Science and War
Many a scientist, contemplating with heavy heart last week the outbreak of war in Europe, recalled with bitterness the layman's charge that "Science has made war horrible." Scientists do not feel that science is responsible for the frightfulness of modern war. They have pursued the conquest of nature in their laboratories and it is not their guilt if men of bad will have snatched up their discoveries and misapplied them to the conquest and murder of man. The first man who discovered that fire could be made by twirling sticks or striking flints was, in a sense, a scientist. It was not his fault that fire was later used to burn people at the stake.
By definition, the aim of science is not to produce but to know. Thus many "pure" scientists, who pursue knowledge for its own sake, do not consider the industrial and military technologists who apply other people's knowledge as scientists at all. The application may be far removed from the original discovery. For example, phosgene, which was first used as a military weapon in World War I, was first made by British Chemist John Davy in 1812.
Thirty-six gases were used in World War I—every one of which was a known chemical compound or element and many (like chlorine and phosgene) were useful in peace before the War. Their use in battle was not a scientific but a manufacturing problem. With their powerfully developed chemical industry, the Germans had a considerable edge on the Allies, and Allied gas warfare was largely a series of belated retaliations.
Of the 36 World War I gases, about half-a-dozen (including mustard, phosgene, diphosgene, chlorpicrin, diphenylchlorarsine) proved highly efficient.* Two gases which showed deadly promise—Lewisite, an arsenical blister-producer, and Adamsite, a respiratory irritant—were developed by the Allies during the War, but the peace was signed before they got into action. Adolf Hitler promised last week not to use poison gas, but if gas rolls into the European arena notwithstanding, Lewisite and Adamsite are almost certain to get a thorough trial. Otherwise, military experts believe, the armies will rely on the half-dozen gases which proved efficient in World War I. Though nobody can deny it with certainty, it does not seem that a terrible "supergas" has been produced in secret because the realm of possible chemical compounds has been too well explored.
Straightforward military technological improvement has proceeded apace in some fields, especially the speed and versatility of tanks, the accuracy of aerial bombing, the range and speed of airplanes. Yet the most effective innovation of the Spanish civil war was a crude anti-tank weapon— bottles of gasoline wrapped in burning rags which were hurled at Insurgent tanks by Loyalist infantry. And the record for long-distance artillery fire is still held by the monster guns with which, during World War I, the Germans shelled Paris from a wood 70-odd miles away.
For incendiary bombs, military men favor thermite, a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum powder which burns at a temperature of 3,000° C. (about 5,400° F.). Thermite was known before, and used as an incendiary during World War I.