Gas Masks
Although poisonous gases had been used in combat for centuries, World War I marked their first wide-spread, systematic deployment. Theoretically, they had been banned 15 years earlier by the Hague Convention, which outlawed the use of toxic chemical projectiles whose sole purpose was to maim or kill. However, this didn’t stop both German and French forces from making early use of gas in WWI.
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According to History.com, the first successful large-scale attack was launched by the Germans against the British in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres (pronounced “eep-ruh” in French but popularized by the Brits as “Wipers) where British soldiers had yet to routinely carry gas masks.
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The Allies decried the use of gas, and quickly produced and distributed gas masks to the troops. However, they soon abandoned this position, arguing that moral principles were less important than battlefield success, and began to manufacture and deploy their own chemical weapons.
Masks were effective against chlorine, but later in the war, both the Allies and the Germans introduced phosphene, an odorless and colorless gas that was much more lethal, and mustard gas, which caused blistering of the skin as it seeped its way through soldiers’ cloth uniforms.
In all, there were an estimated 90,000 deaths from chemical weapons in WWI.
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