The Gas War, 1915-1918: If not a war winner, hardly a failure

Abstract

Contemporary claims that gas warfare proved "a failure" during the First World War would have baffled wartime adversaries, who invested heavily in the research, development, and production of gas warfare. If poison gas, like other conventional weapons, never broke the stalemate of the trenches, it evolved into a weapon of harassment that compounded the effects of conventional weapons and degraded the effectiveness of enemy forces compelled to wear gas masks for pro- tracted periods of time. The introduction of mustard gas in July 1917 greatly increased the number of gas casualties, and set the scene for a steady increase in the use of chemical weapons during the later stages of the war. Like the tank and aircraft, gas was not strategically decisive, but continuing investment in this form of warfare underscored its potential utility.