 1940–1941, [91] [92] and had there been an invasion may have also deployed it against German cities. [93]
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 ...
A chemical weapon agent (CWA), or chemical warfare agent, is a chemical substance whose toxic properties are meant to kill, injure or incapacitate human beings.About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical weapon agents during the 20th century, although the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has an online database listing 35,942 chemicals which ...
Chemical weapons are said to "make deliberate use of the toxic properties of chemical substances to inflict death". [56] At the start of World War II it was widely reported in newspapers that "entire regions of Europe" would be turned into "lifeless wastelands". [57] However, chemical weapons were not used to the extent predicted by the press.
Nancekuke was mothballed, but was maintained through the 1960s and 1970s in a state whereby production of chemical weapons could easily re-commence if required. [28] In the early 1980s the government took the view that the lack of a European chemical-weapons retaliatory capability was a "major gap in NATO's armoury". However, the political ...
After seeing the gas attacks of the war, the general public overwhelmingly supported provisions that strongly regulated chemical weapons. In one survey of Americans, 367,000 favored banning chemical warfare while 19 supported its continuation in the future. This public opinion stimulated increased efforts for a ban on chemical weapons. [8]
Japan conducted research on biological weapons (see Unit 731), [4] and chemical weapons had seen wide battlefield use in World War I. Their use was outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. [ 5 ] Italy used mustard agent against civilians and soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935–36 .