Use Of Chemical Weapons example essay topic

Change to Chemical Warfare in The Great War The decision by the Germans to first use chemical bombs was a very controversial one. Not only did it open up a can of worms in World War one, but changed the face of battle for years to come. The use of these new weapons lead to huge problems for the U.S. and its people. For the first time ever, the United States had to play catch-up in the weapons brigade.

As the second World War came, the effects carried on and the production of hazardous bombs and explosives greatly increased. The initial decision to use lethal chemical weapons at Ypres in April, 1915, was due mostly because of poor expectations, frustration, and blood. At the start of World War I in August, 1914, each side expected an easy victory by Christmas. Instead, the war escalated greatly.

More than 800,000 men were killed, wounded, or captured in the early battles of First Marne, First Ypres, Masuria n Lakes, and Tannenberg (Broen). This figure does not include casualties from smaller battles or those who became sick in trench warfare. Most of these casualties were hardened professionals: Most soldiers had been civilians or, at most, in national part-time militias only a few months before. Far from being over by Christmas, in early 1915 the war was far from done. The war dragged on for almost four more years and would be fought by nearly a whole generation of young men of draft age. The decision to use lethal chemical weapons was highly controversial in military circles.

Nevertheless, General Erich von Falken hayn, commander-in-chief of the German forces, asked for volunteers among the commanders of his armies to try out the technology developed and overseen by Dr. Fritz Haber (Morse). With the exception of Duke Albrecht von W rtemberg commander of the Fourth Army, who wasn t willing to use this untested new technology. April 22, 1915, was a beautiful spring day near the Belgian town of Ypres. It was a Thursday afternoon, it was dry and sunny with a breeze blowing away from German trenches. Even the war seemed relatively quiet. A while after the heavy battling began at 5: 00 p. m., two almost invisible greenish yellow clouds flew into the air near the village of Lange mark.

The clouds merged and crept in the direction of the Forty-Fifth Algerian Division and the French Eighty-Seventh Division, by a twist of wind barely missing the Canadian First Division to the east (Broen). At first, no one among the Allies understood what was happening. The Germans later claimed that only two hundred of their casualties at the five-week Second Battle of Ypres came from chemical weapons. The Allies said that fifteen thousand of the fifty-nine thousand casualties they suffered were a result of chemical weapons, including five thousand deaths. Although historians doubt the figures on both sides, the results of the first use of modern, lethal chemical weapons at Ypres made it clear that chemical warfare, even against unprotected opponents, is both terrifying and deadly but is no guarantee of military victory.

This is important because some claim that since it is important to have as an army, then it is okay to use in war even though you might not win. Chemical weapons took a terrible human toll over the next three and one-half years. Of the approximately fifteen million casualties suffered in World War I, one million soldiers were hospitalized or killed because of exposure to chlorine, phosgene, or mustard gas (Morse). The fact that chemical weapons are airborne, allows them to spread beyond the battlefield. This makes them uncontrollable area weapons, possibly harming civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. More than two thousand total civilian casualties have been found from industrial accidents and attacks by the Germans.

Use of chemical weapons also contributed to the erosion taking place on the western front as a result of military jumbles. As General Peyton March, chief of staff for the United States Army, wrote later, "War is cruel at best, but the use of an instrument of death, which, once launched, cannot be controlled, and which may decimate noncombatants women and children reduces civilization to savagery". In conclusion, it is clearly stated the negative effects, on the U.S. and the world, of chemical warfare. Not only that, but it is totally unnecessary in battle, because the Germans used lethal elements and still lost the war. Also in could have an effect on innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the war.

Chemical warfare has physical effects on one's body and psychological effects from being through these terrible battles. Bibliography Britanica Online. World War I. 1997 Broen, Anthony. The Great War. New York: Bantam, 1979. Cheney, Glenn Alan.

Weapons of WWI. London: Franklin Watts, 1983. Gale Group, The. Germany First Uses Lethal Chemical Weapons on the Western Front World History... 1994 Morse, Joseph Laff an. World War I. Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia.

1967 ed. Addendum In conducting research for this paper, I found that online sources were extremely helpful. Encyclopedia Britanica online was very easy to use and gave me a lot of information on my subject. The books weren t as great, I had to fish around a great deal, mostly because the books covered to broad of a region rather than focusing on one aspect of the war. My least helpful source was the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia, I didn t give me any other information other than pure facts and numbers involved in the war.

The online Britanica was good because it also searched for articles relating to the topic to hear an opinion on the matter.