The First of its Kind
Clouds of something that appeared to be smoke reached the line of soldiers waiting to fight. Immediately, the soldiers began to cough, gag and choke. Their eyes started stinging and watering, and they fell backwards into the trenches. The soldiers tried to duck and avoid the smoke in their dugouts, but it soon followed. Those who did not fall ran trying to abandon the clouds of smoke, but this was no regular smoke (Kennedy 53). It was chlorine gas that German forces used to initiate large-scale chemical warfare during World War I at the Second Battle of Ypres, which affected the use of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
World War I began in Ypres on October 7, 1914, when German forces troops entered …show more content…
However, this debate was not new; it had been going on since the late 19th century. When “confronted with the immediate and undeniably horrific results of chemical warfare on the western front” (Warren 1), there was a large opposition towards the use of chemical weaponry. Following World War I and World War II, the use of chemical weapons spurred international and public opinion. Many people pushed for regulations or outright bans, while others pushed for continued used and development of poison gas. Chemical weapons were, on a large scale, used during the First and Second World Wars, “leaving behind a legacy of old abandoned weapons” (“History of CW Use” 1). Chemical weapons have since presented a problem for many …show more content…
The first of these attacks was the Sarin poisoning incident in Matsumuto, a residential community in Japan during 1994. The next incident took place in 1995 on the Tokyo subway system. The “perpetrators” (Fletcher 1) put liquid sarin in packages made to look like bottled drinks onto five cars on three separate subway lines that met at the Kasumigaseki station, where several Japanese government ministries were located. The cult members punctured the packages and left them in subway cars and stations, where they began to leak a thick liquid. This attack was the most serious terrorist attack in modern Japanese history, which caused widespread fear in the
Clouds of something that appeared to be smoke reached the line of soldiers waiting to fight. Immediately, the soldiers began to cough, gag and choke. Their eyes started stinging and watering, and they fell backwards into the trenches. The soldiers tried to duck and avoid the smoke in their dugouts, but it soon followed. Those who did not fall ran trying to abandon the clouds of smoke, but this was no regular smoke (Kennedy 53). It was chlorine gas that German forces used to initiate large-scale chemical warfare during World War I at the Second Battle of Ypres, which affected the use of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
World War I began in Ypres on October 7, 1914, when German forces troops entered …show more content…
However, this debate was not new; it had been going on since the late 19th century. When “confronted with the immediate and undeniably horrific results of chemical warfare on the western front” (Warren 1), there was a large opposition towards the use of chemical weaponry. Following World War I and World War II, the use of chemical weapons spurred international and public opinion. Many people pushed for regulations or outright bans, while others pushed for continued used and development of poison gas. Chemical weapons were, on a large scale, used during the First and Second World Wars, “leaving behind a legacy of old abandoned weapons” (“History of CW Use” 1). Chemical weapons have since presented a problem for many …show more content…
The first of these attacks was the Sarin poisoning incident in Matsumuto, a residential community in Japan during 1994. The next incident took place in 1995 on the Tokyo subway system. The “perpetrators” (Fletcher 1) put liquid sarin in packages made to look like bottled drinks onto five cars on three separate subway lines that met at the Kasumigaseki station, where several Japanese government ministries were located. The cult members punctured the packages and left them in subway cars and stations, where they began to leak a thick liquid. This attack was the most serious terrorist attack in modern Japanese history, which caused widespread fear in the