ever, on public opinion, and Poincare's popularity was undimin- ished during the months immediately preceding the outbreak of the World War. On the very eve of the war, immediately after the rising of the Chambers on July 15 1914, Poincare set out on a State visit to Russia and the Scandinavian countries, arriving at Kronstadt on July 20. His visit to Sweden was, however, interrupted by the serious news from France, and on the 29th he was back in Paris. He now made a personal appeal to King George V. to use his influence in favour of peace, while the Ministry asked for the armed intervention of Great Britain. After the outbreak of war his activities were mainly directed to stirring up the patriotic spirit of the people, as in his messages to the Chambers of Aug. 4 1914 and Aug. 5 1915, or his speech on July 14 1915 on the occasion of the transference of the re- mains of Rouget de Lisle, the composer of the " Marseillaise," to the Invalides. On Oct. 4 1914 he also visited the French head-quarters.
After the conclusion of the Armistice Poincare made a tour in Alsace and Lorraine, his official entrance into Metz taking place on Dec. 4 1918. On Jan. 18 1919 he opened the Peace Conference in Paris with a short speech, in which he empha- sized " justice " as the guiding principle of the victorious Allies. His term of office expired on the following Feb. 18. He subse- quently accepted the presidency of the Reparations Commission, which he resigned in May 1920 as a protest against what he considered to be the undue leniency shown to Germany. This became the text of a violent press campaign which he carried on, against the policy of the Supreme Council in general and of Mr. Lloyd George in particular (see FRANCE: History). During 1920 and 1921 it was Poincare's influence that was mainly dictat- ing the aggressiveness of French feeling in international politics; and during the latter part of Briand's premiership, culminating in Briand's visit to the United States for the Washington Con- ference at the end of 1921, it was Poincare who was fomenting the criticism that French interests were being undermined. The result was seen when, in the midst of the Cannes Conference in Jan. 1922, the proposal for an Anglo-French treaty of de- fence led to Briand's hasty return to Paris to answer interpel- lations with regard to his policy in the Chamber, and to his sudden resignation on Jan. 13 without facing discussion on a vote of confidence. Poincare was at once entrusted by Presi- dent Millerand with the formation of a new Cabinet, which he completed on Jan. 15, and French policy under his premiership was now given a definitely Nationalist orientation.
Poincard's published works include Du droit de suite dans la propriete mobilaire (1883); Idees contemporaines (1906); Questions et figures politiques (1907).
See Henry Girard, Raymond Poincare (1913); Raymond Poincare, a sketch (1914); Larousse Mensuel, No. 158 (1920).
POISON GAS WARFARE. The use of poisonous gases in
warfare, as started during the World War, was only made
possible by modern progress in chemistry. From a purely
objective point of view, and apart from all ethical considera-
tions, it should be observed that fighting-men have, at some time
or other, adopted any means of making war, however ruthless.
Poisoned weapons and poisoned wells are as old as history. The
ancient Greeks indeed used sulphur fumes, and the Byzantines
" Greek fire "; and in mediaeval sieges carcasses of dead animals
were thrown over the defences from mangonels, in order that
their putrefaction might spread disease. Underground warfare
in all times has been marked by attempts to drive the enemy
from his galleries with smoke and suffocating fumes. The usages
of chivalry, while prescribing courtesy to prisoners, imposed no
limit on means of destroying life. Only in the i8th century,
when war in western Europe became a very formal affair, did a
tendency appear to set such limits. Both Louis XIV. and Louis
XV. declined the use of " infernal liquids " offered to them by
chemists. Later the tendency to impose moral restrictions
became more definite. Lord Dundonald's proposal for the use of
asphyxiating smoke-clouds at the siege of Sebastopol was rejected
by the British Cabinet. In 1865 at Chalons experiments with
asphyxiating shells were made on dogs before Napoleon III., who
stopped the trials and declared that such barbarous means of destruction would never be employed by the French army be- cause they were against the " law of nations." In the S. African War of 1899-1902, the Boers thought they were justified in complaining of the injurious effects of the gases given off by the British high-explosive shells. It was only indirectly that the Hague Convention limited the use of gas. It forbade, by Art. 23 (e), the use of weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffer- ing; " poison or poisoned weapons " by Art. 23 (a). A separate declaration had, some years before (July 29 1899), forbidden the use of projectiles whose " sole object it was (qui ont pour but unique) to spread deleterious or asphyxiating gases." The method which actually arose in the World War that of a fixed apparatus which propels liquid gas in a jet had apparently not then been generally foreseen. If it had been, the use of poisonous gases would, no doubt, have been more explicitly forbidden.
It is one of the ironies of history that the first great war after the Hague Convention should have witnessed its entire useless- ness to limit human suffering. Gases of a nature to cause lifelong injury, liquid fire, molten metal, burning phosphorus all were employed with a prodigality limited only by the inventive pow- ers of the combatants.
There was, of course, no objection to the use of gases and substances of the lachrymator class. The object of these is to cause temporary incapacity by violent smarting of the eyes, sneezing or retching, while the effect passes off when the subject is removed from the radius of action of the gas. Probably the earliest example of this class is the Chinese " Stinkpot "; and it is interesting to note that as the Chinese were before the Western nations in the use of gunpowder, so they also were in this early form of what, in the World War, came to be known as " Chemical Warfare," a term which in itself is really too wide for " gas warfare," since chemistry enters into explosives also.
At the time of the Russo-Japanese War the subject of lachry- mators was taken up by the Japanese, and later by the British War Office. It was also investigated by the French for police purposes. The British experiments covered a wide range of compounds based mainly on iodine, bromine and picric acid. The chief subjects of inquiry were effectiveness, keeping quali- ties and the effect of the liquid on the container. Nothing very highly effective was found, and it appeared that most of the liquids required a container of lead, glass or porcelain, on account of their action on steel or cast iron. The experiments were dropped some years before the World War, probably because, in the kind of warfare that was then anticipated, it did not appear that there would be much use for lachrymators.
In 1913 the question was submitted again to the British War Office. The Hague Convention was always kept in view, and it was considered that the term " deleterious " applied only to gases which caused permanent harm. As one chemist pointed out, poisons were- prohibited by the convention, but disagreeable fumes were not. A few experiments were made with compounds of the lachrymator class in shells, and the question remained alive until in Sept. 1914, after the outbreak of war, it was decided not to use chemical shell of this type for the British army or navy.
Quite early in the World War stories began to be current on each side of the employment -of gas shells by the other. In Dec. 1914, upon a semi-official suggestion from the British G.H.Q. in France, a section of the War Office, working with Sir William Ramsay's Chemical Sub-Committee of the Royal Society, took the question up again. By this time trench warfare was fairly established and the armies of both sides were immobilized in trenches, facing each other in some places at a distance of only a few yards. All possible means of trench fighting had to be consid- ered, and among other things it was thought that, if a sufficient number of lachrymating grenades could be thrown from the British front trenches into those of the enemy, he might be forced to evacuate them temporarily, or might at least have his fighting power considerably reduced by being forced to the con- stant use of a protective mask.
In Jan. 1915, an idio-acetate compound was brought forward which caused such smarting of the eyes that it was impossible to
