I apologise for all the confusion in the last History quiz of the World Wars.
Heres the official correct answer to question three which was about Mustard Gas… it was indeed first deployed in action by the Germans.
However I thought as many of the others did that the question that was set was not very clear. If we get into the details we can be certain that Gas as a chemical Weapon was first used in 1914 and 1915 by the French.
The exact weapon were the “Grenades Suffucante” or suffacating grenades which were a mixture of chemicals including Bromide and as the name suggests these Grenades were designed to cause suffocating in the confines of the trenches and efectively employed at the siege of Verdun in fact French Marshal Patain was very much a supporter of this nasty weapon.
The British also had simmilar tear gas and stink bombs that were not as dangerous as the French weapons but both weapons had one severe limitation.
When the grenades exploded a lot of the gas was simply burned up before it could take a real effect and the actual effectiveness of the weapon was limited to confined spaces and small scale use…
The Germans first used Poison Gas of Chlorine at Ypres in 1915 and later employed the Sulphur Mustard or Mustard gas named for it’s smell which was not just a foul smelling Gas that caused suffocation but when released en masse from cylinders and allowed to linger and float on prevailing winds it could cause severe blisters to exposed skin and even burn eyes.
Compared to the primitve and seemingly small scale weapons used by France and Britain at first the Germas answer was much more lethal… but by the end of the war both sides were using the “war gasses”… interestingly the Ancient World has known Poison Gasses and chemical warfare too but never was it used in the scale as what has been used in the 20th and early 21st Century.
I pray ferevently that these cruel and inhuman weapons will be one day confined to History… and nothing more.