Is there any way that any western army during Victorian times could've developed and utilised nukes or chem/bio weapons ? What would've been the effect on the Revolution in Military Affairs ?
NBC warfare in 19th C
- Thread starter Melvin Loh
- Start date
Well, just remembered back in 1864, there was a Union proposal to have chlorine gas-filled arty shells, which however didn't end up being authorised at all. WI they had though ?
During the middle ages, armies would swing rotting carcasses into enemy cities. Maybe people refine the approach a bit more. Live disease cultures arent that hard to keep alive (i think) so armies could start releasing yellow fever and typhoid in the camps of their enemies. 19th century military bases were ungodly disease pits that were already full of disease anyway.
I remember a Jack London story were America and England had to wipe out the "Asiatic Menace" by dropping glass bottles of diseased tissue from zeppelins.
I remember a Jack London story were America and England had to wipe out the "Asiatic Menace" by dropping glass bottles of diseased tissue from zeppelins.
I think the problem is twofold - need and reliability. Most 19th century wars fought by western powers (with the American Civil War perhaps the solen exception) were 'Cabinet Wars' - fought over a relatively brief period of time with the confident expectation of a diplomatic conclusion. Chemical or bioweapons are weapons of desperation. The current ethical code would not have accepted them otherwise. So you'd need a major, deadlocked conflict between uncompromising parties, something like an early WWI. I get the hunch Russia may be involved.
On the other hand, while some such weapons were available (and were occasionally tried on a small scale), they were not easily controlled or even safely produced and transported. If that proble were solved earlier, someone might decide that a biut of that newfangled foss-jean is just the thing for dealing with troublemaking natives, what?
On the other hand, while some such weapons were available (and were occasionally tried on a small scale), they were not easily controlled or even safely produced and transported. If that proble were solved earlier, someone might decide that a biut of that newfangled foss-jean is just the thing for dealing with troublemaking natives, what?
You're right. I doubt European powers would be willing to use them against eachother, for honors sake, and out of fear of retribution.
On the other hand, when the darker peoples of the world start getting uppity...
biological weapons would be especially terrible in parts of the world like Australia and the south pacific, where natives hadnt developed the same immunities as Eurasians.
On the other hand, when the darker peoples of the world start getting uppity...
biological weapons would be especially terrible in parts of the world like Australia and the south pacific, where natives hadnt developed the same immunities as Eurasians.
Why not pretend to lose a battle rather dramatically, and leave your siege train behind with a few shiny objects, and a bunch of plague infected loot, such as blankets and other things that would continue to infect as many peeps as possible. IMO, thats far superior to chemical weapons. Its the gift that keeps on giving. It certainly worked on Native Americans.
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What state was nuclear reasearch at during World War I? If the Germans had uranium, they could have used Zepplins to release clouds of uranium dust into the air over London.
Hold it. What's your source for that, remembering that the chemical industry as a whole in the world was in its infancy in the 1860s--and that most of it was concentrated in what is now Germany? To do anything even remotely like that in that day and age, you're probably talking about having professors of chemistry conduct bench-scale batch reactions in glassware, likely involving sulfuric acid and inorganic chlorine salts--and then collecting the chlorine in glass sample vessels essentially at atmospheric pressure. Further, I don't believe metallurgy was sufficiently advanced at the time to allow mechanical compression of chlorine--and thermodynamics was insufficiently far advanced to permit a practical liquefaction process.
Sorry, but I have a hard time believing that anything other than the most rudimentary technology was available in 1864 for chemical weapons.
Rudimentary at best: those were the days when the hazards of radiation were largely in the discovery phase (case in point: women used white paint containing minute amounts of radium to paint glow-in-the-dark watch dials—and commonly wet the brush tips with their lips to get a fine point, thereby ingesting hazardous quantities--but that wasn't known until years later.
Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy
Banned
In my TL the British use chemical weapons against Sudanese rebels in the 1880s. The means of delivery include artillery, rockets and balloons. All under the authority of the vali (governor) of Egypt, since they don't have anywhere near the influence they had in OTL. Baron Playfair, who advocated their use, is given the nickname "Gasman" after this incident.
67th Tigers
Banned
Yes, I've seen the letter, and it was 1862, not 64:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1520-8621(193821)2:1<52:APGS1>2.0.CO;2-M
Something for a Trent counterfactual?
67th Tigers
Banned
Although, the Lyon Playfair had pitched a (far more effective) hydrogen cyanide shell in 1854 for use in the Crimea, which the Army rejected as being against the rules of war. The British also had Mustard available, and activated charcoal gas masks existed in the UK.
In 1870, the Germans and French agreed not to use chemical weapons, and a convention against using chemicals by the Great Powers was signed in 1872.
In 1870, the Germans and French agreed not to use chemical weapons, and a convention against using chemicals by the Great Powers was signed in 1872.
Thande
Donor
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. "Earlier Great War" TLs (eg based on Fashoda or the Moroccan crisis) tend to assume that chemical weapons are as yet unavailable.
Phosgene was first synthesized in 1812 and had significant commerical utilization later in the century.
I have heard it alleged that in OTL smallpox was deliberately spread amongst Native American Indians. I am not sure how much of that allegation is propaganda.
67th Tigers
Banned
That is true, but you can blame the Brits on that one:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_066.html