The Rise of Chlorine Gas: The First Mass Use of a Chemical Weapon

[@Ye4rZero]

It's also worth mentioning one of the casualties was the wife of the chemist who developed the gas as a weapon. A trained chemist herself she eventually shot herself in protest after being unable to dissuade her husband from making the awful weapon.

[@voidstrider801]

That is fucking dumb, how do you persuade someone when you are dead. No wonder he just made the weapons anyway, he clearly thought she was retarded and not worth listening to, and proceeded to develop the weapons as planned. Suicide is not an effective means of persuasion is the lesson to take away from this I suppose.

[@maxjoechl5663]

Clara Haber (née Clara Immerwahr). The first German woman to earn a PhD in chemistry. A progressive feminist and pacifist, she could not take her husband's nationalist ideology and eagerness to gas people for a Fatherland that, in 1933, would ultimately reject him for the 'crime' of being born a Jew.

[@caralho5237]

maybe she saw the horrors that would come beforehand useless, but understandable

[@franziskahuber9664]

And he still went on and made his weapon. Incredible.

[@Gnomkiller2000]

Yeah he only left the day after her death to watch the first test of his gas xD

[@Aegor1998]

"Humans are going to human" -Simon Whistler Awesome quote

[@regan3873]

Similar to his “men will men” quote from Casual Criminalist.

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

it is, and it doesn't say much about us hairless apes does it?

[@martinverner7390]

Yea.. very clever.. just like cats are going to cat, dogs are going to dog, elephants are going to elephant, horses are going to horse, tardigrade are going to tardigrade.. such depth..

[@lisachiappetti6092]

That is a t-shirt worthy quote

[@GooseGumlizzard]

not really

[@louiechidwick6034]

I used to work in an industrial size laundry. After an accidental dropping of a high strength bucket of bleach in the wash-house mixed with another cleaning product, (which I won't mention) caused the entire building to be evacuated for the rest of the day, I was shocked how easy it is to make this dreadful gas. Basically every high street sells the two ingredients to make this chemical weapon.

[@simonm1447]

If people mix sanitary cleaners containing chlorine with vinegar it's also possible to set free clorine gas, this stuff is sold in every supermarket. It's the same with some explosives like TATP, they can be made with products available for everyone in supermarkets.

[@owenshebbeare2999]

Pool chlorine is often sold in the same aisle as cleaning products in supermarkets, and you certainly dont want pool chlorine to mix with, say, dishwashing liquids. Fortunately accidents are pretty much unheard of, otherwise that storage regimen would have been changed.

[@Goldenkitten1]

As all the posts say they are often sold together at your average supermarket but the reason it isn't a concern is the amount you could make would be so small and without airflow it would pretty much go nowhere meaning the only person it would be likely to harm is the one actually mixing it.

[@voidstrider801]

@@Goldenkitten1 I recall reading a thread from /k/ where that happened, a leaf managed to gas himself, however it was something worse than chlorine he had created as it burned his skin, the gas mask did not protect him. You are correct in that anyone mixing chemicals with poor intentions will probably cause the mixer to injure themselves before anyone else most likely, and they can only create small quantities of the stuff. If this wasn't the case I imagine we would see a lot more small scale chemical attacks by terrorists or deranged individuals simply seeking to kill because they can if not for some other fucked up reason.

[@JohnDrummondPhoto]

I'm guessing that other chemical cleaner was ammonia, which when mixed with chlorine bleach will create a cloud of highly noxious ammonium chloride gas. I learned this as a high school student. No point in being mysterious about it. I believe those products have warning labels about not mixing each other.

[@heathercopeland21]

My great grandfather died at 51 from mustard gas sickness. He was a disabled WWI vet caused from mustard gas exposure.

[@dylanklebald8123]

​@nothanks9503deadly none the less. You wouldn't want it between your legs, under your arm pits or in your eyes. Anywhere were there is liquid

[@Thishandleisntavailableyo]

I'm sorry to hear that. And wow you pretty 😍

[@ignitionfrn2223]

1:10 - Chapter 1 - A new form of carnage 2:15 - Chapter 2 - Early chemical use 3:50 - Chapter 3 - The industrial age 5:15 - Chapter 4 - Chlorine 6:50 - Chapter 5 - Early days of WWI 8:50 - Chapter 6 - Chlorine gas 10:50 - Chapter 7 - 04/22/1915 12:10 - Chapter 8 - Further use 14:25 - Chapter 9 - The next generation

[@fungi5923]

The never ending story of course

[@SuperMadman41]

Thank you for the time stamps. Very useful

[@mbathroom1]

Thank you for your work

[@nikolayn4022]

He forgot to mention in which countries it already exists and is being developed.

[@mrcertainly]

Fritz Haber is someone who might be worth doing a video about. Long story short, he helped solve the world's food crisis pre-WW1 by finding a way to nitrogenate soil. Before then, people fought wars over fertilizer -- such as bat guano. Then he helped to create gas warfare in WW1. And he did later work on the development a gas that eventually became Zyklon B -- used in German concentration camps.

[@MikeJBeebe]

Haber is the most consequential human since Christ.

[@BiglyChungus]

Check simon’s biographics channel. He did a video on Haber

[@jhorn64]

except that Zyklon B wasn't made for that purpose. It was made as a pesticide and was used around the world, the nazis just found that it worked equally well at killing humans as it did insects and rodents so he cant really be faulted for that one.

[@HOAUSEOFGAINZ]

Check out sabatons song Father all about Haber

[@arnowisp6244]

@@MikeJBeebe Indeed. I'd also add the men behind the A bomb as well.

[@YoutubeBorkedMyOldHandle_why]

Very well explained Simon. I'm surprised though, you didn't mention that near Ypres in Belgium on 14 October 1918, adolf hitler was injured (temporarily blinded) in a British mustard gas attack. The war ended while he was still recovering. No idea how this might have influenced his future decisions, though I'm guessing the incident didn't fill him with joy.

[@demonprinces17]

He refused to use gas in WW2

[@xiro6]

I was thinking more on how the french chemical attack influenced that Germany for that first “successful” chemical attack. Funny the need of using that differentiation to make look like if the germans introduced the chemical warfare.

[@MrAndyLocksmith]

He didn’t mention it as it doesn’t suit his left wing rhetoric.

[@dsnodgrass4843]

It was said that he had a particular horror against gas for the rest of his life. Some (perhaps apocryphally) attribute the genesis of his trademark mustache to accommodating the fit of primitive gas masks after WW 1. That horror didn't stop him from authorizing the use of Zyklon B in the death camps, tho'.

[@demonprinces17]

@@dsnodgrass4843 his mustache comes from the war, had a full one but had to shave it to put on a gas mask

[@emom358]

I know it's a huge project, but a program about the worldwide war leftovers: land mines, unexploded artillery, dead zones, etc.

[@Joe125g20]

Yes! There are whole abandoned villages in France and Belgium that are so saturated with unexploded shells, chemicals and mines from WWI, they are still uninhabitable today.

[@MegaKat]

@@Joe125g20 yup, the red zones. I had a decent history teacher in HS and I remember him showing me the map. Farmers throughout Europe also have racks at the end of their driveways for when they plow their fields and *almost always* find unexploded ordinance.

[@PhuckedUpPhilosophy]

Great idea, hope Simon sees this.

[@FantasticMrFrog]

7:20 There was a second loophole in the 1899 Hague convention wording that was specifically applied at Ypres. The convention banned the use of *projectiles/shells* filled with chemicals .... but it said nothing about just laying canisters on the ground, opening the valves and letting the wind do the job.

[@daniellefrasco4022]

I was shocked that anyone could continue fighting while coughing up pieces of lung, but then I remembered he said Russians

[@ex-navyspook]

The metal band, Sabaton, wrote song about it. They see their "job" as to use music to bring forgotten historical events, good or bad, right or wrong, back into memory. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y3KplaqlrrOHaJY

[@zer0deaths862]

Still not as metal as the dude puking up chunks of his own brain.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

If it were modern day Brits they would have keeled over before even being hit with the chemical... I dont mean the modern British Army, I mean if they were conscripts from today's population.

[@woodywood245]

"Russia: where the phrase, 'and then it got worse' is practically a national motto." - Drachinifel

[@ihatemegatron216]

Russian men too angry to die.

[@wicklash9065]

Those 100 relentless souls are what inspire me to continue on in life. That is real grit.

[@jacob4920]

And now, after talking about the horrors of Chlorine Gas for fifteen minutes, let's have a word from our sponsor today: CLOROX!

[@DomoKuchikan]

He's no Tod CLOROX 🤣

[@duncanbrock7303]

Or gas mask. Either would be a good sponsor

[@justanotherbob69]

@@DomoKuchikan wow great ettiquette!

[@hkchan1339]

Big company sponsor , congrats Simon !!!

[@johnmassey1016]

Lol

[@sanddoom2089]

My Great Grandfather from my dad’s side was a US Veteran of WW1 and managed to survive a gas attack from the Germans. I don’t know the details of where it was but if I remember correctly it was on a bridge and my Great Grandfather had no wheee to go since jumping off the sides was certain death. I don’t know if he had a gas mask or not but he sadly breathed in a fair amount of chlorine gas which severely damaged his lungs. The gas essentials crippled him for the remainder of his life because his lung capacity was reduced to that of an 80 year old. He was very fortunate to survive.

[@meridien52681]

There's a famous poem by Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum est" which describes a chlorine gas attack in WW1. It is s stunning thing to read. Look it up. The title is part of a quote, "It is sweet and fitting", makes a complete sentence with the full quote, "pro patria mori", translates to "it is beautiful and fitting to die for one's country." Owen calls it "the old lie" when he describes the tortured deaths of young men cut down by the horror of war.

[@joshuacaithness678]

I studied this in English class! I couldn't imagine such an awful experience 😞

[@meridien52681]

@@joshuacaithness678 Yes, I never formally studied it, and you are fortunate to have done so. Someone I deeply admire told me about this and quoted it from memory. She delivered it with great feeling, her voice vibrating with emotion, and it stirred me to study war poetry on my own (I'm a relentless autodidact!).

[@lulujanuary]

I remember this poem, it's very graphic and unforgettable.

[@Thusal99]

I think the japanese Unit 731 and its experiments on the Mukden POW camp as well as the local chinese population would make a good video for this channel.

[@sk1ppman]

Good god, Unit 731. The Nazi's get brought up a lot for their war crimes but honestly nothing they did (short of the Holocaust) was on part with the Empire of Japan. The fact that most everyone involved with 731 got passes from the US still turns my stomach.

[@meloncaulii]

i’m researching this for remembrance day and i feel so incredibly uncomfortable. what happened is horrible and i wish i could live without ever knowing about this, but truly everyone should be educated about this so we really never forget and never repeat

[@MikeJBeebe]

"Dulce et decorum est" Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares 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 gas-shells dropping softly 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.

[@charlotteowens4644]

I live in Las Vegas Nevada USA. Everyday a train chugs thru town with tanks full of chemicals. Guess what some of them are loaded with.? Ya that stuff. We always keep in mind which way the wind blows here. If we see a cloud that is greenish, RUN AWAY !

[@lunaokittens9574]

Don't just run - yell "GAS, GAS, GAS!!!!!"...

[@stijnvierstraete3740]

And still in Belgium we can have problems with these shells. We have a place in front of the coast of the most expensive place in Belgium (Knokke) where all the leftovers are burried under a layer of mud in the sea. They are "checking" if they don't leak instead of cleaning this place. This place is called "paardenmarkt". Just look how close it is to the coast....

[@maxfullerton5228]

I was there a couple of years ago ! It's absolutely beautiful :). That is crazy !! I was sitting on the beach. Are u saying there are unexploded gas bombs there ?

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

The main reason Hitler was reticent to use chemical weapons in battle was his experience of getting gassed by them in WWI. He knew the hell his own troops would go through if the allies retaliated with their own chemical weapons.

[@hokutoulrik7345]

Was going to say this. That was a lot of the reason for him being on strong as hell pain killers 90% of the time towards the end of the war.

[@demonprinces17]

@@hokutoulrik7345 That was the fault of his quack

[@sharkuc]

That "he didn't want to use them because he'd had seen it first hand" line seems to be somewhat of a myth, or an exaggeration at least. I mean I'm sure it played along in his decision making process, but the main reasons were fear of retaliation in kind by the Allies, an acute rubber shortage meaning Germany couldn't produce gas masks in sufficient quantities to protect troops and civilians if the Allies did attack with chemical weapons and the fact that throughout the war the German army relied heavily on horses for logistics (carting weapons, ammunition and all sorts of goods around) and it was very difficult and impractical to protect those horses from chemical warfare. ref: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qGi6pqGJbdZ2sJI (A History of Nerve Agents - with Dan Kaszeta)

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

@@sharkuc The degree to which it played in his decision to not use them is one that is very open to debate, this is true. But, of the reasons you list, retaliation seems to be a common consensus and one reason I listed although I know it isn't the only one. Regardless of the reasons all parties involved are lucky that no one pulled that card as a main means for offense. Everyone got their hands dirty to some degree, some moreso than others. But we never saw anything close to the wholesale bombardments of WWI, thank God.

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

@@hokutoulrik7345 I haven't heard of that as the reason why but it seems plausible. His increasing drug use does seem to parallel his progression in the war. And as someone who has degenerative nerve disease I know how nasty pain killers can be. He was taking a cocktail that included three to four oral doses and one injection of dia-oxycodone and pervitin. Withdrawing from that would make a normal person want to die. Consider you're losing a war and facing execution? Might as well cheat the hangman...

[@chloefletcher9612]

Anyone else get the feeling that Simon is going to wind up hosting every single KZbin channel?

[@VenomStryker]

I love at the end he just gets up and walks away.

[@Greg-nw3rh]

I was just about to comment on that, completely agree. Be real weird if that ended on some kinda upbeat note.

[@staytuned2L337]

Same.

[@kittty2005]

@@staytuned2L337 You guys are buzz kills.

[@staytuned2L337]

@@kittty2005 how? Lol I personally think it's a tasteful way to end videos as heavy as these. I wasn't being sarcastic

[@kittty2005]

@@staytuned2L337 Because I thought the story was humorous, Heavy? You don't know from heavy.

[@notsam498]

Fritz Haber is one of the best cautionary tales of science without moral conscious. His life story is harrowing because of it. At my school one of our chemistry teachers often uses a brief overview about Haber to talk about ethics in chemistry and science.

[@pfadiva]

And the man's total loyalty to Germany didn't count when Hitler took power. Haber was born a Jew (converted to Christianity), wasn't a Nazi or an anti-Semite. Those things canceled any benefit he'd ever provided his country.

[@TheAnadromist]

Amazing story about the Russians. My own grandfather was wounded by gas in WWI, and spit blood all of his life.

[@joshuaortiz2031]

I was exposed to chlorine gas in the middle east when I was in the military. It fucked my health up and since I've been back home I've been deteriorating. I have strange fibromyalgia like symptoms that just keep getting worse as I get older and the people in my life think I'm just being a hypochondriac. People don't take invisible injuries seriously. If I had my legs blown off by an IED people would easily recognize the disability for what it is but since I look like I'm 'ok' everyone in my life has been dismissive of my worsening health problems. It's destroyed my social life and I am now a cynical asshole.

[@zakakhan1572]

Damn man.. I'm so sorry for what ur going through... Forget what people say man.. ur a hero

[@joshuaortiz2031]

@@zakakhan1572 I don't think I deserve more then others tbh. I think everyone who suffers from chronic health issues, whether they are a civilian or military/ex military should be treated with dignity. In America we shit on people who struggle with chronic health issues.

[@nightshadehelis9821]

Hire a uso rep if you haven't already. I was exposed to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was healthy my entire life until I deployed to the middle east. I returned home and immediately started bleeding when I went to the bathroom. One month later, I lost my entire large intestine. Now I'm on a mountain of medications and drugs just to live a "normal" life. If I did not have my disability rating, which I'm EXTREMELY grateful for, I would be homeless or dead.

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

we all know. some of us, like me, learned by experience. it gets very bad surprisingly quick, I didn't even mix that much.

[@joshuaortiz2031]

@@nightshadehelis9821 I'm working on increasing my disability rating now since the pact act passed. Hopefully it helps. Sucks that you have those problems with your digestive system I'm starting to have serious problems to. I have abdominal pain every day now.

[@IndustrialBonecraft]

"But, of course, human's are going to human..." Yep. About sums it up.

[@Pavlos_Charalambous]

When used to work for the water company. We used to walk or drive around the factories having always a gas mask by our side. The reason was that in case of an industrial accident the liquid chlorine used for cleaning the water could evaporate creating a cloud that could kill everybody in a 5 km radius.. And that's the most terrifying part about chlorine everyone can make a weapon out of it ..

[@SoundShinobiYuki]

In the 1970's here (Ontario Canada), there was a train derailment in a major city. LUCKILY, nothing actually happened- but the train was carrying tanks of chlorine gas. The *entire* city had to be evacuated for a week until they could safely remove the cars.

[@bernardfritts4173]

Simon, you and your team continue to do great work. Cheers 🍻

[@No_Feelings]

1:03 keyword there being SUCCESSFUL. Fun fact, the first attempted use of chlorine gas was a failure as winds blew it back into the wrong trenches.

[@WasabiSniffer]

I know you usually use it but the green tinge of that light is cleverly used

[@samanthar1214]

And that's when the dead men are marching again Osowiec then and again Attack of the dead, hundred men Facing the lead once again Hundred men Charge again Die again

[@Docsporseen1]

You beat me to it! One of my favorites from Sabaton!

[@samanthar1214]

@@Docsporseen1 I post Sabaton lyrics to Simon's videos as soon and as often as possible lol

[@darksaber2k]

#ExpectedSabaton

[@MegaKat]

Aaaaay, knew I'd find Sabaton in this thread lol

[@galaxygeckocreations]

Tbh one of my favorite things about Simon's vids are finding the Sabaton references in the comments

[@sam1812seal]

For some reason my chemistry teachers never told me that Fritz Haber was such an utter bastard, whilst happily extolling the virtues of his process for fertiliser manufacture.

[@WormholeJim]

Speaking of deadly gases accumulating, what Simon Whistler channel is covering how once when NASA biologists had succeeded growing and harvesting chili in space onboard the ISS and decided to celebrate making tacos using them for the whole crew, it coincided with the only available zero-G toilet breaking down beyond repair. Houston could only look on and comment laconically "Use your undergarments for ad hoc containers where appropriate."? It might be a megaproject-subject. At least I'm fairly certain that's the perspective of the astronauts involved.

[@battlesheep2552]

Only available? I thought the ISS always has one Soyuz capsule attached to act as a lifeboat, and those have toilets

[@SpaceMonkeyBoi]

Ww2 was definitely worse in terms of life loss, but ww1 definitely has its place for cruelty on its own

[@GrievousReborn]

WW1 was a meat grinder

[@joshuaortiz2031]

WW2 was much worse for civilians of certain ethnic minority groups in europe and for Chinese and Filipino civilians that lived in areas conquered by Japanese troops. In ww1 it was easy to survive as a civilian as the battle lines were mostly static and there were no genocidal armies. The eastern front in ww2 was also a meat grinder (Kursk, Stalingrad, Leningrad) not to mention battles in the pacific like Okinawa and Iwo Jima. All you have to do is look at the casualty statistics. The ratio of the number of combatants vs casualties is extremely high for the battles I mentioned not to mention the sheer number of total military and civilian deaths throughout the entirety if ww2 is unrivaled.

[@221b-l3t]

And pointlessness. The same General charging the same line with the same strategy 15 times, with massive casualties in the tens of thousands each time for years. Yes I'm looking at you Conrad v. Hötzendorf. First go crying to everyone we need a big war and then he screwed up so badly the Germans had to send over capable commanders... And don't even start with the italians. Which one was it that lost half a million men, trying the same strategy again and again? Meanwhile Churchill throwing every man he had into the Tripoli meat grinder only to end up being repelled by Ataturc on a horse... most pointless war ever. And everyone wanted it. Writers went on about how it would change Europe for the better for years, revitalize society. Change the class system and blablabla. They should have all been sent into no man's land.

[@paulfrancistorres7144]

@@221b-l3t I think the Italian one is named Luigi Cadorna. And General Douglas “Butcher of the Somme” Haig deserves a mention, I think

[@Bluesit32]

@@joshuaortiz2031 Yes, that's definitely it. WW1, it was hell on the battlefield. WW2, the hell was at home.

[@xcon3k]

The actual reason Hitler didn't use gas on the battlefield was down to him being a soldier from WW1 and him and his fellow soldiers suffered badly over its use. He also knew it could cause issues for his men too so he never liked the idea.

[@SprinkledFox]

Wow, what a great guy

[@TheLastRealWatchGuy]

At this point I’m just convinced Simon is trying to collect channels for some sort of world record.

[@NG-fk6wc]

The band Sabetton covered the Russian defiance in their song " Attack of The Dead Men". Good song

[@WasabiSniffer]

They’ve got a great discography. Like, pride and patriotism in other peoples’ heritage

[@travishighbaugh5245]

Love Sabaton and "Attack of the Dead Men."

[@kylebrotzel]

Attack of the Dead Men is my favourite WW1 story. A battle turns into a zombie attack. Besides, the gas was a mixture of chlorine and bromine

[@mbryson2899]

I used to have some sets of 1/72 scale figures from WWI (Airfix, maybe?) and one of them featured gas attack troops. For some reason those were more frightening than all the rest, rivaled only by the flamethrower guys.

[@colemarie9262]

@Tah BOO if he had any imagination, then yeah quite possibly.

[@gorsching]

The flamethrower guys and the shotgun Americans were both equally feared on the battlefield. Id guess they'd make them look menacing and when you start playing war you start imagining what the weapons can do to people in a trench

[@fajile5109]

@No Thanks real life lore > fictional lore

[@BigPuddin]

​@nothanks9503No, you didn't. Grow up.

[@anegaute]

Thing with Haber, as one of the minds behind the Haber-Bosch ammonia-fertilizer procedures, he is also an incredible name in the context of food production and possible starvation prevention.

[@fumanpoo4725]

I got a bit gassed as a pool tech back in 1986. I recall gasping and coughing up green while sitting on a curb listening to U2's Joshua Tree which had just come out.

[@JakeTheArmyGuy]

Here I was about to make an Attack of the Dead Men reference, but Simon beat me to it!

[@benpurcell4935]

Holy mackerel

[@WolfRoseQUEEN]

Since no one will do it I will Turmoil at the front Wilhelms forces on the hunt There’s a thunder in the east It’s an attack of the deceased They’ve been facing poison gas 7000 charge en masse Turn the tide of the attack And force the enemy to turn back And that’s when the dead men are marching again Osowiec then and again Attack of the dead, hundred men Facing the led once again Hundred men Charge again Die again Two combatants spar Hindenburg against the Tsar Move in 12 battalions large Into a Russian counter-charge They’ll be fighting for their lives As their enemy revives Russians won’t surrender, no Striking fear into their foe (You all can finish this)

[@LeNomEstYves]

Anybody heard about "The Wiper's Times"? It was a satirical newspaper written literally in the trenches of Ypres (Wipers) by some Brits. There's a pretty good movie about it here on KZbin.

[@colemarie9262]

Yes! They had to be young and hard as nails to have satire about a life like that, the poor guys.

[@designlady1954]

Mans inhumanity to man and it never ceases.

[@GK.Keith1066]

Gave me chills hearing about the Russians raising up from their defensive positions 😳

[@VosperCDN]

There's an episode from The Great War about it, and also Sabaton has a song/video on the event.

[@fungi5923]

Feuer Frei

[@devonwoodman3350]

@@VosperCDN sabaton is such a good band

[@crxtodd16]

Hot damn. Those soldiers were as hardcore as you can get. A moment of silence for them..

[@lunaokittens9574]

It would've looked like a scene out of a movie like "dawn of the dead"... 😳😳😳

[@rossbabcock3790]

I had a great uncle who was gassed. The tear ducts were burned. He always had a men's handkerchief to wipe tears. He had some tales of the trenches!

[@AvB.83]

Mounting a counter-charge against a force outnumbering them about 70:1, while coughing up blood and bits of their dissolving lungs... apparently Hitler never read about that battle, or else he would have never considered attacking Russia/the Soviet Union. The creators of Warhammer 40k however totally did read it.

[@sbsstorytelling]

The use of human as a verb was great, Simon! Good on you.

[@Drakehilt]

I grew up in Southern California in a small town in the high desert. Across the street from our house was a wide open field full of green bushes that would dry up turn into tumble weeds. We had a hedge around our house as well. Sometimes the wind would kick up to over 60 mph in the direction of our hedge. The entire giant field of weeds would end up piling up along our hedge making a wall of tumble weeds about 10 feet thick, 12 feet high, and about 100 feet long

[@dodoubleg2356]

The Swedish chemist who 1st began the research into chlorine & it's various uses only lived to the age of 44. Define irony, ha.

[@renaissanceredneck73]

I was not aware that prior to WWI there was a prohibition on chemical weapons, the 1899 Hague convention. So both sides decided to break that one...hmm

[@mollywantshugs5944]

Ironic that the guy who proposed chemical warfare in the Crimean War was named “Playfair”

[@Jack-he8jv]

probably a descendant of pope innocent.

[@Dirty20Gaming]

Was the pale green light on the globe in the background intentional? I've seen several colours so I'm wondering.

[@crxtodd16]

Jeez.... Calling it a nightmare probably is the most accurate way one could describe it. Bone chilling, to say the least.

[@twurtle12hd39]

One of my fav moments in ww1 was the Canadians reaction to the gas. Just peeing on a rag and holding it up to ur nose and mouth so that it helped counter the gas

[@mickydale8594]

The russians getting up from their defense position..that gave me goosebumps..they said not today lol

[@benmcreynolds8581]

Those 1st victims must of just thought they were walking through a thick fog.. Then realized it smelled but brushed it off to some natural occurrence to never think what outcomes were about to come, and then the effects sank in.. all this happening in a very short period of time..

[@chiedzawith2ds]

Crazy how a loophole in a warcrime is just regularly used against civilians

[@francispitts9440]

Dead is dead, it’s the poor souls who survive and are completely destroyed by these horrendous weapons. It’s not a pleasant way to die but at least suffering will end. The survivors pay the price for the rest of whatever is left of their lives. There’s nothing good about war.

[@francispitts9440]

@Tom Foster That’s the truth.

[@itsamachineworld]

There's something more viscerally disturbing thinking about men coughing up their literal lungs in pieces than just blood. I had to pause the video at the description of the Attack of the Dead Men just to emotionally process that, which I rarely have to do with these macabre video topics.

[@igiem368]

There is just something macabre about watching a video about Chlorine Gas and then looking down at seeing “released 3 weeks ago” in the caption.

[@mitchellneu]

🎵Father of toxic gas and chemical warfare His dark creation has been revealed Flow over no man’s land, a poisonous nightmare A deadly mist on the battlefield🎵 -“Father” by Sabaton

[@joegordon5117]

"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." Wilfred Owen captured the nightmarish horror of a gass attack in "Dulce et Decorum est"

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

1977, basic training.....marched into the gas hut, the shout off GAS !!! GAS!!! GAS!!! being shouted out by the instructors as clouds of CS gas (tear gas) starts to fill the room, fumbling for my mask, trying to get it on and in place just as the first hints of the gas reaches me, holding in my breath, my lungs burning with the strain, oddly enough thinking, I really shouldn't of had that last cigarette before going into the hut, mask in place, explosively expelling the breath I had been holding in order to clear the mask of any gas that may of gotten in when putting it on....gasping for clean air, and still being able to taste a hint of the gas.....then, the minor burning hits in my armpits and crotch where the gas interacts with my sweat.......hearing the retching and panic as those not quick enough to don their mask start puking and panicking. The NCO's try to calm them down and get them to go through the drills they have been taught, a few had to be removed from the hut. Next came the horror, and NCO orders you to remove your mask, and state your name rank and you nine digit SIN (Social Insurance Number) both frontwards and backwards, I've been warned about this and committed my SIN both ways to my memory, and upon completing the task, allowed to exit the hut....my eyes and nose streaming with tears and snot, made to walk around with my arms out spread to help the gas residue to clear away.........after a bit, I am better..... I sit down with a mate on the grass watching the next lot enter into the hut, I fish my cigarettes out of my work dress jacket, offer one to my mate who is commenting about what those poor bastards are about to face, we light up, take a good long drag off the smoke and immediately start coughing and choking, we toss away our smokes, and NCO comes by, seeing this and says, you shouldn't of taken you smokes with you into the hut, they are ruined now.....then I think, fuck, I have my toothbrush in my pocket as well..... Three years late, I am the training NCO and a very junior one at that. I enter into the hut with some newbies, GAS!!!! GAS!!! GAS!!!! comes the warning, and sure enough one of them wasn't quick enough or didn't follow the drills correctly and is panicking, I go to help, he has torn off his mask and freaking out, I go to grab him and escort him out, thinking about how I was gonna blast him, when he reaches up, grabs my mask and tears it off of me, now I get hit with the full force of the gas. Gasping and choking, I get him out, go through the decontamination drill and recover my cigs from where I left them. I left the bollocking of the recruit to the seniour NCO's, enjoying that show with my cig and coffee. A year later, on a bridging exercise conducted by 1st Engineering Regiment of CFB Chilliwack and the US Army up from Fort Lewis my MP unit is designated and tasked with playing the enemy when not conducting traffic control duties along the rough dirt logging and back roads connecting Harrison Lake and Squamish BC. We brought along our 40 mm tear gas gun. Late one night, we came across a US detachment in a hollow attempting bridge the river at a likely crossing point. We light them up with small arms fire (blanks), toss in some thunderflashes, and pump in around a dozen tear gas canisters into their midst, pull out to watch the show while enjoying a smoke....seems the Americans didn't bring their gas masks with them.....later we were told not to gas the Yanks anymore. And that was my experience with gas/chemical warfare, true it was only non-lethal CS tear gas, but it was enough to put the fear of god into my atheistic heart. After my NBC training and experience, my fear of nuclear weapons went from number one to number three on the NBC scale, with Chemical taking top spot followed by biological a close 2nd and nuclear a distant 3rd. Some 40 years later and long after I have retired from the Forces, I still fear chemical warfare the most.

[@joegordon5117]

@@gumpyoldbugger6944 quite an experience! Recall years ago former colleague who was nurse in TA saying even the medical staff had to do the gas tent, nit just to drill them what to do if gassed but so they knew first hand what any squaddie brought in with gas inhalation was going through. Sensible but blood unpleasant!

[@ryanroberts1104]

The way you just get up and leave at the end is friggin' creepy.

[@BAC-bm8em]

Nice touch talking about a deadly pale green gas with a pale green backlight.👍

[@mambofornasa]

Some of the topics you cover in this channel are never wracking!!

[@nickbarker9712]

Just watched a beardless baby faced simon from 6vyears ago followed by this...time is weird

[@Cherry-bq4oh]

7:00 I coulda sworn you were about to say "here's a word from our sponsors!"

[@raoulduke344]

"Gas! Gas! Quick boys, an ecstasy of fumbling". Wilfred Owen's anti-way poem Dulce Et Decorum Est paints a very clear picture of the horrors that poisonous gas could unleash, haunted by seeing a man "drowning under a sea of green".

[@kirkoneill1387]

Would it be offensive to do a similar video going into depth of the madness behind zyklon-B? Only because I find your videos educational and informative. That maybe humanity will never do such things again

[@jonathanmatthews4774]

Ahhhh, humanity. Nothing but sunshine, roses and rainbows.

[@le_travie7724]

Another awesome channel with excellent content. You've done it again Whistle Boy 👏🏾👏🏾

[@twm0904]

Me: listening to this while killing enemies with gas grenades in Far Cry 6 “Interesting”

[@terryhill545]

AGENT ORANGE just a friendly chemical.Still with us today.Visit any VA hosp for details.

[@andytom]

Or better yet. Visit Vietnam

[@commisaryarreck3974]

Oy vey It's okay if we do it!

[@pozipoz5840]

You are becoming a superstar on KZbin simon, just watched some of your vids on an American reaction channel, 1 of the women thinks you talk too fast 😀 well done.

[@tailssonicteam1604]

"Humans are gonna human". That is quite possibly the best statement made in any video I've ever watched. So accurate.

[@UpperAquatics]

Thank you for bringing up VX! I remember reading about it and talk about a horrible chemical weapon developed by the US. I highly recommend looking into it if you get a chance.

[@Unknowngfyjoh]

I have stood in that spot in Ypres, Belgium where the first chlorine gas attack took place

[@DonJuan3232]

Can you do an episode on the Bombing of the Greenpeace Ranbow Warrior?

[@mikey8915]

I honestly wish my teachers in school went this much in depth back in the day...I likely would have stayed awake lol

[@brianstocks8049]

NICE step out, well done

[@NicheEscape]

Thoroughly enjoyed this one mate, cheers 👌

[@CasevacDevilDoc]

Watched this on Thanksgiving, fitting. Smallpox blankets anyone? Edit: the 2007 usage was interesting, they would steal cylinders from production plants and then use them in bazaars or other communal areas. I remember a fellow corpsman opening a body bag in a helo (we used them to fend off hypothermia) only to get a face full of gas contained there within. He spent the rest of the flight puking out the aft end . It really drops the spo2

[@budwilliams6590]

Simon is a cereal killer. As long as it's magic spoon.

[@kirojay6533]

your channels are the best of youtube so much interesting keep your excellent work i'm learning so much.

[@paulkurilecz4209]

The chlorine that is used in cleaning is actually Sodium hypochlorite (NaClO3) which is a very strong oxidizer. When bleach is mixed with ammonia, gaseous chlorine is produced.

[@Horazzify]

I grew up and still live 16 minutes away from largest deposit of mustard gas on earth. We would have to do gas leak drills in school

[@wh8787]

One theory on why the Nazis didn't use chemical weapons on the battlefield is that they were worried about the potential for retaliation. Basically, they didn't know what the British and Soviets had in their own arsenals, if the Nazis used them first, then there was nothing to stop the other side using them in retaliation. They certainly had no moral qualms about using them considering they used them en masse to exterminate prisoners and victims of the Holocaust.

[@cindys9491]

Right. I heard that AH was given bad information that the Allies already had them and would throw them back on Germany, and that's allegedly why he didn't use them in combat.

[@wh8787]

@@cindys9491 yes, pretty much this. It's not like they went and developed things like tabun and sarin for the lols, they just didn't want to break the taboo and have the RAF, USAAF, and Soviet red army air force all raining chemical hell on German cities. Having your cities bombed is one thing, having them gassed, especially when you have less and less of a capacity to actually do anything in retaliation is quite another.

[@jeffmccrea9347]

When I was a kid in the 1960's, we had a next door neighbor who was a survivor of a mustard gas attack in WW I. When he would talk, you could almost visualize, in your mind, a twisted larynx by the sound of his voice. He was perfectly understandable but his voice, to this day, for me, was indescribable.

[@chesspiece81]

Boy Simon just mic dropped the end of this video with no outro or anything it just ended. I guess just like your life if hit with these chemical weapons with no PPE handy.

[@Blargaha]

Speaking of, check out Woods of Ypres. A pretty solid doom band that's, unfortunately, not active any more

[@staytuned2L337]

Definitely says something about a country when they're the only one to opt out of "hey, don't purposefully poison people"

[@kensurrency2564]

The US also did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles (which was president Wilson’s pet project) for technical reasons. It too was a flawed treaty which unsurprisingly did not prevent future world warfare.

[@sashamercier3337]

My great grandfather was in WWI when the Germans gassed the front lines. He was blown off his feet by a gas shell and lay in a shell crater, his legs shredded and unable to escape the gas. He drunk copious amounts of muddy water collecting in the crater so that he could urinate, cutting pieces from his uniform to urinate on an breathe through. It had been raining heavily and he was stuck in that quagmire with inflamed, damaged lungs for 3 days and nights until rescuers could come and get him. Reportedly he was never the same. He survived liver cancer in 1953, only to die in 1958 of pleurisy.

[@loose_cannon428]

Jesse, we need to shift manufacturing methamphetamines to chlorine gas for the army.

[@NOTSOSLIMJIM]

I was part of a chlorine attack in Baghdad. I can say for a fact, that shit is scary.

[@davidmcintyre8145]

Thomas Cochrane offered a plan to the Admiralty to use what he called"Stink vessels"as well as"Explosion vessels"(a form of fire ship that as it says exploded),the"Stink vessels" being filled with materials that burned various materials and chemicals to produce noxious and hazardous/poisonous smoke in an enemy held harbour in the 1810s

[@TwinBleaks]

Thanks, Simon, for teaching me something I never knew about my hometown of Jersey City 😊

[@twocvbloke]

It's a horrible and dangerous gas, especially if you accidentally create it when unintentionally mix bleach with other cleaning agents, did this once when de-nastying the wheelie bin (forgetting I'd previously added stuff to combat the rotting fly mess inside it), and the cloud that flew out was just horrific to experience, even if it was only briefly... :S

[@jessiejones6633]

I did it once as a kid when I was cleaning the toilet. I had been using Ajax to clean the outside of the toilet and had gotten some in the water in the bowl. I the poured bleach in the water to clean the bowl. Caught a face full of chlorine gas almost immediately. Hurriedly flushed the toilet which saved me.

[@PhuckedUpPhilosophy]

@@jessiejones6633 you can even make it by peeing in a toilet that was cleaned with bleach, since pee contains ammonia. I did this before and while I didn’t hurt myself, it sure made some rancid fumes that forced me to leave the room.

[@VinnyUnion]

Woah doing chemical science in your home, aren't we?

[@DrDingsGaster]

@@PhuckedUpPhilosophy This is why I'm terrofied of peeing after cleaning my toilet xD;

[@Senacacrane]

I read about WWI in history class and this is one of the most brutal things I've ever heard of in terms of chemical warfare.

[@immahFIRINmahlazah]

Love seeing fact boi I clicked real quick

[@BonShula]

Fact boi Does not really know anything