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The most frequently used chemicals during World War I were tear-inducing irritants rather than fatal or disabling poison. During World War I, the French Army was the first to employ tear gas, using 26 mm grenades filled with ethyl bromoacetate in August 1914.
The use of chemical weapons in warfare was a war crime as such use was in direct violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.
In 1923, Hans von Seeckt pointed the way, by suggesting that German poison gas research move in the direction of delivery by aircraft in support of mobile warfare. Also in 1923, at the behest of the German army, poison gas expert Dr. Hugo Stoltzenberg negotiated with the USSR to build a huge chemical weapons plant at Trotsk, on the Volga river.
Contrary to popular belief, the first country to use chemical warfare in World War I was not Germany, but France, who used tear gas grenades against the German army in August 1914; [102] however, the Germans were the first to seriously research chemical warfare. The first deadly gases used were made from halogens ( chlorine, bromine, iodine ...
The Battle of Loos took place from 25 September to 8 October 1915 in France on the Western Front, during the First World War.It was the biggest British attack of 1915, the first time that the British used poison gas and the first mass engagement of New Army units.
Fritz Haber, a German chemist who proposed the use of the heavier-than-air chlorine gas as a weapon to break the trench deadlock. The German chemist Walther Nernst, who in 1914 was as a volunteer driver, proposed to Colonel Max Bauer, the German general staff officer responsible for liaison with scientists, that they could empty the opposing trenches by a surprise attack with tear gas.
Although the use of poison gas had been banned by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, Germany turned to this industry for what it hoped would be a decisive weapon to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Chlorine gas was first used on the battlefield in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium.
The first attack on British troops using the new gas combination was planned for 19 December, near Wieltje in Flanders. In late October 1915, Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, German army high command) accepted a proposal from the 4th Army ( Generaloberst Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg ) for a gas attack east of Ypres and a specialist Gas Pioneer ...