First gas attack. Chemical weapon

In the early April morning of 1915, a light breeze blew from the side of the German positions that opposed the line of defense of the Entente troops twenty kilometers from the city of Ypres (Belgium). Together with him, a dense yellowish-green cloud suddenly appeared in the direction of the Allied trenches. At that moment, few people knew that it was the breath of death, and, in the stingy language of front-line reports, the first use of chemical weapons on the Western Front.

Tears before death

To be absolutely precise, the use of chemical weapons began in 1914, and the French came up with this disastrous initiative. But then ethyl bromoacetate, which belongs to the group of chemicals of an irritant effect, and not a lethal one, was put into use. They were filled with 26-mm grenades, which fired at the German trenches. When the supply of this gas came to an end, it was replaced with chloroacetone, similar in effect.

In response to this, the Germans, who also did not consider themselves obliged to comply with the generally accepted legal norms enshrined in the Hague Convention, at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, held in October of the same year, fired at the British with shells filled with a chemical irritant. However, at that time they failed to reach its dangerous concentration.

Thus, in April 1915, there was not the first case of the use of chemical weapons, but, unlike the previous ones, the lethal chlorine gas was used to destroy enemy manpower. The result of the attack was stunning. One hundred and eighty tons of sprayed killed five thousand soldiers of the allied forces and another ten thousand became disabled as a result of the resulting poisoning. By the way, the Germans themselves suffered. The death-bearing cloud touched their position with its edge, the defenders of which were not fully provided with gas masks. In the history of the war, this episode was designated "a black day at Ypres."

Further use of chemical weapons in World War I

Wanting to build on their success, the Germans repeated a chemical attack in the Warsaw region a week later, this time against the Russian army. And here death got a plentiful harvest - more than a thousand two hundred killed and several thousand left crippled. Naturally, the Entente countries tried to protest against such a gross violation of the principles of international law, but Berlin cynically declared that the 1896 Hague Convention only mentions poisonous projectiles, and not gases per se. To them, to admit, they did not try to object - the war always crosses out the works of diplomats.

The specifics of that terrible war

As military historians have repeatedly emphasized, during the First World War, the tactics of positional actions were widely used, in which solid front lines were clearly marked, distinguished by stability, density of troops and high engineering and technical support.

This largely reduced the effectiveness of offensive operations, since both sides met with resistance from the powerful defense of the enemy. The only way out of the impasse could be an unconventional tactical solution, which was the first use of chemical weapons.

New war crimes page

The use of chemical weapons in World War I was a major innovation. The range of its influence on a person was very wide. As can be seen from the above episodes of the First World War, it ranged from harmful, which was caused by chloracetone, ethyl bromoacetate and a number of others that had an irritant effect, to deadly - phosgene, chlorine and mustard gas.

Despite the fact that statistics show the relatively limited lethal potential of the gas (of the total number of those affected - only 5% of deaths), the number of dead and maimed was enormous. This gives the right to assert that the first use of chemical weapons opened a new page of war crimes in the history of mankind.

In the later stages of the war, both sides were able to develop and put into use sufficiently effective means of protection against enemy chemical attacks. This made the use of poisonous substances less effective, and gradually led to the abandonment of their use. However, it was the period from 1914 to 1918 that went down in history as the "war of chemists", since the first use of chemical weapons in the world took place on its battlefields.

The tragedy of the defenders of the Osovets fortress

However, let us return to the chronicle of military operations of that period. At the beginning of May 1915, the Germans carried out a target against the Russian units defending the Osovets fortress, located fifty kilometers from Bialystok (present-day Poland). According to eyewitnesses, after a long shelling with deadly substances, among which several types of them were used at once, all living things at a considerable distance were poisoned.

Not only people and animals that fell into the shelling zone died, but all vegetation was destroyed. The leaves of the trees turned yellow and crumbled before our eyes, and the grass turned black and fell to the ground. The picture was truly apocalyptic and did not fit into the consciousness of a normal person.

But, of course, the defenders of the citadel suffered the most. Even those of them who escaped death, for the most part, received severe chemical burns and were terribly mutilated. It is no coincidence that their appearance terrified the enemy so much that the counterattack of the Russians, who eventually threw the enemy back from the fortress, entered the history of the war under the name “attack of the dead”.

Development and use of phosgene

The first use of chemical weapons revealed a significant number of their technical shortcomings, which were eliminated in 1915 by a group of French chemists led by Victor Grignard. The result of their research was a new generation of deadly gas - phosgene.

Absolutely colorless, in contrast to the greenish-yellow chlorine, it betrayed its presence only with a barely perceptible smell of moldy hay, which made it difficult to detect. Compared to its predecessor, the novelty had greater toxicity, but at the same time had certain disadvantages.

Symptoms of poisoning, and even the death of the victims, did not occur immediately, but a day after the gas entered the respiratory tract. This allowed the poisoned and often doomed soldiers to participate in hostilities for a long time. In addition, phosgene was very heavy, and to increase mobility it had to be mixed with the same chlorine. This infernal mixture was called the "White Star" by the Allies, since it was with this sign that the cylinders containing it were marked.

Devilish novelty

On the night of July 13, 1917, in the area of ​​the Belgian city of Ypres, which had already won notoriety, the Germans made the first use of a chemical weapon of skin-blister action. In the place of its debut, it became known as mustard gas. Its carriers were mines, which sprayed a yellow oily liquid when they exploded.

The use of mustard gas, like the use of chemical weapons in World War I in general, was another diabolical innovation. This "achievement of civilization" was created to damage the skin, as well as the respiratory and digestive organs. Neither soldier's uniforms, nor any types of civilian clothing saved from its impact. It penetrated through any tissue.

In those years, any reliable means of protection against its contact with the body were not yet produced, which made the use of mustard gas quite effective until the end of the war. Already the first use of this substance disabled two and a half thousand enemy soldiers and officers, of which a significant number died.

Gas that does not creep on the ground

German chemists took up the development of mustard gas not by chance. The first use of chemical weapons on the Western Front showed that the substances used - chlorine and phosgene - had a common and very significant drawback. They were heavier than air, and therefore, in atomized form, they fell down, filling trenches and all kinds of depressions. The people who were in them were poisoned, but those who were on the hills at the time of the attack often remained unharmed.

It was necessary to invent a poison gas with a lower specific gravity and capable of hitting its victims at any level. They became mustard gas, which appeared in July 1917. It should be noted that British chemists quickly established its formula, and in 1918 launched a deadly weapon into production, but the truce that followed two months later prevented large-scale use. Europe breathed a sigh of relief - the First World War, which lasted four years, ended. The use of chemical weapons became irrelevant, and their development was temporarily stopped.

The beginning of the use of poisonous substances by the Russian army

The first case of the use of chemical weapons by the Russian army dates back to 1915, when, under the leadership of Lieutenant General V.N. Ipatiev, a program for the production of this type of weapon in Russia was successfully implemented. However, its use was then in the nature of technical tests and did not pursue tactical goals. Only a year later, as a result of work on the introduction into production of developments created in this area, it became possible to use them on the fronts.

The full-scale use of military developments that came out of domestic laboratories began in the summer of 1916 during the famous It is this event that makes it possible to determine the year of the first use of chemical weapons by the Russian army. It is known that during the period of the combat operation, artillery shells were used, filled with asphyxiating gas chloropicrin and poisonous - vensinite and phosgene. As is clear from the report sent to the Main Artillery Directorate, the use of chemical weapons rendered "a great service to the army."

The grim statistics of war

The first use of the chemical was a disastrous precedent. In subsequent years, its use not only expanded, but also underwent qualitative changes. Summing up the sad statistics of the four war years, historians state that during this period the warring parties produced at least 180 thousand tons of chemical weapons, of which at least 125 thousand tons were used. On the battlefields, 40 types of various poisonous substances were tested, which brought death and injury to 1,300,000 military personnel and civilians who found themselves in the zone of their application.

A lesson left unlearned

Did humanity learn a worthy lesson from the events of those years and did the date of the first use of chemical weapons become a black day in its history? Hardly. And today, despite international legal acts prohibiting the use of poisonous substances, the arsenals of most states of the world are full of their modern developments, and more and more often there are reports in the press about its use in various parts of the world. Humanity is stubbornly moving along the path of self-destruction, ignoring the bitter experience of previous generations.

One of the forgotten pages of the First World War is the so-called "attack of the dead" on July 24 (August 6, NS), 1915. This is an amazing story of how, 100 years ago, a handful of Russian soldiers miraculously surviving after a gas attack put several thousand advancing Germans to flight.

As you know, poisonous substances (S) were used in the First World War. They were first used by Germany: it is believed that in the area of ​​the city of Ypres on April 22, 1915, the 4th German Army used chemical weapons (chlorine) for the first time in the history of wars and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy.
On the Eastern Front, the Germans for the first time carried out a gas balloon attack on May 18 (31), 1915 against the Russian 55th Infantry Division.

On August 6, 1915, the Germans used poisonous substances, which were compounds of chlorine and bromine, against the defenders of the Russian fortress Osovets. And then something unusual happened, which went down in history under the expressive name "attack of the dead"!

A little preliminary history.
The Osovets Fortress is a Russian defensive fortress built on the Beaver River near the town of Osovice (now the Polish city of Osovets-Krepost) 50 km from the city of Bialystok.

The fortress was built to defend the corridor between the rivers Neman and Vistula - Narew - Bug, with the most important strategic directions of St. Petersburg - Berlin and St. Petersburg - Vienna. The place for the construction of defensive structures was chosen so as to block the main main direction to the east. It was impossible to get around the fortress in this area - impenetrable swampy terrain was located to the north and south.

Osovets fortifications

Osovets was not considered a first-class fortress: before the war, the brick vaults of the casemates were reinforced with concrete, some additional fortifications were built, but they were not too impressive, and the Germans fired from 210 mm howitzers and super-heavy guns. The strength of Osovets lay in his location: he stood on the high bank of the Bober River, among huge, impenetrable swamps. The Germans could not surround the fortress, and the valor of the Russian soldier did the rest.

The fortress garrison consisted of 1 infantry regiment, two artillery battalions, a sapper unit and support units.
The garrison was armed with 200 guns of caliber from 57 to 203 mm. The infantry was armed with rifles, light machine guns of the system madsen model 1902 and 1903, heavy machine guns of the Maxim system model 1902 and 1910, as well as turret machine guns of the system Gatling.

By the beginning of World War I, the garrison of the fortress was headed by Lieutenant General A. A. Shulman. In January 1915, he was replaced by Major General N. A. Brzhozovsky, who commanded the fortress until the end of the active operations of the garrison in August 1915.

major general
Nikolai Alexandrovich Brzhozovsky

In September 1914, units of the 8th German Army approached the fortress - 40 infantry battalions, which almost immediately launched a massive attack. Already by September 21, 1914, having a multiple numerical superiority, the Germans managed to push the field defense of the Russian troops to the line, which allowed artillery shelling of the fortress.

At the same time, the German command transferred 60 guns of up to 203 mm caliber from Koenigsberg to the fortress. However, the shelling began only on September 26, 1914. Two days later, the Germans launched an attack on the fortress, but it was suppressed by heavy fire from Russian artillery. The next day, Russian troops carried out two flank counterattacks, which forced the Germans to stop shelling and retreat in a hurry, withdrawing artillery.

On February 3, 1915, German troops made a second attempt to storm the fortress. A hard, long battle ensued. Despite fierce attacks, the Russian units held the line.

The German artillery bombarded the forts using heavy siege guns of 100-420 mm caliber. The fire was fired in volleys of 360 shells, every four minutes - a volley. For a week of shelling, only 200-250 thousand heavy shells were fired at the fortress.
Also, especially for shelling the fortress, the Germans deployed 4 Skoda siege mortars of 305 mm caliber near Osovets. From above, the fortress was bombed by German airplanes.

Mortar "Skoda", 1911 (en: Skoda 305 mm Model 1911).

The European press in those days wrote: “The appearance of the fortress was terrible, the whole fortress was shrouded in smoke, through which, first in one place, then in another, huge fiery tongues escaped from the explosion of shells; pillars of earth, water and whole trees flew up; the earth trembled, and it seemed that nothing could withstand such a hurricane of fire. The impression was that not a single person would emerge unharmed from this hurricane of fire and iron.

The command of the general staff, believing that it was demanding the impossible, asked the garrison commander to hold out for at least 48 hours. The fortress stood for another six months ...

Moreover, a number of siege weapons, including two "Big Berts", were destroyed by the fire of Russian batteries. After several mortars of the largest caliber were damaged, the German command withdrew these guns outside the reach of the fortress's defenses.

In early July 1915, under the command of Field Marshal von Hindenburg, German troops launched a large-scale offensive. A new assault on the still unconquered Osovets fortress was part of it.

The 18th regiment of the 70th brigade of the 11th division of the landwehr participated in the assault on Osovets ( Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. eighteen . 70. Landwehr-Infanterie-Brigade. 11. Landwehr Division). The division commander from the moment of formation in February 1915 to November 1916 - Lieutenant General Rudolf von Freudenberg ( Rudolf von Freudenberg)

lieutenant general
Rudolf von Freudenberg

The Germans began to arrange gas batteries at the end of July. 30 gas batteries were installed in the amount of several thousand cylinders. For more than 10 days the Germans waited for a fair wind.

The following infantry forces were prepared to storm the fortress:
The 76th Landwehr Regiment attacks Sosnya and the Central Redoubt and advances along the rear of the Sosnenskaya position to the forester's house, which is at the beginning of the railway gat;
The 18th Landwehr Regiment and the 147th Reserve Battalion advance on both sides of the railway, break through to the forester's house and, together with the 76th Regiment, attack the Zarechnaya position;
The 5th Landwehr Regiment and the 41st Reserve Battalion attack Bialogrondy and, breaking through the position, storm the Zarechny Fort.
In reserve were the 75th Landwehr Regiment and two reserve battalions, which were to advance along the railway and reinforce the 18th Landwehr Regiment in the attack on the Zarechnaya position.

In total, the following forces were assembled to attack the Sosnenskaya and Zarechnaya positions:
13 - 14 infantry battalions,
1 battalion of sappers,
24 - 30 heavy siege weapons,
30 poison gas batteries.

The forward position of the Byalohrondy fortress - Pine was occupied by the following Russian forces:
Right flank (positions at Bialogronda):
1st Company of the Compatriot Regiment,
two companies of militia.
Center (positions from the Rudsky Canal to the central redoubt):
9th company of the Compatriot Regiment,
10th Company of the Compatriot Regiment,
12th Company of the Compatriot Regiment,
militia company.
Left flank (position at Sosnya) - 11th company of the Zemlyachinsky regiment,
General reserve (near the forester's house) - one company of militia.
Thus, the Sosnenskaya position was occupied by five companies of the 226th Infantry Zemlyansky Regiment and four companies of militia, a total of nine companies of infantry.
The infantry battalion sent every night to the front positions left at 3 o'clock for the Zarechny Fort to rest.

At 04:00 on August 6, the Germans opened heavy artillery fire on the railway gati, the Zarechnaya position, the communications of the Zarechny fort with the fortress and on the batteries of the bridgehead, after which, at the signal of the missiles, the enemy infantry launched an offensive.

gas attack

Having not achieved success with artillery fire and numerous attacks, on August 6, 1915 at 4 o'clock in the morning, having waited for the desired wind direction, the German units used poison gases consisting of chlorine and bromine compounds against the defenders of the fortress. The defenders of the fortress did not have gas masks ...

At that time, the Russian army had no idea what horror the scientific and technological progress of the 20th century would turn into.

As reported by V.S. Khmelkov, the gases released by the Germans on August 6 had a dark green color - it was chlorine with an admixture of bromine. The gas wave, which had about 3 km along the front when it was released, began to spread rapidly to the sides and, having traveled 10 km, was already about 8 km wide; the height of the gas wave above the bridgehead was about 10-15 m.

All living things in the open air on the bridgehead of the fortress were poisoned to death, heavy losses were suffered during the firing of the fortress artillery; people not participating in the battle escaped in barracks, shelters, residential buildings, tightly locking the doors and windows, dousing them with plenty of water.

12 km from the place of gas release, in the villages of Ovechki, Zhodzi, Malaya Kramkovka, 18 people were seriously poisoned; known cases of poisoning of animals - horses and cows. No cases of poisoning were observed at the Monki station, located 18 km from the place where the gases were released.
Gas stagnated in the forest and near water ditches, a small grove 2 km from the fortress along the highway to Bialystok turned out to be impassable until 16:00. August 6th

All the greenery in the fortress and in the nearest area along the path of the gases was destroyed, the leaves on the trees turned yellow, curled up and fell off, the grass turned black and lay on the ground, the flower petals flew around.
All copper objects on the bridgehead of the fortress - parts of guns and shells, washbasins, tanks, etc. - were covered with a thick green layer of chlorine oxide; food items stored without hermetic sealing - meat, butter, lard, vegetables - turned out to be poisoned and unfit for consumption.

The half-poisoned wandered back, and, tormented by thirst, bent down to the sources of water, but here the gases lingered in low places, and secondary poisoning led to death ...

The gases inflicted huge losses on the defenders of the Sosnenskaya position - the 9th, 10th and 11th companies of the Zemlyachsky regiment were killed entirely, about 40 people remained from the 12th company with one machine gun; from the three companies that defended Bialogrondy, there were about 60 people with two machine guns.

The German artillery again opened a massive fire, and after the fire shaft and the gas cloud, believing that the garrison defending the positions of the fortress was dead, the German units went on the offensive. 14 Landwehr battalions went on the attack - and this is at least seven thousand infantrymen.
On the front line after the gas attack, hardly more than a hundred defenders remained alive. The doomed fortress, it seemed, was already in German hands...

But when the German infantry approached the advanced fortifications of the fortress, the remaining defenders of the first line rose to meet them in a counterattack - the remnants of the 13th company of the 226th infantry Zemlyachensky regiment, a little more than 60 people. The counterattacks had a horrifying appearance - with faces mutilated by chemical burns, wrapped in rags, shaking from a terrible cough, literally spitting out pieces of the lungs on bloody tunics ...

The unexpected attack and the appearance of the attackers terrified the German units and turned them into a stampede. Several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put to flight parts of the 18th Landwehr Regiment!
This attack of the “dead” plunged the enemy into such horror that the German infantrymen, not accepting the battle, rushed back, trampling each other and hanging on their own wire barriers. And then at them, from the Russian batteries shrouded in chlorine clubs, it would seem that the already dead Russian artillery began to hit ...

Professor A. S. Khmelkov described it this way:
Batteries of the fortress artillery, despite heavy losses in people poisoned, opened fire, and soon the fire of nine heavy and two light batteries slowed down the advance of the 18th Landwehr Regiment and cut off the general reserve (75th Landwehr Regiment) from the position. The head of the 2nd Defense Department sent the 8th, 13th and 14th companies of the 226th Zemlyansky Regiment from the Zarechnaya position for a counterattack. The 13th and 8th companies, having lost up to 50% poisoned, turned around on both sides of the railway and launched an offensive; The 13th company, having met units of the 18th Landwehr Regiment, with a shout of "Hurrah" rushed to the bayonets. This attack of the "dead", as an eyewitness of the battle reports, so impressed the Germans that they did not accept the battle and rushed back, many Germans died on wire nets in front of the second line of trenches from the fire of fortress artillery. The concentrated fire of the fortress artillery on the trenches of the first line (Leonov's yard) was so strong that the Germans did not accept the attack and hastily retreated.

Several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put three German infantry regiments to flight! Later, participants in the events from the German side and European journalists dubbed this counterattack as the "attack of the dead."

In the end, the heroic defense of the fortress came to an end.

The end of the defense of the fortress

At the end of April, the Germans delivered another powerful blow in East Prussia and at the beginning of May 1915 broke through the Russian front in the area of ​​Memel-Libava. In May, the German-Austrian troops, having concentrated superior forces in the Gorlice region, managed to break through the Russian front (see: Gorlitsky breakthrough) in Galicia. After that, in order to avoid encirclement, a general strategic retreat of the Russian army from Galicia and Poland began. By August 1915, due to changes on the Western Front, the strategic need to defend the fortress lost all meaning. In connection with this, the supreme command of the Russian army decided to stop defensive battles and evacuate the garrison of the fortress. On August 18, 1915, the evacuation of the garrison began, which took place without panic, in accordance with the plans. Everything that could not be taken out, as well as the surviving fortifications, were blown up by sappers. In the process of retreat, the Russian troops, if possible, organized the evacuation of the civilian population. The withdrawal of troops from the fortress ended on August 22.

Major General Brzhozovsky was the last to leave the deserted Osovets. He approached a group of sappers located half a kilometer from the fortress and turned the handle of the explosive device himself - an electric current ran through the cable, a terrible roar was heard. Osovets flew into the air, but before that, absolutely everything was taken out of it.

On August 25, German troops entered the empty, ruined fortress. The Germans did not get a single cartridge, not a single can of canned food: they received only a pile of ruins.
The defense of Osovets came to an end, but Russia soon forgot it. There were terrible defeats and great upheavals ahead, Osovets turned out to be just an episode on the road to disaster ...

Ahead was a revolution: Nikolai Alexandrovich Brzhozovsky, who commanded the defense of Osovets, fought for the Whites, his soldiers and officers were divided by the front line.
Judging by fragmentary information, Lieutenant General Brzhozovsky was a member of the White movement in southern Russia, was in the reserve of the Volunteer Army. In the 20s. lived in Yugoslavia.

In Soviet Russia, they tried to forget Osovets: there could not be great feats in the "imperialist war".

Who was the soldier whose machine gun pinned down the infantrymen of the 14th Landwehr division who broke into the Russian positions? Under artillery fire, his entire company perished, but by some miracle he survived, and, stunned by the explosions, almost alive, he released tape after tape - until the Germans threw grenades at him. The machine gunner saved the position, and possibly the entire fortress. No one will ever know his name...

God knows who the gassed lieutenant of the militia battalion was, who croaked through a cough: “follow me!” - got up from the trench and went to the Germans. He was immediately killed, but the militia got up and held out until the arrows arrived to help them ...

Osovets covered Bialystok: from there the road to Warsaw opened, and further - into the depths of Russia. In 1941, the Germans made this way swiftly, bypassing and surrounding entire armies, capturing hundreds of thousands of prisoners. The Brest Fortress, located not too far from Osovets, fought heroically at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, but its defense was of no strategic importance: the front went far to the East, the remnants of the garrison were doomed.

Osovets was a different matter in August 1915: he chained large enemy forces to himself, his artillery methodically crushed the German infantry.
Then the Russian army did not scamper in disgrace to the Volga and to Moscow ...

School textbooks talk about "the rottenness of the tsarist regime, mediocre tsarist generals, about unpreparedness for war", which was not at all popular, because the soldiers who were forcibly called up did not want to fight ...
Now the facts: in 1914-1917, almost 16 million people were drafted into the Russian army - from all classes, almost all nationalities of the empire. Is this not a people's war?
And these "forcibly drafted" fought without commissars and political officers, without special security officers, without penal battalions. Without barriers. About one and a half million people were marked with the St. George's Cross, 33 thousand became full holders of the St. George's Crosses of all four degrees. By November 1916, more than one and a half million medals "For Courage" had been issued at the front. In the then army, crosses and medals were not simply hung up to anyone and they were not given for the protection of rear depots - only for specific military merits.

"Rotten tsarism" carried out the mobilization clearly and without a hint of transport chaos. The "unprepared for war" Russian army, led by "incompetent" tsarist generals, not only carried out timely deployment, but also inflicted a series of powerful blows on the enemy, carrying out a number of successful offensive operations on enemy territory. The army of the Russian Empire for three years held the blow of the military machine of three empires - German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman - on a huge front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The tsarist generals and their soldiers did not let the enemy deep into the Fatherland.

The generals had to retreat, but the army under their command retreated in a disciplined and organized manner, only by order. Yes, and they tried not to leave the civilian population to desecrate the enemy, evacuating if possible. The “anti-national tsarist regime” did not think of repressing the families of those who were captured, and the “oppressed peoples” were in no hurry to go over to the side of the enemy with entire armies. Prisoners were not enrolled in the legions in order to fight against their own country with weapons in their hands, just as hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers did this a quarter of a century later.
And on the side of the Kaiser, a million Russian volunteers did not fight, there were no Vlasovites.
In 1914, even in a nightmare, no one could dream that the Cossacks fought in the German ranks ...

In the "imperialist" war, the Russian army did not leave its own on the battlefield, carrying out the wounded and burying the dead. Therefore, the bones of our soldiers and officers of the First World War do not roll on the battlefields. It is known about the Patriotic War: the 70th year since its end, and the number of humanly unburied people is in the millions ...

During the German War, there was a cemetery near the Church of All Saints in All Saints, where soldiers who died from wounds in hospitals were buried. The Soviet authorities destroyed the cemetery, like many others, when they methodically began to uproot the memory of the Great War. She was ordered to be considered unfair, lost, shameful.
In addition, deserters and saboteurs who carried out subversive work with enemy money became at the helm of the country in October 1917. It was inconvenient for the comrades from the sealed carriage, who stood up for the defeat of the fatherland, to conduct military-patriotic education on the examples of the imperialist war, which they turned into a civil one.
And in the 1920s, Germany became a tender friend and military-economic partner - why annoy her with a reminder of past discord?

True, some literature about the First World War was published, but utilitarian and for the mass consciousness. Another line is educational and applied: it was not on the materials of the campaigns of Hannibal and the First Cavalry that students of military academies were taught. And in the early 1930s, scientific interest in the war was indicated, voluminous collections of documents and studies appeared. But their theme is indicative: offensive operations. The last collection of documents was published in 1941, no more collections were issued. True, even in these editions there were no names or people - only numbers of parts and formations. Even after June 22, 1941, when the "great leader" decided to turn to historical analogies, remembering the names of Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov and Kutuzov, he did not say a word about those who stood in the way of the Germans in 1914 ...

After the Second World War, the strictest ban was imposed not only on the study of the First World War, but in general on any memory of it. And for mentioning the heroes of the "imperialist" one could go to the camps as for anti-Soviet agitation and praising the White Guard ...

The history of the First World War knows two examples when fortresses and their garrisons completed their tasks to the end: the famous French fortress of Verdun and the small Russian fortress of Osovets.
The garrison of the fortress heroically withstood the siege of many times superior enemy troops for six months, and withdrew only by order of the command after the strategic expediency of further defense had disappeared.
The defense of the Osovets fortress during the First World War was a vivid example of the courage, steadfastness and valor of Russian soldiers.

Eternal memory to the fallen heroes!

Osovets. Fortress church. Parade on the occasion of the presentation of the St. George's Crosses.

Chemical weapons are one of the main ones in the First World War and in total about the 20th century. The lethal potential of the gas was limited - only 4% of deaths from the total number of those affected. However, the proportion of non-fatal cases was high, and the gas remained one of the main hazards to soldiers. Since it became possible to develop effective countermeasures against gas attacks, unlike most other weapons of this period, in the later stages of the war its effectiveness began to decline, and it almost fell out of circulation. But due to the fact that toxic substances were first used in the First World War, it was also sometimes called the war of chemists.

History of poison gases

1914

At the beginning of the use of chemicals as a weapon, there were tear irritant drugs, not fatal ones. During the First World War, the French became the first to use gas using 26 mm grenades filled with tear gas (ethyl bromoacetate) in August 1914. However, the Allied stocks of bromoacetate quickly ran out, and the French administration replaced it with another agent, chloroacetone. In October 1914, German troops opened fire with shells partially filled with a chemical irritant against British positions on the Neuve Chapelle, despite the concentration achieved being so low as to be barely noticeable.

1915 Widespread deadly gases

On May 5, 90 people immediately died in the trenches; of the 207 admitted to field hospitals, 46 died on the same day, and 12 after prolonged torment.

On July 12, 1915, near the Belgian city of Ypres, Anglo-French troops were fired upon by mines containing an oily liquid. So for the first time, mustard gas was used by Germany.

Notes

Links

• De-Lazari Alexander Nikolaevich. Chemical weapons on the fronts of the World War 1914-1918.

By the middle of the spring of 1915, each of the countries participating in the First World War sought to win over the advantage to its side. So Germany, which terrorized its enemies from the sky, from under the water and on land, tried to find an optimal, but not entirely original solution, planning to use chemical weapons against the adversaries - chlorine. The Germans borrowed this idea from the French, who at the beginning of 1914 tried to use tear gas as a weapon. At the beginning of 1915, the Germans also tried to do this, who quickly realized that irritating gases on the field were a very ineffective thing.

Therefore, the German army resorted to the help of the future Nobel laureate in chemistry Fritz Haber, who developed methods for using protection against such gases and methods for using them in combat.

Haber was a great patriot of Germany and even converted from Judaism to Christianity to show his love for the country.

For the first time, the German army decided to use poison gas - chlorine - on April 22, 1915, during the battle near the Ypres River. Then the military sprayed about 168 tons of chlorine from 5730 cylinders, each of which weighed about 40 kg. At the same time, Germany violated the Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed by it in 1907 in The Hague, one of the clauses of which stated that against the enemy "it is forbidden to use poison or poisoned weapons." It is worth noting that Germany at that time gravitated towards violating various international agreements and agreements: in 1915, it waged "unlimited submarine warfare" - German submarines sank civilian ships contrary to the Hague and Geneva conventions.

“We couldn't believe our eyes. A greenish-gray cloud, descending on them, turned yellow as it spread and scorched everything in its path that it touched, causing the plants to die. Among us, staggering, appeared French soldiers, blinded, coughing, breathing heavily, with faces of a dark purple color, silent from suffering, and behind them, as we learned, hundreds of their dying comrades remained in the gassed trenches, ”recalled what happened one of the British soldiers, who observed the mustard gas attack from the side.

As a result of the gas attack, about 6 thousand people were killed by the French and British. At the same time, the Germans also suffered, on which, due to the changed wind, part of the gas sprayed by them was blown away.

However, it was not possible to achieve the main task and break through the German front line.

Among those who participated in the battle was the young Corporal Adolf Hitler. True, he was 10 km from the place where the gas was sprayed. On this day, he saved his wounded comrade, for which he was subsequently awarded the Iron Cross. At the same time, he was only recently transferred from one regiment to another, which saved him from possible death.

Subsequently, Germany began to use artillery shells with phosgene, a gas for which there is no antidote and which, at the proper concentration, causes death. Fritz Haber continued to actively participate in the development, whose wife committed suicide after receiving news from Ypres: she could not bear the fact that her husband became the architect of so many deaths. Being a chemist by training, she appreciated the nightmare that her husband helped create.

The German scientist did not stop there: under his leadership, the poisonous substance "cyclone B" was created, which was subsequently used for the massacres of concentration camp prisoners during World War II.

In 1918, the researcher even received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, although he had a rather controversial reputation. However, he never hid that he was absolutely sure of what he was doing. But Haber's patriotism and his Jewish origins played a cruel joke on the scientist: in 1933 he was forced to flee Nazi Germany to Great Britain. A year later, he died of a heart attack.

The first known case of the use of chemical weapons is the battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915, in which chlorine was used very effectively by German troops, but this battle was not the only one and far from the first.

Turning to a positional war, during which, due to the large number of troops opposing each other on both sides, it was impossible to organize an effective breakthrough, the opponents began to look for other ways out of their current situation, one of them was the use of chemical weapons.

For the first time, chemical weapons were used by the French, it was the French who, back in August 1914, used tear gas, the so-called ethyl bromoacenate. By itself, this gas could not lead to a fatal outcome, but caused a strong burning sensation in the enemy soldiers in the eyes and mucous membranes of the mouth and nose, due to which they lost their orientation in space and did not provide effective resistance to the enemy. Before the offensive, French soldiers threw grenades filled with this poisonous substance at the enemy. The only drawback of the ethyl bromoacenate used was its limited amount, so it was soon replaced by chloroacetone.

Application of chlorine

After analyzing the success of the French, which followed from their use of chemical weapons, the German command already in October of the same year fired at the positions of the British in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, but missed the gas concentration and did not get the expected effect. There was too little gas, and it did not have the proper effect on the enemy soldiers. Nevertheless, the experiment was repeated already in January in the battle of Bolimov against the Russian army, this attack was practically successful for the Germans, and therefore the use of poisonous substances, despite the statement that Germany had violated the norms of international law, received from the UK, it was decided to continue.

Basically, the Germans used chlorine against enemy units - a gas with an almost instantaneous lethal effect. The only disadvantage of using chlorine was its rich green color, due to which it was possible to make an unexpected attack only in the already mentioned battle of Ypres, later on, the Entente armies stocked up with enough means of protection against the effects of chlorine and could no longer be afraid of it. Fritz Haber personally supervised the production of chlorine - a man who later became well known in Germany as the father of chemical weapons.

Having used chlorine in the Battle of Ypres, the Germans did not stop there, but used it at least three more times, including against the Russian fortress of Osovets, where in May 1915 about 90 soldiers died instantly, more than 40 died in hospital wards . But despite the frightening effect that followed from the use of gas, the Germans did not succeed in taking the fortress. The gas practically destroyed all life in the district, plants and many animals died, most of the food supply was destroyed, while Russian soldiers received a frightening type of injury, those who were lucky enough to survive had to remain disabled for life.

Phosgene

Such large-scale actions led to the fact that the German army soon began to feel an acute shortage of chlorine, because it was replaced by phosgene, a gas without color and pungent odor. Due to the fact that phosgene exuded the smell of moldy hay, it was not easy to detect it, since the symptoms of poisoning did not appear immediately, but only a day after application. The poisoned enemy soldiers successfully fought for some time, but without receiving timely treatment, due to elementary ignorance of their condition, they died the next day in tens and hundreds. Phosgene was a more toxic substance, so it was much more profitable to use it than chlorine.

Mustard gas

In 1917, all near the same town of Ypres, German soldiers used another poisonous substance - mustard gas, also called mustard gas. In the composition of mustard gas, in addition to chlorine, substances were used that, when they got on the skin of a person, not only caused poisoning in him, but also served to form numerous abscesses. Outwardly, mustard gas looked like an oily liquid without color. It was possible to determine the presence of mustard gas only by its characteristic smell of garlic, or mustard, hence the name - mustard gas. Contact with mustard gas in the eyes led to instant blindness, concentration of mustard gas in the stomach led to immediate nausea, bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. When the mucous membrane of the throat was affected by mustard gas, the victims experienced an immediate development of edema, which subsequently developed into a purulent formation. A strong concentration of mustard gas in the lungs led to the development of their inflammation and death from suffocation on the 3rd day after poisoning.

The practice of using mustard gas showed that of all the chemicals used in the First World War, it was this liquid, synthesized by the French scientist Cesar Despres and the Englishman Frederic Guthrie in 1822 and 1860 independently of each other, that was the most dangerous, since there were no measures to combat poisoning she didn't exist. The only thing the doctor could do was to advise the patient to wash the mucous membranes affected by the substance and wipe the skin areas that were in contact with mustard gas with napkins abundantly moistened with water.

In the fight against mustard gas, which, when it comes into contact with the surface of the skin or clothes, can be converted into other equally dangerous substances, even a gas mask could not provide significant assistance, be in the mustard zone, the soldiers were recommended no more than 40 minutes, after which the poison began to penetrate through the means of protection.

Despite the obvious fact that the use of any of the toxic substances, whether it be the practically harmless ethyl bromoacenate, or such a dangerous substance as mustard gas, is a violation not only of the laws of warfare, but also of civil rights and freedoms, after the Germans, the British and French began to use chemical weapons and even Russians. Convinced of the high efficiency of mustard gas, the British and French quickly set up its production, and soon it was several times larger than the German one in scale.

In Russia, the production and use of chemical weapons first began before the planned Brusilov breakthrough in 1916. Ahead of the advancing Russian army, shells with chloropicrin and vensinite were scattered, which had a suffocating and poisoning effect. The use of chemicals gave the Russian army a noticeable advantage, the enemy left the trenches in droves and became easy prey for artillery.

Interestingly, after the First World War, the use of any of the means of chemical action on the human body was not only prohibited, but also imputed to Germany as the main crime against human rights, despite the fact that almost all poisonous elements entered mass production and were very effectively used by both opposing sides.