Editing Chemical weapons in World War I (section)

== Post-war ==
By the end of the war, chemical weapons had lost much of their effectiveness against well trained and equipped troops. By that time, chemical weapon agents had inflicted an estimated 1.3 million casualties.<ref>Schneider, Barry R. (1999). ''Future War and Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC''. Praeger. p. 84. {{ISBN|0-275-96278-4}}.</ref>

Nevertheless, in the following years, chemical weapons were used in several, mainly colonial, wars where one side had an advantage in equipment over the other. The British used poison gas, possibly [[adamsite]], against [[Russian Civil War|Russian revolutionary]] troops beginning on 27 August 1919<ref name="Churchill">{{cite news|title=Winston Churchill's shocking use of chemical weapons|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weapons|access-date=17 April 2017|work=The Guardian|date=1 September 2013}}</ref> and [[Alleged British use of gas in Mesopotamia in 1920|contemplated using]] chemical weapons against Iraqi insurgents in the 1920s; Bolshevik troops used poison gas to suppress the [[Tambov Rebellion]] in 1920, Spain used chemical weapons in Morocco against [[Rif]] tribesmen throughout the 1920s<ref name="HD.shtml">{{cite web|year=2005 |url=http://www.cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Blister/HD.shtml |title=Blister Agent: Sulfur Mustard (H, HD, HS) |publisher=CBWInfo |access-date=30 July 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070724063602/http://www.cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Blister/HD.shtml |archive-date=24 July 2007 }}</ref> and Italy used mustard gas in Libya in 1930 and again during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1936.<ref name="rosenheck03">{{cite news |first=Dan |last=Rosenheck |title=WMDs: the biggest lie of all |work=New Statesman |date=25 August 2003 |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200308250011 |access-date=30 July 2007}}</ref> In 1925, a Chinese [[warlord]], [[Zhang Zuolin]], contracted a German company to build him a mustard gas plant in [[Shenyang]],<ref name="HD.shtml" /> which was completed in 1927.

Public opinion had by then turned against the use of such weapons which led to the [[Geneva Protocol]], an updated and extensive prohibition of poison weapons. The Protocol, which was signed by most First World War combatants in 1925, bans the use (but not the stockpiling or production) of lethal gas and bacteriological weapons among signatories in international armed conflicts.<ref name="GP">{{cite web|url=https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/protocol-prohibition-use-war-asphyxiating-poisonous-or-other-gasses-and-bacteriological-methods-warfare-geneva-protocol|title=Geneva Protocol: Protocol For the Prohibition of the Use In War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases, And of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (Geneva Protocol)|publisher=[[Nuclear Threat Initiative]]}}</ref> Most countries that signed ratified it within around five years; a few took much longer—Brazil, Japan, Uruguay, and the United States did not do so until the 1970s, and Nicaragua ratified it in 1990.<ref>{{cite web |year=2005 |url=http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/cbw_research_doc/cbw_historical/cbw-hist-geneva-parties.html|title=High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Protocol |publisher=Stockholm International Peace Research Institute |access-date=30 July 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711062700/http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/cbw_research_doc/cbw_historical/cbw-hist-geneva-parties.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=11 July 2007}}</ref> The signatory nations agreed not to use poison gas against each other in the future, both stating "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world" and "the High Contracting Parties ... agree to be bound ''as between themselves'' according to the terms of this declaration."<ref>{{cite web |author=Third Geneva Convention |date=17 June 1925 |url=http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1918p/bactpois.html |title=Text of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention |publisher=Brigham Young University |access-date=4 August 2007}}</ref>

Chemical weapons have been used in at least a dozen wars since the end of the First World War;<ref name="rosenheck03" /> they were not used in combat on a large scale until Iraq used mustard gas and the more deadly nerve agents in the [[Halabja chemical attack]] near the end of the eight-year [[Iran–Iraq War]]. The full conflict's use of such weaponry killed around 20,000 Iranian troops (and injured another 80,000), around a quarter of the number of deaths caused by chemical weapons during the First World War.<ref>{{cite news |first=Farnaz |last=Fassihi |date=27 October 2002 |title=In Iran, grim reminders of Saddam's arsenal |work=The Star-Ledger |url=http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?/specialprojects/mideaststories/me1209.html |access-date=30 July 2007 |archive-date=13 December 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213061050/http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/index.ssf?%2Fspecialprojects%2Fmideaststories%2Fme1209.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

=== The Geneva Protocol, 1925 ===
[[File:Soviet chemical weapons canisters from a stockpile in Albania.jpg|thumb|Chemical weapons canister and stockpile.<ref>{{Cite web |title=File:Soviet chemical weapons canisters from a stockpile in Albania.jpg - Wikipedia |date=30 November 2006 |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soviet_chemical_weapons_canisters_from_a_stockpile_in_Albania.jpg |access-date=2022-08-02 |publisher=commons.wikimedia.org |language=en}}</ref>]]

The [[Geneva Protocol]], signed by 132 nations on June 17, 1925, was a treaty established to ban the use of chemical and biological weapons among signatories in international armed conflicts.<ref name="GP"/> As stated by Coupland and Leins, "it was fostered in part by a 1918 appeal in which the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) described the use of poisonous gas against soldiers as a barbarous invention which science is bringing to perfection".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Robin Coupland |first=Kobi-Renée Leins |date=2005-07-20 |title=Science and Prohibited Weapons – ICRC |url=https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/weapons-biotechnology-200705.htm |access-date=2022-08-01 |website=Science Magazine |language=en-us}}</ref> Chemical warfare agents that contained bromine, nitroaromatic, and chlorine were dismantled and destroyed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haas |first=Rainer |date=1999-03-01 |title=Destruction of chemical weapons – Technologies and practical aspects |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02987115 |journal=Environmental Science and Pollution Research |language=en |volume=6 |issue=1 |page=19 |doi=10.1007/BF02987115 |pmid=19005858 |bibcode=1999ESPR....6...19H |s2cid=185978 |issn=1614-7499}}</ref> The destruction and disposal of the chemicals did not consider the long-term and adverse impacts on the environment.

The Protocol does not ban the stockpilling or production of chemical weapons<ref>{{Cite web |title=Arms Control and Disarmament |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/disarmament |access-date=2022-08-01 |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia}}</ref> as well as the use of such weaponry against non-ratifying states and in internal disturbances or conflicts, and permits reservations that allow signatories to adopt the policy of [[no first use]].<ref name="GP"/> As a result, the [[Chemical Weapons Convention]] (CWC) was drafted in 1993, which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. Despite there being an international ban on chemical warfare, the CWC "allows domestic law enforcement agencies of the signing countries to use chemical weapons on their citizens".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chen |first=Alexandra |date=2022-01-19 |title=Chemical Weapons and their Unforeseen Impact on Health and the Environment |url=https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjteil/vol12/iss1/1 |journal=Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law |volume=12 |issue=1}}</ref>

=== Effect on World War II ===
All major combatants stockpiled chemical weapons during the [[Second World War]], but the only reports of its use in the conflict were the Japanese use of relatively small amounts of mustard gas and [[lewisite]] in China,<ref>{{cite web |year=2003 |url=http://co.pinal.az.us/PubHealth/BDPR/history/history_b.asp |title=History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: 1901–1939 A.D. |publisher=Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response, Pinal County |access-date=30 July 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014111921/http://co.pinal.az.us/PubHealth/BDPR/history/history_b.asp |archive-date=14 October 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0208/timeline.chemical.weapons/content.3.html |title=1930s |publisher=CNN |access-date=30 July 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071123153113/http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0208/timeline.chemical.weapons/content.3.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=23 November 2007}}</ref> Italy's use of gas in Ethiopia (in what is more often considered to be the [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War]]), and very rare occurrences in Europe (for example some mustard gas bombs were dropped on Warsaw on 3 September 1939, which Germany acknowledged in 1942 but indicated had been accidental).<ref name="HD.shtml" /> Mustard gas was the agent of choice, with the British stockpiling 40,719 tons, the Soviets 77,400 tons, the Americans over 87,000 tons and the Germans 27,597 tons.<ref name="HD.shtml" /> The destruction of an American cargo ship containing mustard gas led to many [[Air Raid on Bari|casualties in Bari, Italy]], in December 1943.

In both Axis and Allied nations, children in school were taught to wear gas masks in case of gas attack. Germany developed the poison gases [[tabun (nerve agent)|tabun]], [[sarin]], and [[soman]] during the war, and used [[Zyklon B]] in their [[extermination camp]]s. Neither Germany nor the Allied nations used any of their war gases in combat, despite maintaining large stockpiles and occasional calls for their use.<ref group="nb">The US reportedly had about 135,000 tons of chemical warfare agents during WW II; Germany had 70,000 tons, Britain 40,000 and Japan 7,500 tons. The German [[nerve gas]]es were deadlier than the old-style suffocants (chlorine, phosgene) and blistering agents (mustard gas) in Allied stockpiles. [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] and several American generals reportedly called for their use against Germany and Japan, respectively (Weber, 1985).{{Full citation needed|date=March 2023}}</ref> Poison gas played an important [[Gas chamber#Germany|role in the Holocaust]].

Britain made plans to use mustard gas on the landing beaches in the event of an [[Operation Sea Lion|invasion of the United Kingdom]] in 1940.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/sixty-secret-mustard-gas-sites-uncovered-1335343.html |title=Sixty secret mustard gas sites uncovered |access-date=18 August 2013 |location=London |work=The Independent |first=Christopher |last=Bellamy |date=4 June 1996}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.britarch.ac.uk/projects/dob/crom2b.html|title=Chemical Weapons against Invasion |publisher=Council for British Archaeology |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070709113825/http://www.britarch.ac.uk/projects/dob/crom2b.html| archive-date=9 July 2007 |access-date=30 July 2007}}</ref> The United States considered using gas to support their [[Operation Downfall|planned invasion of Japan]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Barton J. |last=Bernstein |date=August–September 1985 |title=Why We Didn't Use Poison Gas in World War II |journal=American Heritage |volume=36 |issue=5 |pages=40–45 |pmid=11616497 |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/5/1985_5_40.shtml |access-date=29 April 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929120950/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/5/1985_5_40.shtml |archive-date=29 September 2007 }}</ref>