The Rock Island Public Library presents “World War I History: Chemical Warfare" -- June 9.
Wednesday, June 9, 6 p.m.
Presented by the Rock Island Public Library
Presented by Kevin Braafladt, the Army Sustainment Command Deputy Historian at the Rock Island Arsenal, the virtual program World War I History: Chemical Warfare will be hosted by the Rock Island Public Library on June 9, with viewers invited to take another look at the Great War's military history and the terrible results that chemical warfare had on individuals and societies throughout the world.
The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large scale use of chemical weapons took place during World War I. They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents including phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century, and the killing capacity of gas was limited, with about 90.000 fatalities from a total of 1.3 million casualties caused by gas attacks. Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as gas masks, and in the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished.
Widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives, gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war," and also the era in which weapons of mass destruction were created. The use of poison gas by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted war crimes as its use violated the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare. Unilateral horror and public revulsion at the use of gas and its consequences, however, led to far less use of chemical weapons by combatants during World War II.
World War I History: Chemical Warfare will be viewable online at 6 p.m. on June 9, and while the event is free, registration for the Zoom program is required. For more information, call (309)732-7323 or visit RockIslandLibrary.org.
