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We have few details at this time on the research and production prorams for poison gas during the inter-war era. We believe with the end of World War I (1919) and international steps to outlaw chemical warfare (1922-25) that research for the most part ceased. We have no information on the Soviet Union but this for the most part appears to be the case. As a result, the chemical weapon stock piles at the onset of World War II were for the most part the same basic chemical agents used in World War I -- primarily phosgene. Germany and Japan were exceptions. The Germans were of course prohibited from manufacturing poison gas under the terms of the Versailles Treaty. (1919) There was no prohibition about pesticides. German chemist Gerhard Schrader completed the synthesis and purification of tabun, a potent nerve agent. This was not research funded by the Army. Schrader's research was aimed at creating a pesticide, not a chemical weapon. The chemical he created, however, was so potent that Army researchers become involved. They call it taboo, or Tabu in German, from which it takes its name. The NAZI seized control of Germany (1933). With their rearmament program, poison gas was again produced. The Army stockpiled nerve agents, but did not use them in World War II. The Japanese became interested in a chemical weapon program after the Germans introduced chemical warfare during World War I (1915). Later they began a major research program to produce chemical and biological weapons (1932). The major facility was the infamous Unit 731 in Harbin, Manchuria. We have little information about facilities in Japan. Later they also initiated a nuclear program. We note civil defense exercises simulating a chemical attack. We are not sure to what extent research was conducted in secret. We do not yet have details on the chemical weapons programs of the Allies (Britain and France) during the inter-War era. Nor do we know a great deal about the United states yet. We believe the Allies relied primarily on World War I agents.
The war ended with Britain having large stockpiles of chemical agents. We have no idea what happened to these stockpiles or if there was any attempt to destroy them. Organized research into chemical warfare agents began in Britain and France after the surprise German chlorine gas attack (1915). We have some information on the chemical weapons programs of the Allies during the inter-War era. We believe the Allies relied primarily on the gents developed during World War I. The Government decided to maintain a stockpile of Adamsite, apparently the stockpile had to be renewed. The Ministry of Munitions created the Chemical Defense Research Establishment (CDRE) at Sutton Oak (1919). 【Wainwright】 The Sutton plant had the capacity to manufacture manufacture 20 tons of mustard gas per week by the late 1920s. 【Hammond and Carter】 Into the post-World War II era, the Sutton facility was Britain's principal center for both research, development and production of chemical military agents. Throughout the inter-War era, the Sutton facility was Britain's only manufacturer of mustard gas. CDRE also led research on deadly nerve agents, including sarin. 【Wainwright】 The British have been accused of using chemical weapons after the War. After the war, the Royal Air Force reportedly dropped diphenylchloroarsine. This was not poison gas, but was a chemical agent--an irritant designed to induce uncontrollable coughing on Bolshevik forces (1919). 【Jones. S.】 Another allegation is that the British in Mesopotamia during the Iraq Revolt used chemical weapons (1920). Here historians have expressed different opinions. Historians are now divided as to whether or not gas was actually used. 【Hopwood】 One historian writes, "... while at various moments tear gas munitions were available in Mesopotamia, circumstances seeming to call for their use existed, and official sanction to employ them had been received, at no time during the period of the mandate did all three of these conditions apply. He concludes that it was clear that no poison gas was used. 【Douglas】 Douglas believes that interdepartmental miscommunication within the British colonial administration caused the later academic misunderstanding.
Britain signed and ratified the Geneva Gas Protocol (1930). This prohibited the use of toxic chemicals and bacteria in war, but not the development or production of these weapons. Britain as was allowed began substantial testing of chemical weapons (early 1930s) Britain conducted the disgraceful Rawalpindi experiments in its Indian colony, This involved exposing hundreds of Indian soldiers to mustard gas. the objective was to learn the most effective concentrations for combat use. Many of the Indian soldiers suffered severe burns. 【Rosenberg】
The British as the possibility of another war became an increasing possibility contracted Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) began to build a new factory to produce mustard gas at their Randle plant on Wigg Island, Runcorn, Cheshire (1937). 【Jones, T.】 This like the building up of the Royal Air Force Bomber command was defense based on deterrence.
By this time the British seeing that Hitler's re-militarization programs were an increasing threat introdused the Dowding System (1936). RAF commanders like most air force commanders at the time were convinced that the bomber will always get through. Chief Air Marshal Dowding was convinced that defensive measures could be effective. The Dowding System saved Britain in the Battle of Britain, but fortunately Hitler decided not to use chemical weapons. The British Government also introduced a massive program to produce and distribute gas masks. Britain would be the only country to produce gas masks for every person of all ages in the country. And when Hitler and Stalin launched the War, the masks were ready. People including children were required to carry their masks when leaving home. The schools began training the children to become experts in getting the masks on expertly in as little time as possible.
Organized research into chemical warfare agents began in Britain and France after the German chlorine gas attack (1915). We do not yet have details on the chemical weapons programs of the Allies during the inter-War era. We believe the Allies relied primarily on World War I agents. Spanish and French forces dropped mustard gas bombs against Berber rebels and civilians during the Rif War in Spanish Morocco (1921–1927). These attacks marked the first widespread employment of gas warfare in the post-World War I era. 【Rada】
It was the Germans who introduced the horrors of chemical warfare, first using chlorine gas during World War I (1915). The Germans were of course after the War prohibited from manufacturing poison gas under the terms of the Versailles Treaty (1919). There was no prohibition about pesticides. German chemist Gerhard Schrader completes the synthesis and purification of tabun, a potent nerve poison. This was not research funded by the Army. Schrader's research was aimed ar creating a pesticide, not a chemical weapon. The chemical he creates is so potent that Army researchers become involved. They call it taboo, or Tabu in German, from which it takes its name. This was before the NAZIs seized control of Germany (1933). With the massive rearmament program Hitler began ignoring the Versailles Treaty and launched, poison gas was again produced. The Army stockpiled nerve agents, but did not use them in the War. This was by far the most potent secret weapon they possessed. Why Hitler didn't use it is one of the great unknowns of Wold War II. It is often said it was because the Alliws would retaliate, but we suspect there is more to the story. The Allies had no idea about the NAZI nerve agents.
We do not have any information know about Italian research or production of poison gas. We do know that the Italians used poison gas in the inter-War era. we are not sure if that was World War I stockpiles or if the Italians began producing poison gas ontheir own. Italy used poison gas both in the Libyan campaign to suppress opposition in its colony (1920s) and in their invasion of Ethiopian (1930s). The Libyans and Ethiopians lacked all types of modern weaponry. Despite an overwhelming superiority in conventional weaponry, both the Libyans and Ethiopians resisted and the Italians responded with poison gas. The attacks in Libya would have been done with World war I stockpiles, but the 1935-36 attacks in Ethiopia may have been done by more recently produced gas weapons. They used mustard gas, a standard World War I type of poison gas. We see Italian school children being instructed in the use of gas masks, something that was common in Europe during the 1930s.
The Japanese engaged German forces in China during World War I. This was before the appearance of chemical weapons. They of course would have noted the the use of chemical weapons in Europe. Col. Chikahiko Koizumi helped form a secret poison gas research committee when he and other Imperial Japanese Army officers were impressed by the German use of chlorine gas at the Second Battle of Ypres (1915). 【Williams and Wallace, p. 44.】 Col. Koizumi would be Japan's Health Minister (1941-45). He was closely associated with IJA surgeon Shirō Ishii (石井四郎) who began advocating for a Japanese poison gas program (1927). Ishii began a 2-year study trip abroad (1928). When he returned home he began advocating within IJA circles for the creation of a Japanese biological and chemical research unit (1930). He argued that the Western powers were developing these weapons and this was a danger to Japan which needed its own program. Ishii was closely connected to War Minister Gen. Sadao Araki. Araki was one of the principal theoretician of the radical nationalist right-wing faction in the IJA. He served as Minister of War under Prime Minister Inukai. Araki helped to create the Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory (AEPRL) (1930). And Ishii was given command of a secret research group--the Tōgō Unit. It pursued chemical and biological experimentation in newly seized Manchuko (Manchuria) which allowed for greater secrecy and a ready source of human experimental subjects. Ishii received this appointment because he had been advocating for chemical weapons research. The major facility was the infamous Unit 731 in Harbin, Manchuria. We have little information about facilities in Japan. Later they also initiated a nuclear program. We note several civil defense exercises simulating a chemical attack. They clearly show that chemical warfare was on the mind of the military officers leading Japan into war.
The Germans used poison gas on the Russians during World War I. Actual information is sketchy, but available information suggests that the Russians suffered more than any other country as a result of German gas attacks. It is believed that half of all the soldiers killed by chemical weapons during the War were Russian. Some 56,000 Russians were killed by chemical agents in World War II. Over 0.4 million were injured. 【Brooke】 The Russians responded with military chemical project of their own, supplying the Russian Army with several chemical warfare agents, chemical ammunition and personal protective equipment. 【Grigoryan and Yegorov】 We are not sure about the Russian Civil War, but we know that Lenin authorized the use of the poison gas during the Tambov Rebellion (1921). This was the largest and best-organized peasant rebellion challenging the Bolshevik government. An order signed by military commanders Tukhachevsky and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko stipulated, "The forests where the bandits are hiding are to be cleared by the use of poison gas. This must be carefully calculated, so that the layer of gas penetrates the forests and kills everyone hiding there." 【Radzinsky, p. 173.】 Presumably the gas used was World War I stockpiles. The Soviet Union also employed poison gas in Xinjiang (1934). 【Pearson】 This was the Soviet invasion of the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang. White Russian forces reportedly assisted the Soviet Red Army. We do not, however, at this time have any information on the Soviet poison gas program. The Soviet Union signed the 1925 shortly after it became effective Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (1928).
Spanish and French forces dropped mustard gas bombs against Berber rebels and civilians during the Rif War in Spanish Morocco (1921–27). We are not sure where the Spanish got the gas combs, presumably from the French. These are the furst confirmed widespread gas attacks in the post-World War I era. 【Rada】 The Spanish Army indiscriminately used phosgene, diphosgene, chloropicrin and mustard gas against civilian populations, markets, and rivers. 【Noguer】 Spain signed the Geneva Protocol (1925), which prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons in international conflicts, while using these weapons in North Africa. 【Aguilar】
The Unites States began working on poison gas after the Germans introduced it during World War I (1915). American researchers only began working in chemical warfare after the United States entered the War (1917). Despite reports of chemical agents being bused on the Western Front, the United States did not at first begin working on poison gas. The Bureau of Mines approached the the National Research Council (NRC), offering Bureau's unique and specialized laboratories to recherche poison gases. Only with the U.S. declaration of war on Germany did the NRC form the Committee on Noxious Gases to oversee research programs on poison gases Thy were focused in sulfur mustard and subsequently Lewisite. American researchers quickly developed sulfur mustard and Lewisite during the the War (1917-18). They 'improved' mustard has, but Lewisite was a new agent. After the War they developed nitrogen mustard. These were more potent that World War I mustard gas, but no where near the healthily of German nerve agents.
Lewisite (C2H2AsCl3) is a vesicant (blister agent) based on contains organic arsenic. A U.S. chemical warfare research laboratory during World War I investigated arsenic compounds for potential military applications. They produced this potent vesicant which was named 'Lewisite' after the research group director. Lewisite like mustard gas is a cellular poison, but involves a different mechanism than sulfur mustard. I As in Britain and France, much of the research was focused on methods of mass production of sulfur mustard, development of other vesicants rather than whole new agents. There ws also a focus on better gas masks and other equipment to protect troops from chemical attack. A presidential order transferred the research program from civilian control under NRC to military control under the War Department. 【Pechura and Rall】 The War Department meant the U.S. Army. (Until after World War II, the Navy was controlled by a separate cabinet-level department (ministry). This move created the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service (CWS). We note that the United States was still stockpiling and running tests on mustard gas Lewisite during the early phase World War II. Mustard gas was a World War I chemical weapon only slightly improved during the inter-War era. No advanced chemical weapons were developed. Army researchers were interested if race affected the effectiveness of chemical agents. 【NPR】
Brooke, James. "Russia's gas warfare history," The Moscow Times (September 3, 2013).
Budko, A.A. and Yu V Ivanovskii, "Use of chemical war gases at the Russian-German front during the First World War," in Russian Voen Med Zh Vol. 337, No. 2 (February 2016), pp. 75-81.
Grigoryan, Maria and Oleg Yegorov. "How Russia countered Germany’s chemical weapons in WWI," Russia Beyond (August, 8 2018).
Hammond, P. and Gradon Carter. From Biological Warfare to Healthcare: Porton Down, 1940-2000 (Springer: 2016).
Derek Hopwood "British Relations with Iraq" Iraq: Conflict in Context , BBC History 10 February 2003.
Douglas, R. M. "Did Britain use chemical weapons in Mandatory Iraq?"The Journal of Modern History Vol. 81, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 877–78, 887.
Jones, Simon. Jones, "'The right medicine for the Bolshevist': British air-dropped chemical weapons in north Russia, 1919," Imperial War Museum Review Vol. 12 (1999), pp. 78–88. We are not always sure about poison gas allegations, but the Imperial War Museum is a very solid source.
Jones, Tim (2001). The X Site: Britain's Most Mysterious Government Facility. (Gwasg Helygain: 2001).
National Public Radio (NPR). "Secret World War II chemical experiments tested troops by race," (June 22, 2015).
Noguer, Miquel (July 2005). "ERC exige que España pida perdón por el uso de armas químicas en la guerra del Rif", El País (July 2005).
Pechura, Constance M. and David P. Rall, ed. "3. History and analysis of mustard agent and Lewisite research," in Veterans at Risk (National Center for Biotechnology Information/National Academies Press: Washington, D.C., 1993).
Pearson, Graham S. "Uses of CW since the First World War". Federation of American Scientists.
Rada, Javier (September 2006). "Los últimos de Alhucemas" 20 minutos.es. (2007?).
Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin (Knopf Doubleday: 2011).
Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Mustard gas tested on Indian soldiers" (2007).
Wainwright, Stephen. "An illustrated history of Old Sutton in St Helens, Lancashire" Part 46 (of 95 parts) - Sutton at War Part 3 - Magnum Poison Gas Works. suttonbeauty.org. (20200.
Williams, Peter and David Wallace. Unit 731 (Grafton Books: 1989).
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