The German gas attack at Ypres on April 22, 1915, is generally considered the prelude to total war. The situation of the soldier in World War I has been compared to that of the knight at the time of the invention of gunpowder. Thereafter, the character of war was fundamentally changed. Industrial warfare and mass destruction found their strongest expressions in the appearance of new weapons, including chemical agents, submarines, fighter aircraft, and tanks. They symbolized the beginning of a new era in military history. Behind such innovations there invariably lurks a rise in military organizational power and capability, the goal of which is to continually increase the destructive capacity of weapons until the destruction of entire societies is made possible.

Is this assessment accurate? Were the development and employment of these new weapons actually the expression of a desire for total war, that is, the instruments of a new type of warfare? Or did they serve as catalysts that initiated and promoted ideas of total war that later underwent an erratic process of adaptation by the military? An analysis of the origins and consequences of chemical warfare can provide answers to the question of how total was World War I.

THESIS NO. l: POISON GAS WAS NOT A NEW WEAPON

As Ulrich Trumpener and Ludwig F. Haber have most recently emphasized, the use of chemical agents in World War I did not begin at Ypres. The British, French, and Germans had already tested the military application of gas before the war, although with unremarkable results. Only the French army had decided to procure several thousand tear-gas shells. It is a matter of dispute whether successful employment in a 1912 police action was the determining factor behind this decision. At any rate, the army hoped that these shells, fired from a special gun, would be useful against fortifications and entrenched enemies. Their isolated use was hardly noticed by the Germans after the war began, however. Additional orders by the French army and the introduction of a tear-gas shell with a greater payload capacity indicate that intensified use was planned for the spring of 1915.