when did the british first use gas in ww1
25 September 1915
title: Chemical weapons in World War I text: which was a flannel bag with a celluloid window, which entirely covered the head. The race was then on between the introduction of new and more effective poison gases and the production of effective countermeasures, which marked gas warfare until the armistice in November 1918. The British expressed outrage at Germany's use of poison gas at Ypres and responded by developing their own gas warfare capability. The commander of II Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Charles Ferguson, said of gas: The first use of gas by the British was at the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915, but the attempt was title: British Expeditionary Force (World War I) text: stretched from the North sea to the Swiss frontier. The British Army held a small portion of this 400 mile front: from just north of the pre-war Belgium border to the River Somme in France, varying in length from in 1914, to over in 1918, in the area commonly known as Flanders. From the end of 1914, and in 1915, BEF attacks centred around the Ypres Salient. Then in September 1915, six divisions took part in the Battle of Loos – notable for the first use of poison gas by the British. In 1916 the BEF had moved into the title: United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction text: and training which the use engendered on both sides. See Use of poison gas in World War I. After the war, the Royal Air Force dropped mustard gas on Bolshevik troops in 1919, and Winston Churchill, secretary of state for war and air, suggested that the RAF use it in Iraq in 1920 during a major revolt there. Historians are divided as to whether or not gas was in fact used. The UK ratified the Geneva Protocol on 9 April 1930. The UK signed the Chemical Weapons Convention on 13 January 1993 and ratified it on 13 May 1996. Despite title: Chemical warfare text: gas were produced by the end of World War I. The French were the first to use chemical weapons during the First World War, using the tear gases ethyl bromoacetate and chloroacetone. They likely did not realize that effects might be more serious under wartime conditions than in riot control. It is also likely that their use of tear gas escalated to the use of poisonous gases. One of Germany's earliest uses of chemical weapons occurred on October 27, 1914, when shells containing the irritant dianisidine chlorosulfonate were fired at British troops near Neuve-Chapelle, France. Germany used another irritant, xylyl title: Chemical weapons and the United Kingdom text: UK signed the Chemical Weapons Convention on 13 January 1993 and ratified it on 13 May 1996. During the First World War, in retaliation to the use of chlorine by Germany against British troops from April 1915 onwards, British forces deployed chlorine themselves for the first time during the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915. By the end of the war, poison gas use had become widespread on both sides and by 1918 a quarter of artillery shells were filled with gas and Britain had produced around 25,400 tons of toxic chemicals. Britain used a range of poison gases,