Captain Mahan's argument at The Hague against the proposed prohibition
of poison gas is so cogent and well expressed that it has been quoted in
treatises on international law ever since. These reasons were, briefly:
1. That no shell emitting such gases is as yet in practical use
or has undergone adequate experiment; consequently, a vote
taken now would be taken in ignorance of the facts as to
whether the results would be of a decisive character or whether
injury in excess of that necessary to attain the end of
warfare--the immediate disabling of the enemy--would be
inflicted.
2. That the reproach of cruelty and perfidy, addressed against
these supposed shells, was equally uttered formerly against
firearms and torpedoes, both of which are now employed without
scruple. Until we know the effects of such asphyxiating shells,
there was no saying whether they would be more or less merciful
than missiles now permitted. That it was illogical, and not
demonstrably humane, to be tender about asphyxiating men with
gas, when all are prepared to admit that it was allowable to
blow the bottom out of an ironclad at midnight, throwing four
or five hundred into the sea, to be choked by water, with
scarcely the remotest chance of escape.
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