Every war brings to the fore a new way of maiming and killing soldiers. Gun powder in the 16th and 17th centuries meant that - finally, sadly - one could eliminate many of his enemies with one agent of offensive effort, an artillery round. Ultimately, in WWII it was demonstrated that a single atomic weapon could kill more than one hundred thousand of the enemy with a single use of a single weapon. While the efficiency of maiming and killing steadily advanced from the 17th to the 20th centuries it accelerated by an order of magnitude in WWI with the use of inhaled poison gasses.
One of the enduring hallmarks of WWI was the large-scale use of chemical weapons, commonly called, simply, ‘gas’. Although chemical warfare caused less than 1% of the total deaths in this war, the ‘psy-war’ or fear factor was formidable. Thus, chemical warfare with gases was subsequently absolutely prohibited by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. It has occasionally been used since then but never in WWI quantities. Production of some of these dangerous chemicals continues to this day as they have peaceful uses – for example, phosgene (carbonyl dichloride) is an industrial reagent, a precursor of pharmaceuticals and other important organic compounds.
