Chemical Weapons: History?

[Andrew D. Gable]

I know about the use of biological warfare in previous centuries (use of diseased items especially), but I was wondering - was mustard gas the first true chemical weapon to be used? Or were there prevoius ones? For that matter, was mustard gas first used in WW1, or was that the first real widespread use?

 

[Steve Jung]

From a quick Google search, it appears chlorine gas was the first chemical weapon used in modern times. Some web pages indicate earlier uses of chemical weapons.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/4239/chemweapons/history.html
http://whyfiles.org/025chem_weap/3.html
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/61/67268.htm
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/silveira81.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare

 

[Treebore]

Technically, greek fire, etc... are chemical weapons. So was the poisoning of wells.

 

[diaglo]

use of biological and chemical warfare was crude. it has improved as "modern" medicine learns more. they are able to debunk or to confirm much of the "old wives' " tales.

one tool of this investigative method, epidemiology, was first proposed and accepted with John Snow's work to stop Cholera in London. before then it was just hit and miss. this wasn't biological warfare.

much as "modern" warfare is converted to peace time uses. so true is the opposite possible.

 

[Jeremy757]

I remember reading that when Batu Khan's army invaded Poland that the Polish who where under siege would load the bodies of people who had died from the outbreak of some kind of plague loaded them onto catapults and flung them at the enemy.

 

[Maerdwyn]

In the fifth century BC, the Spartans used coal, garbage, and sulfur from the hot springs at Thermopylae to make burning hurled missiles that released clouds of noxious gas when they hit, and stuck to, their enemies.

Rome salted the fields of Carthage to prevent them from growing food during the Thrid Punic War

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, a few British and American leaders gave smallpox infected blankets to Native Americans in hopes of spreading the disease.

 

[Dirigible]

I recall reading that the British used hollow shells full of sme kind of chemical to bombard Maori fortifications during the New Zealand Wars.

Can't find any links to back up this claim, though.