WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.899 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we are looking 00:00:03.899 --> 00:00:07.419 at a slice of history that honestly completely 00:00:07.419 --> 00:00:10.939 rewrites how you might view modern warfare. We 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:13.500 really are. We're pulling from a huge comprehensive 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:16.440 set of notes today, all anchored by a really 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:19.579 detailed Wikipedia entry covering chemical weapons 00:00:19.579 --> 00:00:22.350 in World War I. Right. And our mission for this 00:00:22.350 --> 00:00:25.769 deep dive is to figure out exactly how the first 00:00:25.769 --> 00:00:29.489 global total war of the 20th century earned this 00:00:29.489 --> 00:00:32.850 incredibly grim title, you know, the chemists 00:00:32.850 --> 00:00:35.570 war. Yeah, it's a heavy topic. But before we 00:00:35.570 --> 00:00:37.710 get into the trenches, we want you to consider 00:00:37.710 --> 00:00:40.270 a common assumption. Exactly. When you think 00:00:40.270 --> 00:00:42.810 of the horrors of World War I, poison gas probably 00:00:42.810 --> 00:00:44.770 stands out in your mind as like the ultimate 00:00:44.770 --> 00:00:46.649 killer on the battlefield. Right. The defining 00:00:46.649 --> 00:00:48.670 weapon. But the numbers in our sources tell a 00:00:48.670 --> 00:00:51.009 very different story. Chemical weapons only accounted 00:00:51.009 --> 00:00:53.090 for about three to three and a half percent of 00:00:53.090 --> 00:00:55.469 the overall casualties. Which is wild. It really 00:00:55.469 --> 00:00:58.469 is. It's a surprisingly low statistical footprint 00:00:58.469 --> 00:01:01.289 for something so infamous. It is. But we have 00:01:01.289 --> 00:01:03.729 to look far beyond those raw numbers to understand 00:01:03.729 --> 00:01:06.810 the true impact here. The introduction of chemical 00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:09.650 warfare fundamentally altered the psychological 00:01:09.650 --> 00:01:12.010 landscape of battle. Oh, absolutely. It sparked 00:01:12.010 --> 00:01:15.450 this frantic, terrifying scientific arms race 00:01:15.450 --> 00:01:18.450 between the world's major powers. And it left 00:01:18.450 --> 00:01:21.730 an environmental legacy that even now in 2026, 00:01:22.030 --> 00:01:25.750 we are literally still unearthing. Yeah. To understand 00:01:25.750 --> 00:01:27.670 the modern world relationship with weapons of 00:01:27.670 --> 00:01:29.989 mass destruction, we just have to examine the 00:01:29.989 --> 00:01:32.430 specific mechanics and the escalations of this 00:01:32.430 --> 00:01:35.180 conflict. And to set the stage in partially here, 00:01:35.379 --> 00:01:37.500 we really need to look at the legal and historical 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:40.010 reality of the era. Prior to the outbreak of 00:01:40.010 --> 00:01:43.450 the war, you had the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions. 00:01:44.209 --> 00:01:46.209 And they strictly prohibited the use of poison 00:01:46.209 --> 00:01:48.989 or poisoned weapons in warfare. Yet the source 00:01:48.989 --> 00:01:50.930 text shows us that once the seal was broken, 00:01:51.469 --> 00:01:54.530 literally every major belligerent, Austria, Hungary, 00:01:54.829 --> 00:01:58.290 France, Germany, the UK, the US, they all ultimately 00:01:58.290 --> 00:02:00.290 developed and deployed these weapons. The sheer 00:02:00.290 --> 00:02:02.629 scale of the conflict just created an environment 00:02:02.629 --> 00:02:06.109 where military necessity entirely eclipsed those 00:02:06.109 --> 00:02:07.989 international treaties. Yeah, it all just went 00:02:07.989 --> 00:02:11.050 out the window. Exactly. But the escalation didn't 00:02:11.050 --> 00:02:14.110 begin with, you know, a massive lethal cloud 00:02:14.110 --> 00:02:17.509 of toxic gas. It actually started with weapons 00:02:17.509 --> 00:02:20.650 engineered to be an annoyance rather than a killer. 00:02:20.949 --> 00:02:24.300 Right, right. And that allowed military commanders 00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:27.580 to test the waters of chemical warfare without 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:29.659 feeling like they were crossing a major red line. 00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:31.439 Okay, let's unpack this because the very first 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:33.599 use of chemical weapons in the war was completely 00:02:33.599 --> 00:02:37.159 non -lethal. Utterly non -lethal. In August 1914, 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.939 the French Army deployed 26 millimeter grenades 00:02:40.939 --> 00:02:43.699 filled with ethyl bromoacetate, which is essentially 00:02:43.699 --> 00:02:47.259 just tear gas. Right. And the quantities were 00:02:47.259 --> 00:02:51.020 incredibly small. We are talking about 1 .2 cubic 00:02:51.020 --> 00:02:54.020 inches of the chemical per cartridge. They deployed 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:56.800 it and the Germans literally did not even notice 00:02:56.800 --> 00:02:59.039 they were being gassed. Which is almost comical. 00:02:59.180 --> 00:03:01.360 The chemical just dissipated into the open air 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:04.060 and had zero tactical effect. Yeah, and the German 00:03:04.060 --> 00:03:06.340 military actually had its own early failure a 00:03:06.340 --> 00:03:08.599 few months later. Oh right, the winter attack. 00:03:09.219 --> 00:03:13.240 Exactly. January 1915, during the Battle of Ballemoff 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:15.879 on the Eastern Front, they made their first large 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:19.520 -scale attempt. They fired 18 ,000 artillery 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:22.689 shells filled with liquid xylal bromide. Which 00:03:22.689 --> 00:03:25.289 is another tear gas, right? Yep. Another lacrimatory 00:03:25.289 --> 00:03:28.409 agent. They fired it at Russian positions, but 00:03:28.409 --> 00:03:30.729 they fundamentally misunderstood the physical 00:03:30.729 --> 00:03:32.870 chemistry required for the weapon to work. Right. 00:03:32.889 --> 00:03:36.870 The weather. Yeah. Xylbromide needs to vaporize 00:03:36.870 --> 00:03:39.830 to form an irritating cloud. But in the freezing 00:03:39.830 --> 00:03:42.409 winter weather of the Russian front, the ambient 00:03:42.409 --> 00:03:44.990 temperature was well below the chemical's vaporization 00:03:44.990 --> 00:03:47.469 point. So just the liquid literally just froze 00:03:47.469 --> 00:03:50.669 solid upon impact. Wow. It's fascinating how 00:03:50.669 --> 00:03:52.770 the combatants justified this to themselves, 00:03:53.069 --> 00:03:55.270 too, because none of the nations involved considered 00:03:55.270 --> 00:03:57.330 the use of tear gas to be a violation of the 00:03:57.330 --> 00:04:00.229 1899 Hague Treaty. No, not at all. The treaty 00:04:00.229 --> 00:04:03.289 specifically banned projectiles containing asphyxiating 00:04:03.289 --> 00:04:06.870 gas. There's the key word, asphyxiating. Right, 00:04:06.870 --> 00:04:09.490 so the military lawyers and commanders argued 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:12.810 that tear gas was merely an irritant. It wasn't 00:04:12.810 --> 00:04:15.689 designed to asphyxiate or kill you. It was just 00:04:15.689 --> 00:04:18.089 designed to make you temporarily blind and force 00:04:18.089 --> 00:04:20.560 you out of cover. In their minds, they were playing 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:22.740 entirely by the rules. And if we connect this 00:04:22.740 --> 00:04:24.939 to the bigger picture, you can see how that kind 00:04:24.939 --> 00:04:28.040 of legal technicality acts as a crucial stepping 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:30.819 stone. Oh, 100 percent. Once a military structure 00:04:30.819 --> 00:04:33.620 justifies the logistics, the manufacturing, the 00:04:33.620 --> 00:04:37.000 deployment of irritants, the leap to lethal chemicals 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:39.980 becomes a matter of degrees rather than a hard 00:04:39.980 --> 00:04:42.540 moral barrier. And that barrier was completely 00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:46.160 shattered on April 20, 1915. Second Battle of 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:50.240 Ypres. Exactly. The Germans deployed 167 tons 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:54.279 of liquid chlorine across 5 ,730 cylinders buried 00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:56.680 in the trenches near Ypres in Belgium. Just waiting. 00:04:57.300 --> 00:04:59.600 Yeah, they waited for a specific meteorological 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:01.720 window, a slight easterly breeze, and then they 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:04.500 just opened the valves. Chlorine is a true gas 00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:06.800 at standard temperature and pressure, so it boiled 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:08.959 out of the cylinders and formed this massive, 00:05:09.259 --> 00:05:12.360 creeping gray -green cloud. It drifted across 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:14.879 no man's land directly into the positions held 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:18.259 by French and Algerian troops. And these men 00:05:18.259 --> 00:05:21.519 had no warning and no concept of what was rolling 00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:24.860 toward them. It created absolute panic, resulting 00:05:24.860 --> 00:05:28.259 in an 8 ,000 -yard gap in the allied line. And 00:05:28.259 --> 00:05:30.199 the science of what chlorine does to the human 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:33.439 body really explains that panic. Yeah, explain 00:05:33.439 --> 00:05:36.480 that part. Well, chlorine is a powerful irritant 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:39.699 that reacts aggressively with water. When inhaled, 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:41.860 it meets the moisture in the respiratory tract 00:05:41.860 --> 00:05:45.360 and the lungs, and it immediately forms hypochlorous 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:48.540 acid and hydrochloric acid. It essentially destroys 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:50.790 the lung tissue from the inside out. So naturally, 00:05:50.970 --> 00:05:53.170 the Allies immediately decried the attack as 00:05:53.170 --> 00:05:55.970 a flagrant war crime. Of course. But the Germans 00:05:55.970 --> 00:05:58.589 leaned right back on that same legal hair splitting 00:05:58.589 --> 00:06:01.850 regarding the Hague Treaty. The treaty explicitly 00:06:01.850 --> 00:06:04.449 banned chemical shells, meaning projectiles fired 00:06:04.449 --> 00:06:06.850 from artillery. The Germans pointed out that 00:06:06.850 --> 00:06:08.990 they had used cylinders fixed securely in the 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:12.029 ground to release the gas. They argued that because 00:06:12.029 --> 00:06:14.110 they hadn't fired projectile, they hadn't broken 00:06:14.110 --> 00:06:16.410 the treaty. It's quite the technicality. And 00:06:16.410 --> 00:06:18.389 the British government was outraged, obviously. 00:06:18.949 --> 00:06:21.149 But the military realities on the ground quickly 00:06:21.149 --> 00:06:23.269 shifted their stance toward retaliation. Yeah, 00:06:23.290 --> 00:06:25.709 they had to adapt. Lieutenant General Sir Charles 00:06:25.709 --> 00:06:28.189 Ferguson of the British Army articulated this 00:06:28.189 --> 00:06:30.930 shift pretty clearly. He stated that while it 00:06:30.930 --> 00:06:33.870 was a cowardly form of warfare, the British could 00:06:33.870 --> 00:06:36.850 not win. unless they killed or incapacitated 00:06:36.850 --> 00:06:39.209 more of the enemy. So if that meant copying the 00:06:39.209 --> 00:06:41.430 enemy's weapons, they must not refuse to do so. 00:06:42.069 --> 00:06:44.589 Exactly. And that decision led straight into 00:06:44.589 --> 00:06:47.430 the disastrous British debut of chemical weapons 00:06:47.430 --> 00:06:51.379 at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. They 00:06:51.379 --> 00:06:55.639 brought 140 tons of chlorine to the front, stored 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:59.259 in over 5 ,000 cylinders. Huge undertaking. But 00:06:59.259 --> 00:07:01.800 this highlights the massive tactical flaw of 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:04.319 cylinder -based deployment. You are entirely 00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:06.459 at the mercy of the wind. Right. When they opened 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:09.100 the valves, the wind proved incredibly fickle. 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:12.399 It lingered in no man's land and in several sectors 00:07:12.399 --> 00:07:15.420 shifted completely, blowing the chlorine directly 00:07:15.420 --> 00:07:18.519 back into the British trenches. And compounding 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:21.579 that meteorological failure was a severe logistical 00:07:21.579 --> 00:07:24.240 breakdown. The troops found they couldn't even 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.540 release all the gas, because the quartermasters 00:07:26.540 --> 00:07:28.740 had sent the wrong turning keys for the cylinder 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:32.699 valves. No, it was a disaster. You had British 00:07:32.699 --> 00:07:35.360 soldiers choking on their own chlorine, struggling 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:38.180 with incompatible wrenches, all while German 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:41.480 artillery began shelling the British lines, rupturing 00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:44.300 the unused canisters, and compounding the localized 00:07:44.300 --> 00:07:48.230 gas concentration. That is just awful. So chlorine 00:07:48.230 --> 00:07:50.850 terrified the troops, but for the military chemists 00:07:50.850 --> 00:07:53.550 driving the arms race, it was flawed. It was. 00:07:53.569 --> 00:07:56.110 It was highly visible, it smelled strongly of 00:07:56.110 --> 00:07:58.689 bleach, and as we'll see in a moment, it was 00:07:58.689 --> 00:08:01.629 relatively easy to chemically neutralize. So 00:08:01.629 --> 00:08:03.709 the laboratories went to work to create something 00:08:03.709 --> 00:08:06.449 invisible. Enter phosgene. Yes. Phosgene was 00:08:06.449 --> 00:08:08.589 prepared by a group of French chemists led by 00:08:08.589 --> 00:08:11.949 Victor Grignard. It was colorless, vastly more 00:08:11.949 --> 00:08:14.709 lethal than chlorine, and it smelled faintly 00:08:14.709 --> 00:08:18.230 like which made it incredibly difficult to detect 00:08:18.230 --> 00:08:20.509 until a lethal dose had already been inhaled. 00:08:20.589 --> 00:08:22.790 What's fascinating here is the insidious nature 00:08:22.790 --> 00:08:26.250 of phosgene's chemical action. It possessed a 00:08:26.250 --> 00:08:29.490 delayed effect of 24 hours or more. That's the 00:08:29.490 --> 00:08:32.730 part that is just so grim. It really is. A soldier 00:08:32.730 --> 00:08:35.990 could be exposed during a bombardment, feel relatively 00:08:35.990 --> 00:08:38.470 fine, and continue fighting for an entire day 00:08:38.470 --> 00:08:40.710 in the trenches. Thinking they were okay. Right. 00:08:40.830 --> 00:08:43.809 Then, the next day, the cellular damage in their 00:08:43.809 --> 00:08:46.570 lungs would reach a critical threshold, fluid 00:08:46.570 --> 00:08:48.870 would rapidly build up, and they would suddenly 00:08:48.870 --> 00:08:51.399 succumb. The source material shares a devastating 00:08:51.399 --> 00:08:53.779 observation from historian Dennis Winter regarding 00:08:53.779 --> 00:08:56.840 this. He noted that a fatal dose of phosgene 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.659 led to drowning spasms where a victim could discharge 00:08:59.659 --> 00:09:01.980 four pints of yellow liquid from their lungs 00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:05.419 every hour. Just horrific. It really is. That 00:09:05.419 --> 00:09:07.759 specific detail strips away the clinical language 00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:10.460 of casualties and shows you exactly what the 00:09:10.460 --> 00:09:12.519 scientific advancement meant for the human beings 00:09:12.519 --> 00:09:14.899 on the ground. And the arms rays did not peak 00:09:14.899 --> 00:09:18.940 with phosgene. By 1917, a new agent arrived on 00:09:18.940 --> 00:09:21.279 the battlefield that required a completely different 00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:23.299 classification of warfare. Here's where it gets 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:25.179 really interesting because we are talking about 00:09:25.179 --> 00:09:28.399 mustard gas. Oh, yeah. It became the undisputed 00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:31.159 king of chemical terror in this conflict. The 00:09:31.159 --> 00:09:33.340 most surprising detail in our sources is that 00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:36.200 mustard gas wasn't actually a gas at all. No, 00:09:36.299 --> 00:09:40.490 it wasn't. It was a heavy. volatile, oily liquid 00:09:40.490 --> 00:09:43.690 that was delivered via explosive shells as a 00:09:43.690 --> 00:09:47.509 fine aerosolized mist. And unlike chlorine or 00:09:47.509 --> 00:09:50.909 phosgene, which only damaged the lungs when inhaled, 00:09:51.149 --> 00:09:54.269 mustard gas was a vesicant, a blistering agent. 00:09:54.429 --> 00:09:57.730 It attacked any exposed skin. Yes. It caused 00:09:57.730 --> 00:10:00.330 immense painful blistering, severe temporary 00:10:00.330 --> 00:10:03.009 blindness and internal bleeding. Because it was 00:10:03.009 --> 00:10:05.809 an oily liquid rather than a true gas, it didn't 00:10:05.809 --> 00:10:07.809 dissipate into the atmosphere. It settled. It 00:10:07.809 --> 00:10:10.149 just coated everything. Everything. The soil, 00:10:10.570 --> 00:10:12.529 the wooden trench boards, the mud, the equipment. 00:10:12.909 --> 00:10:14.429 Depending on the weather, it remained active 00:10:14.429 --> 00:10:17.330 and toxic for days, weeks, or even months. Troops 00:10:17.330 --> 00:10:19.889 quickly realize the deadly fluid dynamics of 00:10:19.889 --> 00:10:22.509 these heavy agents. Gas sinks. It flows like 00:10:22.509 --> 00:10:24.330 water into the lowest points of the battlefield. 00:10:24.509 --> 00:10:27.070 Right, into the trenches. Exactly. So soldiers 00:10:27.070 --> 00:10:29.309 learn to abandon the relative safety of the trench 00:10:29.309 --> 00:10:32.009 floor and stand up on the fire steps, those elevated 00:10:32.009 --> 00:10:34.029 platforms used for shooting over the parapet. 00:10:34.250 --> 00:10:36.330 Just to keep their heads above the invisible, 00:10:36.590 --> 00:10:39.570 toxic tide pooling at their boots. That raises 00:10:39.570 --> 00:10:42.190 an important question regarding mustard gas, 00:10:42.230 --> 00:10:45.799 though. Why did military commanders favor it 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:49.159 if it only had a 2 % fatality rate? Well, as 00:10:49.159 --> 00:10:51.320 our sources note, it was not a highly effective 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:54.379 killing agent compared to phosgene, but tactically 00:10:54.379 --> 00:10:57.279 it was the ultimate harasser. How so? A dead 00:10:57.279 --> 00:11:01.059 soldier requires a burial squad. A blinded blistering 00:11:01.059 --> 00:11:03.980 soldier requires stretcher bearers, medics, hospital 00:11:03.980 --> 00:11:06.820 beds, and sustained resources. It overwhelmed 00:11:06.820 --> 00:11:09.419 the medical infrastructure and destroyed morale. 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:12.909 That makes a dark kind of sense. Nurse Vera Britton 00:11:12.909 --> 00:11:15.730 captured the resulting psychological dread perfectly. 00:11:16.029 --> 00:11:18.629 Oh, her quote is so powerful. She wrote, and 00:11:18.629 --> 00:11:20.870 I'm quoting here, I wish those people who talk 00:11:20.870 --> 00:11:22.850 about going on with this war, whatever it costs, 00:11:23.149 --> 00:11:24.909 could see the soldiers suffering from mustard 00:11:24.909 --> 00:11:27.590 gas poisoning. Great mustard -colored blisters, 00:11:27.909 --> 00:11:30.309 blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always 00:11:30.309 --> 00:11:32.789 fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper 00:11:32.789 --> 00:11:34.850 saying that their throats are closing and they 00:11:34.850 --> 00:11:37.750 know they will choke. The sheer terror of these 00:11:37.750 --> 00:11:40.789 evolving weapons necessitated an equally frantic 00:11:40.789 --> 00:11:43.070 evolution in defensive engineering. Absolutely. 00:11:43.269 --> 00:11:45.710 The very first countermeasures were improvised 00:11:45.710 --> 00:11:48.730 out of pure desperation. When chlorine was first 00:11:48.730 --> 00:11:51.610 deployed at Ypres, a Canadian medical officer 00:11:51.610 --> 00:11:54.429 identified the chemical smell. He instructed 00:11:54.429 --> 00:11:56.590 the troops to urinate on their handkerchiefs 00:11:56.590 --> 00:11:59.049 or torn pieces of cloth and hold them tightly 00:11:59.049 --> 00:12:01.870 over their faces. Just peeing on a cloth. Yeah. 00:12:02.149 --> 00:12:04.690 The urea and ammonia in the urine chemically 00:12:04.690 --> 00:12:07.730 reacted with the chlorine gas, neutralizing it 00:12:07.730 --> 00:12:09.990 just enough to allow some men to survive the 00:12:09.990 --> 00:12:12.559 cloud. And the attempts to industrialize a defense 00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:15.500 were really fraught with fatal trial and error. 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:18.740 Back in Britain, the Daily Mail newspaper launched 00:12:18.740 --> 00:12:21.620 a massive public campaign encouraging women to 00:12:21.620 --> 00:12:24.580 sew cotton pad respirators for the troops. Over 00:12:24.580 --> 00:12:27.629 a million manufactured in a single day. But the 00:12:27.629 --> 00:12:29.929 design was fundamentally flawed. Deeply flawed. 00:12:30.269 --> 00:12:32.210 When the cotton pads were dried, the gas passed 00:12:32.210 --> 00:12:33.970 right through them. When the soldiers soaked 00:12:33.970 --> 00:12:36.309 them in chemical neutralizers, the cotton fiber 00:12:36.309 --> 00:12:38.730 swelled, completely blocking airflow and causing 00:12:38.730 --> 00:12:41.070 the men to suffocate. Scores of soldiers died 00:12:41.070 --> 00:12:43.629 directly because of these flawed pads before 00:12:43.629 --> 00:12:46.110 the military urgently ordered them to be recalled. 00:12:46.269 --> 00:12:49.210 Just a tragic mistake. But the engineering did 00:12:49.210 --> 00:12:52.070 slowly improve. Major Clooney McPherson invented 00:12:52.070 --> 00:12:54.889 the smoke helmet, which was essentially a flannel 00:12:54.889 --> 00:12:57.629 bag soaked in neutralizing chemicals like sodium 00:12:57.629 --> 00:13:00.730 thiosulfate. Right. It featured a small celluloid 00:13:00.730 --> 00:13:03.049 window for visibility, and the soldier pulled 00:13:03.049 --> 00:13:05.509 the entire bag over his head and tucked it into 00:13:05.509 --> 00:13:08.549 his tunic. It was claustrophobic and hot, but 00:13:08.549 --> 00:13:10.940 it worked far better than the cotton pads. The 00:13:10.940 --> 00:13:13.419 culmination of all this defensive research was 00:13:13.419 --> 00:13:16.779 the small box respirator, or the SBR. This is 00:13:16.779 --> 00:13:19.320 that iconic disturbing visage you picture when 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:21.299 you think of World War I. Yeah, that classic 00:13:21.299 --> 00:13:24.500 gas mask look. It featured a tight -fitting rubberized 00:13:24.500 --> 00:13:27.620 face mask connected by a flexible hose to a distinct 00:13:27.620 --> 00:13:30.679 box filter worn around the neck. The infantrymen 00:13:30.679 --> 00:13:33.120 prized these respirators above almost all other 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:35.549 equipment. During a chaotic retreat, a soldier 00:13:35.549 --> 00:13:38.230 might abandon his rifle or his pack, but he never 00:13:38.230 --> 00:13:40.870 dropped his SPR. Never. And the logistics of 00:13:40.870 --> 00:13:43.110 the war relied heavily on animals, so the chemical 00:13:43.110 --> 00:13:45.570 threat applied to them equally. Researchers and 00:13:45.570 --> 00:13:48.190 manufacturers had to design specialized gas masks 00:13:48.190 --> 00:13:51.490 for horses, mules, messenger dogs, and even carrier 00:13:51.490 --> 00:13:54.009 pigeons. Wow. Yeah, the entire living ecosystem 00:13:54.009 --> 00:13:56.730 of the Army had to be shielded to prevent the 00:13:56.730 --> 00:13:58.750 supply lines from collapsing under a gas attack. 00:13:58.950 --> 00:14:01.250 You can just imagine the sensory overload of 00:14:01.250 --> 00:14:04.039 the trenches during a gas alarm. Oh. It had to 00:14:04.039 --> 00:14:05.860 be deafening. The visual threat of a creeping 00:14:05.860 --> 00:14:09.419 cloud was matched by an auditory nightmare. Troops 00:14:09.419 --> 00:14:12.259 used empty, spent artillery shells as makeshift 00:14:12.259 --> 00:14:15.240 alarm bells, clanging them frantically. The British 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:19.000 deployed compressed -air strombus horns, massive 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:21.440 sirens that were so deafening they could be heard 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:24.460 nine miles away. Nine miles. That's incredible. 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:27.799 Wilfred Owen's famous poem, Duce et Decorum Est, 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:31.120 captures this perfectly, describing the ecstasy 00:14:31.120 --> 00:14:33.399 of fumbling to get the clumsy helmets fitted 00:14:33.399 --> 00:14:36.460 in time as the green sea of gas approaches. And 00:14:36.460 --> 00:14:38.960 as the defensive masks became highly effective, 00:14:39.340 --> 00:14:41.340 the offensive delivery systems had to evolve 00:14:41.340 --> 00:14:43.059 to bypass them. Right, the cylinders weren't 00:14:43.059 --> 00:14:46.419 cutting it anymore. Exactly. The early reliance 00:14:46.419 --> 00:14:49.279 on buried cylinders was abandoned. They gave 00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:52.039 the enemy too much warning and relied entirely 00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:54.960 on cooperative weather. The tactical shift moved 00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:58.539 toward artillery shells. Firing gas via artillery 00:14:58.539 --> 00:15:01.000 meant there was no visible cloud rolling across 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:03.460 no man's land to trigger the alarms. The gas 00:15:03.460 --> 00:15:05.799 simply exploded directly on top of the target 00:15:05.799 --> 00:15:08.299 regardless of wind direction. The British engineering 00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:11.580 response to this was the Leibniz projector. Ah, 00:15:11.700 --> 00:15:14.059 yes. Instead of a standard artillery gun, this 00:15:14.059 --> 00:15:16.799 is a large simple mortar tube sunk at an angle 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:19.759 into the ground. It could fire a massive 40 pound 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:22.580 cylinder of chemical agent over a mile. A 40 00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:26.330 pound cylinder? Over a mile away. By wiring dozens 00:15:26.330 --> 00:15:28.169 or even hundreds of these projectors together 00:15:28.169 --> 00:15:30.309 and detonating them electrically at the exact 00:15:30.309 --> 00:15:32.450 same moment, they could instantly saturate an 00:15:32.450 --> 00:15:34.909 entire enemy sector with tons of dense gas before 00:15:34.909 --> 00:15:36.870 a single soldier had the time to reach for their 00:15:36.870 --> 00:15:39.899 mask. So... What does this all mean when we look 00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:43.000 back at the conflict? We see an incredible escalation 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:46.139 of deadly science and delivery methods, yet the 00:15:46.139 --> 00:15:49.220 final statistical reality of our sources shows 00:15:49.220 --> 00:15:53.340 1 .3 million total casualties from gas, but only 00:15:53.340 --> 00:15:56.940 90 ,000 fatalities. And that wide disparity between 00:15:56.940 --> 00:15:59.580 casualties and fatalities exists because the 00:15:59.580 --> 00:16:01.559 countermeasures ultimately kept pace with the 00:16:01.559 --> 00:16:03.759 chemistry. The masks worked. They really did. 00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:05.919 The evolution of the gas masks saved countless 00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:09.539 lives. In 1915, the British fatality rate for 00:16:09.539 --> 00:16:14.120 gas casualties was around 3%. In 1916, when Fosgene 00:16:14.120 --> 00:16:16.360 and new agents were heavily introduced, that 00:16:16.360 --> 00:16:20.480 fatality rate spiked to 17%. But by 1918, gas 00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:22.639 was being used constantly as a standard weapon 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:25.259 to support almost every conventional artillery 00:16:25.259 --> 00:16:28.259 barrage. Despite that omnipresence, the widespread 00:16:28.259 --> 00:16:30.200 deployment and rigorous training with the small 00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:32.460 -box respirator brought the fatality rate back 00:16:32.460 --> 00:16:35.000 down to below 3%. That statistical survival rate 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:37.360 was highly dependent on industrial capacity though, 00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:39.679 which varied wildly between the belligerent nations. 00:16:39.740 --> 00:16:41.820 Very true. The Russian forces fighting on the 00:16:41.820 --> 00:16:44.480 Eastern Front suffered a vastly disproportionate 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:49.000 toll, taking over 56 ,000 fatalities. Their army 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.419 simply lacked the domestic manufacturing base 00:16:51.419 --> 00:16:54.179 to produce and distribute effective countermeasures 00:16:54.179 --> 00:16:57.200 to millions of troops. They face the same advanced 00:16:57.200 --> 00:16:59.879 chemistry as the Western Allies, but with a fraction 00:16:59.879 --> 00:17:02.240 of the defense of engineering. And the impact 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:04.960 extended well beyond the uniform combatants. 00:17:05.380 --> 00:17:07.279 While the belligerents generally did not target 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:10.000 civilian populations with chemical weapons, the 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:12.039 stagnant front lines were often drawn directly 00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:14.079 through towns and villages. Caught right in the 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:16.900 crossfire. Right. In the town of Armentier, a 00:17:16.900 --> 00:17:19.420 heavy German bombardment utilizing mustard gas 00:17:19.420 --> 00:17:23.960 resulted in 675 civilian casualties. The civilians 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:26.740 had basic shelters and rudimentary masks, but 00:17:26.740 --> 00:17:29.460 they did not understand the specific fluid dynamics 00:17:29.460 --> 00:17:32.910 of the Vesicam. The heavy oily mist of mustard 00:17:32.910 --> 00:17:35.650 gas just settled into their basements and cellars 00:17:35.650 --> 00:17:38.069 where they were hiding. Exactly. Lingering for 00:17:38.069 --> 00:17:40.809 weeks and causing devastating injuries long after 00:17:40.809 --> 00:17:43.910 the artillery stopped firing. And that lingering 00:17:43.910 --> 00:17:46.809 danger dictates the geography of Europe to this 00:17:46.809 --> 00:17:51.019 day. At the end of the war. Over 16 million acres 00:17:51.019 --> 00:17:53.460 of land in France had to be completely cordoned 00:17:53.460 --> 00:17:56.799 off. 16 million acres. Even now, over a century 00:17:56.799 --> 00:18:00.319 later in 2026, farmers in parts of France and 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:03.000 Belgium are dealing with the iron harvest. That's 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.940 right. Every spring, the frost heave pushes unexploded, 00:18:07.339 --> 00:18:09.819 highly toxic chemical shells up to the surface. 00:18:10.420 --> 00:18:13.200 Farmers literally plow them up, carefully placing 00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:15.799 them on the edges of their fields for specialized 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:19.099 government bomb disposal units like The French 00:18:19.099 --> 00:18:21.240 security tastes of yield to collect. It's just 00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:23.400 a regular part of farming for them. Any of the 00:18:23.400 --> 00:18:25.779 disposal of these chemical stockpiles immediately 00:18:25.779 --> 00:18:28.279 following the armistice was incredibly reckless 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:31.339 by any modern standard. Mind -bodlingly reckless. 00:18:31.559 --> 00:18:33.900 The victorious nations possessed millions of 00:18:33.900 --> 00:18:36.460 tons of leftover chemical agents and no safe 00:18:36.460 --> 00:18:39.220 methodology for destroying them. Huge quantities 00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:41.079 were destroyed thermally at sites like Verdun. 00:18:41.140 --> 00:18:43.099 They simply piled the shells up and burned them. 00:18:43.220 --> 00:18:45.700 Which resulted in severe heavy metal and arsenic 00:18:45.700 --> 00:18:48.119 contamination of the topsoil that persists today, 00:18:48.420 --> 00:18:50.289 preventing anything from growing there. Even 00:18:50.289 --> 00:18:52.990 worse, hundreds of thousands of tons of unused 00:18:52.990 --> 00:18:55.670 chemical munitions were loaded onto ships, taken 00:18:55.670 --> 00:18:58.069 offshore, and dumped directly into the oceans. 00:18:58.269 --> 00:19:01.210 Just unbelievable. The sheer scale of the environmental 00:19:01.210 --> 00:19:04.750 negligence is staggering. But the public revulsion 00:19:04.750 --> 00:19:07.130 to what happened on the battlefields did force 00:19:07.130 --> 00:19:09.630 a change in international law. The Geneva Protocol. 00:19:09.789 --> 00:19:12.849 Yes. In 1925, the international community signed 00:19:12.849 --> 00:19:15.750 the Geneva Protocol. It officially banned the 00:19:15.750 --> 00:19:18.690 use of asphyxiating poisonous or other gases, 00:19:19.289 --> 00:19:22.289 and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices 00:19:22.289 --> 00:19:25.450 in international armed conflicts. It was a landmark 00:19:25.450 --> 00:19:27.569 agreement, obviously, driven almost entirely 00:19:27.569 --> 00:19:29.869 by the public viewing these scientific advancements 00:19:29.869 --> 00:19:32.730 as a barbarous, inhumane invention. But the legal 00:19:32.730 --> 00:19:35.529 phrasing contained a massive intentional loophole. 00:19:35.589 --> 00:19:38.950 There's always a loophole. Always. The 1925 protocol 00:19:38.950 --> 00:19:41.529 explicitly banned the use of these weapons in 00:19:41.529 --> 00:19:44.589 a war. It did not ban the stockpiling, the research, 00:19:44.789 --> 00:19:47.150 or the production of them. It essentially stated 00:19:47.150 --> 00:19:49.250 that a nation could not be the one to use them 00:19:49.250 --> 00:19:51.650 first. Which leaves you with a chilling final 00:19:51.650 --> 00:19:53.950 thought to ponder as we wrap up today's deep 00:19:53.950 --> 00:19:57.710 dive. Because of that exact legal loophole, the 00:19:57.710 --> 00:19:59.890 chemical arms race didn't stop. It just went 00:19:59.890 --> 00:20:02.680 underground. Right. During World War II, the 00:20:02.680 --> 00:20:05.299 major powers utilized advanced chemistry to build 00:20:05.299 --> 00:20:08.140 up stockpiles of nerve gases and mustard gas 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:11.039 that completely dwarfed the amounts used in World 00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:15.440 War I. Britain stockpiled over 40 ,000 tons. 00:20:15.819 --> 00:20:19.420 Wow. The United States amassed over 87 ,000 tons. 00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:23.599 The Soviets produced 77 ,400 tons. And the reason 00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:25.700 those chemical weapons were not widely unleashed 00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:27.720 on the battlefields of World War II in Europe 00:20:28.029 --> 00:20:29.950 wasn't because the weapons were unavailable. 00:20:29.970 --> 00:20:32.549 No. It was because the psychological horror of 00:20:32.549 --> 00:20:35.950 World War I had created a terrifying unspoken 00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:38.750 stalemate. Yeah. Every side knew exactly what 00:20:38.750 --> 00:20:40.990 would happen to their own cities and troops if 00:20:40.990 --> 00:20:43.049 they pushed that button and initiated chemical 00:20:43.049 --> 00:20:46.089 retaliation. A fragile global peace maintained 00:20:46.089 --> 00:20:49.190 exclusively by the memory of horror. Yet because 00:20:49.190 --> 00:20:51.529 the nation spent decades building those massive 00:20:51.529 --> 00:20:54.650 stockpiles, millions of tons of those unused 00:20:54.650 --> 00:20:56.970 World War II weapons eventually joined the World 00:20:56.970 --> 00:20:59.910 War I leftovers. Dumped indiscriminately into 00:20:59.910 --> 00:21:02.910 our oceans by the ship full. Which means the 00:21:02.910 --> 00:21:06.529 true final casualties of the Chemist's War might 00:21:06.529 --> 00:21:09.450 still be waiting for us, silently rusting in 00:21:09.450 --> 00:21:11.690 the waters of our future. A sobering thought. 00:21:11.829 --> 00:21:14.210 Definitely. Thank you for joining us on this 00:21:14.210 --> 00:21:16.410 deep dive. Keep questioning the history that 00:21:16.410 --> 00:21:18.210 shaped our modern world and we'll catch you next 00:21:18.210 --> 00:21:18.390 time.