Gas attacks in WWII?

[Saphroneth]

All true.

But that's where it gets interesting.

Take a look at the bombing. Okay, the Nazi regime started it. The fact that Nazis do such stuff doesnt just prove they are bad -- it's crap like that against non-combatants that makes them bad.
Now Britain starts "de-housing German workers" (the euphemism for firebombing entire cities).
They didn't start it. But if that sort of behavior is what makes the Nazis bad, what does it make the British (and the Americans, when we did the same)? Is it okay to be the second to firebomb cities, just not the first? Is immolating children moral when done in defense, but not offense? Can't you just say "He would do it to me when he gets the chance, so if I do it first, it's still really only (preemptive) self-defense"?

In fact, isn't that exactly what Churchill did say in the quote posted somewhere above these posts?

"How far into savagery does one go to defeat the savage" is an age-old moral dilemma.
I think the best that can be said about the western allies is that, for the most part, cooler heads prevailed.
The Western Allies were, as far as we can tell, progressive for their time in that they attacked places that supported the war effort (which did mean killing civilians) rather than attacking civilians directly. That is, attacking civilians was a means rather than an end. (The rhetoric of "de housing" also explains part of it - they did indeed hope to render people homeless, even if that hope without casualties was a pipe dream.) The bomber-barons genuinely believed that they could bring the war to an end quicker, and with fewer deaths, than a conventional war. (They were wrong for Germany, and may have been right for Japan - with hindsight.)
I think I can also say that, given the choice between an Europe with Germany anthrax'd off the map in 1942, and an Europe with Nazi plans for it fully realized... then the Anthrax option is actually far better, simply because of the sheer scale of the intended mass deaths Hitler and his party intended to inflict. The AA/N war timeline explores this. (31 million people were earmarked as "undesirable", for example, while 14 million were to be 'merely' worked to death.)

 

[The Red]

Section 43 here https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=211950 of CalBear's TL has an anthrax retaliation attack (in 1959) on Nazi Germany described. It did NOT use the whole Allied stockpile, and basically killed about 5% of the entire population of Greater Germany.

If memory serves the Allies went beyond just Vegetarian, didn't they also drop N spores directly on Berlin?

 

[Saphroneth]

If memory serves the Allies went beyond just Vegetarian, didn't they also drop N spores directly on Berlin?

In the TL, yes. Berlin and Munich, IIRC.

 

[The Red]

In the TL, yes. Berlin and Munich, IIRC.

'Anthrax - Because the H-Bomb's too good for Himmler's inner circle.'

 

[sloreck]

A couple of thoughts on chemical weapons:
1. AFAIK the Germans did not know they had the exclusive franchise on nerve agents - so they expected if they used them the allies would retaliate with the same sort of agents (not just the well known war gasses).
2. Chemical weapons while pretty good at killing unprotected/untrained persons, only make the battlefield equally miserable for both sides if both are roughly equivalent in training and gear. The reason they were effective early in WWI is that they were a surprise and the Germans had a significant early advantage in weapons and protective gear. In 1930s/WWII against Ethiopians or Chinese (by the Italians and Japanese respectively) you were using agents on essentially unprotected militaries. The reason they MIGHT have been useful against a German invasion of England is it would have been a first use against troops on a beachhead (a difficult situation) where the initial (and temporary) advantage could be vital.
3. It is of interest to note that a German bomber hit a US liberty ship in an Italian harbor carrying mustard bombs - the release killed and injured a fair number of persons (not lots) and the medical care noted that exposure to nitrogen mustard led to a decrease in white blood cell count. This resulted a few years after the war in the development of the first chemotherapy for cancer - mustard derived agents to treat leukemia (a cancer of the hematopoetic system specifically white cells).
4. It was expected that the Japanese would use chemical agents if the US had invaded the home islands. Given how US troops tended to get rid of the excess weight of gas masks, this would result in plenty of casualties until this habit was cured.

 

[MrNumbahOne]

If Germany loses the war before the Soviet counter-invasion begins, how does the Cold War play out with Germany as an uninhabitable hellhole?

 

[Saphroneth]

If Germany loses the war before the Soviet counter-invasion begins, how does the Cold War play out with Germany as an uninhabitable hellhole?

There's more emphasis on peripheral theatres, I think. No need for either side to fear a pre-emptive invasion via Germany, so USSR has safe heartlands and NATO has safe,er, France and Britain.

 

[The Red]

If Germany loses the war before the Soviet counter-invasion begins, how does the Cold War play out with Germany as an uninhabitable hellhole?

Whilst Anthrax could theoretically render all of Germany uninhabitable, this was never considered by the Allies and was beyond the means of Allied biological production at the time. The two plans conceived by the British, Vegetarian and the use of Anthrax 'N' Bombs simultaneously on Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Wilhelmshafen and Aachen, would have been a horrendous blow to German agriculture, industry, population and quite likely the national psyche for generations but it would not spell the end of Germany.

 

[Saphroneth]

Whilst Anthrax could theoretically render all of Germany uninhabitable, this was never considered by the Allies and was beyond the means of Allied biological production at the time. The two plans conceived by the British, Vegetarian and the use of Anthrax 'N' Bombs simultaneously on Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Wilhelmshafen and Aachen, would have been a horrendous blow to German agriculture, industry, population and quite likely the national psyche for generations but it would not spell the end of Germany.

Ah, right, 1942. Sorry, missed the timing.
The Anthrax production went on from 1940 on, IIRC? So there was a crapton by 1945.

 

[The Red]

Ah, right, 1942. Sorry, missed the timing.
The Anthrax production went on from 1940 on, IIRC? So there was a crapton by 1945.

It was mainly the cattle cakes though, deadly if ingested but not apocalyptic. The N Plan would have rendered those cities uninhabitable for decades, centuries if they were left to decay, but only a small supply of the bombs were ever produced during the war. The allies estimated in mid-1944 that a full scale production of the bombs would have required 8 months before enough were ready to go biblical, by which time and Germany had already been beaten conventionally and most of the targeted cities where in Allied hands.

 

[jmc247]

It was mainly the cattle cakes though, deadly if ingested but not apocalyptic. The N Plan would have rendered those cities uninhabitable for decades, centuries if they were left to decay, but only a small supply of the bombs were ever produced during the war. The allies estimated in mid-1944 that a full scale production of the bombs would have required 8 months before enough were ready to go biblical, by which time and Germany had already been beaten conventionally and most of the targeted cities where in Allied hands.

If Germany, the Western Allies and Soviets got into using gas the war would have gotten bogged down in Normandy and in the East much longer.

 

[Kung Fucious]

If memory serves the Allies went beyond just Vegetarian, didn't they also drop N spores directly on Berlin?

I don't think they went full Vegetarian in the AANW, but they came close. Nuremberg and Berlin are basically death zones that need to be quarantined for a century or two. Germany is uninhabitable, but it's had a serious die-back.

And that's before they nuked every city bigger than 100,000.

 

[Saphroneth]

If Germany, the Western Allies and Soviets got into using gas the war would have gotten bogged down in Normandy and in the East much longer.

The Western Allies weren't planning on using the gas on the battlefield, as of 1944. The Brits, say, had an employment plan of wrecking the heartland in one go.

 

[The Red]

If Germany, the Western Allies and Soviets got into using gas the war would have gotten bogged down in Normandy and in the East much longer.

Possibly, though if the British have went ahead with Vegetarian in 1942 then Germanys defeat is probably sped up by a great deal. There isn't much chance of them making it until early 1945. Though the Americans by 1944 had more Mustard and other chemicals than the rest of the world combined, with the ability to spray entire cities in one go. With Le May and Harris in the cockpit I can't see the war lasting much past late 1944.

 

[MattII]

But the probable "winners" in terms of second-strike capability are the British. See, anthrax, while technically a biological weapon, acts a lot like a decades-timescale chemical weapon.
And the British had a LOT of anthrax. Biblical quantitties, by the end of the war. I believe it's not much of an exaggeration to say they could have rendered Germany uninhabitable.

Not just anthrax, they were also quite prepared to use other chemicals too, such as (already mentioned) mustard gas, and also the pesticide Paris Green (another anti-invasion measure, delivered in powder for by Tiger Moths). When they need to be the British can be right b***ards.

 

[Cook]

Germany had developed several chemical weapons (including sarin), but it's commonly stated that Hitler didn't want to employ it because he had suffered from a mustard gas attack before and was hence unwilling to use chemical weapons.

That being another case of 'common knowledge' being dead wrong; Hitler was never gassed, his medical records record his hospitalisation for 'Hysterical Blindness' - which is why he had the record suppressed once he was Chancellor. In 1942 Hitler told a journalist from the Ministry of Information that 'the use of chemical weapons was the most humane form of war as the [German] losses from gas would actually be unexpectedly small'.

In fact Germany did use poison gas, to eliminate defenders in the caves around Sevastopol and in other locations around the Black Sea. But they only ever employed it in locations well behind the front line, where it's use would not come to the attention of Soviet authorities. We can therefore conclude that it was the threat of retaliation that held the Germans back from more widespread use; the Germans would have had no doubts about the Soviets possessing such chemical weapons since they were jointly developed by the Germans and Soviets at bases in the Soviet Union during the Treaty of Rapallo period.

 

[Michele]

If Germany, the Western Allies and Soviets got into using gas the war would have gotten bogged down in Normandy and in the East much longer.

Are we talking about mid 1944, as the mention of Normandy seems to imply?
If so, really don't think so.

- The Western Allies moved on trucks, which are impervious to BC weapons. The Germans and Soviets needed horses, which are even more vulnerable than humans and would be the actual primary target of anthrax. There go the supply (beyond railheads) and the artillery (beyond the few motorized artillery units).

- The British civilians were supplied with gas masks and critical personnel (in factories) could be supplied with further protection. Everyone else's civilians, including German workers and slaves, were not.

- The potential tonnage delivererable by the Allies more than makes up for the more deadly loadout of the Germans.

- The stuff that the Allies would use would be much more persistent than the nerve gases. It can be washed away from factory floors, it will just take one more expenditure of resources, which the Germans can ill afford.

- The Allies can produce more rubber, the main strategic raw material when it comes to this stuff. The Germans can only rely on synth rubber, and their plants are by now overworked and overbombed.

The change wrt OTL would be a faster advance into Germany by the Westerners than by the Soviets, that's the main effect.

 

[Michele]

I don't think gas in 1940 had quite the stigma that we see today.

If that were true, countries wouldn't have signed the Geneva Protocol outlawing it and the small bugs too, just some 10 to 12 years before. it is exactly because people remembered the horrifying effects in WWI that they wanted to outlaw the stuff.

 

[alexcoppo]

The objective of Vegetarian were not people (not directly ), it was german livestock. The idea was to kill cattle, horse, pigs, rabbits etc., inducing a meat/diary famine on the whole german population which would do no good to german people health (though not immediately killing them so does not count as genocide ).

The targets would have been agricultural areas like Baviera; since agricultural areas use be flattish, they are by coincidence good truck/armour terrain, so their contamination would act as barriers.

"The Western Allies moved on trucks, which are impervious to BC weapons." Yes, but they raise dust, anthrax spores laden dust , and dust sticks to everything like clothing and equipment. If people go ballistic when anthrax is mentioned, there is a reason.

 

[Meadow]

Wow. So Nazi Germany didn't do it, even when faced with being overrun by the vengeful Soviets.

The British were actually planning to do it even if just invaded.

Interesting moral/ethical questions could be raised.

One ought to remember that the British prognosis in the dark days of 1940 was that their own situation would not hold if the Nazis got a foothold. We have hindsight and so on, but there was a belief that if the Germans took enough of the coast to deploy their tank armies, the poor state of the post-Dunkirk British Army would mean they would eventually make it to London and probably win the war there and then.

With this in mind, protecting one's country from enslavement, tyranny and genocide through use of a horrific (but nonetheless battlefield) weapon would be a fairly strong defense in a post-war 'trial by public opinion'. Deploying Operation Vegetarian, or gassing German cities through terror-bombing, though, would taint any successful British defeat of a somehow-landed Sealion.

The objective of Vegetarian were not people (not directly ), it was german livestock. The idea was to kill cattle, horse, pigs, rabbits etc., inducing a meat/diary famine on the whole german population which would do no good to german people health (though not immediately killing them so does not count as genocide ).

The logic of Vegetarian was the same as that followed in the WWI blockade, just accelerated by 20 years of industrial and scientific advancement. A way of pressing a button, so to speak, that turns the German nation into a starving mass in the space of a few months after a few nights of targeted bombing raids? It sounded very appealing in the dark days before the tide turned. All civilised people should thank the stars that Churchill never ordered it to happen.