What substance was the first chemical weapon. The Germans were the first to use chemical weapons. Tests in Nazi Germany

The ability of toxic substances to cause death of people and animals has been known since time immemorial. In the 19th century, toxic substances began to be used during large-scale military operations.

However, the birth of chemical weapons as a means of warfare in modern understanding should be dated back to the First World War.

The First World War, which began in 1914, soon after the start acquired a positional character, which forced the search for new offensive weapons. German army began to use massive attacks on enemy positions using poisonous and asphyxiating gases. On April 22, 1915, a chlorine gas attack was carried out on the Western Front near the town of Ypres (Belgium), which for the first time demonstrated the effect of the massive use of toxic gas as a means of warfare.

The first harbingers.

On April 14, 1915, near the village of Langemarck, not far from the then little-known Belgian city of Ypres, French units captured German soldier. During the search, they found a small gauze bag filled with identical scraps of cotton fabric and a bottle with a colorless liquid. It was so similar to a dressing bag that initially they simply did not pay attention to it.

Apparently, its purpose would have remained unclear if the prisoner had not stated during interrogation that the handbag was a special means of protection against the new “devastating” weapon that the German command plans to use on this sector of the front.

When asked about the nature of this weapon, the prisoner readily answered that he had no idea about it, but it seemed that these weapons were hidden in metal cylinders that were dug in no man's land between the lines of trenches. To protect against this weapon, you need to wet a piece of paper from your bag with the liquid from the bottle and apply it to your mouth and nose.

The French gentlemen officers considered the prisoner's story to be the delirium of a soldier gone crazy and did not attach any importance to it. But soon prisoners captured on neighboring sectors of the front reported about the mysterious cylinders.

On April 18, the British knocked out the Germans from Height 60 and at the same time captured a German non-commissioned officer. The prisoner also spoke about an unknown weapon and noticed that the cylinders with it were dug at this very height - ten meters from the trenches. Out of curiosity, the English sergeant went with two soldiers on reconnaissance and specified location I actually found heavy cylinders of an unusual appearance and unknown purpose. He reported this to the command, but to no avail.

In those days, British radio intelligence, which deciphered fragments of German radiograms, also brought riddles to the Allied command. Imagine the surprise of the codebreakers when they discovered that the German headquarters were extremely interested in the state of the weather!

An unfavorable wind is blowing... - the Germans reported. - ... The wind is getting stronger... its direction is constantly changing... The wind is unstable...

One radiogram mentioned the name of some doctor Haber. If only the English knew who Dr. Haber was!

Dr. Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber was a deeply civilian man. At the front, he wore an elegant suit, adding to the civilian impression with the shine of his gilded pince-nez. Before the war, he headed the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Berlin and even at the front did not part with his “chemical” books and reference books.

Haber was in the service of the German government. As a consultant to the German War Ministry, he was tasked with creating a toxic irritant that would force enemy troops to leave the trenches.

A few months later, he and his collaborators created a weapon using chlorine gas, which went into production in January 1915.

Although Haber hated war, he believed that the use of chemical weapons could save many lives if the exhausting trench warfare on the Western Front ended. His wife Clara was also a chemist and strongly opposed his war work.

April 22, 1915

The point chosen for the attack was in the north-eastern part of the Ypres salient, at the point where the French and English fronts converged, heading south, and from where the trenches departed from the canal near Besinge.

The section of the front closest to the Germans was defended by soldiers who arrived from the Algerian colonies. Having emerged from their shelters, they basked in the sun, talking loudly to each other. About five o'clock in the afternoon a large greenish cloud appeared in front of the German trenches. As witnesses say, many French watched with interest the approaching front of this bizarre “yellow fog”, but did not attach any importance to it.

Suddenly they smelled a pungent smell. Everyone's nose stung and their eyes stung, as if from acrid smoke. The “yellow fog” choked, blinded, burned my chest with fire, and turned me inside out. Without remembering themselves, the Africans rushed out of the trenches. Those who hesitated fell, suffocated. People ran screaming through the trenches; colliding with each other, they fell and struggled in convulsions, catching air with their distorted mouths.

And the “yellow fog” rolled further and further into the rear of the French positions, sowing death and panic along the way. Behind the fog, German chains with rifles at the ready and bandages on their faces marched in orderly rows. But they had no one to attack. Thousands of Algerians and French lay dead in trenches and artillery positions.”

However, for the Germans themselves this result was unexpected. Their generals treated the “bespectacled doctor’s” venture as an interesting experience and therefore were not really prepared for a large-scale offensive.

When the front turned out to be virtually broken, the only unit that poured into the resulting gap was infantry battalion, which could not, of course, decide the fate of the French defense.

The incident caused a lot of noise and by evening the world knew that a new participant had entered the battlefield, capable of competing with “His Majesty the machine gun.” Chemists rushed to the front, and by the next morning it became clear that for the first time for military purposes the Germans used a cloud of asphyxiating gas - chlorine. Suddenly it became clear that any country that even had the makings of a chemical industry could get its hands on the most powerful weapons. The only consolation was that it was not difficult to escape from chlorine. It is enough to cover the respiratory organs with a bandage moistened with a solution of soda or hyposulfite and chlorine is not so terrible. If these substances are not at hand, it is enough to breathe through a wet rag. Water significantly weakens the effect of chlorine dissolving in it. Many chemical institutions rushed to develop the design of gas masks, but the Germans were in a hurry to repeat the gas attack until the Allies had reliable means of protection.

On April 24, having gathered reserves to develop the offensive, they launched an attack on the neighboring sector of the front, which was defended by the Canadians. But Canadian troops were warned about the “yellow fog” and therefore, seeing the yellow-green cloud, prepared for the effects of the gases. They soaked their scarves, stockings and blankets in puddles and applied them to their faces, covering their mouths, noses and eyes from the acrid atmosphere. Some of them, of course, suffocated to death, others were poisoned or blinded for a long time, but no one moved from their place. And when the fog crawled to the rear and the German infantry followed, Canadian machine guns and rifles began to speak, creating huge gaps in the ranks of the attackers who were not expecting resistance.

Replenishment of the arsenal of chemical weapons

As the war continued, many toxic compounds in addition to chlorine were tested for effectiveness as chemical warfare agents.

In June 1915 it was applied bromine, used in mortar shells; The first tear substance also appeared: benzyl bromide, combined with xylylene bromide. This gas was filled artillery shells. The first time the use of gases in artillery shells, which subsequently became so widespread, was clearly observed on June 20 in the Argonne forests.

Phosgene
Phosgene became widespread during the First World War. It was first used by the Germans in December 1915 on the Italian front.

At room temperature, phosgene is a colorless gas with the smell of rotten hay, which turns into a liquid at a temperature of -8°. Before the war, phosgene was mined in large quantities and was used to make various colors for woolen fabrics.

Phosgene is very poisonous and, in addition, acts as a substance that strongly irritates the lungs and causes damage to the mucous membranes. Its danger is further increased by the fact that its effect is not detected immediately: sometimes painful phenomena appeared only 10 - 11 hours after inhalation.

Relatively cheap and easy to prepare, strong toxic properties, prolonged action and low persistence (the smell disappears after 1 1/2 - 2 hours) make phosgene a substance very convenient for military purposes.

Mustard gas
On the night of July 12-13, 1917, in order to disrupt the offensive of the Anglo-French troops, Germany used mustard gas- a liquid toxic substance with blister action. When using mustard gas for the first time, the lesions of varying severity 2,490 people received it, of whom 87 died. Mustard gas has a distinct local effect - it affects the eyes and respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract and skin. Absorbed into the blood, it also exhibits a generally toxic effect. Mustard gas affects the skin when exposed, both in a droplet and in a vapor state. Conventional summer and winter army uniforms, like almost any type of civilian clothing, do not protect the skin from drops and vapors of mustard gas. There was no real protection of troops from mustard gas in those years, and its use on the battlefield was effective until the very end of the war.

It's funny to note that with a certain amount of imagination, one can consider toxic substances to be the catalyst for the emergence of fascism and the initiator of the Second World War. After all, it was after the English gas attack near Comin that the German corporal Adolf Schicklgruber, who was lying in the hospital, temporarily blinded by chlorine, began to think about the fate of the deceived German people, the triumph of the French, the betrayal of the Jews, etc. Subsequently, while in prison, he organized these thoughts in his book “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), but the title of this book already had a pseudonym - Adolf Hitler.

Results of the First World War.

The ideas of chemical warfare have taken a strong position in the military doctrines of all leading states of the world without exception. England and France began improving chemical weapons and increasing production capacity for their production. Germany, defeated in the war, which was prohibited from having chemical weapons under the Treaty of Versailles, and Russia, which has not recovered from the civil war, are agreeing to build a joint mustard gas plant and test chemical weapons at Russian test sites. The United States met the end of the world war with the most powerful military-chemical potential, surpassing England and France combined in the production of toxic substances.

Nerve gases

The history of nerve agents begins on December 23, 1936, when Dr. Gerhard Schröder from the I.G. Farben laboratory in Leverkusen first produced tabun (GA, dimethylphosphoramidocyanide acid ethyl ester).

In 1938, the second powerful organophosphorus agent, sarin (GB, 1-methylethyl ester of methylphosphonofluoride acid), was discovered there. At the end of 1944, a structural analogue of sarin was obtained in Germany, called soman (GD, 1,2,2-trimethylpropyl ester of methylphosphonofluoricidal acid), which is approximately 3 times more toxic than sarin.

In 1940, a large plant owned by IG Farben was launched in Oberbayern (Bavaria) for the production of mustard gas and mustard compounds with a capacity of 40 thousand tons. In total, in the pre-war and first war years, about 17 new technological installations for the production of chemical agents were built in Germany, the annual capacity of which exceeded 100 thousand tons. In the city of Duchernfurt, on the Oder (now Silesia, Poland) there was one of the largest chemical agents production facilities. By 1945, Germany had in reserve 12 thousand tons of herd, the production of which was not available anywhere else.

The reasons why Germany did not use chemical weapons during the Second World War are still not clear; according to one version, Hitler did not give the command to use chemical weapons during the war because he believed that the USSR large quantity chemical weapons. Churchill recognized the need to use chemical weapons only if they were used by the enemy. But the undeniable fact is Germany's superiority in the production of toxic substances: the production of nerve gases in Germany came as a complete surprise to the Allied troops in 1945.

Some work on obtaining these substances was carried out in the USA and Great Britain, but a breakthrough in their production could not have occurred earlier than 1945. During the Second World War in the United States, 17 installations produced 135 thousand tons of toxic substances; mustard gas accounted for half of the total volume. About 5 million shells and 1 million aerial bombs were filled with mustard gas. From 1945 to 1980, only 2 types of chemical weapons were used in the West: lachrymators (CS: 2-chlorobenzylidene malonodinitrile - tear gas) and herbicides (the so-called "Agent Orange") used by the US Army in Vietnam, the consequences of which are the infamous "Yellow Rains". CS alone, 6,800 tons were used. In the United States, chemical weapons were produced until 1969.

Conclusion

In 1974, President Nixon and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L. Brezhnev signed a significant agreement aimed at banning chemical weapons. It was confirmed by President Ford in 1976 at bilateral negotiations in Geneva.

However, the history of chemical weapons did not end there...

Early on an April morning in 1915, a light breeze blew from the German positions opposing the Entente defense line twenty kilometers from the city of Ypres (Belgium). Together with him, a dense yellowish-green cloud that suddenly appeared began to move in the direction of the Allied trenches. At that moment, few people knew that this was the breath of death, and, in the terse language of front-line reports, the first use of chemical weapons on the Western Front.

Tears Before Death

To be absolutely precise, the use of chemical weapons began back in 1914, and the French came up with this disastrous initiative. But then ethyl bromoacetate was used, which belongs to the group of chemicals that are irritating and not lethal. It was filled with 26-mm grenades, which were used to fire at German trenches. When the supply of this gas came to an end, it was replaced with chloroacetone, which has a similar effect.

In response to this, the Germans, who also did not consider themselves obliged to comply with generally accepted legal norms enshrined in the Hague Convention, fired at the British with shells filled with a chemical irritant at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, which took place in October of the same year. However, then they failed to achieve its dangerous concentration.

Thus, April 1915 was not the first case of the use of chemical weapons, but, unlike previous ones, deadly chlorine gas was used to destroy enemy personnel. The result of the attack was stunning. One hundred and eighty tons of spray killed five thousand Allied soldiers and another ten thousand became disabled as a result of the resulting poisoning. By the way, the Germans themselves suffered. The cloud carrying death touched their positions with its edge, the defenders of which were not fully equipped with gas masks. In the history of the war, this episode was designated the “black day at Ypres.”

Further use of chemical weapons in World War I

Wanting to build on their success, a week later the Germans repeated a chemical attack in the Warsaw area, this time against the Russian army. And here death received a bountiful harvest - more than one thousand two hundred killed and several thousand left crippled. Naturally, the Entente countries tried to protest against such a gross violation of the principles international law, but Berlin cynically stated that the Hague Convention of 1896 only mentioned poisonous shells, not gases themselves. Admittedly, they didn’t even try to object - war always undoes the work of diplomats.

The specifics of that terrible war

As military historians have repeatedly emphasized, in the First World War the tactics of positional actions were widely used, in which continuous front lines were clearly defined, characterized by stability, density of concentration of troops and high engineering and technical support.

This greatly reduced the effectiveness of offensive actions, since both sides encountered resistance from the enemy’s powerful defense. The only way out of the impasse could be an unconventional tactical solution, which was the first use of chemical weapons.

New war crimes page

The use of chemical weapons in the First World War was a major innovation. The range of its impact on humans was very wide. As can be seen from the above episodes of the First World War, it ranged from harmful, which was caused by chloroacetone, ethyl bromoacetate and a number of others that had an irritating effect, to fatal - phosgene, chlorine and mustard gas.

Despite the fact that statistics indicate that the gas’s lethal potential is relatively limited (from total number affected - only 5% of deaths), the number of dead and maimed was enormous. This gives us the right to claim that the first use of chemical weapons opened new page war crimes in human history.

In the later stages of the war, both sides were able to develop and introduce fairly effective means of defense against enemy chemical attacks. This made the use of toxic substances less effective, and gradually led to the abandonment of their use. However, it was the period from 1914 to 1918 that went down in history as the “war of the chemists,” since the first use of chemical weapons in the world occurred on its battlefields.

The tragedy of the defenders of the Osowiec fortress

However, let us return to the chronicle of military operations of that period. At the beginning of May 1915, the Germans carried out an attack against Russian units defending the Osowiec fortress, located fifty kilometers from Bialystok (present-day territory of Poland). According to eyewitnesses, after a long period of shelling with shells filled with deadly substances, among which several types were used at once, all living things at a considerable distance were poisoned.

Not only did people and animals caught in the shelling zone die, but all vegetation was destroyed. Before our eyes, the leaves of the trees turned yellow and fell off, and the grass turned black and lay on the ground. The picture was truly apocalyptic and did not fit into the consciousness of a normal person.

But, of course, the defenders of the citadel suffered the most. Even those who escaped death, for the most part, received severe chemical burns and were terribly disfigured. It is no coincidence that their appearance inspired such horror on the enemy that the Russian counterattack, which eventually drove the enemy away from the fortress, entered the history of the war under the name “attack of the dead.”

Development and beginning of use of phosgene

The first use of chemical weapons revealed a significant number of its technical shortcomings, which were eliminated in 1915 by a group of French chemists led by Victor Grignard. The result of their research was a new generation of deadly gas - phosgene.

Absolutely colorless, in contrast to the greenish-yellow chlorine, it betrayed its presence only by the barely perceptible smell of moldy hay, which made it difficult to detect. Compared to its predecessor, the new product was more toxic, but at the same time had certain disadvantages.

Symptoms of poisoning, and even the death of the victims themselves, did not occur immediately, but a day after the gas entered the respiratory tract. This allowed poisoned and often doomed soldiers to participate in hostilities for a long time. In addition, phosgene was very heavy, and to increase mobility it had to be mixed with the same chlorine. This hellish mixture was given the name “White Star” by the Allies, since the cylinders containing it were marked with this sign.

Devilish novelty

On the night of July 13, 1917, in the area of ​​the Belgian city of Ypres, which had already gained notorious fame, the Germans made the first use of chemical weapons with blister effects. At the place of its debut, it became known as mustard gas. Its carriers were mines that sprayed a yellow oily liquid upon explosion.

The use of mustard gas, like the use of chemical weapons in general in the First World War, was another diabolical innovation. This “achievement of civilization” was created to damage the skin, as well as the respiratory and digestive organs. Neither a soldier's uniform nor any type of civilian clothing could protect him from its effects. It penetrated through any fabric.

In those years, no reliable means of protection against getting it on the body had yet been produced, which made the use of mustard gas quite effective until the end of the war. The very first use of this substance disabled two and a half thousand enemy soldiers and officers, of whom a significant number died.

Gas that does not spread along the ground

It was not by chance that German chemists started developing mustard gas. The first use of chemical weapons on the Western Front showed that the substances used - chlorine and phosgene - had a common and very significant drawback. They were heavier than air, and therefore, in a sprayed form, they fell down, filling trenches and all kinds of depressions. The people in them were poisoned, but those who were on higher ground at the time of the attack often remained unharmed.

It was necessary to invent a poisonous gas with a lower specific gravity and capable of hitting its victims at any level. This was the mustard gas that appeared in July 1917. It should be noted that British chemists quickly established its formula, and in 1918 they put the deadly weapon into production, but large-scale use was prevented by the truce that followed two months later. Europe breathed a sigh of relief - the First World War, which lasted four years, was over. The use of chemical weapons became irrelevant, and their development was temporarily stopped.

The beginning of the use of toxic substances by the Russian army

The first case of the use of chemical weapons by the Russian army dates back to 1915, when, under the leadership of Lieutenant General V.N. Ipatyev, a program for the production of this type of weapon in Russia was successfully implemented. However, its use at that time was in the nature of technical tests and did not pursue tactical goals. Only a year later, as a result of work on introducing developments created in this area into production, it became possible to use them on the fronts.

The full-scale use of military developments coming out of domestic laboratories began in the summer of 1916 during the famous It is this event that makes it possible to determine the year of the first use of chemical weapons by the Russian army. It is known that during the military operation, artillery shells filled with the asphyxiating gas chloropicrin and the poisonous gases vencinite and phosgene were used. As is clear from the report sent to the Main artillery department, the use of chemical weapons did "a great service to the army."

Grim statistics of war

The first use of the chemical set a disastrous precedent. In subsequent years, its use not only expanded, but also underwent qualitative changes. Summing up the sad statistics of the four war years, historians state that during this period the warring parties produced at least 180 thousand tons of chemical weapons, of which at least 125 thousand tons found their use. On the battlefields, 40 types of various toxic substances were tested, causing death and injury to 1,300,000 military personnel and civilians who found themselves in the zone of their use.

A lesson left unlearned

Did humanity learn a worthy lesson from the events of those years and did the date of the first use of chemical weapons become a dark day in its history? Hardly. And today, despite international legal acts prohibiting the use of toxic substances, the arsenals of most countries in the world are full of their modern developments, and more and more often reports appear in the press about its use in various parts of the world. Humanity is stubbornly moving along the path of self-destruction, ignoring the bitter experience of previous generations.

Today we will discuss cases of the use of chemical weapons against people on our planet.

Chemical weapon- a now prohibited means of warfare. It has a detrimental effect on all systems of the human body: it leads to paralysis of the limbs, blindness, deafness and rapid and painful death. In the 20th century international conventions the use of chemical weapons was prohibited. However, during the period of its existence, it caused a lot of troubles to humanity. History knows a lot of cases of the use of chemical warfare agents during wars, local conflicts and terrorist attacks.

From time immemorial, humanity has tried to invent new methods of warfare that would provide an advantage to one side without big losses from my side. The idea of ​​using poisonous substances, smoke and gases against enemies was thought of even before our era: for example, the Spartans in the 5th century BC used sulfur fumes during the siege of the cities of Plataea and Belium. They soaked the trees with resin and sulfur and burned them right under the fortress gates. The Middle Ages were marked by the invention of shells with asphyxiating gases, made like Molotov cocktails: they were thrown at the enemy, and when the army began to cough and sneeze, the opponents went on the attack.

During the Crimean War in 1855, the British proposed to take Sevastopol by storm using the same sulfur fumes. However, the British rejected this project as unworthy of a fair war.

World War I

The day the “chemical arms race” began is considered to be April 22, 1915, but before that, many armies of the world conducted experiments on the effects of gases on their enemies. In 1914 German army sent several shells with toxic substances to the French units, but the damage from them was so small that no one mistook it for a new type of weapon. In 1915, in Poland, the Germans tested their new development on the Russians - tear gas, but did not take into account the direction and strength of the wind, and the attempt to throw the enemy into panic again failed.

For the first time, chemical weapons were tested on a horrifying scale by the French army during the First World War. This happened in Belgium on the Ypres River, after which the toxic substance was named - mustard gas. On April 22, 1915, a battle took place between the German and French armies, during which chlorine was sprayed. The soldiers could not protect themselves from the harmful chlorine; they suffocated and died from pulmonary edema.

On that day, 15,000 people were attacked, of whom more than 5,000 died on the battlefield and subsequently in the hospital. Intelligence warned that the Germans were placing cylinders with unknown contents along the front lines, but the command considered them harmless. However, the Germans were unable to take advantage of their advantage: they did not expect such a damaging effect and were not ready for the offensive.

This episode was included in many films and books as one of the most terrifying and bloody pages of the First World War. A month later, on May 31, the Germans again sprayed chlorine during a battle on the Eastern Front in a battle against the Russian army - 1,200 people were killed, and more than 9,000 people received chemical poisoning.

But here, too, the resilience of the Russian soldiers became stronger than the power of the poisonous gases - the German offensive was stopped. On July 6, the Germans attacked the Russians in the Sukha-Vola-Shidlovskaya sector. The exact number of casualties is unknown, but the two regiments alone lost approximately 4,000 men. Despite the terrible damaging effect, it was after this incident that chemical weapons began to be used more and more often.

Scientists from all countries began hastily equipping armies with gas masks, but one property of chlorine became clear: its effect is greatly weakened by a wet bandage on the mouth and nose. However, the chemical industry did not stand still.

And so in 1915, the Germans introduced into their arsenal bromine and benzyl bromide: they produced a suffocating and tear-producing effect.

At the end of 1915, the Germans tested their new achievement on the Italians: phosgene. It was an extremely poisonous gas that caused irreversible changes in the mucous membranes of the body. Moreover, it had a delayed effect: often symptoms of poisoning appeared 10-12 hours after inhalation. In 1916, at the Battle of Verdun, the Germans fired more than 100 thousand chemical shells at the Italians.

A special place was occupied by the so-called scalding gases, which remained active when sprayed in the open air. for a long time and caused incredible suffering to a person: they penetrated under clothing onto the skin and mucous membranes, leaving bloody burns there. This was mustard gas, which the German inventors called the “king of gases.”

Only by rough estimates, More than 800 thousand people died from gases in the First World War. 125 thousand tons of toxic substances of various effects were used in different parts of the front. The numbers are impressive and far from conclusive. The number of victims and then those who died in hospitals and at home after a short illness was not clear - the meat grinder of the world war captured all countries, and losses were not taken into account.

Italo-Ethiopian War

In 1935, the government of Benito Mussolini ordered the use of mustard gas in Ethiopia. At this time, the Italo-Ethiopian war was being waged, and although the Geneva Convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons was adopted 10 years ago, mustard gas in Ethiopia More than 100 thousand people died.

And not all of them were military - the civilian population also suffered losses. The Italians claimed that they sprayed a substance that could not kill anyone, but the number of victims speaks for itself.

Sino-Japanese War

The Second World War was not without the participation of nerve gases. During this global conflict, there was a confrontation between China and Japan, in which the latter actively used chemical weapons.

The imperial troops put the baiting of enemy soldiers with harmful substances on a routine basis: special combat units were created that were engaged in the development of new destructive weapons.

In 1927, Japan built its first chemical warfare agent plant. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, the Japanese authorities purchased equipment and technology for producing mustard gas from them and began producing it in large quantities.

The scale was impressive: they worked for the military industry research institutes, factories for the production of chemical weapons, schools for training specialists in their use. Since many aspects of the influence of gases on the human body were not clear, the Japanese tested the effects of their gases on prisoners and prisoners of war.

To practice imperial japan transferred in 1937. In total, during the history of this conflict, chemical weapons were used from 530 to 2000. According to the most rough estimates, more than 60 thousand people died - most likely the numbers are much higher.

For example, in 1938, Japan dropped 1,000 chemical aerial bombs on the city of Woqu, and during the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese used 48 thousand shells with military substances.

Despite obvious successes in the war, Japan capitulated under the pressure of Soviet troops and did not even try to use its arsenal of gases against the Soviets. Moreover, she hastily hid chemical weapons, although before that she had not hidden the fact of their use in military operations. To this day, buried chemicals have caused illness and death among many Chinese and Japanese.

The water and soil have been poisoned, and many burial sites of war materials have not yet been discovered. Like many countries in the world, Japan has joined the convention banning the production and use of chemical weapons.

Tests in Nazi Germany

Germany, as the founder of the chemical arms race, continued to work on new types of chemical weapons, but did not use its developments on the fields of the Great Patriotic War. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the “space for living”, cleared of Soviet people, was supposed to be settled by Aryans, and the poisonous gases seriously harmed crops, soil fertility and the general ecology.

Therefore, all the developments of the fascists moved to concentration camps, but here the scale of their work became unprecedented in its cruelty: hundreds of thousands of people died in gas chambers from pesticides under the code “Cyclone-B” - Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war, children, women and the elderly ...

The Germans did not make distinctions or allowances for gender and age. The scale of war crimes in Nazi Germany is still difficult to assess.

Vietnam War

The United States also contributed to the development of the chemical weapons industry. They actively used harmful substances during vietnam war, since 1963. It was difficult for the Americans to fight in hot Vietnam with its humid forests.

Our Vietnamese partisans found shelter there, and the United States began spraying defoliants over the territory of the country - substances for the destruction of vegetation. They contained the strongest gas dioxin, which tends to accumulate in the body and leads to genetic mutations. In addition, dioxin poisoning leads to diseases of the liver, kidneys, and blood. In total, 72 million liters of defoliants were dropped over forests and populated areas. The civilian population had no chance to escape: there was no talk of any personal protective equipment.

There are about 5 million victims, and the effects of chemical weapons are still affecting Vietnam to this day.

Even in the 21st century, children are born here with gross genetic abnormalities and deformities. The effect of toxic substances on nature is still difficult to assess: relict mangrove forests were destroyed, 140 species of birds disappeared from the face of the earth, the water was poisoned, almost all the fish in it died, and the survivors could not be eaten. Throughout the country, the number of plague-carrying rats has sharply increased, and infected ticks have appeared.

Tokyo subway attack

The next time the toxic substances were used in Peaceful time against an unsuspecting population. The terrorist attack using sarin, a highly potent nerve gas, was carried out by the Japanese religious sect Aum Senrikyo.

In 1994, a truck with a vaporizer coated with sarin drove onto the streets of Matsumoto. When sarin evaporated, it turned into a toxic cloud, the vapors of which penetrated the bodies of passers-by and paralyzed their nervous systems.

The attack was short-lived as the fog emanating from the truck was visible. However, a few minutes were enough to kill 7 people and injure 200. Encouraged by their success, sect activists repeated their attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. On March 20, five people with bags of sarin descended into the subway. The bags were opened in different compositions, and the gas began to penetrate into the surrounding air in the closed room.

Sarin is an extremely toxic gas, and one drop is enough to kill an adult. The terrorists had a total of 10 liters with them. As a result of the attack, 12 people died and more than 5,000 were seriously poisoned. If terrorists had used spray guns, the casualties would have been in the thousands.

Aum Senrikyo is now officially banned throughout the world. The organizers of the subway attack were detained in 2012. They admitted that they carried out large-scale work on the use of chemical weapons in their terrorist attacks: experiments were carried out with phosgene, soman, tabun, and the production of sarin was put on stream.

Conflict in Iraq

During the Iraq War, both sides did not hesitate to use chemical warfare agents. Terrorists detonated chlorine bombs in Iraq's Anbar province, and later a chlorine gas bomb was used.

As a result, civilians suffered - chlorine and its compounds cause fatal injuries respiratory system, and at low concentrations they leave burns on the skin.

The Americans did not stand aside: in 2004 they dropped white phosphorus bombs on Iraq. This substance literally burns out all living things within a radius of 150 km and is extremely dangerous if inhaled. The Americans tried to justify themselves and refuted the use of white phosphorus, but then stated that they considered this method of warfare quite acceptable and would continue to drop similar shells.

It is characteristic that during the attack with incendiary bombs containing white phosphorus, it was mainly the civilian population who suffered.

War in Syria

Recent history can also name several cases of the use of chemical weapons. Here, however, not everything is clear - the conflicting parties deny their guilt, presenting their own evidence and accusing the enemy of falsifying evidence. At the same time, all means of information warfare are used: forgeries, fake photographs, false witnesses, massive propaganda and even staging attacks.

For example, March 19, 2013 Syrian militants used a rocket filled with chemicals in the battle in Aleppo. As a result, 100 people were poisoned and hospitalized, and 12 people died. It is unclear what kind of gas was used - most likely it was a substance from a series of asphyxiants, since it affected the respiratory organs, causing their failure and convulsions.

Until now, the Syrian opposition has not admitted its guilt, claiming that the missile belonged to government forces. Independent investigation there was no such thing, since the UN’s work in this region was hampered by the authorities. In April 2013, Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, was attacked with surface-to-surface missiles containing sarin.

As a result, according to various estimates between 280 and 1,700 people died.

On April 4, 2017, a chemical attack took place on the city of Idlib, for which no one took responsibility. The US authorities declared the Syrian authorities and President Bashar al-Assad personally to be the culprit and took advantage of this occasion to launch a missile attack on the Shayrat air base. After poisoning with an unknown gas, 70 people died and more than 500 were injured.

Despite scary experience humanity in terms of the use of chemical weapons, colossal losses throughout the 20th century and a delayed period of action of toxic substances, due to which children with genetic abnormalities are still born in countries under attack, the risk of cancer is increased and even the environmental situation, it is obvious that chemical weapons will be produced and used again and again. This is a cheap type of weapon - it is quickly synthesized on an industrial scale, and for a developed industrial economy it is not difficult to put its production on stream.

Chemical weapons are amazing in their effectiveness - sometimes a very small concentration of gas is enough to cause the death of a person, not to mention the complete loss of their combat effectiveness. And although chemical weapons are clearly not an honest method of warfare and are prohibited from production and use in the world, no one can prohibit their use by terrorists. Toxic substances can be easily carried into a catering establishment or entertainment center, where a large number of victims are guaranteed. Such attacks take people by surprise; few would even think of putting a handkerchief to their face, and panic will only increase the number of victims. Unfortunately, terrorists know about all the advantages and properties of chemical weapons, which means that new attacks using chemicals are not excluded.

Now, after yet another case of the use of prohibited weapons, the culprit country is threatened with unspecified sanctions. But if a country has great influence in the world, such as the United States, it can afford to ignore gentle reproaches international organizations. Tension in the world is constantly growing, military experts have long been talking about the Third World War, which is in full swing on the planet, and chemical weapons may yet reach the forefront of the battles of modern times. The task of humanity is to bring the world to stability and prevent the sad experience of past wars, which was so quickly forgotten, despite the colossal losses and tragedies.

The first chemical weapons used were "Greek fire", consisting of sulfur compounds thrown from chimneys during naval battles, first described by Plutarch, as well as hypnotics described by the Scottish historian Buchanan, causing continuous diarrhea as described by Greek authors and a range of drugs including arsenic-containing compounds and the saliva of rabid dogs, which was described by Leonardo da Vinci. In Indian sources of the 4th century BC. e. There were descriptions of alkaloids and toxins, including abrine (a compound close to ricin, a component of the poison with which the Bulgarian dissident G. Markov was poisoned in 1979).

Aconitine, (alkaloid), contained in plants of the genus aconitium (aconitium) had ancient history and was used by Indian courtesans for murder. They covered their lips with a special substance, and on top of it, in the form of lipstick, they applied aconitine to their lips, one or more kisses or a bite, which, according to sources, led to a terrible death, the lethal dose was less than 7 milligrams. With the help of one of the poisons mentioned in the ancient “teachings of poisons”, which described the effects of their influence, Nero’s brother Britannicus was killed. Several clinical experimental works were carried out by Madame de Brinville, who poisoned all her relatives claiming to inherit; she also developed an “inheritance powder”, testing it on clinic patients in Paris to assess the strength of the drug.

In the 15th and XVII centuries poisonings of this kind were very popular, we should remember the Medici, they were a natural phenomenon, because it was almost impossible to detect poison after autopsy. If the poisoners were discovered, the punishment was very cruel: they were burned or forced to drink huge amounts of water. Negative attitude poisoners were deterred by the use of chemicals for military purposes until the mid-19th century. Until, suggesting that sulfur compounds could be used for military purposes, Admiral Sir Thomas Cochran (tenth Earl of Sunderland) used sulfur dioxide as a chemical warfare agent in 1855, which was met with indignation by the British military establishment.

During the First World War, chemicals were used in huge quantities: 12 thousand tons of mustard gas, which affected about 400 thousand people, and a total of 113 thousand tons of various substances. In total, during the First World War, 180 thousand tons of various toxic substances were produced. The total losses from chemical weapons are estimated at 1.3 million people, of which up to 100 thousand were fatal. The use of chemical agents during the First World War are the first recorded violations of the Hague Declaration of 1899 and 1907. By the way, the United States refused to support the Hague Conference of 1899. In 1907, Great Britain acceded to the declaration and accepted its obligations. France agreed to the 1899 Hague Declaration, as did Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan. The parties agreed on the non-use of asphyxiating and nerve gases for military purposes. Referring to the exact wording of the declaration, Germany on October 27, 1914 used ammunition filled with shrapnel mixed with irritant powder, citing the fact that this use was not the sole purpose of this attack. This also applies to the second half of 1914, when Germany and France used non-lethal tear gases, but on April 22, 1915, Germany carried out a massive chlorine attack, resulting in 15 thousand soldiers being injured, of which 5 thousand died. The Germans at the 6 km front released chlorine from 5,730 cylinders. Within 5-8 minutes, 168 tons of chlorine were released.

This treacherous use of chemical weapons by Germany was met with a powerful propaganda campaign against Germany, spearheaded by Britain, against the use of chemical weapons for military purposes. Julian Parry Robinson examined propaganda materials produced after the Ypres events that drew attention to the description of Allied casualties due to the gas attack, based on information provided by credible sources. The Times published an article on April 30, 1915: “ Full story events: New German weapons" This is how eyewitnesses described this event: “People’s faces and hands were glossy gray-black, their mouths were open, their eyes were covered with lead glaze, everything was rushing around, spinning, fighting for life. The sight was frightening, all these terrible blackened faces, moaning and begging for help.

The effect of the gas is to fill the lungs with a watery mucous fluid that gradually fills the entire lungs, causing suffocation and causing people to die within 1 or 2 days.” German propaganda responded to its opponents in the following way: “These shells* are no more dangerous than the poisonous substances used during the English riots (meaning the Luddite explosions, using explosives based on picric acid).” This first gas attack was a complete surprise to the Allied forces, but already on September 25, 1915, British troops carried out their test chlorine attack. In further gas attacks, both chlorine and mixtures of chlorine and phosgene were used.

A mixture of phosgene and chlorine was first used as a chemical agent by Germany on May 31, 1915, against Russian troops. At the 12 km front - near Bolimov (Poland), 264 tons of this mixture were released from 12 thousand cylinders. Despite the lack of protective equipment and surprise, the German attack was repulsed. Almost 9 thousand people were put out of action in 2 Russian divisions. Since 1917, warring countries began to use gas launchers (a prototype of mortars). They were first used by the British. The mines contained from 9 to 28 kg of toxic substance; gas launchers were fired mainly with phosgene, liquid diphosgene and chloropicrin. German gas launchers were the cause of the “miracle at Caporetto”, when, after shelling an Italian battalion with phosgene mines from 912 gas launchers, all life in the Isonzo River valley was destroyed. Gas launchers were capable of suddenly creating high concentrations of chemical agents in the target area, so many Italians died even while wearing gas masks.

Gas launchers gave impetus to the use of artillery weapons and the use of toxic substances from mid-1916. The use of artillery increased the effectiveness of gas attacks. So on June 22, 1916, during 7 hours of continuous shelling, German artillery fired 125 thousand shells with 100 thousand liters. asphyxiating agents. The mass of toxic substances in the cylinders was 50%, in the shells only 10%. On May 15, 1916, during an artillery bombardment, the French used a mixture of phosgene with tin tetrachloride and arsenic trichloride, and on July 1, a mixture of hydrocyanic acid with arsenic trichloride. On July 10, 1917, the Germans on the Western Front first used diphenylchloroarsine, which caused severe coughing even through a gas mask, which in those years had a poor smoke filter. Therefore, in the future, diphenylchlorarsine began to be used together with phosgene or diphosgene to defeat enemy personnel. A new stage in the use of chemical weapons began with the use of a persistent toxic substance with blister action (B, B-dichlorodiethylsulfide). Used for the first time by German troops near the Belgian city of Ypres.

On July 12, 1917, within 4 hours, 50 thousand shells containing 125 tons of B, B-dichlorodiethyl sulfide were fired at the Allied positions. Defeats varying degrees 2490 people received it. The French called the new agent “mustard gas”, after the place of its first use, and the British called it “mustard gas” because of its strong specific odor. British scientists quickly deciphered its formula, but they managed to establish the production of a new agent only in 1918, which is why it was possible to use mustard gas for military purposes only in September 1918 (2 months before the armistice). In this case, for the period from April 1915 Until November 1918, German troops carried out more than 50 gas attacks, the British 150, the French 20. In Russia, chemical weapons were used in small quantities over the years Civil War The White Army and the British occupation forces in 1919.

After the First World War and until the Second World War, public opinion in Europe was opposed to the use of chemical weapons. The pacifist movement was very active in Europe after the end of the First World War and until 1934, including the group “Poets of War”, which described the deaths that occurred as a result of the use of toxic substances. After the First World War, the prevailing opinion among European industrialists who ensured the defense capabilities of their countries was that chemical weapons should be an indispensable attribute of warfare; the rest were considered either sick or crazy. Through the efforts of the League of Nations, at the same time, a number of conferences and rallies were held promoting the prohibition of the use of toxic substances for military purposes and talking about the consequences of this. The International Committee of the Red Cross supported conferences condemning the use chemicals warfare that took place in the 1920s. The Committee also undertook a number of activities in the field of protecting civilians from toxic substances. In 1929, The Times announced a prize for the invention of the best device for determining the concentrations of organic matter. In the USSR in 1928, a chemical attack was simulated using 30 airplanes over Leningrad. The Times reported that the use of the powder was not effective for the public.

In 1921, the Washington Conference on Arms Limitation was convened, chemical weapons were the subject of discussion by a specially created subcommittee, which had information about the use of chemical weapons during the First World War, which intended to prohibit the use of chemical weapons, even more than conventional means of warfare. The Subcommittee decided: the use of chemical weapons against the enemy on land and water cannot be limited. The subcommittee's opinion was supported by a public opinion poll in the United States. The treaty was ratified by most countries, including the United States and Great Britain. However, the United States simultaneously began expanding the Edgewood Arsenal. Lewisite or was one of the main objects of repeated condemnation, it was even called “Deadly Dew”. In Britain, some accepted the use of chemical weapons as a fait accompli, fearing that they would end up in a disadvantageous situation, as in 1915. And as a consequence of this, further work on chemical weapons continued, using propaganda for the use of toxic substances. One of the largest specialists in the field of OV was J.B.S. Haldon had experience conducting chemical attacks as an officer of the Black Watch, who was called from France to help his father, Professor Haldon, for research in the field of chemical warfare agents. Haldon was often exposed to chlorine and various lachrymators and irritants. In 1925, he gave a series of lectures on chemical weapons entitled "Callinicus, Defense Against Chemical Weapons".

He named it after the Syrian Callinicus, who invented a special tar and sulfur mixture called “Greek fire.” In it he wrote: Chemical warfare requires effort to understand. It is more different than ever from those sports entertainments, which are similar to shooting from various types of weapons, even with the use of armored vehicles.” Chemical weapons were also used in large quantities: by Spain in Morocco in 1925, by Italian troops in Ethiopia (from October 1935 to April 1936). Mustard gas was used with great efficiency by the Italians, despite the fact that Italy joined the Geneva Protocol in 1925. 415 tons of blister agents and 263 tons of asphyxiating gases were sent to the Ethiopian front. Of the total losses of the Abyssinian army (about 750 thousand people), a third were losses from chemical weapons. And this is without counting the losses of civilians suffered during the 19 largest air raids. Japan used chemical weapons against Chinese troops in the 1937-1943 war. The losses of Chinese troops from toxic substances accounted for 10% of the total. In 1913, Germany produced 85.91% of the dyes produced in the world, Britain - 2.54%, and the USA - 1.84%.

Six of the largest chemical companies in Germany have united to form the IG Farben concern, created for complete dominance in the markets of dyes and organic chemistry. The most famous inorganic chemist Fritz Haber (laureate Nobel Prize 1918), was the initiator combat use Bombed by Germany during the First World War, his colleague Schroeder, who developed nerve gases in the early 1930s, was one of the most prominent chemists of his time. British and American sources saw in IG Farben an empire similar to the Krupp arms empire, considering it a serious threat and made efforts to dismember it after the Second World War, and it was not for nothing that it was the specialists of this concern who helped the Italians set up the production of chemical agents so effective in Ethiopia. Which led to dominance in the markets of the Allied countries. And in the rest of Europe there were many chemists who believed that it was much more “humane” to use chemical weapons in military operations than to wait for others to use them. The reasons why Germany did not use chemical weapons during the Second World War are still not clear; according to one version, Hitler did not give the command to use chemical weapons during the war because he believed that the USSR had a larger number of chemical weapons.

Churchill recognized the need to use chemical weapons only if they were used by the enemy. But the undeniable fact is Germany's superiority in the production of toxic substances: the production of nerve gases in Germany came as a complete surprise to the Allied troops in 1945. In 1935-1936 Nitrogen and “oxygen” mustard gases were produced in Germany, tabun was synthesized in 1936, the more toxic sarin was synthesized in 1939, and soman was synthesized at the end of 1944. In 1940, a large plant owned by IG Farben was launched in Oberbayern (Bavaria) for the production of mustard gas and mustard compounds with a capacity of 40 thousand tons. In total, in the pre-war and first war years, about 17 new technological installations for the production of chemical agents were built in Germany, the annual capacity of which exceeded 100 thousand tons.

In the city of Duchernfurt, on the Oder (now Silesia, Poland) there was one of the largest chemical agents production facilities. By 1945, Germany had in reserve 12 thousand tons of herd, the production of which was not available anywhere else. Some work on obtaining these substances was carried out in the USA and Great Britain, but a breakthrough in their production could not have occurred earlier than 1945. During the Second World War in the United States, 17 installations produced 135 thousand tons of toxic substances; mustard gas accounted for half of the total volume. About 5 million shells and 1 million aerial bombs were filled with mustard gas. From 1945 to 1980, only 2 types of chemical weapons were used in the West: lachrymators (CS: 2-chlorobenzylidene malonodinitrile - tear gas) and herbicides (the so-called “Agent Orange”) used by the US Army in Vietnam, the consequences of which were the infamous “Yellow Rains”.

CS alone, 6,800 tons were used. In the United States, chemical weapons were produced until 1969. In 1974, President Nixon and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L. Brezhnev signed a significant agreement aimed at banning chemical weapons. It was confirmed by President Ford in 1976 at bilateral negotiations in Geneva. From 1963 to 1967, Egyptian troops used chemical weapons in Yemen. During the 1980s, Iraq made extensive use of mustard gas and later nerve gas (presumably tabun) during the Iran-Iraq conflict. In the incident near Halabja, approximately 5,000 Iranians and Kurds were injured in a gas attack. In Afghanistan, Soviet troops, as Western journalists claimed, also used chemical weapons. In 1985, chemical weapons were used in Angola by the Cuban or Vietnamese military, resulting in environmental impacts that are difficult to explain. Libya produced chemical weapons at one of its enterprises, which was recorded by Western journalists in 1988.

On April 7, the United States launched a missile attack on the Syrian air base of Shayrat in Homs province. The operation was a response to the chemical attack in Idlib on April 4, for which Washington and Western countries blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Official Damascus denies its involvement in the attack.

As a result chemical attack More than 70 people were killed and more than 500 were injured. This is not the first such attack in Syria and not the first in history. The largest cases of the use of chemical weapons are in the RBC photo gallery.

One of the first largest cases the use of chemical warfare agents occurred April 22, 1915, when German troops sprayed about 168 tons of chlorine on positions near the Belgian city of Ypres. 1,100 people became victims of this attack. In total, during the First World War, about 100 thousand people died as a result of the use of chemical weapons, and 1.3 million were injured.

In the photo: a group of British soldiers blinded by chlorine

Photo: Daily Herald Archive/NMeM/Global Look Press

During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), despite the ban on the use of chemical weapons established by the Geneva Protocol (1925), by order of Benito Mussolini, mustard gas was used in Ethiopia. The Italian military stated that the substance used during hostilities was not lethal, but during the entire conflict, about 100 thousand people (military and civilians) died from toxic substances, who did not have even the simplest means of chemical protection.

In the photo: Red Cross workers carry the wounded through the Abyssinian Desert

Photo: Mary Evans Picture Library / Global Look Press

During World War II, chemical weapons were practically not used on the front, but were widely used by the Nazis to exterminate people in concentration camps. A hydrocyanic acid pesticide called Zyklon-B was used against humans for the first time. in September 1941 in Auschwitz. For the first time these pellets, which emit a deadly gas, were used September 3, 1941 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 Poles became victims, the second time - 900 Soviet prisoners of war became victims. Hundreds of thousands of people died from the use of Zyklon-B in Nazi concentration camps.

In November 1943 During the Battle of Changde, the Imperial Japanese Army used chemical and bacteriological weapons against Chinese soldiers. According to witness testimony, in addition to the poisonous gases mustard gas and lewisite, fleas infected with bubonic plague were introduced into the area around the city. The exact number of victims of the use of toxic substances is unknown.

In the photo: Chinese soldiers walk through the destroyed streets of Changde

During the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1971 American troops Various chemicals were used to destroy vegetation to facilitate the search for enemy units in the jungle, the most common of which was a chemical known as Agent Orange. The substance was produced using a simplified technology and contained high concentrations of dioxin, which causes genetic mutations and cancer. The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that 3 million people have been affected by Agent Orange, including 150,000 children born with the mutation.

Pictured: A 12-year-old boy suffering from the effects of Agent Orange.

March 20, 1995 Members of the Aum Shinrikyo sect sprayed the nerve agent sarin into the Tokyo subway. As a result of the attack, 13 people were killed and another 6 thousand were injured. Five cult members entered the carriages, dropped packets of volatile liquid onto the floor and pierced them with the tip of an umbrella, after which they exited the train. According to experts, there could have been many more victims if the toxic substance had been sprayed in other ways.

In the photo: doctors provide assistance to passengers affected by sarin gas

In November 2004 American troops used white phosphorus ammunition during the assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Initially, the Pentagon denied the use of such ammunition, but eventually admitted this fact. The exact number of deaths caused by the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah is unknown. White phosphorus It is used as an incendiary agent (it causes severe burns to people), but it itself and its breakdown products are highly toxic.

Photo: US Marines leading a captured Iraqi

The largest chemical weapons attack in Syria took place in April 2013 in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus. As a result of the shelling with sarin shells, according to various sources, from 280 to 1,700 people were killed. UN inspectors were able to establish that surface-to-surface missiles containing sarin were used at this location, and they were used by the Syrian military.

Pictured: UN chemical weapons experts collect samples