"All the scientific resources of Germany have apparently been brought into
play to produce a gas of so virulent and poisonous a nature that any human being
brought into contact with it is first paralyzed and then meets with a lingering
and agonizing death."
-Sir John French, British Army Commander-in-Chief
Effects
The French soldiers of Ypres reported that the chlorine smelled like a "distinct mix of pepper and pineapple". It stung the back of the throat and tasted metallic, and after a few breaths would stay in the lungs. Reacting with the water in the lungs' lining, it would form the highly corrosive hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid would burn the inside of the lungs, causing victims to literally drown on their own fluids. It also caused loss of vision, tissue death, and nausea. Lucky soldiers would be shot before their demise of suffocation.
Uses & Creation
Fritz Haber
A German scientist, Fritz Haber, first engineered chlorine gas as a weapon. His wife, Clara, disproved the use of his expertise, and it is thought that she committed suicide in protest. Haber worked with the chemical industry conglomerate IG Farben to develop other chemical weapons.
Chlorine could take up to three hours to act, though usually effects were immediate. It was a liquid, usually spread by wind. Soldiers had crude methods of protection: large, raincoat-like suits and bulky gas masks. After Germany first used chlorine, it was quickly decided by other sides that it would become a weapon for them as well.