History of Chemical and Biological Weapons Before World War I

 The history of western civilizations using biological and chemical weapons began thousands of years ago. The earliest use of biological weaponry for military purposes by a western civilization was in 600 B.C. by Athenians. They used the hellborus root to poison the water supply for the enemy’s city during the siege of Kirrha. This poisoning caused severe diarrhea that lead to an easy conquest for the Greeks.

The first use of chemical warfare began with the Spartans in the battle of Peloponnesian War. They combined pitch, a resin like substance that is extracted from tar, and sulphur onto wood boards. They burned these boards under the enemy walls to produce a choking smoke that caught the enemy off guard and allowed the Spartans to take the city with ease.

After these tactics proved useful, other armies began to adopt these strategies. The methods of chemical warfare evolved when arsenic was discovered. Armies began using arsenic smoke to produce clouds to drive out enemies during siege warfare. Veit Wolff von Senftenberg wrote about the uses of arsenic gas in the wars between the Christians and the Turk “It was a sad business. Christians must never use so murderous a weapon against other Christians. Still, it is quite in place against Turks and other miscreants.” (HILMAS et al. 2008: 11) This reference to the Turks identifies them as the other or not of the same group. This is the idea behind what is known as the structure of violence. By identifying the Turks as miscreants, it insinuates that these people deserve die by the use of such a murderous weapon.

            The technology of biological weapons increased as the knowledge of disease and sickness grew. Once militaries realized how diseases spread, they began to use it as a more effective weapon. This began simply with the use of infected corpses being catapulted over enemy walls. This idea was also applied to poisoning water supplies with infected corpses. This idea was perpetually used as to conquer civilization with the use of smallpox infected blankets that were given to the Native Americans. By using these methods, smaller armies were only required to eliminate a large enemy force that was debilitated by the spread of infection.