492 



NATURE 



December 15, 192 1 



Gas Warfare. 



Chemical Warfare. By Brig. -Gen. Amos A. Fries 

 and Major C. J. West. Pp. xi + 445. (New- 

 York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 

 Inc., 1921.) 



IT is earnestly to be hoped that every British 

 man of science will take the opportunity of 

 studying this account of chemical warfare pre- 

 pared by Brig. -Gen. Fries and Major West, of 

 the United States Army. He will then be able to 

 make up his mind, knowing the facts, as to the 

 possibility of eliminating gas warfare by edict or 

 mutual consent while war itself remains a possi- 

 bility as before. Having answered this implied 

 question, he must needs ask himself what is his 

 own particular responsibility in the matter. 



The need for propounding these questions is un- 

 doubted. Recent protests by certain eminent 

 chemists, directed against the organisation of re- 

 search for chemical warfare purposes, make it 

 clear that considerable divergence of opinion exists 

 as to the role which should be adopted by men of 

 science in maintaining international peace. On 

 one hand is the desire to withdraw all semblance 

 of support from the perpetuation of what is re- 

 garded as a peculiarly inhumane method of 

 waging war. On the other is the belief that, what- 

 ever we do, chemical warfare has come to stay ; 

 that peace and our national security will best be 

 safeguarded by placing ourselves at least on an 

 equality with our neighbours as regards the new 

 warfare ; and that, since, if we wish peace, we 

 must be ready to fight for it, the man of science 

 must shoulder his burden and prepare to become 

 the military arbiter of the future. It is the old 

 political battle of armaments transferred to the 

 scientific arena. 



In these circumstances, therefore, we are ex- 

 ceedingly fortunate in having the facts of chem- 

 ical warfare placed before us so completely and 

 clearly from an outside source. In Fries and 

 West's book there is little of special pleading 

 beyond that of military exigency. It supplies a 

 full — indeed, a most astonishingly full— account 

 of gas warfare in general, and, in particular, the 

 part played by the United States in building up 

 what was eventually the largest chemical warfare 

 service of any of the belligerent nations. 



It is highly significant, too, of the present posi- 

 tion in America that the veil is withdrawn for the 

 first time from many of the most carefully guarded 

 chemical warfare secrets of the past. For ex- 

 ample, a whole chapter is devoted to the thermal 

 production of particulate clouds. Side by side 

 with these frank disclosures are the following 

 NO. 2720, VOL. 108] 



statements — the first, in the foreword, by Major- 

 Gen. W. S. Sibert, General Fries's distinguished 

 predecessor as Chief of the Chemical Warfare 

 Service in America; the other in the body of the 

 book : — 



"There is no field in which the future possi- 

 bilities are greater than in chemical warfare, and 

 no field in which neglect to keep abreast of the 

 times in research and training would be more 

 disastrous." 



"Poison gas in the World War proved to be 

 one of the most powerful of all weapons of war. 

 For that reason alone it will never be abandoned. 

 It cannot be stopped by agreement. ..." 



From the considered inclusion of such opinions 

 in a book redolent with disclosure only one con- 

 clusion can be drawn. 



The United States Chemical Warfare Service 

 was built up almost wholly on the foundations of 

 British practice and experience. To this fact and 

 to the subsequent intimate relations between the, 

 two services Fries and West pay generous tribute. 

 As to the magnitude of the American organisation,1 

 its success in every branch and its clear-sightec 

 vision, facts are allowed to speak for themselves.! 

 Owing to the cessation of hostilities the full ex- 

 tent of the American chemists' great effort wasj 

 probably never generally realised in England, an( 

 only partially, perhaps, even in the inner circles 

 of the War Office and the Ministry of Munitions. 

 Yet it w^as unquestionably one of the greatestj 

 achievements of the war. Starting literally froi 

 nothing, the Americans within nine months 

 elaborated a service in which research, manufacr 

 ture, training, and field organisation were brougM 

 to the highest pitch of efficiency. In Washingtoi' 

 the research department under Burrell mustered 

 chemical personnel of 1200, which included mei 

 of international reputation such as Wilder Banj 

 croft, Hulett, W. K. Lewis, and Tolman. It is 

 small wonder, therefore, that some very fine worl 

 was accomplished. 



It is, however, by a consideration of Edgewoo( 

 Arsenal that the full extent of the American chem^ 

 ical warfare effort can best be gauged. Built 01 

 an isolated 'tract of country in Maryland, this 

 poison-gas factory attained a magnitude which is 

 simply staggering. By October, 1918, it employee' 

 10,247 men, and was successfully making chloro- 

 picrin, phosgene, mustard gas, bromobenzyl- 

 cyanide, and other accessory chemicals, and was 

 in a position to turn out 100 tons of liquefiec 

 chlorine a day. As a feat of chemical engineering 

 alone it must be almost unique. As an indication 

 of what can be accomplished without recourse t( 



