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Chemical weapons were first based on the experiments of Fritz Haber. Haber was challenged to feed the world when it was struggling to feed itself. He used nitrogen from the air to create a liquid called ammonia. With that liquid, the Earth is able to sustain 7.8 billion people. Every person has some form of Haber's work coursing through our veins today, over 100 years later. Haber iswas awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, yet at the same time that the USA labels labelled the man a criminal of war. When the Great War started starts, the German nationalist volunteered himself, saying that he can could use the food growing process to kill.
Trench warfare was a large part of World War I battle tactics. Haber pitched an idea of how to get people out of those trenches... the use of chlorine gases. On April 22, 1915, at exactly 6:00 in the evening, the wind conditions were perfect and the gas valves were unscrewed. Like a scene from a horror movie accounts say that the yellow cloud hugged the land and as it passed, leaves on trees would shrivel up and die. The haze traveled at upwards of one meter per second. Birds fell from the air and when the gas reached the Allies side, the irritation in the lungs were so bad that the lungs flooded with liquid. The Allies convulsed and choked as they fell to the ground, drowning on land. (Explain where it happened)
Haber died of heart failure in 1934, five years before World War II, but not before he created another gas named Zyklon A. This gas was an insect killer. So that no one would inhale this gas, it was given a scent to pose as a warning. The Nazis found this at the start of World War II and they recalibrated it to remove the smell. This gas became Zyklon B, the gas most commonly used in gas chambers in concentration camps. As a Jew himself, members of Haber's family died by the gases. Contributing to millions of deaths, it is now considered immoral and illegal to use chemical weapons against another human in times of peace or war.
The gases did, on the other hand, help save people's lives even today. After the events of World War I, people who survived the gas attacks or were exposed to low amounts of nitrogen mustard got really sick later in life. The gases killed bone marrow, which is an area that has fast and frequent cell division. Scientists put up a trail where they used nitrogen mustard on people who have bone marrow cancer and it helped. Nitrogen mustard is now commonly used in methotrexate and mustine, which are chemotherapy drugs that are still in use today. Although mustine is not commonly used anymore, methotrexate is one of the most common and impactful cancer drugs today. https://www.chemistryworld.com/podcasts/mustine/2500522.article
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