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United States Chemical Warfare Policy in World War II: A Captive of Coalition Policy?1
AMERICAN chemical warfare policy in World War II is generally viewed as direct and uncomplicated: use of gas by the Axis against the Allied coalition would lead to automatic retaliation. But a detailed examination of the evolution of American chemical warfare policy reveals patterns of consistency and inconsistency in the implementation of that policy. Conduct was at times in conflict with declaration. Above all, U.S. chemical warfare policy mirrored the nature of the alliance that controlled it.
World War I and the Interwar Period
In World War I and the interwar period, U.S. chemical warfare policy was relatively uncomplicated. By 1917, the use of gas by the Allied and Central powers on the Western, Italian, and Eastern fronts had become commonplace. In France and Flanders, it was often a matter of daily occurrence.2 Moreover, the Allied forces were glued together at the seams, not integrated. Even after the establishment of the Supreme War Council (5 November 1917) and the subsequent appointment of Marshal Ferdinand Foch as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces (14 April 1918), the British, French, and American forces operated largely on an independent basis. Foch coordinated, rather than directed, operations.3 Except for training purposes and in crisis situations, General Pershing ferociously resisted any attempt to distribute the units of the American Expeditionary Force in penny packets among the more seasoned French and British units.4
In the interwar period, the United States Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) maintained its independence and its advocacy of the future utility of chemical weapons despite the wishes of successive presidents, public pressure in favor of total chemical warfare disarmament, and fiscal neglect by the U.S. government and Army. Under the leadership of General Amos Fries (Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service, 1920-29), who saw disarmament as a communist plot, the Chemical Warfare Service and its allies in Congress, the American Chemical Society, and various veterans groups, succeeded in halting the ratification by the United States Senate of the Geneva Protocol outlawing the use of gas warfare.5 In the 1930s, therefore, the American military could assume that the United States, in any future war, would follow an independent policy in regard to the initiation of chemical...