At the end of World War I, after years of witnessing the worst of industrial slaughter - machine guns, air raids, massive artillery barrages, fire weapons - the world reacted with unique horror and disgust to a weapon that had caused about 1% of war deaths: poison gas. In 1925, the Geneva Protocol was ratified, banning "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices."
Why? And why not sign similar treaties forbidding the use of automatic-fire weapons, or explosive shells, or air raids? Does it matter whether you are killed by a bullet or poison gas?
Wilfred Owen, a British veteran of the war, is recognized as England's greatest poet of World War I. This was a man who saw men around him die in a greater variety of violent ways than just about anyone reading this ever will. Below are his thoughts on the subject.
(I considered putting a trigger warning in this intro, but it occurs to me that we are fortunate in the times we live in, and none is necessary.)
Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
I wish to continue to live in times like ours.