,,callinicus ,a ,,defence ,,of ,,chemical ,,warfare ,,other ,,volumes ,,in ,,the ,,to-,,day ,,and ,,to-,,morrow ,,series ,,daedalus1 or ,science and the ,future ,by ,j4 ,b4 ,s4 ,haldane ,,icarus1 or ,the ,future of ,science ,by ,bertrand ,russell1 ,f4,r4,s4 ,,the ,,mongol ,,in ,,our ,,midst ,by ,f4 ,g4 ,crookshank1 ,m4,d4 ,new light on ,man and the ,great ,apes4 ,fully ,illustrated ,,wireless ,,possibilities ,by ,prof4 ,a4 ,m4 ,low ,wireless in war1 crime1 business1 and pleasure4 ,with #d ,diagrams ,,tantalus1 or ,the ,future of ,man ,by ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller ,man has still the primitive animal passions4 ,he will destroy himself1 unless4444 ,,the ,,passing ,,of ,,the ,,phantoms ,by ,professor ,patten ,experiments on animals' intelligence throw light on the evolution of morals in men and animals4 ,,lysistrata1 or ,woman and the ,future ,by ,anthony ,m4 ,ludovici ,,perseus1 or ,of ,dragons ,by ,h4 ,f4 ,scott ,stokes1 ,m4,a4 ,,narcissus1 ,an ,anatomy of ,clothes ,by ,gerald ,heard ,e4 ,p4 ,,dutton ,,company ,,callinicus ,a ,,defence ,,of ,,chemical ,,warfare ,,by ,j4 ,b4 ,s4 ,,haldane ,sir ,william ,dunn ,reader in ,biochemistry1 ,cambridge ,university ,author of 8,daedalus or ,science and the ,future10 etc4 ,illustration ,,new ,,york ,e4 ,p4 ,,dutton ,,company #fha ,,fifth ,,ave4 ,copyright1 #aibe ,by ,e4 ,p4 ,,dutton ,,company ,all rights ,reserved ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,,callinicus ,the public mind has to a large extent reacted against the opinions impressed on it during the war by official propaganda4 ,some of these have been overcome by counter-propaganda in the ,press and on the platform2 others have been dropped because they led to effects which1 though admirable during a war1 were undesirable in peace-time4 ,but1 as chemical warfare will not assume importance until the outbreak of the next serious war1 and figures on the programme of no party1 people still think about it as they were told to think by the newspapers during the ,great ,war4 ,now1 ,i am to some extent a chemist1 so ,i can no more be expected to be impartial in my estimate of the value of chemistry than a politician or a clergyman can be expected to give an unbiassed view of the value of politics or religion4 ,i can only plead that1 unlike the average clergyman or politician1 ,i have warned my audience in advance1 and shall attempt 7though no doubt vainly7 to be impartial4 ,a few of my hearers hold the view that1 while war in itself is a noble occupation1 the use of poisonous gas is an innovation as cruel as it is unsoldierly4 ,the majority are probably pacifists in the sense that they prefer almost any peace to almost any war1 support the ,league of ,nations or other devices for the prevention of international strife1 and look askance at preparations for future warfare1 more particularly for future chemical warfare4 ,if so1 ,i certainly share their objection to war1 but ,i doubt whether by objecting to it we are likely to avoid it in future1 however lofty our motives or disinterested our conduct4 ,war will be prevented only by a scientific study of its causes1 such as has prevented most epidemic diseases4 ,for many centuries people had guessed that epidemic diseases constituted a punishment for human misconduct of some kind4 ,they tried to prevent them by prayer and almsgiving4 ,christians gave up washing1 ,hindus liberated rats captured during plague-epidemics4 ,religious orders and priests of the church gave the most magnificent examples of self-sacrifice in times of pestilence4 ,but that was not the way in which pestilences can be prevented4 ,besides good intentions1 a special type of accurate thinking was needed4 ,we have not yet made a scientific study of the causes of war1 and1 until we do1 may expect more wars4 ,if we are to have more wars1 ,i prefer that my country should be on the winning side4 ,that is why ,i am speaking on warfare to my fellow-countrymen4 ,in general1 pacifists are a very great military advantage to ,britain4 ,on the outbreak of war the large majority of them become intensely patriotic1 whereas beforehand they lead our own military authorities and also those of our potential allies and enemies to underestimate our strength4 ,this keeps us out of some wars1 and leads to our showing unsuspected power in others4 ,after a few years of war1 when the originally bellicose politicians like ,lord ,lansdowne are getting tired1 ex-pacifists like ,lloyd ,george and ,pitt have just got into their stride4 ,the national staying-power is thus greatly increased4 ,i need hardly remark that future governments will not enter on war without first persuading the vast majority of the people of its justice4 ,this appears to be a relatively simple process under modern conditions4 ,at the present moment1 however1 pacifists are combining with the less competent soldiers in an attempt to check the progress of chemical warfare4 ,this ,i believe to be neither in our national nor in the international interest4 ,until #aiae the soldier's business was to push or throw pieces of metal at the enemy4 ,various devices had been employed for throwing them fast or far1 and some of them threw other pieces on arrival at their destination1 thanks1 in the main1 to the genius of the unforgotten ,major-,general ,shrapnel4 ,it is true that early in the eighth century ,a4,d4 the appropriately named ,syrian ,callinicus had prolonged the life of the ,eastern ,roman ,empire for another #gej years and saved a large part of ,christendom from ,mahommedan domination by his invention of 8,greek fire10 an inflammable liquid which was1 however1 later superseded by gunpowder4 ,in the fifteenth century the defenders of ,belgrade against the ,turks had hit upon a similar device1 under the direct inspiration1 it was claimed1 of the ,holy ,ghost1 but these weapons had fallen into desuetude1 their effect being largely psychological4 ,chemical warfare had been so far foreseen by statesmen that in #aijg the signatories of the ,hague ,conference agreed to renounce the use of projectiles the sole object of which was the diffusion of asphyxiating or harmful gases4 ,they were thus debarred from using lachrymatory gas1 the most humane weapon ever invented2 but permitted to discharge gas from cylinders on the ground1 an exceedingly cruel practice4 ,this regulation was well meant1 but the path to ,august1 #aiad1 was paved with good intentions4 ,in #aiad none of the great powers had made any preparation for poison-gas warfare1 and it was not till ,april #bbnd1 #aiae1 more than eight months after the beginning of the war1 that the ,germans began its use4 ,during the war1 twenty-five different poisonous weapons were employed4 ,of these only three are gases at ordinary temperatures1 and can be discharged from cylinders in which they are stored under pressure4 ,the remainder are liquids which gradually evaporate1 yielding a poisonous vapour1 or solids which are poisonous in the form of smoke4 ,these poisonous substances so far used fall into four classes according to their effect on men4 ,first come gases and vapours which are poisonous when breathed1 but have no effect on the skin1 and affect the eyes or nose only when present in concentrations which are poisonous to the lungs4 ,they can all be kept out by respirators1 and were of military value only against unprotected troops1 or in local surprise-action4 ,this group1 which included chlorine and phosgene1 are probably almost as obsolete as muzzle-loading cannon4 ,a second group are poisonous only in very high concentrations1 but irritate the eyes when present in amounts so small that one part in five million may render a man blind with weeping in a few seconds4 ,there is no evidence1 so far as ,i know1 that anyone was killed or even permanently blinded by these substances2 but they had a great momentary effect4 ,they can be kept out by respirators1 or even goggles4 ,the third group of poisonous smokes1 mostly arsenic compounds1 were little developed during the war4 ,they are1 however1 weapons of very great efficiency1 and it is well known that they would have been used by the ,british at any rate on a very extensive scale in #aiai4;,a ,in small amounts1 these smokes merely make one sneeze4 ,in somewhat larger amounts they cause pain of the most terrific character in the head and chest4 ,the pain in the head is described as like that caused when fresh water gets into the nose when bathing1 but infinitely more severe4 ,these symptoms are accompanied by the most appalling mental distress and misery4 ,some soldiers poisoned by these substances had to be prevented from committing suicide2 others temporarily went raving mad1 and tried to burrow into the ground to escape from imaginary pursuers4 ,and yet within forty-eight hours the large majority had recovered1 and practically none became permanent invalids4 ,these substances1 when in the form of smoke1 will penetrate any of the respirators used in the late war1 though the ,british box-respirator would stop all but a little of them in the concentrations then used4 ,in future they will probably be used in much larger concentrations and in finer particles than those formed by the ,german smoke-shells4 ,it is extraordinarily difficult to produce a respirator which will completely stop very fine smoke1 for the following reason4 ,in a gas the molecules 7or ultimate particles7 are moving very rapidly1 with speeds of several hundred yards per second1 continually colliding and rebounding4 ,a gas molecule1 therefore1 will probably hit the sides of a fairly narrow passage through which it is drawn4 ,but a smoke particle is moving at a speed measured in inches per second1 and is far less likely to hit the wall of the respirator1 and be held by its absorbent surface4 ,if we try to make the passages through which air is drawn very narrow1 as by sucking in our air through cotton-wool 7which will stop most smokes71 we find that we have created an appalling resistance to breathing4 ,there is an electrical method of removing smoke-particles completely1 but it would probably more than double the weight of respirators1 and does not appear to be either water-proof or fool-proof4 ,a ,the ,american 8,lewisite10 of which so much was heard in #aiah and #aiai1 is a substance of this class4 ,the fourth group1 of blistering gases1 contains only one substance used during the war1 dichlorethyl sulphide1 or 8mustard gas40 ,this is really a liquid1 whose vapour is not only poisonous when breathed1 but blisters any part of the skin with which it comes into contact even4 ,to take an example1 a drop of the liquid was put on a piece of paper and left for five minutes on a man's sleeve4 ,the vapour penetrated his coat and woollen shirt1 causing a blister the effects of which lasted six weeks4 ,and yet evaporation is so slow that ground contaminated by the liquid may remain dangerous for a week4 ,mustard gas caused more casualties to the ,british than all other chemical weapons put together4 ,such are the weapons which chemistry has given us4 ,it is often asked why chemists cannot produce something which will put our foes comfortably to sleep and allow us to take them prisoners4 ,the answer is that such substances exist1 but that in small amounts they are harmless1 in large amounts fatal4 ,it is only over a moderate range of concentrations that their effect is merely stupefying4 ,one has only to think of the familiar case of chloroform vapour1 and the skill required to give neither too much nor too little4 ,it would be logical to speak of explosives under the heading of chemical warfare1 but there is curiously little chance of explosives becoming any more effective4 ,we know fairly well the maximum amount of energy which can possibly be got out of a chemical action1 and1 though explosives might perhaps be made which were about twice as destructive as our best 7or worst7 to-day1 they would probably be far less stable1 and therefore less safe to their users4 ,of course1 if we could utilize the forces which we now know to exist inside the atom1 we should have such capacities for destruction that ,i do not know of any agency other than divine intervention which would save humanity from complete and peremptory annihilation4 ,but the remoteness of the day when we shall use these forces may best be judged by an analogy4 ,some thousands of years ago someone first realized that the sun1 moon and stars were not mere bodies as large as a plate or a house1 but very large1 and moving very fast4 ,it was an obvious idea that their motions might be exploited in some way4 ,wise men observed them and hoped1 for example1 to increase the probability of success in their own enterprises by beginning them when ,jupiter was in the ascendant4 ,these attempts were unsuccessful1 though far more valuable to humanity than most of the methods successfully employed for the same purposes1 such as fraud1 violence and corruption4 ,they led to astronomy1 and so to all modern physics4 ,we now know that the only probable way of harnessing the kinetic energy of the heavenly bodies is to employ tidal power to create electric currents4 ,but five thousand years ago 8hitching one's wagon to a star0 was a reasonable project and not a poetic metaphor4 ,the reason we cannot do it is a simple matter of scale4 ,and the reason why we cannot utilize subatomic phenomena is just the same4 ,we cannot make apparatus small enough to disintegrate or fuse atomic nuclei1 any more than we can make it large enough to reach to the moon4 ,we can only bombard them with particles of which perhaps one in a million hit1 which is like firing keys at a safe-door from a machine-gun a mile away in an attempt to open it4 ,we do occasionally open it1 but the process is very uneconomical4 ,it may be asked why we cannot bring our machine-gun nearer1 or improve our aim4 ,to do this we should require to construct apparatus on the same infinitesimal scale as the structure of the chemical atom4 ,now we can arrange atoms into various patterns4 ,for example1 we can arrange carbon1 hydrogen and oxygen atoms in patterns which constitute the molecules of sugar1 glycerine1 or alcohol at will4 ,this is called chemical synthesis4 ,we have been doing it by rule-of-thumb methods for thousands of years1 and are just beginning to learn a little about it4 ,but even chemical molecules are much too large for our purposes4 ,we can no more ask a chemist to build our apparatus than expect a theatrical scene-painter or a landscape-gardener to do us a miniature4 ,we know very little about the structure of the atom and almost nothing about how to modify it4 ,and the prospect of constructing such an apparatus seems to me to be so remote that1 when some successor of mine is lecturing to a party spending a holiday on the moon1 it will still be an unsolved 7though not1 ,i think1 an ultimately insoluble7 problem4 ,to see how chemical weapons are likely to be used in future we must study their employment in the late war4 ,lachrymatory gas was only once used under ideal conditionsby the ,germans in the ,argonne in #aiae4 ,they captured a fairly extensive ,french trench system and about #b1djj prisoners1 almost all unwounded1 but temporarily blind4 ,when they gave the number of prisoners1 the ,french authorities not unnaturally protested that this number was practically equal to the total of their casualties4 ,and this was quite true4 ,the ,french were unprotected4 ,they were deluged with shells giving off a vapour which temporarily blinded them4 ,they could not even run away4 ,the ,germans walked across1 removed their rifles1 and formed them up in columns which marched back1 each led by a ,german in goggles4 ,in order to make future wars humane it would only be necessary to introduce the two following rules3 #a4 ,no goggles or other eye protection shall be worn2 #b4 ,no shells shall be used containing any other substances save ethyl iodo-acetate 7or other lachrymatory compound7 and a small bursting charge4 ,certainly it is unlikely that such rules will ever be adopted1 but ,i do contend that to forbid the use of such substances is a piece of sentimentalism as cruel as it is ridiculous4 ,gases of the first group were used in clouds discharged from cylinders1 sometimes on a front of several miles4 ,they probably caused at least #bj1jjj casualties among unprotected or inadequately protected ,british troops4 ,at least a quarter of these died1 and that very painfully1 in many cases after a struggle for breath lasting several days4 ,on the other hand1 of those who did not die almost all recovered completely1 and the symptoms of the few who became permanent invalids were mainly nervous4 ,apart1 however1 from the extreme terror and agitation produced by the gassing of uneducated people1 ,i regard the type of wound produced by the average shells as1 on the whole1 more distressing than the pneumonia caused by chlorine or phosgene4 ,besides being wounded1 ,i have been buried alive1 and on several occasions in peacetime ,i have been asphyxiated to the point of unconsciousness4 ,the pain and discomfort arising from the other experiences were utterly negligible compared with those produced by a good septic shell-wound4 ,the first ,german cloud-gas attack was in ,april1 #aiae1 the last in ,august1 #aiaf1 though the ,british continued them until the end of that year4 ,they gradually became more and more ineffective as the efficiency of the respirators used on both sides increased4 ,the first few ,german attacks were very well conducted1 so far as the liberation of the gas was concerned1 as they were arranged by ,haber1 an extremely competent chemist1 who afterwards supervised their production of explosives4 ,on the other hand1 the ,german respirators were bad to begin with2 and later on were not so good as the ,british4 ,this was1 apparently1 because the most competent physiologist in ,germany with any knowledge of breathing was a ,jew4 ,this fact was quite well known in ,german physiological circles1 but apparently his race prevented the military authorities from employing him4 ,the result was that they were unable to follow up their gas-attacks at all closely1 but had to wait till the cloud had passed off1 by which time resistance was again possible4 ,that was how the ,germans paid for anti-,semitism4 ,it is very probable that it lost them the war1 as never again1 not even in ,march1 #aiah1 had they as complete a gap in the ,franco-,british ,western front as during the first gas-attack in ,april1 #aiae4 ,it was1 indeed1 fortunate for the ,germans that the ,russians were still more anti-,semitic than themselves4 ,hundreds of thousands of ,russian ,jews volunteered for service in #aiad4 ,they were mostly refused1 and in no case granted commissions4 ,they then proceeded to turn their combative instincts into other channels1 to the no small advantage of the ,germans4 ,if one goes to what is1 perhaps1 the opposite extreme from ,russia1 one finds the army of the world's most democratic nation1 ,australia1 commanded by a ,jew1 ,monash1 and notes with interest that the ,germans regarded the ,australian troops as1 on the whole1 the most formidable1 man for man1 of all their opponents4 ,the other reason why the cloud-gas attacks were indecisive was that the ,germans had relatively few reserves to put into the gap they made4 ,their reserves in ,april1 #aiae1 were in ,poland4 ,if they had trusted their scientific men they could certainly have captured ,calais and ,boulogne1 and probably have annihilated the ,british ,army4 ,in addition to clouds released from cylinders in the trenches1 gas-cylinders were fired from trench-mortars1 some hundreds at a time1 into the enemy's lines1 producing a sudden and dense cloud of gas before the men had time to put on their respirators4 ,but these bombardments1 though they caused many casualties1 were never decisive1 as the cloud-attacks would have been1 but for causes which we have discussed4 ,mustard gas is a very different thing4 ,it was never used to force a decision by breaking the enemy's lines1 but to cause him casualties and deny him the use of ground4 ,for1 after a given area has been well sprayed with dichlorethyl sulphide from bursting shells for some time1 it is death to occupy it without a mask1 and the vapour may blister the skin1 while anyone touching the ground will be certain of a very serious blister4 ,someone placed a drop of the liquid on the chair of the director of the ,british chemical warfare department4 ,he ate his meals off the mantelpiece for a month4 ,the most interesting thing1 however1 about mustard gas is that1 though it caused #aej1jjj casualties in the ,british ,army alone1 less than #d1jjj of these 7or #a in #dj7 died1 while only about #gjj 7or #a in every #bjj7 became permanently unfit4 ,yet the ,washington ,conference has solemnly agreed that the signatory powers are not to use this substance against one another1 though1 of course1 they will use such humane weapons as bayonets1 shells1 and incendiary bombs4 ,it is worth while attempting to analyse the reasons for this rather curious decision4 ,first1 perhaps1 we must put the complete and shameful ignorance of most of the politicians and many of the soldiers who took part in the ,conference4 ,their ideas of gas warfare were apparently drawn from the descriptions of the great ,german cloud-gas attacks of #aiae1 which killed at least #a in #d of their casualties1 and were written up on a large scale for recruiting and political purposes4 ,but it is the business of politicians and soldiers1 conceivably even of journalists1 to know the truth about such matters before coming to decisions1 or even impelling others to come to decisions about them4 ,to this ignorance1 however1 there was joined one of the most hideous forms of sentimentalism which has ever supported evil upon earththe attachment of the professional soldier to cruel and obsolete killing machines4 ,i would remind you of the conduct of the ,chevalier ,bayard1 whom his contemporary soldiers described as sans peur et sans reproche4 ,to captured knights1 and even bowmen1 he was the soul of courtesy1 but musketeers or other users of gunpowder who fell into his hands were invariably put to death4 ,it is worth remembering that1 until the invention of gunpowder1 fighting had for many centuries been remarkably safe for everyone who could afford a good suit of armour1 while the abominable arquebus and its descendants have saved the remnants of ,christendom from the ,turks1 ,mongols1 and other paynims who had by ,bayard's time successfully overwhelmed one half of its original extent4 ,i remember an excellent example of ,bayardism in the war4 ,a ,turkish airman had developed considerable flair for shooting down our observation balloons4 ,a ,british officer sent up one of these latter with a large cargo of gun-cotton1 and blew up the ,turk in question4 ,for this deed he was severely reprimanded by the local officer commanding ,r4,a4,f4 for unsportsmanlike conduct4 ,this gentleman1 doubtless1 felt little objection to bombing1 for example1 ,turkish transport columns1 consisting mainly of non-combatants and animals1 incapable of retaliating4 7,one may remark that between wounds and thirst perhaps #cj1jjj ,turkish transport animals perished during our final victory in ,palestine47 ,but he objected to airmen being killed except by other airmen4 ,i1 fighting in the mud beneath them1 and exposed to the bombs of both sides 7,i was severely wounded by one of our own71 felt differently4 ,an attempt by the professional soldiers to stereotype the art of war into the channels which correspond to the ideas of #aiad might lead to a future rather different from that which ,i shall venture to predict1 a future in which the military organizations of the world were overthrown by the exponents of some other mode of thinking1 employing all the resources of science1 and fighting 8dirty40 ,the opponents of the present world-order may1 therefore1 welcome ,bayardism in their governments4 ,meanwhile1 the ,bayardists have nobbled a curious assortment of allies in their so far successful attempt to prevent the humanization of warfare4 ,first are a number of out-and-out pacifists1 who object to all war1 and apparently hope to make it more difficult by restricting the means of fighting allowed4 ,some1 of course1 genuinely believe that gaseous weapons are more cruel than solid ones4 ,those who know the facts seem to me to be the victims of loose-thinking4 ,with them are associated a group of sentimentalists who appear to me definitely to be the ,scribes and ,pharisees of our age4 ,these people1 who are to be found in all political parties and most religious and irreligious sects1 are generally willing 7after a decent interval7 to accept any application of science which appears to them profitable1 or any social institution 7such as war7 which is hallowed by use and wont4 ,they salve their consciences for such behaviour by attacking1 in the name of their god or their ideals1 every novelty1 whether in thought or in action1 which presents any loophole4 ,in particular they are distinguished by a ferocious opposition to1 and contempt for1 any attempt at the solution of human problems by honest and simple intellectual effort4 ,mustard gas kills one man for every forty it puts out of action2 shells kill one for every three2 but their god who compromised with high explosives has not yet found time to adapt himself to chemical warfare4 ,more respectable in every way are the candid reactionaries1 like ,lord ,cecil1 who believe in their hearts that in abandoning traditional religion of the medieval type for scientific thought1 man has definitely chosen the wrong path1 and who fight with their eyes open against its application4 ,these people have a case1 and are prepared to argue it4 ,they would honestly desire to give up the gunpowder of ,lazare ,carnot for the sword of ,bayard4 ,but one cannot congratulate them on their associates4 ,and behind these follow like sheep the predestined victims of the next war1 the peoples of the civilized nations who will undergo the extremity of suffering rather than think for themselves4 ,how profound and unreasoning the objection of the military mind to chemical warfare is can best be judged by one simple fact4 ,about three years ago the ,british regular army gave up the instruction of every soldier in defence against hostile gas4 ,for one thing1 speed in adjusting respirators being of more importance than elegance1 it did not form the basis of a satisfactory drill1 like those curious relics of eighteenth century musketry which still occupy so much of the time of our recruits4 ,but the truth no doubt was that the officers did not like that sort of thing4 ,the chemical and physiological ideas which underlie gas warfare require a certain effort to understand1 and they do not arise in the study of a sport1 as is the case with those underlying shooting and motor transport4 ,one of the first acts of the late ,government was to reinstate some modicum of anti-gas instruction in the normal training of the ,army4 ,but it may be hoped that this pernicious and demoralizing teaching will once more be dropped with the return to power of one of the gentlemen's parties4 ,personally1 ,i must confess that ,i would go very much further than the ,government1 and seriously consider the provision of gas-masks for the population of ,london and other large towns1 and the instruction of school-children in their use4 ,if this is not done1 there is at least the possibility of a disaster of the very first magnitude at an early stage in the next war4 ,it is also one of the very few military measures which could hardly be regarded as provocative by the most ardent of foreign militarists or ,british pacifists4 ,at the present moment1 however1 this need does not arise1 as the ,french1 who alone could bomb ,london1 have very slight facilities for making mustard gas4 ,it is interesting to compare the attitude of our militarists to defence against gas with their attitude before the war to a possible ,german invasion4 ,the fear of the latter1 although the naval experts always stated that it was impossible on any serious scale1 had been so impressed on the military mind by the propaganda of the ,national ,service ,league and its like before the war that1 from #aiad to #aiah hundreds of thousands of troops were quite unnecessarily kept in ,england4 ,there however1 this very fundamental difference between a defence against invasion and a defence against gas4 ,the one would increase the importance of the professional soldier3 the other would not4 ,one does not need to be a very profound psychologist to see in this fact one reason why the military authorities dropped anti-gas training1 and why ,i1 being a biochemist and therefore a person of the type who would become important if gas war returned1 am advocating its extension4 ,as to which of us is justified1 ,i would suggest that it is more likely to-day that poisonous gas will be used against ,british soldiers or civilians in future wars than it was in #aiab that ,britain would be invaded by the ,germans4 ,we have seen that a case can be made out for gas as a weapon on humanitarian grounds1 based on the very small proportion of killed to casualties from gas in the war1 and especially during its last year4 ,against this may be urged the probability that future research will produce other gases or smokes which1 as weapons1 will be as cruel as1 or more cruel than1 the chlorine and phosgene used in #aiae and #aiaf4 ,the answer to this is quite simple4 ,first1 as regards gases or vapours4 ,only a limited number of chemical substances are appreciably volatile1 and of their vapours only a small proportion are poisonous4 ,now every chemical substance has a definite molecular weight4 ,those with a small molecular weight1 i4e41 whose molecules are relatively light1 are on the whole the most volatile1 i4e41 go most easily into vapour4 ,now the large majority of the possible volatile chemical substances of small molecular weight1 and therefore relatively simple chemical composition1 are already known4 ,mustard gas1 for example1 was discovered and its properties described in #ahhf4 ,there are probably substances of high molecular weight whose dense vapours are even more poisonous than mustard gas4 ,but the charcoal of our respirators has the property of adsorbing heavy molecules of vapour quite independently of their chemical composition4 ,it is1 therefore1 somewhat unlikely1 though not1 of course1 impossible1 that any very poisonous vapour will ever be found which will go through a mask impermeable to mustard gas or chlorine4 ,it is1 to my mind1 far more probable that skin irritants may be discovered which are even more unpleasant than mustard gas4 ,the question of smokes is more serious4 ,it was the hope of the producers of irritant smokes that they would penetrate the gas-masks in sufficient amounts to cause sneezing and force their victims to remove their masks1 thus exposing themselves to greater concentrations of smoke and to poisonous vapours liberated along with the smoke4 ,this was the ,german view when they introduced the 8,blue ,cross0 shell in ,july1 #aiag4 ,fortunately1 by that time our defence against gas and smoke was extremely good1 and we had foreseen the smoke menace and introduced1 between ,april and ,june1 #aiag1 a filter which effectively stopped it in the concentrations then met in the field4 ,it is not1 however1 at all unlikely that concentrations of smoke will be produced in the future which will penetrate our present masks4 ,if our anti-gas measures are sufficiently neglected the consequences may1 of course1 be very serious4 ,it would seem likely that the chemical weapons of the future will not be so very unlike those of the past4 ,the main efforts of the soldier who uses them will be devoted1 first1 to blistering his enemy1 secondly1 to tiring him out by forcing him to wear a respirator continuously1 which1 of course1 enormously hampers him for doing anything else4 ,in the ,great ,war mustard gas and sensory irritant smokes were not used as the principal weapons of attack or defence1 because the smokes would not incapacitate everyone in a given area1 though they would make them keep their respirators on4 ,mustard gas1 on the other hand1 could make any area absolutely untenable by the defenders1 but the vapour persisted for so many days that it could not be occupied by the attackers either4 ,it was mainly used to produce casualties a few days or weeks before an attack on the units which would be defending1 and to protect the flank of an offensive against counter-attack4 ,thus in ,april1 #aiah1 ,armentires1 the original ,northern limit of the ,german attack in ,flanders1 was so heavily shelled with 8mustard0 that the gutters in the streets were reported to be running with it4 ,the ,germans themselves received orders forbidding them to enter its ruins for a fortnight4 ,nevertheless1 mustard gas is so adequate a weapon that the attempt will almost certainly be made to use it not merely for making ground untenable for both sides1 but for gaining it from the enemy4 ,for this purpose the following methods suggest themselves4 ,first1 attempts might be made to protect troops completely from the effect of gas on their skins by encasing them in airtight overalls and gloves4 ,these were used with a certain amount of success by machine-gunners in the ,great ,war1 but would hardly be practicable for attackers1 who would1 except perhaps in winter1 die of heat-stroke if encased in such apparatus4 ,air-tight tanks with adequate arrangements for filtering the incoming air are probably more hopeful1 as mustard gas will not poison motors as it does men4 7,the motors would1 of course1 have their own air-supply1 as it would hardly be practicable to filter air in the quantities needed by them47 ,to support the tanks and to tackle specially protected machine-gunners use will probably be made of immune infantry4 ,one attack of gas-poisoning1 whether by the lungs or skin1 produces no immunity to a second attackin fact1 it generally increases the sensitivity of the victim4 ,if a vapour is discovered against which immunity can be conferred1 it will be the most effective weapon in history as long as its secret is kept4 ,on the other hand1 some people are naturally immune4 ,the ,american ,army authorities made a systematic examination of the susceptibility of large numbers of recruits4 ,they found that there was a very resistant class1 comprising #bj of the white men tried1 but no less than #hj of the negroes4 ,this as intelligible1 as the symptoms of mustard gas1 blistering1 and sun-burn are very similar1 and negroes are pretty well immune to sun-burn4 ,it looks therefore as if1 after a slight preliminary test1 it should be possible to obtain coloured troops who would all be resistant to mustard gas blistering in concentrations harmful toward most white men4 ,enough resistant whites are available to officer them4 ,one sees1 then1 the possibility of warfare on somewhat the following lines3 ,heavy concentrations of artillery would keep an area say thirty miles in length and ten in depth continuously sprayed with mustard gas4 ,after allowing1 say1 two days for the development of blisters1 the gassing of the positions within two or three miles of the front line is discontinued1 but a long-range bombardment1 especially of roads1 goes on4 ,suddenly1 behind the usual barrage of high explosive shells appears a line of tanks supported by negroes in gas-masks4 ,they meet with but little opposition in the area still reeking of gas1 and occupy the hostile lines to a depth of two or three miles4 ,a counter-attack1 even if successful1 involves concentration in an area under gas-bombardment and enormous casualties from blistering4 ,the only satisfactory counter-attack would be from the air4 ,in this way the side possessing a big superiority of mustard gas should be in a position to advance two or three miles a day4 ,this kind of tactics was impossible during the ,great ,war for a very simple reason4 ,there was not enough mustard gas4 ,the ,germans used a quite surprisingly complicated process for its manufacture4 ,when we decided to follow their example1 one of our chemists 7a ,cambridge man1 ,i am glad to say7 hit on a vastly cheaper and speedier method of manufacture4 ,unfortunately1 our first supplies only arrived in the field in ,september1 #aiah4 ,there is reason to think that the knowledge that we were at last about to develop gas and smoke warfare on a large scale had a good deal to do with the acceptance by the ,germans of the armistice conditions4 ,the reason why we did not use mustard gas earlier is also simple and rather instructive4 ,in #aiae a ,british chemist proposed to a ,general who was concerned with such questions that the ,british should use dichlorethyl sulphide4 8,does it kill80 asked the ,general4 8,no10 he was told1 8but it will disable enormous numbers of the enemy temporarily40 8,that is no good to us10 said the man of blood2 8we want something that will kill40 ,it is interesting to find how completely the ideas of this worthy soldier as to the object of war coincided with those of the average intelligent child of five years old4 ,i may remind you that ,clausewitz held the view that the object of war was to impose one's will upon the enemy4 ,this idea would1 however1 appear to have been too abstract1 too complicated1 or too humanitarian for the ,british military mind4 ,at any rate1 it had its fill of killing4 ,it was not1 therefore1 until the ,germans had demonstrated upon the persons of some tens of thousands of ,british soldiers 7we had #ad1jjj casualties1 though with only #djj deaths1 during the first three weeks of the mustard gas war7 that there was something to be said for a weapon that was not primarily designed to kill1 that we began to use it4 ,it seems1 then1 that mustard gas would enable an army to gain ground with far less killed on either side than the methods used in the late war1 and would tend to establish a war of movement leading to a fairly rapid decision1 as in the campaigns of the past4 ,it would not much upset the present balance of power1 ,germany's chemical industry being counterpoised by ,french negro troops4 ,indians may be expected to be nearly as immune as negroes4 ,and clearly1 the more war is complicated1 the more unimportant become semi-civilized powers1 such as ,turkey and ,russia1 even as allies4 ,the ,turks were seldom capable of organizing a combined attack by any number greater than a battalion1 or a shoot by anything larger than a battery4 ,yet small groups of them fought very well1 and their individual guns made very good shooting4 ,but gas-warfare demands organization1 both of attack and defenceattack1 because one tries to keep up a certain concentration of vapour over a whole large area rather than to knock out given groups of men2 defence1 because respirators and discipline in wearing them must be perfect4 ,i need not say that in the ,great ,war our military leaders strongly deprecated the use of gas against the ,turks1 on the ground1 ,i believe1 that the latter were 8gentlemen40 ,they showed their gentlemanly character by such acts as the killing of #de of the prisoners taken at ,kut-el-,amara1 not to mention some millions of ,greeks and ,armenians who had the misfortune to be ,christians4 ,but they never used gas3 so perhaps they may have preserved their quality of gentlemen in the eyes of our ,bayardists4 ,i claim1 then1 that the use of mustard gas in war on the largest possible scale would render it less expensive of life and property1 shorter1 and more dependent on brains rather than numbers4 ,we are often told the exact opposite1 that it will make it more barbarous and indecisive1 and lead to the wiping out of the population of whole cities4 ,let us consider for a moment this latter allegation4 ,can aeroplanes do more against a hostile town with gas than with high explosive and incendiary bombs8 ,we were threatened with gas bombs during the war1 and certain ,london pharmacists made very large sums by the sale of alleged anti-gas masks4 ,it could be1 and was1 urged at the time that as the carrying of these curious objects seemed to calm the civilian population in a moment of national emergency1 they served a useful purpose4 ,the same argument has been brought forward on behalf of amulets and other pious frauds sold in the name of religion4 ,in the case of the above gas-masks1 they inspired such faith 7for they had a better finish than the official pattern and looked like one's idea of what a gas-mask ought to be7 that some thousands were sent out by fond relatives to soldiers at the front1 a number of whom in consequence perished miserably4 ,was there anything in the gas-bomb scare8 ,in the first place1 many otherwise well-informed people have very erroneous views as to the poisonousness of gases4 ,gases are dangerous in the laboratory or factory if they kill without giving warning by odour and irritation2 but gases of this kind1 such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen arsenide1 have to be present1 in order to kill1 in concentrations which cannot practically be produced in the open4 ,the insidiousness of hydrogen arsenide has1 however1 so alarmed chemists that a tradition persists of a man having been killed by a single bubble of it1 while they are so afraid of smelling carbon monoxide that it is generally stated to be inodorous4 ,besides errors due to this cause1 there were errors of arithmetic4 ,in one calculation which was made to show how easily ,london could be poisoned a decimal point went astray in one place6 ,as the calculation was concerned with volumes of gas1 the result came out as #aj metres cubed or #a1jjj cubic metres1 in place of one4 ,for this reason it appeared that ten aeroplanes could do the damage which would actually have required ten thousand4 ,however1 most of the prophets of disaster from gas-bombs made no calculation at all4 ,let us try to make a rough one4 ,on the nights of ,march #aath to ,march #adth1 #aiah1 just before the great offensive of ,march #bast1 the ,germans fired #aej1jjj mustard gas shells into the villages and valleys of the ,cambrai salient1 an area of about twenty square miles1 the same as that of central ,london4 ,this caused #d1ejj casualties1 of whom only fifty died 7all of them because they took off their respirators too soon74 ,the area was not evacuated4 ,in central ,london1 if the population had had gas-masks1 the casualties would have been perhaps ten times greater4 ,but we have to compare this hypothetical air-raid1 not with any raid that actually occurred1 but with a bombardment of #aej1jjj high-explosive shells or their equivalent in bombs4 ,this would hardly have left a house in central ,london untouched1 and the dead would have been numbered not in hundreds1 but in tens of thousands4 ,such an attack would have required the visits on repeated nights of something like #a1jjj aeroplanes4 ,such a number is not yet a practical possibility4 ,we are1 perhaps1 inclined to underestimate the potentialities of town-bombing with high explosive and incendiary bombs4 ,in ,london1 for example1 there were never too many big fires started at any given time for the fire-brigades to deal with4 ,an attack by ten or twenty times as many aeroplanes as ever bombed ,london simultaneously might well ring round a given area fairly completely with wrecked streets or burning houses1 in which case most of the buildings and a good proportion of the inhabitants would perish4 ,in one or two air-raids on other towns it seems probable that the ,germans were not far from outstripping the capacities of the fire-brigades and producing very large conflagrations4 ,the reasons why explosives are more likely to be effective than poison on a town are as follows4 ,houses are far more vulnerable to explosives than earthworks1 and do far more damage to their occupants in collapsing1 besides being inflammable4 ,and1 on the other hand1 they contain far more refuges which are nearly gas-proof4 ,a shut room on a first or second floor would be nearly proof against gas released in the neighbourhood if it had not got a lighted fire to drag contaminated air from outside into it4 ,moreover1 civilians could1 and would1 rapidly evacuate an area which has been heavily soaked with mustard gas1 whereas soldiers have to stay on at the risk of their lives4 ,gas-bombs would certainly be far less effective than high-explosives on a town whose inhabitants were provided with respirators1 probably even if they were unprovided4 ,but1 so long as ,london is undefended in this respect1 it constitutes a standing temptation to any power desirous of making this kind of experiment4 ,judging from experience1 there is no doubt that a gas or smoke attack from the air would occasion a first-class panic4 ,the introduction of each new chemical weapon produced great terror1 as did even such a militarily unimportant 7though cruel7 weapon as the ,flammenwerfer 7flame-projector74 ,this was certainly due to ignorance4 ,the ,french ,colonial troops who were caught in the first cloud-gas attack were far more frightened than the ,canadians1 and appear to have had far more casualties1 although they mostly ran away3 which the ,canadians did not4 ,for the ,canadians made some attempts to improvise respirators1 and almost any damp fabric will reduce the concentration of chlorine passing through it to half or less4 ,they also breathed less because they did not run4 ,as a matter of fact1 a most efficient respirator against chlorine 7though whether against mustard gas ,i do not know7 can be made by knocking the bottom off a bottle1 filling it with loose earth1 placing its neck in the mouth1 and breathing through it4 ,very great alarm was caused by the first mustard gas bombardments in ,france1 as no one had ever seen anything resembling the blisters it caused4 ,but very soon familiarity bred contempt1 or even liking1 for aeroplanes dropped sheaves of pamphlets explaining how any soldier tired of the war could become a casualty without danger either of death or detection by allowing earth contaminated with mustard gas to touch the skin or the clothing4 ,a good many wound-stripes were earned by this simple and up-to-date method1 though1 as we had the superiority in the air and the ,german soldiers were both more tired and more confiding than our own1 the ,german casualties from this cause were probably still greater4 ,but let us tell our civilian population before and not after they are attacked with blistering gases that the blisters produced are considerably less dangerous than measles4 ,it was predicted during the war that the survivors of lung-irritant gases would get consumption1 while those burned by mustard gas would develop cancer4 ,this has not happened1 but it is the sort of rumour that easily starts4 ,for1 after all1 our greatest weapon in chemical warfare is not gas1 but education1 and education of all classes4 ,by education ,i mean a process which puts people in general in touch with the thought of the abler minds of their own and past times1 whether in literature or art1 in science1 mathematics1 or music4 ,an educated man knows enough of science1 for example1 to be able to distinguish a gas from a smoke1 or a ,grindell-,matthews from a ,marconi1 even if he is not thoroughly versed in the kinetic theory of gases or the laws governing radiation through the ether4 ,educated men are rather rare4 ,it will be worth while giving some examples of how our uneducated politicians and soldiers failed to adjust themselves to the scientific thought of their contemporaries4 ,in ,april1 #aiae1 a relatively educated member of the ,government got hold of a physiologist1 whose name ,i suppress as he is a modest man4 ,he found a rather curious state of affairs4 ,on the ,emden1 a ,german cruiser captured in the ,indian ,ocean1 a ,german sailor had been found in possession of a pad of lint with tapes to tie in front of his mouth4 ,it did not even cover his nose1 and1 though it might or might not have been of some value against smoke1 it was of none at all against gas4 ,there was1 however1 a very prevalent belief at that time1 and may be still1 for all that ,i know1 that ,german men of science were vastly superior to ,british4 ,it is perfectly true that there are more of them1 but ,i think that their average attainments in the last forty years have been1 if anything1 slightly below those of our own4 ,so hypnotized1 however1 were some of the authorities in this country by this theory that it was being proposed to issue these articles to our troops4 ,after pointing out their uselessness1 the physiologist in question was rushed over to ,france in a destroyer1 along with a chemist4 ,he identified the gas used by the ,germans as chlorine4 ,on his return1 he got a cylinder of that gas1 let some into an air-tight chamber1 and devised a rough respirator which would keep most of it out1 trying various possible methods on himself4 ,on his return to the ,war ,office1 rather short of breath from the chlorine he had breathed1 he found to his horror that the appeal to the women of ,england for home-made respirators had been issued4 ,their design was apparently based on the captured ,german one1 which had very probably been made on the ,emden4 ,as they were quite useless1 he secured a promise that they would not be sent out to ,france4 ,things were not made easier by the opinion held in high military quarters that1 offence being more important than defence1 the great thing was to reply to the ,germans by gassing them4 ,as1 however1 this could not be done in less than five months1 while respirators could easily be made in a week1 it led to delay at a somewhat vital moment4 ,finally every important decision taken in ,england had to pass through the hands of ,lord ,kitchener1 who naturally had not time to weigh the arguments at all fully4 ,it is not my intention to attack ,lord ,kitchener3 that the war could be carried on at all under such a system proves that he was a great man4 ,but1 if he had managed to delegate some of his powers1 he would have proved himself a greater4 ,as the result of all this delay1 a great many of the first respirators had to be made in ,france4 ,convalescent soldiers and the nuns in a convent on the ,mont des ,cats were conscripted to make respirators1 which1 if inelegant1 were fairly efficient4 ,unfortunately1 consignments of 8,women of ,england0 and other home-made respirators were continually appearing in ,france1 and every now and then led to a battalion or so being wiped out4 ,i am able to give these details1 because at this time ,i1 who before and after was an honest infantry bombing-officer1 made my brief incursion into chemical warfare4 ,i arrived at ,st4 ,omer from my comfortable trench as being a person accustomed to poisonous gases in civil life4 ,in a large school there1 converted into a hospital1 there was a small glass-fronted room1 like a miniature greenhouse1 into which known volumes of chlorine were liberated4 ,we had to compare the effects on ourselves of various quantities with and without respirators4 ,it stung the eyes and produced a tendency to gasp and cough when breathed4 ,for this reason trained physiologists had to be employed4 ,an ordinary soldier would probably restrain his tendency to gasp1 cough and throw himself about if he were working a machine-gun in a battle1 but could not do so in a laboratory experiment with nothing to take his mind off his own feelings4 ,an experienced physiologist has more self-control4 ,it was also necessary to see if one could run or work hard in the respirators1 so we had a wheel of some kind to turn by hand in the gas chamber1 not to mention doing fifty-yard sprints in respirators outside4 ,as each of us got sufficiently affected by gas to render his lungs unduly irritable1 another would take his place4 ,none of us was much the worse for the gas1 or in any real danger1 as we knew where to stop1 but some had to go to bed for a few days1 and ,i was very short of breath and incapable of running for a month or so4 ,this work1 which was mainly done by civilians1 was rewarded by the grant of the ,military ,cross to the brilliant young officer who used to open the door of the motor-car of the medical ,general who occasionally visited the experiments4 ,the soldiers who took part in them could1 however1 for some time be distinguished by the peculiar green colour of their brass buttons due to the action of the gas4 ,even when arrangements had been made for the manufacture of respirators in ,england1 the supply suddenly dried up4 ,it was found that the girls who made them were working as best they could with raw and bleeding fingers1 and ,london was being scoured for rubber gloves4 ,someone had altered the formula of the mixture in which the respirators were dipped by substituting for carbonate of soda caustic soda1 which has the property of dissolving the human skin4 ,his name1 needless to say1 does not appear in the official history4 ,such were some of the difficulties which we incurred in our anti-gas work1 through the ignorance of highly-placed persons4 ,as1 however1 our defensive 7though not our offensive7 measures were ultimately better than those of any other nation1 things must have been still worse elsewhere4 ,the success of our respirators was largely due to one man1 ,harrison1 whose name is insufficiently known to his countrymen4 ,he was an analytical chemist1 and author of that admirable and too little read work ,secret ,remedies 7published by the ,british ,medical ,association74 ,he enlisted as a private1 but was a ,lieutenant-,colonel when he died of influenza and overwork in #aiah4 ,naturally the ignorance of our private soldiers was of an even more abysmal character4 ,in the early days they often removed the respirators from their faces and tied them around their chests1 as it was there that they felt the effects of the gas4 ,again in #aiag #hj of the mustard-gas cases vomited1 while this symptom was rare in #aiah4 ,apparently it took five months for the ,british ,army to realize that gas-poisoning did not necessarily mean poisoning through the stomach4 ,if1 then1 in future wars we are to avoid gross mismanagement in high places1 and panic and stupidity among the masses1 it is essential that everyone should learn a little elementary science1 that politicians and soldiers should not be proud of their ignorance of it1 that ordinary men and women should not be ashamed or afraid of knowing something of the working of their own bodies4 ,if we persist in the belief that we can be saved by patriotism or social reforms1 or by military preparation of the type which would have sufficed in former struggles1 we shall go down before some nation of more realistic views4 ,we do not know what type of scientific knowledge will be needed3 we can be certain that some type will be4 ,the ,british are a tired people3 they like to rest 8in breathless quiet after all their ills10 and to pin their faith to the promises of leaders whose eyes are fixed on the past4 ,it has all happened before4 8,ganz vergessener ,vlker ,mdigkeiten ,kann ich nicht abthun von meinen ,lidern1 ,noch weghalten von der erschrockenen ,seele ,stummes ,niederfallen ferner ,sterne40 78,i cannot lift from my eyelids the weariness of quite forgotten peoples1 nor hold away from my terrified soul the dumb downfall of far stars407 ,the ,roman and ,spanish ,empires appear to have perished largely from intellectual torpor4 ,are we to go the same way8 ,we have got to get over our distaste for scientific thought and scientific method4 ,to take an example from the war1 the physiologists at the experimental ground at ,porton1 in ,hampshire1 had considerable difficulty in working with a good many soldiers because the latter objected so strongly to experiments on animals1 and did not conceal their contempt for people who performed them4 ,and yet these soldiers would have had no hesitation in shelling the horses of hostile gun-teams1 and the vast majority of them were in the habit of shooting animals for sport4 ,i have never known a physiologist who went in for shooting animals3 physiologists know too much of the processes which occur in a wounded beast or bird that creeps away to die4 ,and1 though ,i have seen a good many scientific experiments on animals1 ,i have never seen one which1 so far as concerns the pain given1 ,i should object to having performed on myself4 ,that this attitude is not unusual would appear from the following experiment described by the director of the ,porton experimental ground1 in which he wished to compare the effects of hydrocyanic 7or prussic7 acid gas on himself and a dog4 ,they both entered a chamber containing #a part in #b1jjj of the gas4 8,in order 7he writes7 that the experiment might be as fair as possible and that my respiration should be relatively as active as that of the dog1 ,i remained standing1 and took a few steps from time to time while ,i was in the chamber4 ,in about thirty seconds the dog began to get unsteady1 and in fifty-five seconds it dropped on the floor and commenced the characteristic distressing respiration which heralds death from cyanide poisoning4 ,one minute thirty-five seconds after the commencement the animal's body was carried out1 respiration having ceased and the dog being apparently dead4 ,i then left the chamber4 ,as regards the result upon myself1 the only real effect was a momentary giddiness when ,i turned my head quickly4 ,this lasted about a year1 and then vanished4 ,for some time it was difficult to concentrate on anything for any length of time4 ,it is hard to say to what extent this was due to the experiment40 ,as the result of this work1 hydrocyanic acid was given up for use in the field1 as phosgene is effective at fifty times this dilution1 and mustard gas at one thousand times4 ,one of the grounds given for objection to science is that science is responsible for such horrors as those of the late war4 8,you scientific men 7we are told7 never think of the possible application of your discoveries4 ,you do not mind whether they are used to kill or to cure4 ,your method of thinking1 doubtless satisfactory when dealing with molecules and atoms1 renders you insensible to the difference between right and wrong4 ,and so you devise the means of universal destruction1 and sell them into the hands of unrighteous and bloody-minded men40 ,i note that the people who make these remarks do not refuse to travel by railway or motor-car1 to use electric light1 or to read mechanically printed newspapers4 ,nor do they install a well in their back-gardens to enjoy drinking the richer water of a pre-scientific age1 with its interesting and variegated fauna4 ,but it is quite easy to show that the destructive and horrible nature of modern warfare is due1 not to the weapons used1 but largely to the other applications of science which constitute the material basis of our civilization4 ,let us imagine the ,great ,war fought with all our means of transport and preventive medicine1 but no weapons more complicated than swords1 spears1 and possibly a few bows4 ,with fewer munitions the armies could have been mobilized even more rapidly1 and more men put in the fighting line4 ,the ,germans would probably have tried1 as they tried in #aiad1 to bring about a 8,schlacht ohne ,morgen10 a battle on reversed fronts modelled on ,cannae4 ,the fighting would probably have been about as severe as at ,cannae1 and men would have been fighting in close order1 ten or twenty deep1 along a hundred-mile front4 ,no doubt it would have been over sooner1 but the losses would probably have been just as great4 ,the ,french and ,germans would doubtless both have gone on fighting until at least half their armies had become casualties1 and1 with four years' fighting compressed into as many weeks1 it would have been impossible to tend more than a fraction of the wounded4 ,the chief difference might have been that the ,russians would have been victorious by mere weight of numbers1 and the ,french defeated4 ,in former wars slaughter was limited by the fact that large armies could not be fed1 and developed epidemic diseases4 ,they also moved very slowly4 ,so it took twenty-three years 7from #agib to #ahae7 to wear down the resistance of the ,french nation4 ,moreover1 the ,great ,war was the first since the ,second ,punic ,war of the #crd century ,b4 ,c4 between two great civilized nations1 each fighting with all its might4 ,this fact accounts for its ferocity4 ,modern transport and hygiene made its scale possible2 the weapons used merely served to prolong it4 ,the objection to scientific weapons such as the gases of the late war1 and such new devices as may be employed in the next1 is essentially an objection to the unknown4 ,fighting with lances or guns1 one can calculate1 or thinks one can calculate1 one's chances4 ,but with gas or rays or microbes one has an altogether different state of affairs4 ,poisonous gas had a great moral effect1 just because it was new1 and incomprehensible4 ,as long as we permit ourselves to be afraid of the novel and unknown1 there will be a very great temptation to use novel and unknown weapons against us4 ,now1 terror of the unknown is thoroughly right and rational so long as we believe that the prince of this world is a malignant being4 ,but it is not justifiable if we believe that the world is the expression of a power friendly to our aspirations1 or if we are atheists and hold that it is neutral and indifferent to human ideals4 ,it will by now have become clear to you that ,i am writing somewhat parabolically4 ,what ,i have said about mustard gas might be applied1 mutatis mutandis1 to most other applications of science to human life4 ,they can all1 ,i think1 be abused1 but none perhaps is always evil2 and many1 like mustard gas1 when we have got over our first not very rational objection to them1 turn out to be1 on the whole1 good4 ,if it is right for me to fight my enemy with a sword1 it is right for me to fight him with mustard gas3 if the one is wrong1 so is the other4 ,but ,i have no sympathy whatever for ,mr4 ,facing-both-ways when he says that1 though he is prepared on occasion to fight1 he will not use these nasty new-fangled weapons4 ,of course ,i am not suggesting that we should violate or prepare to violate the ,washington ,agreement on this subject4 ,i do1 however1 believe that we ought to denounce it at the earliest possible opportunity4 ,such are the facts about chemical warfare4 ,they will not be believed because a belief in them would do violence to the sentiments of most people4 ,they will not be promulgated1 as there is no money to be made out of them4 7,chemical manufacturers make both high explosive and mustard gas1 and the former more easily47 ,the views which ,i have expressed do not coexist in the mind of any party leader or newspaper proprietor1 and must therefore be those of a crank4 ,but until some stronger argument can be waged against them than that they are unusual and unpleasant1 there remains the possibility that they are true4 99 99 99 99 99 ,transcriber's ,notes3 ,text in italics is enclosed by underscores 7italics74 ,punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected4 ,archaic and variable spelling has been preserved4 ,variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved4