History of Bio/Chem Warfare
History of Biological and Chemical Warfare "The use of biological weapons and efforts to make them more useful as a means of waging war have been recorded numerous times in history" (NBC-MED). [As early as the sixth century BC biological warfare has been reported, when the Assyrians poisoned the wells of their enemies with rye ergot. When plague broke out in the Tartar army camp in 1346 during its siege of Kaffa (present day Feodosia in Crimea), the Tartars set the corpses of those who died on catapults and flung them over the walls. The defenders were forced to surrender when an epidemic of plague engulfed the city. It is also believed that Russian troops used the same tactic against Sweden in 1710. Smallpox has also been used as a biological weapon on several occasions. It is a belief that in the fifteenth century Pizarro presented South American natives with contaminated clothing. The English were said t
After the war, it was agreed by all sides to outlaw the use of chemical warfare. The first large-scale use of chemical weapons came during World War I. During the Vietnam Conflict the United States used the chemical Agent Orange to destroy jungle growth and crops. One-fifth of Vietnam's mangrove forest and five hundred thousand acres of crop were also destroyed (Harnly). Until something is done to stop them, biological and chemical weapons will continue to be the "poor man's atomic bomb" (Watts). ] Fort Carillon, which was held by the same Native Americans, was lost to the English when huge losses due to the sickness forced the defenders out. Though in 1935 Italy used gas in Ethiopia, showing how fragile the compact was (Watts). 7 million gallons of the chemicals were spread over five million acres, destroying thirty-two percent of South Vietnam's upland forest. " The operation and motto fit perfectly as 17. Starting in 1914, both sides used various tear gases in attacks. By the time World War I had come to an end, more than 100,000 tons of various chemical agents were used (Encyclopedia Britannica) to kill and injure over one million people (Watts) in Europe. Yet while many times the common good has tried to outlaw them, there will always be people, governments and countries that continue to put the world at risk with these weapons in order to make themselves seem stronger. The use of the defoliants became known as Operation Ranch Hand, whose motto was, "Only you can prevent forests. Yet it was on April 22, 1915 that the Germans used thousands of cylinders of chlorine to attack the unprepared French Territorial and Algerian units along a four-mile line in Ypres.
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Acceptance Essays
