Chemical warfare in the WWI is usually relegated to a side show in most history. That is a fundamental error. Chemical casualties in the last year of the war accounted for 30-40 percent of casualties in major operations. The final year of the war demonstrated the tactical efficiency of chemical weapons in both the offense and defense, a stark departure from chemical warfare between 1915 and 1917. Historians usually talk about the early attacks when chemical warfare was largely insignificant, but this leaves out the importance of the chemical war to the end of the war. 

In the first in a multi-part series re-examining chemical warfare in the First World War, with particular emphasis on the American Experience. CBRNPro.net examines long-held myths about chemical warfare in WWI, and the propaganda that pushed them into the history books. Many of the lessons that history failed to learn, still apply today.