The Chemical Plan
Fuller's plan wasn't the only option on the table for 1919. As Albert Palazzo points out in his paper "Plan 1919- The Other One", the chemical warfare planners had big plans for the next year's offensive. He points out they were fielding a new gas called DM, which penetrated the German masks(47). The technology for this new gas was much closer to fruition than the tank required by Fuller's plan. In addition, Winston Churchill, as Minister of Munitions, had already called for the production of gas agents to be increased by five times the current production(46).
The chemical advocates therefore did not have to contend with technology issues. They were utilizing a proven method of warfare. Their plan only called for increasing the extent of chemical warfare. Palazzo also points out they intended to use airplanes as delivery systems for the chemical agents and envisioned the gas being used to target command centers(45).
In many respects then, the gas advocates plan seems to have offered much the same possibility for success, with little of the implementation difficulties of Fuller's plan. The armistice however made their plans unnecessary also. In history's light however, this plan remains obscure due to the nature of chemical warfare. As Palazzo put it, "few weapons have inspired such universal revulsion"(39).
Read more about this topic: Plan 1919
Famous quotes containing the words chemical and/or plan:
“We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)