Pre-Twentieth Century Timeline of Chemical and Biological Weapons

Biological and chemical weapons were not a twentieth century invention. In one form or another, militaries have employed biological and chemical agents for millennia. The following outline provides a brief overview of the pre-twentieth century history of such warfare. It is by no means an exhaustive summary, but a representative sample of the strategies used prior to World War I.

Ø 7th century BC - Assyrians used ergot (a fungal disease of rye) to poison water supplies. The fungus produces a natural hallucinogen related to LSD that also induces a disease widely known in later times as St Anthony’s Fire.

Ø c.600BC - The purgative hellebore was used during the siege of Cirrha, the port of Delphi. The defenders of Cirrha suffered violent diarrhoea resulting in their defeat.

Ø 500BC - A burning mixture of wood, pitch and sulphur was used to incapacitate a beleaguered Athenian force prior to assault.

Ø 431-404BC - Peloponnesian War. Arsenic smoke was used during the sieges of Plataea and Delium by the Spartans.

Warriors from the Pelopponesian War

Source: http://homepages.uc.edu/~fitzsiry/civhist.html

Ø 184BC - Hannibal was alleged to have fired earthen vessels full of venomous snakes onto the ships of Eumenes II of Pergamon.

Ø 82-72BC - Romans used ‘toxic smoke’ against the Charakitanes in Spain causing pulmonary problems and blindness, leading to their defeat in 2 days.

Ø 1155 - Siege of Tortona, Italy. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa conquered the town after poisoning the water supply.

Ø 1346 - Tartar army catapulted corpses of plague victims over the city walls in siege of Kaffa - supposed origin of Black Death in Europe.

Ø c.1500 - Leonardo da Vinci devised a chemical weapon: a mixture of powdered arsenic and powdered sulphur packed into shells to be fired against ships.

Ø 1650 - Polish artillery general Siemenowics fired spheres filled with the saliva of rabid dogs at his enemies.

Ø 1675 - Article 57 of Strasbourg Agreement of 27 August between French and German armies directed that neither side should use poisoned bullets. This was the first international agreement in modern history in which use of such weapons was prohibited.

Ø 1797 - Napoleon attempted to infect the inhabitants of the besieged city of Mantua with swamp fever during his Italian campaign.

Napoleon Bonaparte

source: http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/napoleon.htm

Ø 1812 - Capt. Thomas Cochrane RN submitted his plans for chemical weapons to be used in the Napoleonic War to a secret committee headed by the Duke of York.

Ø 1845 - Use of ‘green wood smoke’ by General Pilissier in Ouled Ria resulted in the massacre of the Kabyl tribe.

Ø 1855 - British War Department considered shells containing cacodyl and cacodyl oxide mixed with self-igniting liquid for use in Crimean War. Admiral Cochrane proposed the use of ships to disperse poison gas based on sulphur and charcoal during the siege of the Russian garrison at Sevastopol.

Ø 1874 - Conference of Brussels, held as a result of Russian initiative, reached an agreement prohibiting the use of poisons or poisonous weapons - Brussels Declaration.

Ø 1899 - Hague Declaration prohibited poison or poisoned arms. Twenty seven states finally ratified this treaty, including Russia (although no longer bound) and UK which finally signed in 1907. The United States did not sign.

Sources: http://www.mod.uk/issues/cbw/history.htm

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