Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/70

 stafis have had time to think, to carry out the changes and discoveries of the Great War to their logical conclusion. They see that even with the known gases, the existing aeroplanes, Paris, Rome or London could in one night be changed from a metropolis to a necroplis. If any military man hesitates to apply this method—and being human and having a professional dislike of killing civilians, he must hesitate—the thought of what the enemy might do drives him on to consideration of this plan of warfare, and to preparation. There are at this moment at least two elements in the world quite capable of turning this trick had they the means and control. The method is so effective that if you do not use it, some one else will. You must be prepared to counter, to reply in kind.

Here are the words of a few authorities:

Brigadier General Mitchell of the United States Army, pleading with the House Committee on appropriations for more defensive aeroplanes, said that “a few planes could visit New York as the central point of a territory 100 miles square every eight days and drop enough gas to keep the entire area inundated 200 tons of phosgene gas could be laid every eight days and would be enough to kill every inhabitant.”

Captain Bradner, Chief of Research of the Chemical Warfare Service, said at a Congressional hearing:

“One plane carrying two tons of the liquid [a