The Spectator

The Spectator at war: War by poison

From ‘War by Poison’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915:

THE nature of the gases by means of which the Germans have won undoubted local successes is gradually being ascertained, and the more we know of the gases the more brutal does the use of them appear. At first we heard them spoken of simply as asphyxiating gases, a description which suggested that men were overcome by them as men are rendered unconscious by fumes in a mine or a sewer. But the information now coming from the hospitals proves that the Germans have not scrupled to resort to a truly diabolical use of chemical science, and to discharge at their opponents vapours which cause not merely temporary physical incapacity, but agonizing suffering and permanent injury.

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