Instead of using artillery shells or other projectiles, as had been done previously, German soldiers under the direction of Fritz Haber (1868-1934) released chlorine gas from storage cylinders and allowed the wind to carry the large gas cloud west across “ No Man’s Land.” The attack was devastating for the unprepared British, Canadian, French and Algerian defenders caught in the path of the chlorine, though German efforts to exploit the initial advantage were not ultimately successful. The attack at Ypres on 22 April 1915 was the first successful instance of gas warfare during the First World War. After these experiences, the Germans worked to innovate new methods of delivering poison gas. In both cases the chemical agents in the weapons were ineffective.
The Germans developed and manufactured artillery shells filled with tear gas and other chemical irritants and used them first against the British at Neuve-Chapelle in October 1914 (not to be confused with the more famous battle fought there in March 1915) and then against the Russians at Bolimów in January 1915. However, it was the German gas warfare program that achieved the earliest success. In the early months of the war the British also researched the weaponized use of tear gas agents and more toxic gasses including sulfur dioxide. The French army used rifle grenades filled with tear gas against the Germans beginning in August 1914, but the weapons proved extremely ineffective.
The introduction of gas warfare during the First World War was anticipated insofar as the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 admonished nations “to abstain from the use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gasses.” The scientific and industrial assets available to the belligerent nations, which sought to use their national resources for strategic advantage, made possible the mass-production of gas weapons.
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