Summary of Exhibit

The taboo against the use of chemical weapons in warfare has existed since the end of the First World War. With a few notable exceptions, these weapons of mass destruction have never been used extensively between belligerent nations since 1918. Even Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany who had no compunction in using chemicals to perform mass murder on civilians, initially refused to engage in chemical warfare against the Allies. Revulsion over the use of chemical weapons was so allegedly widespread that even Gen. John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in the First World War and the man responsible for establishing the first gas warfare unit in the American military, gave voice to what has become the conventional wisdom regarding chemical warfare when he stated in a 1922 report that “chemical warfare should be abolished among nations, as abhorrent to civilization. It is a cruel, unfair and improper use of science. It is fraught with the gravest danger to noncombatants and demoralizes the better instincts of humanity.” Yet despite the perceived distaste for poison gas, the United States did not successfully ratify a treaty to ban the use of chemical weapons in warfare until 1975.

From 1919 to 1939 chemical warfare and chemical weapons were a hot topic in political circles and international diplomacy as well as popular culture in the western world. Particularly in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany, the threat of chemical weapons became a prominent subject of international relations. Between 1921 and 1932 three international conferences discussed the legitimate use and control of chemical weapons in warfare.

It is commonly believed that these disarmament conferences and the push to ban offensive chemical weapons were the inevitable result of widespread repugnance against gas warfare caused by the experiences of soldiers in the First World War. As one security expert stated, “The western abhorrence of chemical weapons results from our own experience in World War I.” Yet the interest in chemical weapons during the interwar period was not a one-way street. Some prominent chemists, politicians, journalists, military commanders, and even World War I veterans advocated for gas warfare. Various arguments, such as the relative humaneness of chemical weapons versus conventional weapons, the minor number of deaths that occurred due to gas in World War I, the inevitability of their use in future wars, and the inability to enforce prohibition against their creation, buoyed vocal opposition to signing any treaties that forbid chemical warfare. The interwar period, then, was marked by clear divisions on the issues of chemical weapons and an inability to achieve international agreement.

This exhibit explores the reasons for the lack of consensus on chemical weapons in the interwar period. The major powers could not agree on the proper use of chemical weapons and their role in future warfare.  The contentious environment existed for two reasons. First, despite the experience of gas use during the Great War, participants could not agree on the actual level of danger from chemical weapons or the future hazard of chemical warfare. Second, because of the lack of a credible enforcement mechanism to monitor abolition of chemical weapons, the major powers hesitated to relinquish control of their stockpiles and production capabilities for fear of falling behind militarily. Chemical weapons research and production, at least on a small scale, could easily be hidden in legitimate commercial-industrial facilities and rapidly expanded in a crisis. Any agreement to prohibit the use of chemical weapons relied on trust among nations, and trust was not in abundance in the aftermath of the “war to end all wars.” 

Judgment against the use of chemical weapons, at least in the United States, was far from unanimous. Opinion ran the gamut from those who believed chemical weapons would act as a deterrent thus making future warfare less likely, to those who deemed chemical warfare unnecessarily gruesome, immoral, and dishonorable. The controversy over chemical weapons took place in an environment sensationalized by military leaders, politicians, chemical industry advocates, and the popular media. More than the actual experience of chemical attacks in World War I, it was the sensationalized threat of gas warfare on noncombatants that ultimately created the momentum against the use of chemical weapons.

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Introduction
Summary of Exhibit