40 



NATURE 



[January 12, 1922 



Letters to the Editor. 



\The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.} 



Chemical Warfare. 



Sir Edward Thorpe, in his review of Victor 

 Lefebure's book, "The Riddle of the Rhine," in 

 Nature of November lo, p. 331, quotes a passage 

 which deals with my own work during the initial 

 stages of the war, and that of the Kaiser Wilhelm- 

 Institut fiir Physikalische Chemie, of which I am 

 the principal. The intention is to make the world 

 believt^ that the materials for gas warfare were pre- 

 pared by the German military authorities and chemical 

 industry for the intended war, and that experiments 

 with this end were carried out in my institution, if 

 not previous to the war, at least from August, 1914, 

 onwards. 



It is always dangerous to atterrjpt to form a correct 

 estimate of the intentions of others from the traces 

 of events they have left behind them. But the 

 greatest errors must necessarily arise if an outsider 

 tries to deduce from his own impressions the inten- 

 tions of men whose ways of thinking he does not 

 know and cannot understand. 



Perhaps there might have been some ground for 

 suspicion if Germany could have foreseen the trench 

 warfare, and if we could have imagined that the 

 German troops could ever be held up for weeks and 

 months before the enemy's wire entanglements. But 

 previous to the war, and up to the Battle of the 

 Marne, everyone in Germanv imagined that the course 

 of the war would be a succession of rapid marches 

 and great pitched battles, and what use would gas 

 have been to a field army in such a war of move- 

 ments? I think I may safely say that during the 

 course of the war I became acquainted with every 

 man of any importance in the army, in industry, and 

 in science, who had anything to do with chemistrv 

 as applied to military offensive and defensive opera- 

 tions, and that I am well informed regarding the 

 development and the course of chemical warfare. 

 Yet among all these men I have never met one 

 who, previous to the war or during the first two 

 months of its course, had conceived the idea of pro- 

 viding the field army with gas, or had made experi- 

 ments or preparations for such a purpose. We had 

 actually first to read in the French, Italian, and 

 English Press — as, for instance, in the Pall Mall 

 Gazette of September 17, 19 14— of the terrible things 

 that were in preparation for us before we began to 

 make similar preparations in view of the commence- 

 ment of the war of position. 



As regards my own institution and its work during 

 the first months of the war, that intelligent person 

 who, according to the passage in Lefebure quoted by 

 Sir Edward Thorpe, observed my activities in my 

 institute from behind a wall, lacked the gift of inter- 

 preting correctly what he saw and heard. Visitors 

 in grey Headquarters motors did indeed come to my 

 institution in August, 1914, though not to see me upon 

 the subject of chemical means of warfare, but be- 

 cau.se Headquarters were verv anxious to know how 

 motor spirit could be made proof against the cold of 

 a Russian winter without the addition of toluol. The 

 question of gas as means of warfare did not begin 

 to engage our attention until the first three months 

 of war had passed. 



NO. 2724, VOL. 109] 



In war men think otherwise than they do in peace, 

 and many a German during the stress of war may 

 have adopted the English maxim, " My country, right 

 or wrong," but that German science and industry 

 before the war made preparations with deliberate in- 

 tent for gas warfare against other nations is an 

 assertion that, in the interest of the necessary inter- 

 dqjendence of the nations in the realms of science 

 and industry, must not be allowed to go uncontra- 

 dicted in so serious and respected a journal as Nature. 



F. Haber. 



Kaiser Wilhelm-Institut, Berlin-Dahlem, 

 December 17. 



Herr Geheimrat Haber takes e.xception to the 

 quotation I made from Major Lefebure's "Riddle of 

 the Rhine," in the course of my notice of that book, 

 on the ground that it implies that the German military 

 authorities were prepared to ignore their undertaking, 

 under the Hague Convention, lo abstain from the use 

 of asphyxiating or deleterious gases in war, if not 

 for some time before, at least at its outbreak in the 

 summer of 19 14. 1 have, of course, no precise know- 

 ledge of the intentions of the German military authori- 

 ties, but it was not unreasonable to surmise that these 

 authorities, who deliberately intended to violate the 

 treaty with Belgium, would not hesitate— as, indeed, 

 the sequel showed — to disregard their promise under 

 the Hague Convention if and when it suited their 

 purpose to do so. 



As regards their intentions, Field-Marshal Lord 

 French, in his dispatch after the first German gas 

 attack, with which Prof. Haber was concerned, wrote : 

 "The brain-power and thought which has evidently 

 been at work before this unworthy inethod of making 

 war reached the pitch of efficiency which has been 

 demonstrated in its practice shows that the Germans 

 must have harboured these designs for a long time." 



"It is an arresting thought," says Major Lefebure, 

 "that even as early as 1887 Prof. Baeyer, the re- 

 nowned organic chemist of Munich, in his lectures 

 to advanced students, included a reference to the mili- 

 tary value of these compounds " — i.e. to substances 

 intended to produce temporary blindness. 



Prof. Haber, it will be observed, does not explicitly 

 deny the accuracy of the statements made by the 

 "neutral," as quoted by Major Lefebure. Indeed, 

 the account is too definite and specific to be set aside 

 by irrelevancies. It is probably true that "everyone 

 in Germany imagined that the course of the war would 

 be a succession of rapid marches and great pitched 

 battles." Some people on this side of the Channel 

 were of a different opinion. But even the vain 

 imaginings of "everyone in Germany " were not neces- 

 sarily inconsistent with the use of poison gas. It 

 was used on the Eastern front by the Germans when 

 there was little or no question of trench warfare or 

 wire entanglements. Prof. Haber states that he never 

 met a single person who previous to the war or during 

 the first two months of its course had conceived the 

 idea of providing the army with gas. "The question 

 of gas as a means of warfare did not begin to engage 

 our attention until the first three months of war had 

 passed." 



The first gas attack was launched in .'\pril, 1915, 

 so that ori Geheimrat Haber 's own showing this 

 method of conducting war was engaging attention at 

 least six months before it was used. After all, the 

 essential point is that it was used, and first used, 

 by the Germans, and in flagrant contravention of a 

 solemn promise given to the world ; at what precise 



