WAR BY ANNIHILATION

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 34, 9 August 1921, Page 2

WAR BY ANNIHILATION

AN UNPLEASANT PROSPECT

GAS TACTICS OF THE FUTURE.

Mr- Chairman, the Chemical Warfare bervico lias discovered a liquid approximately three drops 1 of which, when applied to. any part of the skin, will cause .a man s^ death. Much smaller amounts than this, or ; even vapours from tho liquid, causo vory severe, slow-healim? burns." '

If the reader applies to tho Government printing offica at Washington, states the Scientific American, ho..oah get therefrom a copy of tho hearings at tho 'Aird bessioujpf tho House of tho Natal Affairs Committee, und ho will find there that the, words above quoted form part of a statement by Mr. Bradiior, Chief of Research oi the Chemical W-arfare Service. Mr. Bradner goes on to remind the committee that the World War showed it to be possible for an t.oroplane to fly within a hundred feet of enomy troops, and machine-gun them with immunity; and he goes on to state that if, instead of carrying machine-guns, tho attacking planes were equipped to. carry a tank of this liquid (Lowisito) foi* discharge from nozzles similar to tho ordinary strpefc Sprinkler, it would fall like rain, killing everything in its path. Then he becomes more specific and tells us that ■ one plane, carrying two 1 tons of this liquid, could cover a stretch" of country 100 feet wide by seven miles long in one trip, and that it could spray down enough of the liquid gas to kill every man in that area simply by the action of tho gas upon tho skin. Then, a little later, ho becomes ©yon more specific and tells us that, during the Argonno offensive, tho entire First Amerioan Army of a million and a. quarter mon occupied an area of approximately 40 kilometers long by 20 kilometers wide. If, ho goes on to say>- Germany _ had possessed 4000 tons of this material and, say, 350 planes proporly equipped for spraying, our-entire First Army would have been annihilated in from ten to twelve hours.

Now, 4000 tons seems like a big lot of gas; but we.already possess at tho Aberdeen Proving Ground, a huge poisongas factory (Bdgowood) which was capable, at the armistice, of producing 200 tons of gas per day, and it would be a simple matter by enlargement and _ duplication to put this country in a position where it could produce several thousand tons of gas for the supply of our arraioa, and keep the supply fjoing indefinitely. Yos, the future war will be so horrible as to' make tho late war restful by comparison. Short as it will inevitably be, it will last long enough to wipe out mankind at a rato which will turn many a flourishing capital into a deserted village, and many a fair campagna into a Sahara of lifeless desolation—for this gas, remember, is as fateful to vegetation as to human life.

All this* talk, however, about the poison gas war of tho future is basod on what we dare to beliove is an altogothor unwarrantable assumption, namely, that tho devil's Own disregard of the humanitarian laws of war, initiated by tho Germans at Ypres, is to be accepted and practised by the world at large. If, in the forthcoming meetings on disarmament, or of the suggested Association of Nations, or the League, or "what-not, it bo accepted that poison gas warfare is lawful, wo daro to bpliove that this sanction will, bo given in tho faoo of the protest of that undoubtedly large majority of men. who beliov.o that honour, chivalry and human kindness are not quite dead in our midst, and that tho monstrous horror of the first gas attack at Ypros should not be tho yardstick by which wo moaaure our future military conduct. It has beo» urged that the free use of gas will make- future wars so frightful that no nation will <lare to provoke-a conflict. The answer to that assumption is that, in the. past, tho development of new weapons of great destructive powor has never prevented a nation from rushing into war.