Wednesday marked 100 years since the first widespread use of chemical weapons on the Western Front of World War I.
On April 22, 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium, German troops released hundreds of tons of chlorine gas toward French soldiers, killing thousands within 10 minutes. It was a horrific way to die – many suffocated on their own lungs and were blinded as the acidic compound destroyed moist tissue.
Hundreds of thousands were killed by chemical weapons during World War I, with as many as one million injured – leading to an official prohibition under the Geneva Protocols that laid out rules of war.
KGOU’s World Views contributor and University of Oklahoma College of International Studies assistant dean Rebecca Cruise says even with a strong taboo a century later, their use continued through most major conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries.
“Prior to World War II the Italians are known to have used it in North Africa. We were familiar with it in the Iraq-Iran War, and then of course our involvement in the Middle East more recently with the Gulf War and the Iraqi War,” Cruise said. “There are now some officials that are saying that ISIS has the capabilities to use these sorts of weapons, and very easily could.”
But their use by non-state actors like the self-proclaimed Islamic State militant makes it even more difficult to control their usage.
“We can pressure them. We can continue to try to halt their movements, but there's very little we can do at this point,” Cruise said.
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