Dear Richard,
Excellent reply, as usual. Congratulations.
It so happens that I was working on the revised translation of _The World
Crisis_ this afternoon.
This is what WSC writes on p. 473 of the Penguin edition (the concluding paragraphs of the chapter entitled "The Fall of the
Government" in all editions) :
At the Admiralty we were in hot pursuit of most of the great key inventions and ideas of the war [...]. Poison gas alone we had
put aside - but not, as has been shown, from want of comprehension.
A. C.
Professor Antoine CAPET, FRHistS
Head of British Studies
University of Rouen
76821 Mont-Saint-Aignan
France
[email protected]
'Britain since 1914' Section Editor
Royal Historical Society Bibliography
Reviews Editor of CERCLES
http://www.cercles.com/review/reviews.html
===========
From: Editor, Finest Hour
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2013 5:18 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ChurchillChat] Re: From the Guardian: Winston Churchill's shocking
use of chemical weapons
On second thought, why offer it privately? Churchillians will need the ammo. What with the Syria business, people who always
equate "us" with "them" will inevitably try to say "we" were just as bad....
My name is Mark Edger and I am a researcher working in the BBC history development team. I am currently doing some work looking at
the development of chemical weapons by Britain during the first world war and Winston Churchill’s advocacy of their use both
during the war and against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. I was wondering if this is something that you might be
able to discuss with me at some point? It would be really useful to get an experts eye view on the history and also discuss where
documents pointing to this advocacy might be?
Dear Mr Edger:
Historians from Sir Martin Gilbert forward have covered these topics so often in the past that I am surprised they still raise
controversy. No doubt their shock value is still high, given what's been going on in Syria.
Churchill himself confused the subject when he referred to "poison gas" instead of tear gas (which he defined as "lachrymatory
gas") on the question of Iraqi rebels in 1921. See for example Martin Gilbert's Churchill Centre lecture, "Churchill and Bombing
Policy":
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/images/pdfs/for_educators/Gilbert%20TCC%20Lecture%20CHURCHILL%20AND%20BOMBING%20POLICY.pdf
Quoting from the above: "Continuing to use the Royal Air Force in Iraq would entail, as Churchill explained to Air Marshal
Trenchard, ‘the provision of some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not death...'" In
the event, gas of any kind was not used.
Churchill's general philosophy leading up to WW2 remained along the same lines—as illustrated by this comment to the House of
Commons on 13 May 1932 (my book* page 190):
"Nothing could be more repugnant to our feelings
than the use of poison gas, but there is
no logic at all behind the argument that it is
quite proper in war to lay a man low with
high-explosive shell, fragments of which
inflict poisonous and festering wounds, and
altogether immoral to give him a burn with
corrosive gas or make him cough and sneeze
or otherwise suffer through his respiratory
organs.…The attitude of the British Government has
always been to abhor the employment of
poison gas. As I understand it, our only procedure
is to keep alive such means of studying
this subject as shall not put us at a hopeless
disadvantage if, by any chance, it were used
against us by other people."
Accordingly, in World War II he was always prepared to use gas ruthlessly--if
it were first used by the enemy.
Often cited without context is his 1943 remark about "drenching Germany" with poison gas. This was a response, not a
recommendation. From FINEST HOUR 117, Winter 2002-03, Q&A column, pages 43/47:
Q: "In February 1943, during the German counter-offensive in the Donets Basin, Churchill was informed that the Germans might use
poison gas against the Russians. What was Churchill’s response?
A: "In a minute to the Chiefs of Staff Committee Churchill wrote, 'We shall retaliate by drenching the German cities with gas on
the largest scale.'"
As to the use of "poison" gas against the Bolsheviks, I do not have a quotation to hand. But, given his consistency on what to use
and when to use it, from World War I forward, I am sure it would be along the same lines.
We have to consider attitudes at the time. After the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian exit from WW1, this same Churchill
advocated sending a "commissar" (as he put it) to Lenin, who would offer—in exchange for Russia re-entering the car—that Britain
would guarantee Lenin's revolution!
I think this illustrates that in both World Wars, Churchill's main aim was victory. To that end he would consider almost anything,
although he never advocated the first use of poison gas.
I have always been impressed with the words of his daughter Lady Soames: "My father would have done almost anything to win the
war, and I daresay he had to do some pretty rough things. But they didn't unman him."
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