France's political and military reaction in the aftermath of the first German chemical offensive in April 1915: The road to retaliation in kind

Abstract

Although France had been experimenting with chemical weapons when Germany launched its first lethal chemical offensive in spring 1915 in Langemark, the German initiative came as a huge tactical surprise to the country. Soon after the initial shock and the controversy that ensued on whether Germany had violated the laws of war that day, French authorities rapidly decided, without real political debate, to retaliate in kind. Although the country had to face heavy constraints, and due to a considerable scientific, industrial and financial effort, the French army was able to launch its first drifting cloud chemical attack on the battlefield only a few months after the German offensive. In the storm of the war and at this stage of conflict, when urgency was the only consideration and political influence far less than military, the French authorities did not realize that adopting chemical weapons in retaliation, ten months before Verdun, was one of the steps that would lead to the totalization of warfare and characterize the rest of the Great War.