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Why Chemical Attacks Were The Most Important Ww1 Innovation

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This essay discusses why I believe that chemical warfare/attacks were the most important WWI innovation.
During World War I, new strategies were being developed to increase enemy force casualties and decrease the likelihood of losing soldiers from their own line of attack or defense. They achieved this by thoroughly researching chemical warfare. If they had fresh ideas for speedily putting an end to the conflict, it would also inspire the soldiers and win the hearts and minds of the citizens of their nation feeding into the nationalism that caused the war in the first place. Chemical warfare had a tremendous impact on military strategies and tactics and nearly altered the course of World War I. The Germans fired chlorine gas during World War …show more content…

Mustard gas would sink down into trenches and would linger there for days at a time, soldiers had to wear masks or pieces of clothing around them for days or weeks so they wouldn’t get any deformities or inhale the gas because it would be fatal. Chemical attacks were also the cause of millions of casualties in WWI even families who weren’t part of the war had to wear masks to not get affected by them, that’s how invasive they …show more content…

For example, most of the gas used in the first British gas attack was blown back into the faces of the forces in September 1915 stated by the IWM museum, proving that soldiers needed to constantly prepare for chemical attacks because of how dangerous they were. They would make the war zone inhospitable and extremely fatal. Men would be affected and show symptoms of slight coughs but in the end, it would kill thousands of soldiers. Inhaling the Mustard gas was one worry that they all shared but chemical attacks were brutal. Starting in 1916, gas was used in shells instead, allowing attacks to be launched at far wider ranges, says Sarah Everts from the Science History Institution. The German Army was the most active user of gas warfare, and the gases used included mustard gas, chlorine, phosgene, and

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The first world war is known to be one of the harshest wars in history for many reasons. One of those reasons is the unleashing of terrifying new weapons, gas weapons. Dangerous chemicals and gases have been used as weapons since thousands of years ago, though it was until World War 1 where the first large-scale of them was used. Battles normally ended in a draw, which prompted finding new fighting strategies. Four main kinds of gases were used; tear, chlorine, phosgene, and mustard (I, n.d.).

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This new technology cause more powerful weapons to occur. These new weapons caused the number of casualties to increase drastically. New weapons such as machine guns, tanks, flame throwers, grenade launchers, airplanes, submarines and U-boats were invented. Also chemical warfare was first introduced. Around ⅓ of all the casualties in world war 1 were a result of these poisonous gases.

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In World War One in the trenches, gas was introduced and made the warfare much more brutal. The treatment after getting poison gas was terrible. They were thrown right back into the fight afterwards. Private Albert John Carpenter said “Gas shell came over, did not get my gas mask on quick enough. Sent to the field hospital.

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