Prior to World War I, it was considered uncivilized to develop and use chemical weapons. The demand and popularity for these weapons came because of the stalemate that occurred during in-trench fighting.

Although it’s believed that Germany was the first to use chemical agents in WWI, it was actually the French who fired tear gas grenades within the first month of War.

The Germans were the first to give serious study and develop new chemical weapons.

The first use of poison gas came on April 22, 1915, at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres. Chlorine, within seconds of inhaling its vapor it destroyed the victim's respiratory organs, brought on choking attacks. During that day, Germans poured heavy amounts of chlorine around the area of French troops

During the Vietnam War, 12 gallons of Agent Orange, a herbicide, were dumped on Vietnamese forests. Agent Orange was a combination of two potent herbicides. One of the herbicides contained dioxins, one of the most powerful toxins. Agent Orange was used to kill entire forests in one spraying, killing all animal life and depriving the Vietnamese of food and shelter. Dioxin has been found to cause 3 types of cancer, and is the cause of multiple birth defects, also it may affect several generations with cancer, immune diseases, and diabetes.

In 1925, The Geneva Protocol had outlawed all use of chemical weapons and called for their destruction.

. The yellow-green cloud drifted toward the trench and caused panic and devastation. This was the first milestone chemical weapons had come across. Now the whole world knew of the weapons the German army had, and began to consider chemicals for their own country.

Still, chemical gases in WWI did not turn out to be the deciding technology that it had been anticipated as. Each side developed the gases and so the stalemat

Some topics in this essay:
Ypres Chlorine, Agent Orange, Geneva Protocol, German Allied, , World War, War Iraqi, War Germans, War Chemical, chemical weapons, Hydrogen Cyanide, mustard gas, agent orange, nerve agents, develop chemical weapons, gases wwi, iraqi war, develop chemical, poison gas, chemical gases,