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It's not just nuclear weapons that are celebrated in Westminster Abbey. The first person to use chemical weapons in large quantities in the Middle East (General Allenby) is buried there.
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri May 3rd, 2019 at 10:54:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Amman2Jerusalem to bridge the Jordan River ...

Allenby/King Hussein bridge - VIP service $115 pp

To leave Israel, each person pays a $50 surcharge.

After the War; Baker's Hope: Jordan River As Peace Sign | NY Times - May 15, 1991 |
Allenby Bridge Journal; A 15-Yard Span Over a Great Divide | NY Times - July 18, 1987 |

Gen. Edmond Allenby Marches into Jerusalem

The Palestine theater of war (there was another battle zone in the Middle East - the war in Mesopotamia/Iraq in which the British suffered one of their worst defeats - the siege of Kut el-Amara) was secondary to the European war (especially the western front, but also the eastern front) but on the other hand, it was a more dynamic and fast going war, unlike the static and indecisive war on the western front.

Turkey entered the war on November 2, 1914, after concluding a secret pact with Germany. The war in the Middle East started at the end of that month, when a British force, sent from India, landed in Basra and conquered it.

New Zealand Palestine Campaign - 2nd Battle of Gaza

The British gamble on winning a quick and daring victory at Gaza in March 1917 had failed. The commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, now drew up a more cautious plan for a second attempt to take the town, three weeks later.

Three of the EEF's infantry divisions, the 52nd (Lowland), 53rd (Welsh) and 54th (East Anglia), would attack together in a set-piece frontal assault, supported by as much firepower as Murray could scrape together. Extensions to the British railhead from El Arish allowed him to add 16 heavy guns to his artillery brigades' 92 18-pounder field guns and 24 4.5-inch howitzers. Gaza's proximity to the Mediterranean coast enabled naval support from the French coastal defence ship Requin and two Royal Navy monitors. Murray also managed to get a shipment of eight tanks and 4000 gas shells from the United Kingdom. This would be the first time that gas was used in the Middle Eastern theatre.

Rewriting history ...

Mesopotamia 1920s Churchill's battle planes drop poisonous gas shells

A new way of controlling Iraq was needed, and the man who needed it most was Winston Churchill. As war secretary in Lloyd George's coalition government, Churchill had to square huge military budget cuts with British determination to maintain a grip on its mandate in Iraq.

The result became known as "aerial policing". It was a policy Churchill had first mused on in the House of Commons in March 1920, before the Iraqi uprising had even begun.

"It may be possible to effect economies during the course of the present year by holding Mesopotamia through the agency of the Air Force rather than by a military force. It has been pointed out that by your Air Force you have not to hold long lines of communications because the distance would only be one or one-and-a-half hours' flight by aeroplane. It is essential in dealing with Mesopotamia to get the military expenditure down as soon as the present critical state of affairs passes away."



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Fri May 3rd, 2019 at 12:33:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Mesopotamia 1920s Churchill's battle planes drop poisonous gas shells

I don't see that in the article itself. My recollection is that Churchill wanted to use poison gas against the Kurds (before they became the good guys) but for some reason it was never done.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri May 3rd, 2019 at 09:09:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, he had plans but not the planes to drop poison gas without risking the life of the pilot. Or at least, that is my recollection.
by fjallstrom on Sat May 4th, 2019 at 06:28:43 AM EST
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As a minister of war he insisted on using "poisonous gas" against revolting tribes in India in 1919. His later advocates insist that he meant use of tear gas, but nevertheless, the India Office refused.

He also encouraged the Air Marshal Trenchard to experiment with mustard gas against Mesopotamian rebels, but that never came to nothing. He honestly thought that Mesopotamia really wasn't worth an expensive, proper bombing...

Where he succeeded, was using gas against Soviet troops in Russia, of all places. Porton Down, of all places, had developed a new gas, DM, that was then tested against Russians in Murmansk-Archangel. It's decapacitating "vomit gas", now internationally banned.

by pelgus on Sat May 4th, 2019 at 02:50:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
ADAMSITE (DM) : Vomiting Agent | CDC |
U.S. soldiers are treated for exposure to DM (Adamsite) candle gas during training
Military Chemical Warfare Agent Human Subjects Testing

Arsenic-Based Warfare Agents: Production, Use, and Destruction

Diphenylchlorarsine (British Code, DA; German Code, Clark I), diphenylcyanoarsine (British Code, DC; German Code, Clark II), and diphenylaminearsine (common name, Adamsite; British Code, DM) typically belong to vomiting agents that are toxic through inhalation, ingestion, and skin contact. Exposure to aerosolized agents results in ophthalmic and pulmonary irritation which progresses to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, headache and mental status changes. Symptoms usually persist for several hours after exposure. Death has been reported with excessive exposure (Holstege, 2010). During combat, agents are dispersed as an aerosol that irritates the eyes and respiratory tract.

M device air dropped by the British during the incursions at Murmansk and Archangel in 1919

The War Gases by Dr. Mario Sartori (1939)

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Sun May 5th, 2019 at 07:16:31 AM EST
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