With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

British army 'did not gas Iraqis in 1920s' says historian

The UK did not use chemical weapons on Iraqis just after the first world war, a researcher has said.

Despite claims, which had come to pass as fact, that British forces used chemical weapons on the country just after the war, a historian has said "no such incident ever occurred".

According to Dr RM Douglas, a historian at Colgate University, the claims rest on "shaky foundations". Dr Douglas' research is due to be published in the December issue of the Journal of Modern History.

During the US-led invasion into the country in 2003, the allegations of chemical bombing by the UK in the 1920s were brought to the fore. Dr Douglas said many scholars went so far as to root Arab distrust of the west in Britain's brutal chemical attacks.

In his research Dr Douglas explains much of the belief was based on an essay by historian Charles Townshend, in which he cited letters that tear gas shells had been used against Arab rebels with "excellent moral effect". But Dr Douglas says this was wrong; the army had asked permission to use gas shells, but had not yet employed them in the field.

And contrary to Townshend's description of the letter, Webster's much-quoted reference to an "excellent moral effect" represented "the Air Ministry's estimation of what gas bombs dropped from aircraft, if used, could be expected to achieve, rather than what gas shells had already achieved," Dr Douglas writes.
Read entire article at inthenews.co.uk