The use of chemical weapons can be traced back to the ancient world—as can efforts to limit or prohibit their use. But the roots of chemical warfare proper are best sought in the nineteenth century. It was an age of war, an age of science, and an age of experimentation. Thomas Cochrane, the tenth Earl of Dundonald, is best known as a heroic and controversial officer of the Royal Navy and several others as well. Indeed, he served as the model for Captain Jack Aubrey, and some of his real-life achievements would have made Patrick O’Brian’s fictional hero stand in awe. But Cochrane was also an amateur of science. As early as 1811 he developed plans for deploying smoke and sulfur from specialized vessels as asphyxiants against land targets. Undiscouraged by initial rejection as contrary to the laws of war, Dundonald revived his “Secret War Plans” during the Crimean War. The ensuing debate on their possible use and eventual pigeonholing is the core of Charles Stephenson’s intriguing exploration of one of naval history’s unfamiliar byways, The Admiral’s Secret Weapon.{1}

Unlike others who have written about Dundonald, Stephenson takes his ideas seriously and treats his plans as feasible. He makes a defensible case. His concluding hypothesis—that in the early stages of World War I crucial elements of the “Plans” fell into German hands and inspired their initial use of poison gas—is less credible. In presenting it, however, he establishes beyond dispute that the British were, from the beginning, at least as interested in the prospects of deploying asphyxiants on the western front as were the often-vilified Huns.

According to Kim Coleman’s useful brief overview, A History of Chemical Warfare, the systematic integration of chemistry into war after 1918 had two consequences. One was the near-certain invention of new and more lethal compounds. The other was the threat of rapid, large-scale production of those chemicals in easily convertible facilities for use in a surprise attack. The League of Nations sought—vainly—to establish effective legal restraints on the development and use of chemical agents. But the Royal Air Force allegedly dropped gas bombs on Afghans in 1920 and the French and Spanish used gas in Morocco five years later. Research continued unabated. In 1933 Japan established an Army Chemical School that turned out more than 3,000 specialists in its twelve-year run. As early as 1936 a German scientist seeking a more effective insecticide discovered tabun, the first effective nerve gas. Odorless and colorless, it was lethal whether inhaled or absorbed through the skin.

A new era in chemical warfare seemed to be emerging. Italy in Abyssinia and Japan in China gave point to the notion by extensive use of chemicals against opponents unable for practical purposes to retaliate. During World War II the major combatants maintained large stocks of chemical weapons, frequently close to operational sectors. That they were not used has often been ascribed to a mutual deterrent effect. Coleman is more convincing in her argument that circumstances were never quite sufficient to convince anyone that chemical weapons would have an effect decisive enough to overcome the combination of military and nonmilitary restraints on their use.

That barrier was frequently approached, however, and during the cold war chemical weapons underwent continued development alongside nuclear weapons. While briefly mentioning Soviet and British experiments, Coleman concentrates on the development of gases and delivery systems by the United States, culminating in their employment in Vietnam on a scale more significant than generally understood or acknowledged. Nonlethals, especially defoliants, and derivatives like napalm made up by far the largest body of use. Coleman nevertheless argues that, at the very least, the United States used allegedly nonlethal gases in concentrations and circumstances with lethal potential. Nor have American authorities been exactly forthcoming on the details of chemical war in Vietnam.

Coleman’s discussion of post-Vietnam developments emphasizes the increasing use of chemical agents in regional conflicts. The most notable of these involved the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and Saddam Hussein’s repeated use of gas against rebels and dissidents. A major consequence has been a growing public fear of chemicals, especially nerve gases. This certainly has been the case when chemicals are linked with terrorism, despite what Coleman considers convincing evidence that chemical attacks are likely to be smaller and less effective than more conventional operations. Her relative—and predictable—optimism regarding control of chemical weapons through the Chemical Weapons Convention that came into force (a poor choice of words given its lack of enforcing instruments) in 1997 is tempered by the—equally predictable—denunciation of the United States for its “nonchalant” approach to the agreement. Coleman’s indictment of the U.S. and British governments for allegedly playing on fear to secure domestic support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nevertheless emerges as somewhat of a contradiction. Her own demonstration that chemical attack has come close to developing the image of an ultimate weapon in the nuclear category does not encourage placing a great deal of faith in pieces of paper, no matter how many signatures they collect.

In War of Nerves Jonathan Tucker, a well-known specialist in arms-control issues, offers a well-developed analysis of the nature and history of chemical warfare. His emphasis is on the years after World War II, and he describes a cold war chemical competition paralleling the more familiar nuclear rivalry, focusing on ever more lethal forms of nerve gas and plans for their mass production and storage. Like Coleman, Tucker focuses on British and American programs, especially the latter, while barely acknowledging corresponding Soviet efforts and policies. He emphasizes accidents like the one in 1968 at Skull Valley, Arizona, in which thousands of sheep were poisoned when gas escaped from the Dugway Proving Ground, a facility presumed to be secure. He also discusses the ongoing tension between a Congress reluctant to fund chemical weapons and a military establishment—particularly the Chemical Corps—remaining committed to their development throughout the cold war’s waning years.

Tucker’s discussion of Iraq’s virtually routine use of chemical weapons before the Gulf War is comprehensively hair-raising, and inadvertently helps to explain the widespread reluctance in U.S. political circles a decade later to take chances on Saddam Hussein’s moderation and goodwill. Tucker takes more seriously than Coleman the potential of terrorist use of chemical weapons. At the same time he is relatively optimistic about the prospects for control. He describes the taboo against poison warfare as “deeply rooted in the human psyche” (p. 385) and he considers the Chemical Weapons Convention a major step toward strengthening moral and legal barriers against the use of chemicals for war-making purposes. Though the conclusion represents the triumph of hope over experience, may it be so.

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{1} Books reviewed in this essay: Charles Stephenson, The Admiral’s Secret Weapon: Lord Dundonald and the Origins of Chemical Warfare (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2006, xvi+179, $47.95); Kim Coleman, A History of Chemical Warfare (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, xxv+198, $29.95); and Jonathan Tucker, War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to al-Qaeda (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006, xi+479, $30).

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Dr. Showalter is professor of history at Colorado College.

©2008 by the Society for the History of Technology.