On the night of July 12-13, 1917, the German army during the First World War first used the poison gas mustard gas (a liquid toxic agent with a skin blister effect). The Germans used mines, which contained an oily liquid, as a carrier of a poisonous substance. This event took place near the Belgian city of Ypres. The German command planned to disrupt the offensive of the Anglo-French troops with this attack. During the first use of mustard gas, 2,490 servicemen received injuries of varying severity, of which 87 died. British scientists quickly deciphered the formula for this OB. However, it was only in 1918 that the production of a new poisonous substance was launched. As a result, the Entente managed to use mustard gas for military purposes only in September 1918 (2 months before the armistice).
Mustard gas has a pronounced local effect: OM affects the organs of vision and respiration, skin And gastrointestinal tract. The substance, absorbed into the blood, poisons the entire body. Mustard gas affects the skin of a person when exposed, both in a droplet and in a vapor state. From the impact of mustard gas, the usual summer and winter uniforms of a soldier did not protect, like almost all types of civilian clothing.
From drops and vapors of mustard gas, ordinary summer and winter army uniforms do not protect the skin, like almost any type of civilian clothing. Full-fledged protection of soldiers from mustard gas did not exist in those years, so its use on the battlefield was effective until the very end of the war. The First World War was even called the "War of Chemists", because neither before nor after this war, agents were used in such quantities as in 1915-1918. During this war, the fighting armies used 12,000 tons of mustard gas, which affected up to 400,000 people. In total, during the years of the First World War, more than 150 thousand tons of poisonous substances (irritant and tear gases, skin blister agents) were produced. The leader in the use of OM was the German Empire, which has a first-class chemical industry. In total, more than 69 thousand tons of poisonous substances were produced in Germany. Germany was followed by France (37.3 thousand tons), Great Britain (25.4 thousand tons), USA (5.7 thousand tons), Austria-Hungary (5.5 thousand), Italy (4.2 thousand . tons) and Russia (3.7 thousand tons).
"Attack of the Dead". The Russian army suffered the largest losses among all participants in the war from the effects of OM. The German army was the first to use poison gases as a mass destruction on a large scale during the First World War against Russia. On August 6, 1915, the German command used the OV to destroy the garrison of the Osovets fortress. The Germans deployed 30 gas batteries, several thousand cylinders, and on August 6, at 4 am, a dark green fog of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed onto the Russian fortifications, reaching the positions in 5-10 minutes. A gas wave 12-15 m high and up to 8 km wide penetrated to a depth of 20 km. The defenders of the Russian fortress did not have any means of protection. All living things were poisoned.
Following the gas wave and the fire shaft (German artillery opened massive fire), 14 Landwehr battalions (about 7 thousand infantrymen) went on the offensive. After a gas attack and an artillery strike, no more than a company of half-dead soldiers, poisoned with OM, remained in the advanced Russian positions. It seemed that Osovets was already in German hands. However, the Russian soldiers showed another miracle. When the German chains approached the trenches, they were attacked by Russian infantry. It was a real “attack of the dead”, the sight was terrible: Russian soldiers marched into the bayonet with their faces wrapped in rags, shaking from a terrible cough, literally spitting out pieces of their lungs onto their bloody uniforms. It was only a few dozen fighters - the remnants of the 13th company of the 226th Zemlyansky Infantry Regiment. The German infantry was so terrified that they could not withstand the blow and ran. Russian batteries opened fire on the fleeing enemy, which, as it seemed, had already died. It should be noted that the defense of the Osovets fortress is one of the brightest, heroic pages of the First World War. The fortress, despite the brutal shelling from heavy guns and the assaults of the German infantry, held out from September 1914 to August 22, 1915.
The Russian Empire in the pre-war period was a leader in the field of various "peace initiatives". Therefore, it did not have in its arsenals OV, means of counteracting such types of weapons, did not conduct serious research work in this direction. In 1915, the Chemical Committee had to be urgently established and the issue of developing technologies and large-scale production of poisonous substances was urgently raised. In February 1916, the production of hydrocyanic acid was organized at Tomsk University by local scientists. By the end of 1916, production was also organized in the European part of the empire, and the problem was generally resolved. By April 1917, the industry had produced hundreds of tons of poisonous substances. However, they remained unclaimed in warehouses.
First use cases chemical weapons into World War I
The 1st Hague Conference in 1899, which was convened at the initiative of Russia, adopted a declaration on the non-use of projectiles that spread asphyxiating or harmful gases. However, during the First World War, this document did not prevent the great powers from using the OV, including en masse.
In August 1914, the French were the first to use tear irritants (they did not cause death). The carriers were grenades filled with tear gas (ethyl bromoacetate). Soon his stocks ran out, and the French army began to use chloracetone. In October 1914, German troops used artillery shells partially filled with a chemical irritant against the British positions on the Neuve Chapelle. However, the concentration of OM was so low that the result was barely noticeable.
On April 22, 1915, the German army used chemical agents against the French, spraying 168 tons of chlorine near the river. Ypres. The Entente Powers immediately declared that Berlin had violated the principles of international law, but the German government countered this accusation. The Germans stated that the Hague Convention only prohibited the use of shells with explosive agents, but not gases. After that, attacks using chlorine began to be used regularly. In 1915, French chemists synthesized phosgene (a colorless gas). It has become a more effective agent, having greater toxicity than chlorine. Phosgene has been used in pure form and mixed with chlorine to increase gas mobility.
One of the forgotten pages of the First World War is the so-called "attack of the dead" on July 24 (August 6, NS), 1915. This is an amazing story of how, 100 years ago, a handful of Russian soldiers miraculously surviving after a gas attack put several thousand advancing Germans to flight.
As you know, poisonous substances (S) were used in the First World War. They were first used by Germany: it is believed that in the area of the city of Ypres on April 22, 1915, the 4th German Army used chemical weapons (chlorine) for the first time in the history of wars and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy.
On the Eastern Front, the Germans for the first time carried out a gas balloon attack on May 18 (31), 1915 against the Russian 55th Infantry Division.
On August 6, 1915, the Germans used poisonous substances, which were compounds of chlorine and bromine, against the defenders of the Russian fortress Osovets. And then something unusual happened, which went down in history under the expressive name "attack of the dead"!
A little preliminary history.
The Osovets Fortress is a Russian defensive fortress built on the Beaver River near the town of Osovice (now the Polish city of Osovets-Krepost) 50 km from the city of Bialystok.
The fortress was built to defend the corridor between the rivers Neman and Vistula - Narew - Bug, with the most important strategic directions of St. Petersburg - Berlin and St. Petersburg - Vienna. The place for the construction of defensive structures was chosen so as to block the main main direction to the east. It was impossible to get around the fortress in this area - impenetrable swampy terrain was located to the north and south.
Osovets fortifications
Osovets was not considered a first-class fortress: before the war, the brick vaults of the casemates were reinforced with concrete, some additional fortifications were built, but they were not too impressive, and the Germans fired from 210 mm howitzers and super-heavy guns. The strength of Osovets lay in his location: he stood on the high bank of the Bober River, among huge, impenetrable swamps. The Germans could not surround the fortress, and the valor of the Russian soldier did the rest.
The fortress garrison consisted of 1 infantry regiment, two artillery battalions, a sapper unit and support units.
The garrison was armed with 200 guns of caliber from 57 to 203 mm. The infantry was armed with rifles, light machine guns of the system madsen model 1902 and 1903, heavy machine guns of the Maxim system model 1902 and 1910, as well as turret machine guns of the system Gatling.
By the beginning of World War I, the garrison of the fortress was headed by Lieutenant General A. A. Shulman. In January 1915, he was replaced by Major General N. A. Brzhozovsky, who commanded the fortress until the end of the active operations of the garrison in August 1915.
major general
Nikolai Alexandrovich Brzhozovsky
In September 1914, units of the 8th German Army approached the fortress - 40 infantry battalions, which almost immediately launched a massive attack. Already by September 21, 1914, having a multiple numerical superiority, the Germans managed to push the field defense of the Russian troops to the line, which allowed artillery shelling of the fortress.
At the same time, the German command transferred 60 guns of up to 203 mm caliber from Koenigsberg to the fortress. However, the shelling began only on September 26, 1914. Two days later, the Germans launched an attack on the fortress, but it was suppressed by heavy fire from Russian artillery. The next day, Russian troops carried out two flank counterattacks, which forced the Germans to stop shelling and retreat in a hurry, withdrawing artillery.
On February 3, 1915, German troops made a second attempt to storm the fortress. A hard, long battle ensued. Despite fierce attacks, the Russian units held the line.
The German artillery bombarded the forts using heavy siege guns of 100-420 mm caliber. The fire was fired in volleys of 360 shells, every four minutes - a volley. For a week of shelling, only 200-250 thousand heavy shells were fired at the fortress.
Also, especially for shelling the fortress, the Germans deployed 4 Skoda siege mortars of 305 mm caliber near Osovets. From above, the fortress was bombed by German airplanes.
Mortar "Skoda", 1911 (en: Skoda 305 mm Model 1911).
The European press in those days wrote: “The appearance of the fortress was terrible, the whole fortress was shrouded in smoke, through which, first in one place, then in another, huge fiery tongues escaped from the explosion of shells; pillars of earth, water and whole trees flew up; the earth trembled, and it seemed that nothing could withstand such a hurricane of fire. The impression was that not a single person would emerge unharmed from this hurricane of fire and iron.
The command of the general staff, believing that it was demanding the impossible, asked the garrison commander to hold out for at least 48 hours. The fortress stood for another six months ...
Moreover, a number of siege weapons, including two "Big Berts", were destroyed by the fire of Russian batteries. After several mortars of the largest caliber were damaged, the German command withdrew these guns outside the reach of the fortress's defenses.
In early July 1915, under the command of Field Marshal von Hindenburg, German troops launched a large-scale offensive. A new assault on the still unconquered Osovets fortress was part of it.
The 18th regiment of the 70th brigade of the 11th division of the landwehr participated in the assault on Osovets ( Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 18 . 70. Landwehr-Infanterie-Brigade. 11. Landwehr Division). The division commander from the moment of formation in February 1915 to November 1916 - Lieutenant General Rudolf von Freudenberg ( Rudolf von Freudenberg)
lieutenant general
Rudolf von Freudenberg
The Germans began to arrange gas batteries at the end of July. 30 gas batteries were installed in the amount of several thousand cylinders. For more than 10 days the Germans waited for a fair wind.
The following infantry forces were prepared to storm the fortress:
The 76th Landwehr Regiment attacks Sosnya and the Central Redoubt and advances along the rear of the Sosnenskaya position to the forester's house, which is at the beginning of the railway gat;
The 18th Landwehr Regiment and the 147th Reserve Battalion advance on both sides railway, break through to the forester's house and attack the Zarechnaya position together with the 76th regiment;
The 5th Landwehr Regiment and the 41st Reserve Battalion attack Bialogrondy and, breaking through the position, storm the Zarechny Fort.
In reserve were the 75th Landwehr Regiment and two reserve battalions, which were to advance along the railway and reinforce the 18th Landwehr Regiment in the attack on the Zarechnaya position.
In total, the following forces were assembled to attack the Sosnenskaya and Zarechnaya positions:
13 - 14 infantry battalions,
1 battalion of sappers,
24 - 30 heavy siege weapons,
30 poison gas batteries.
The forward position of the Byalohrondy fortress - Pine was occupied by the following Russian forces:
Right flank (positions at Bialogronda):
1st Company of the Compatriot Regiment,
two companies of militia.
Center (positions from the Rudsky Canal to the central redoubt):
9th company of the Compatriot Regiment,
10th Company of the Compatriot Regiment,
12th Company of the Compatriot Regiment,
militia company.
Left flank (position at Sosnya) - 11th company of the Zemlyachinsky regiment,
General reserve (near the forester's house) - one company of militia.
Thus, the Sosnenskaya position was occupied by five companies of the 226th Infantry Zemlyansky Regiment and four companies of militia, a total of nine companies of infantry.
The infantry battalion sent every night to the front positions left at 3 o'clock for the Zarechny Fort to rest.
At 04:00 on August 6, the Germans opened heavy artillery fire on the railway gati, the Zarechnaya position, the communications of the Zarechny fort with the fortress and on the batteries of the bridgehead, after which, at the signal of the missiles, the enemy infantry launched an offensive.
gas attack
Having not achieved success with artillery fire and numerous attacks, on August 6, 1915 at 4 o'clock in the morning, having waited for the desired wind direction, the German units used poison gases consisting of chlorine and bromine compounds against the defenders of the fortress. The defenders of the fortress did not have gas masks ...
At that time, the Russian army had no idea what horror the scientific and technological progress of the 20th century would turn into.
As reported by V.S. Khmelkov, the gases released by the Germans on August 6 had a dark green color - it was chlorine with an admixture of bromine. The gas wave, which had about 3 km along the front when it was released, began to spread rapidly to the sides and, having traveled 10 km, was already about 8 km wide; the height of the gas wave above the bridgehead was about 10-15 m.
All living things in the open air on the bridgehead of the fortress were poisoned to death, heavy losses were suffered during the firing of the fortress artillery; people not participating in the battle escaped in barracks, shelters, residential buildings, tightly locking the doors and windows, dousing them with plenty of water.
12 km from the place of gas release, in the villages of Ovechki, Zhodzi, Malaya Kramkovka, 18 people were seriously poisoned; known cases of poisoning of animals - horses and cows. No cases of poisoning were observed at the Monki station, located 18 km from the place where the gases were released.
Gas stagnated in the forest and near water ditches, a small grove 2 km from the fortress along the highway to Bialystok turned out to be impassable until 16:00. August 6th
All the greenery in the fortress and in the nearest area along the path of the gases was destroyed, the leaves on the trees turned yellow, curled up and fell off, the grass turned black and lay on the ground, the flower petals flew around.
All copper objects on the bridgehead of the fortress - parts of guns and shells, washbasins, tanks, etc. - were covered with a thick green layer of chlorine oxide; food items stored without hermetic sealing - meat, butter, lard, vegetables - turned out to be poisoned and unfit for consumption.
The half-poisoned wandered back, and, tormented by thirst, bent down to the sources of water, but here the gases lingered in low places, and secondary poisoning led to death ...
The gases inflicted huge losses on the defenders of the Sosnenskaya position - the 9th, 10th and 11th companies of the Zemlyachsky regiment were killed entirely, about 40 people remained from the 12th company with one machine gun; from the three companies that defended Bialogrondy, there were about 60 people with two machine guns.
The German artillery again opened a massive fire, and after the fire shaft and the gas cloud, believing that the garrison defending the positions of the fortress was dead, the German units went on the offensive. 14 Landwehr battalions went on the attack - and this is at least seven thousand infantrymen.
On the front line after the gas attack, hardly more than a hundred defenders remained alive. The doomed fortress, it seemed, was already in German hands...
But when the German infantry approached the advanced fortifications of the fortress, the remaining defenders of the first line rose to meet them in a counterattack - the remnants of the 13th company of the 226th infantry Zemlyachensky regiment, a little more than 60 people. The counterattacks had a horrifying appearance - with faces mutilated by chemical burns, wrapped in rags, shaking from a terrible cough, literally spitting out pieces of the lungs on bloody tunics ...
The unexpected attack and the appearance of the attackers terrified the German units and turned them into a stampede. Several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put to flight parts of the 18th Landwehr Regiment!
This attack of the “dead” plunged the enemy into such horror that the German infantrymen, not accepting the battle, rushed back, trampling each other and hanging on their own wire barriers. And then at them, from the Russian batteries shrouded in chlorine clubs, it would seem that the already dead Russian artillery began to hit ...
Professor A. S. Khmelkov described it this way:
Batteries of the fortress artillery, despite heavy losses in people poisoned, opened fire, and soon the fire of nine heavy and two light batteries slowed down the advance of the 18th Landwehr Regiment and cut off the general reserve (75th Landwehr Regiment) from the position. The head of the 2nd Defense Department sent the 8th, 13th and 14th companies of the 226th Zemlyansky Regiment from the Zarechnaya position for a counterattack. The 13th and 8th companies, having lost up to 50% poisoned, turned around on both sides of the railway and launched an offensive; The 13th company, having met units of the 18th Landwehr Regiment, with a shout of "Hurrah" rushed to the bayonets. This attack of the "dead", according to an eyewitness of the battle, so impressed the Germans that they did not accept the battle and rushed back, many Germans died on wire nets in front of the second line of trenches from the fire of fortress artillery. The concentrated fire of the fortress artillery on the trenches of the first line (Leonov's yard) was so strong that the Germans did not accept the attack and hastily retreated.
Several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put three German infantry regiments to flight! Later, participants in the events from the German side and European journalists dubbed this counterattack as the "attack of the dead."
In the end, the heroic defense of the fortress came to an end.
The end of the defense of the fortress
At the end of April, the Germans delivered another powerful blow in East Prussia and at the beginning of May 1915 broke through the Russian front in the area of Memel-Libava. In May, the German-Austrian troops, having concentrated superior forces in the Gorlice region, managed to break through the Russian front (see: Gorlitsky breakthrough) in Galicia. After that, in order to avoid encirclement, a general strategic retreat of the Russian army from Galicia and Poland began. By August 1915, due to changes on the Western Front, the strategic need to defend the fortress lost all meaning. In connection with this, the supreme command of the Russian army decided to stop defensive battles and evacuate the garrison of the fortress. On August 18, 1915, the evacuation of the garrison began, which took place without panic, in accordance with the plans. Everything that could not be taken out, as well as the surviving fortifications, were blown up by sappers. In the process of retreat, the Russian troops, if possible, organized the evacuation of the civilian population. The withdrawal of troops from the fortress ended on August 22.
Major General Brzhozovsky was the last to leave the deserted Osovets. He approached a group of sappers located half a kilometer from the fortress and turned the handle of the explosive device himself - he ran along the cable electricity, there was a terrible roar. Osovets flew into the air, but before that, absolutely everything was taken out of it.
On August 25, German troops entered the empty, ruined fortress. The Germans did not get a single cartridge, not a single can of canned food: they received only a pile of ruins.
The defense of Osovets came to an end, but Russia soon forgot it. There were terrible defeats and great upheavals ahead, Osovets turned out to be just an episode on the road to disaster ...
Ahead was a revolution: Nikolai Alexandrovich Brzhozovsky, who commanded the defense of Osovets, fought for the Whites, his soldiers and officers were divided by the front line.
Judging by fragmentary information, Lieutenant General Brzhozovsky was a participant white movement in the south of Russia, was in the reserve ranks of the Volunteer Army. In the 20s. lived in Yugoslavia.
In Soviet Russia, they tried to forget Osovets: there could not be great feats in the "imperialist war".
Who was the soldier whose machine gun pinned down the infantrymen of the 14th Landwehr division who broke into the Russian positions? Under artillery fire, his entire company perished, but by some miracle he survived, and, stunned by the explosions, almost alive, he released tape after tape - until the Germans threw grenades at him. The machine gunner saved the position, and possibly the entire fortress. No one will ever know his name...
God knows who the gassed lieutenant of the militia battalion was, who croaked through a cough: “follow me!” - got up from the trench and went to the Germans. He was immediately killed, but the militia got up and held out until the arrows arrived to help them ...
Osovets covered Bialystok: from there the road to Warsaw opened, and further - into the depths of Russia. In 1941, the Germans made this way swiftly, bypassing and surrounding entire armies, capturing hundreds of thousands of prisoners. The Brest Fortress, located not too far from Osovets, fought heroically at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, but its defense was of no strategic importance: the front went far to the East, the remnants of the garrison were doomed.
Osovets was a different matter in August 1915: he chained large enemy forces to himself, his artillery methodically crushed the German infantry.
Then the Russian army did not scamper in disgrace to the Volga and to Moscow ...
School textbooks talk about "the rottenness of the tsarist regime, mediocre tsarist generals, about unpreparedness for war", which was not at all popular, because the soldiers who were forcibly called up did not want to fight ...
Now the facts: in 1914-1917, almost 16 million people were drafted into the Russian army - from all classes, almost all nationalities of the empire. Is this not a people's war?
And these "forcibly drafted" fought without commissars and political officers, without special security officers, without penal battalions. Without barriers. About one and a half million people were marked with the St. George's Cross, 33 thousand became full holders of the St. George's Crosses of all four degrees. By November 1916, more than one and a half million medals "For Courage" had been issued at the front. In the then army, crosses and medals were not simply hung up to anyone and they were not given for the protection of rear depots - only for specific military merits.
"Rotten tsarism" carried out the mobilization clearly and without a hint of transport chaos. The “unprepared for war” Russian army, under the leadership of the “talentless” tsarist generals, not only carried out a timely deployment, but also inflicted a series of powerful blows, having carried out a number of successful offensive operations in enemy territory. Army Russian Empire for three years it held the blow of the military machine of three empires - German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman - on a huge front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The tsarist generals and their soldiers did not let the enemy deep into the Fatherland.
The generals had to retreat, but the army under their command retreated in a disciplined and organized manner, only by order. Yes, and they tried not to leave the civilian population to desecrate the enemy, evacuating if possible. The “anti-national tsarist regime” did not think of repressing the families of those who were captured, and the “oppressed peoples” were in no hurry to go over to the side of the enemy with entire armies. Prisoners were not enrolled in the legions in order to fight against their own country with weapons in their hands, just as hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers did this a quarter of a century later.
And on the side of the Kaiser, a million Russian volunteers did not fight, there were no Vlasovites.
In 1914, no one and in nightmare could not dream that the Cossacks fought in the German ranks ...
In the "imperialist" war, the Russian army did not leave its own on the battlefield, carrying out the wounded and burying the dead. Therefore, the bones of our soldiers and officers of the First World War do not roll on the battlefields. It is known about the Patriotic War: the 70th year since its end, and the number of humanly unburied people is in the millions ...
During the German War, there was a cemetery near the Church of All Saints in All Saints, where soldiers who died from wounds in hospitals were buried. The Soviet government destroyed the cemetery, like many others, when it methodically began to uproot the memory of the Great War. She was ordered to be considered unfair, lost, shameful.
In addition, deserters and saboteurs who carried out subversive work with enemy money became at the helm of the country in October 1917. It was inconvenient for the comrades from the sealed carriage, who stood up for the defeat of the fatherland, to conduct military-patriotic education on the examples of the imperialist war, which they turned into a civil one.
And in the 1920s, Germany became a tender friend and military-economic partner - why annoy her with a reminder of past discord?
True, some literature about the First World War was published, but utilitarian and for the mass consciousness. Another line is educational and applied: it was not on the materials of the campaigns of Hannibal and the First Cavalry that students of military academies were taught. And in the early 1930s, scientific interest in the war was indicated, voluminous collections of documents and studies appeared. But their theme is indicative: offensive operations. The last collection of documents was published in 1941, more compilations no longer released. True, even in these editions there were no names or people - only numbers of parts and formations. Even after June 22, 1941, when the "great leader" decided to turn to historical analogies, remembering the names of Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov and Kutuzov, he did not say a word about those who stood in the way of the Germans in 1914 ...
After World War II the strictest ban was imposed not only on the study of the First World War, but in general on any memory of it. And for mentioning the heroes of the "imperialist" one could go to the camps as for anti-Soviet agitation and praising the White Guard ...
The history of the First World War knows two examples when fortresses and their garrisons completed their tasks to the end: the famous French fortress of Verdun and the small Russian fortress of Osovets.
The garrison of the fortress heroically withstood the siege of many times superior enemy troops for six months, and withdrew only by order of the command after the strategic expediency of further defense had disappeared.
The defense of the Osovets fortress during the First World War was a vivid example of the courage, steadfastness and valor of Russian soldiers.
Eternal memory to the fallen heroes!
Osovets. Fortress church. Parade on the occasion of the presentation of the St. George's Crosses.
By the middle of the spring of 1915, each of the countries participating in the First World War sought to win over the advantage to its side. So Germany, terrorizing its enemies from the sky, from under water and on land, tried to find the optimal, but not quite original solution, having decided to use chemical weapons against the adversaries - chlorine. The Germans borrowed this idea from the French, who at the beginning of 1914 tried to use tear gas as a weapon. At the beginning of 1915, the Germans also tried to do this, who quickly realized that irritating gases on the field were a very ineffective thing.
Therefore, the German army resorted to the help of the future Nobel laureate in chemistry by Fritz Haber, who developed methods for using protection against such gases and methods for using them in combat.
Haber was a great patriot of Germany and even converted from Judaism to Christianity to show his love for the country.
For the first time, the German army decided to use poison gas - chlorine - on April 22, 1915, during the battle near the Ypres River. Then the military sprayed about 168 tons of chlorine from 5730 cylinders, each of which weighed about 40 kg. At the same time, Germany violated the Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed by it in 1907 in The Hague, one of the clauses of which stated that against the enemy "it is forbidden to use poison or poisoned weapons." It is worth noting that Germany at that time gravitated towards violating various international agreements and agreements: in 1915, it waged "unlimited submarine warfare" - German submarines sank civilian ships contrary to the Hague and Geneva conventions.
“We couldn't believe our eyes. A greenish-gray cloud, descending on them, turned yellow as it spread and scorched everything in its path that it touched, causing the plants to die. Among us, staggering, appeared French soldiers, blinded, coughing, breathing heavily, with dark purple faces, silent from suffering, and behind them, as we learned, hundreds of their dying comrades remained in the gassed trenches, ”recalled what happened one of the British soldiers, who observed the mustard gas attack from the side.
As a result of the gas attack, about 6 thousand people were killed by the French and British. At the same time, the Germans also suffered, on which, due to the changed wind, part of the gas sprayed by them was blown away.
However, it was not possible to achieve the main task and break through the German front line.
Among those who participated in the battle was the young Corporal Adolf Hitler. True, he was 10 km from the place where the gas was sprayed. On this day, he saved his wounded comrade, for which he was subsequently awarded the Iron Cross. At the same time, he was only recently transferred from one regiment to another, which saved him from possible death.
Subsequently, Germany began to use artillery shells with phosgene, a gas for which there is no antidote and which, at the proper concentration, causes death. Fritz Haber continued to actively participate in the development, whose wife committed suicide after receiving news from Ypres: she could not bear the fact that her husband became the architect of so many deaths. Being a chemist by training, she appreciated the nightmare that her husband helped create.
The German scientist did not stop there: under his leadership, the poisonous substance "cyclone B" was created, which was subsequently used for the massacres of concentration camp prisoners during World War II.
In 1918, the researcher even received Nobel Prize in chemistry, although he had a rather controversial reputation. However, he never hid that he was absolutely sure of what he was doing. But Haber's patriotism and his Jewish origins played a cruel joke on the scientist: in 1933 he was forced to flee Nazi Germany to Great Britain. A year later, he died of a heart attack.
The First World War was on. On the evening of April 22, 1915, German and French troops opposing each other were near the Belgian city of Ypres. They fought for the city for a long time and to no avail. But this evening the Germans wanted to test a new weapon - poison gas. They brought thousands of cylinders with them, and when the wind blew towards the enemy, they opened the taps, releasing 180 tons of chlorine into the air. A yellowish gas cloud was carried by the wind towards the enemy line.
The panic began. Immersed in a gas cloud, the French soldiers went blind, coughed and suffocated. Three thousand of them died of asphyxiation, another seven thousand were burned.
"At this point, science lost its innocence," says science historian Ernst Peter Fischer. In his words, if before that the purpose of scientific research was to alleviate the conditions of people's lives, now science has created conditions that make it easier to kill a person.
"In the war - for the fatherland"
A way to use chlorine for military purposes was developed by the German chemist Fritz Haber. He is considered the first scientist who subordinated scientific knowledge military needs. Fritz Haber discovered that chlorine is an extremely poisonous gas, which, thanks to its high density concentrated low above the ground. He knew that this gas causes severe swelling of the mucous membranes, coughing, suffocation, and ultimately leads to death. In addition, the poison was cheap: chlorine is found in the waste chemical industry.
"Haber's motto was "In the world - for humanity, in the war - for the fatherland," Ernst Peter Fischer quotes the then head of the chemical department of the Prussian War Ministry. - Then there were other times. Everyone was trying to find poison gas that they could use in war And only the Germans succeeded."
The Ypres attack was a war crime - as early as 1915. After all, the Hague Convention of 1907 prohibited the use of poison and poisoned weapons for military purposes.
Arms race
The "success" of Fritz Haber's military innovation became contagious, and not only for the Germans. Simultaneously with the war of states, the "war of chemists" also began. Scientists were tasked with creating chemical weapons that would be ready for use as soon as possible. "Abroad they looked with envy at Haber," says Ernst Peter Fischer, "Many people wanted to have such a scientist in their country." Fritz Haber received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918. True, not for the discovery of poisonous gas, but for his contribution to the implementation of the synthesis of ammonia.
The French and British also experimented with poisonous gases. The use of phosgene and mustard gas, often in combination with each other, became widespread in the war. And yet, poison gases did not play a decisive role in the outcome of the war: these weapons could only be used in favorable weather.
scary mechanism
Nevertheless, in the First World War, a terrible mechanism was launched, and Germany became its engine.
The chemist Fritz Haber not only laid the foundation for the use of chlorine for military purposes, but also, thanks to his good industrial connections, helped to mass-produce this chemical weapon. For example, the German chemical concern BASF produced poisonous substances in large quantities during the First World War.
Already after the war with the creation of the IG Farben concern in 1925, Haber joined its supervisory board. Later, during National Socialism, a subsidiary of IG Farben was engaged in the production of "cyclone B", used in the gas chambers of concentration camps.
Context
Fritz Haber himself could not have foreseen this. "He's a tragic figure," Fischer says. In 1933, Haber, a Jew by origin, emigrated to England, expelled from his country, in the service of which he placed his scientific knowledge.
Red line
In total, more than 90 thousand soldiers died on the fronts of the First World War from the use of poison gases. Many died of complications a few years after the end of the war. In 1905, the members of the League of Nations, which included Germany, under the Geneva Protocol pledged not to use chemical weapons. Meanwhile Scientific research on the use of poisonous gases were continued, mainly under the guise of developing means to combat harmful insects.
"Cyclone B" - hydrocyanic acid - an insecticidal agent. "Agent orange" - a substance for deleafing plants. The Americans used defoliant during the Vietnam War to thin out local dense vegetation. As a consequence - poisoned soil, numerous diseases and genetic mutations in the population. The latest example of the use of chemical weapons is Syria.
"You can do whatever you want with poisonous gases, but they can't be used as a target weapon," emphasizes science historian Fisher. “Everyone who is nearby becomes a victim.” The fact that the use of poisonous gas today is “a red line that cannot be crossed” he considers correct: “Otherwise, the war becomes even more inhuman than it already is.”
Poison gas was first used German troops in 1915 on the Western Front. It was later used in Abyssinia, China, Yemen and also in Iraq. Hitler himself was the victim of a gas attack during World War I.
Silent, invisible and in most cases deadly: poison gas is a terrible weapon - not only in physical sense, since chemical warfare agents are capable of destroying huge numbers of soldiers and civilians, but probably even more psychologically, since fear of a terrible threat contained in the air inhaled inevitably causes panic.
Since 1915, when poison gas was first used in modern warfare, it has been used to kill people in dozens of armed conflicts. However, just in the bloodiest war of the 20th century, in the struggle of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition against the Third Reich in Europe, both sides did not use these weapons of mass destruction. But, nevertheless, in those years it was used, and took place, in particular, during the Sino-Japanese war, which began already in 1937.
Poisonous substances were used as weapons in ancient times - for example, warriors rubbed arrowheads with irritating substances in ancient times. However, a systematic study chemical elements began just before the First World War. By this time, police in some European countries had already used tear gas to disperse unwanted crowds. Therefore, it remained only a small step before the use of deadly poisonous gas.
1915 - first application
The first confirmed large-scale use of military poison gas occurred on the western front in Flanders. Prior to this, attempts were repeatedly made - generally unsuccessful - to squeeze out with the help of various chemical substances enemy soldiers from the trenches and thus complete the conquest of Flanders. On the eastern front, the German gunners also used shells with poisonous chemicals - without much consequence.
Against the background of this kind of "unsatisfactory" results, the chemist Fritz Haber (Fritz Haber), who later received the Nobel Prize, proposed spraying chlorine gas in the presence of a suitable wind. Over 160 tons this by-product chemical industry were used April 22, 1915 in the Ypres region. The gas was released from about 6,000 cylinders, and as a result, a poisonous cloud six kilometers long and one kilometer wide covered the enemy positions.
There is no exact data on the number of victims of this attack, but they were very significant. Anyway german army on Ypres Day, it was possible to break through the fortifications of the French and Canadian units to a great depth.
The Entente countries actively protested against the use of poison gas. The German side, in response, stated that the use of chemical munitions is not prohibited by the Hague Convention on Land Warfare. Formally, this was correct, but the use of chlorine gas was contrary to the spirit of the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907.
The death toll was almost 50%
In the following weeks, poisonous gas was used several more times on the arc in the Ypres region. At the same time, on May 5, 1915, at a height of 60 in the British trenches, 90 of the 320 soldiers who were there were killed. Another 207 people were taken to hospitals, but 58 of them did not need any help. The proportion of deaths from the use of poisonous gases against unprotected soldiers was then approximately 50%.
The use of poisonous chemicals by the Germans destroyed the taboo, and after that, other participants in the hostilities also began to use poisonous gases. The British first used chlorine gas in September 1915, while the French used phosgene. Another spiral of the arms race began: more and more new chemical warfare agents were developed, and their own soldiers received more and more advanced gas masks. A total of 18 different potentially lethal poisons and 27 more were used during World War I. chemical compounds"annoying" action.
According to existing estimates, in the period from 1914 to 1918, about 20 million gas shells were used, in addition, more than 10 thousand tons of chemical warfare agents were released from special containers. According to calculations by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, 91,000 people died as a result of the use of chemical warfare agents, and 1.2 million were injured of varying severity.
Hitler's personal experience
Among the victims was also Adolf Hitler. On October 14, 1918, during a mustard gas attack by the French, he temporarily lost his sight. In the book “My Struggle” (Mein Kampf), where Hitler sets out the foundations of his worldview, he describes this situation as follows: “About midnight, some of the comrades were out of action, some of them forever. In the morning I also began to feel severe pain increasing every minute. About seven o'clock, stumbling and falling, I somehow wandered to the checkpoint. My eyes burned with pain." After a few hours, “my eyes turned into burning coals. Then I stopped seeing."
And after the First World War, the accumulated, but already unnecessary in Europe, shells with poisonous gases were used. For example, Winston Churchill advocated their use against "wild" rebels in the colonies, but at the same time he made a reservation and added that it was not necessary to use deadly substances. In Iraq Royal air Force chemical bombs were also used.
Spain, which remained neutral during the First World War, used poison gases during the Rif War against the Berber tribes in its North African possessions. The Italian dictator Mussolini used this kind of weapon in the Libyan and Abyssinian wars, and it was often used against civilian population. Western public opinion reacted to this with indignation, but as a result, it was possible to agree only on the adoption of symbolic responses.
Unambiguous ban
In 1925, the Geneva Protocol banned the use of chemical and biological weapons in hostilities, as well as their use against civilians. Nevertheless, practically all states of the world continued to prepare for future wars with the use of chemical weapons.
After 1918, the largest use of chemical warfare agents occurred in 1937 during Japan's war of conquest against China. They have been used in thousands of individual cases, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians died, but exact data from those theaters of war is not available. Japan did not ratify the Geneva Protocol and was not formally bound by its provisions, but even at that time the use of chemical weapons was considered a war crime.
Including thanks to Hitler's personal experience, the threshold for the use of poisonous chemicals during World War II was very high. However, this does not mean that both sides were not preparing for a possible gas war - in case the opposite side unleashed it.
The Wehrmacht had several laboratories for the study of chemical warfare agents, and one of them was located in the Spandau Citadel, located in the western part of Berlin. In particular, the highly toxic poison gases sarin and soman are produced there in small quantities. And at the plants of the I.G. Farben company, several tons of tabun nerve gas were even produced on a phosphorus basis. However, it was not applied.
