A Higher Form of Killing: Six Weeks in World War I

[Ghazala]

A Higher Form of Killing: Six Weeks in World War I That Forever Changed the Nature of Warfare By Dianna Preston.

In six weeks during April and May 1915, as World War I escalated, Germany forever altered the way war would be fought. On April 22, at Ypres, German canisters spewed poison gas at French and Canadian soldiers in their trenches; on May 7, the German submarine U-20, without warning, torpedoed the passenger liner Lusitania, killing 1,198 civilians; and on May 31, a German Zeppelin began the first aerial bombardment of London and its inhabitants. Each of these actions violated rules of war carefully agreed at the Hague Conventions of 1898 and 1907. Though Germany's attempts to quickly win the war failed, the psychological damage caused by these attacks far outweighed the casualties. The era of weapons of mass destruction had dawned.

[Terry_Reeves]

Ghazala , thanks.

The phrase "a higher form of killing" was coined by Fritz Haber, the chemist who led Germany's chemical warfare effort, and was subsequently used in the title of a 1982 book by Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman , "A Higher From of Killing - A Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare."

TR