The composition below is a personal reaction to the gas warfare seen on the Bottom of page 67- and Middle of page 69. It tells of Paul’s personal experience during a gas bombing. The introduction of gas warfare in WWI, was something the world had never seen before in human combat.

WWI was the first war to see the use of gas as a weapon. First used by the French, tear gas, it was later picked up by the Germans and made incredibly lethal. Gas was effective, and what is effective gets used. It was cheaper than producing mass amounts of ammunition, and destroyed the enemy in much larger quantities. Either way if the gas didn’t kill the enemy, it scared them out of their trenches so an onslaught of shells could. However, gas warfare was not accredited for its “kill rate” but instead for how it altered the ENTIRE battlefield.

            General John J. Pershing once stated “that gas was a significant weapon, but not as a producer of battle deaths” (Blodgett, page 2, 2009). Gas was more renowned for the difficulties it produced in general combat.  For example: A gas bomb is deployed, gas masks are installed, and all of the sudden having to look through both the gas and the gas mask and fire a weapon, a whole new experience. The thick gaseous air also made communication more difficult. Field commands were unable to be delivered in a trench full of poisonous gas. Even as the enemy adapted to fighting with and within the toxins, the use of gas filled artillery shells developed increasingly high levels of psychological devastation rather than number of kills (Blodgett, page 2, 2009).

            Gas warfare demoralized the enemy. The purpose of many of the attacks was to "surprise, shock, and worry the opponent." Gas attacks often occurred at irregular intervals in the quiet sectors of the front.  These attacks were especially successful as the soldiers who had been sent to these quiet areas to rest, instead found themselves tense and on the alert much of the time (Blodgett, page 3, 2009).

            The article I read in regards to gas warfare in WWI makes a point that is easy to analyze. Chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction by the United Nations. Their production was then outlawed in 1993 by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. As gruesome as it may have seemed to the modern world, the majority of military officials in WWI looked at chemical warfare as “just another hazard that the defenders had to face”. In 1915, anything that would do damage to the opposition was accepted, no limitations. The use of gas warfare should not be belittled, nor exaggerated (Blodgett, page 3, 2009). It was an advancement of the time that changed how enemy forces engaged one another in battle, but ultimately as time moved on was seen as inhumane.

Final Thought:  Quote "There is no app for boots on the ground. Never has been. Never will be!"  

Final Comment:  Human innovation will always drive technology and its advancements that I can say for sure. Whether or not technology will do the job of a soldier someday, I cannot assure anyone. A soldier is one of a country’s most honorable citizens. There is still now and always will be a strong pride in having a military full the country’s own flesh and blood, a real soldier; not a machine. Technology and Humans both make errors, which may be why we use a nice combination of both.  

References

Remarque, E. (1929). All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books.

Blodgett, B. (2009). Germany’s Use of Chemical Warfare in WWI: First World War. Retrieved from: http://firstworldwar.com/features/chemical_warfare.htm