The Admiral's Secret Weapon: Lord Dundonald and the Origins of Chemical Warfare

Forside
Boydell, 2006 - 179 sider
"Thomas Cochrane, the tenth earl of Dundonald, had a controversial naval career, both in the Royal Navy and overseas, but it is on his work as an inventor, and on one invention in particular, that this book concentrates. Charles Stephenson tells the incredible story of what was possibly his most ruthless and advanced creation: a scheme to generate massive amounts of poison gas, accompanied by saturation bombing and smoke screens. The earl had, in fact, invented chemical warfare; and, with his 'stink ships' and explosion vessels, he also worked out the technology required to deploy this terrible weapon." "Considered too revolutionary at the time, Cochrane's invention was kept under wraps, though it could have been deployed during the Crimean War had the conflict not ended when it did. During the First World War, however, certain documents detailing the plans disappeared. It was feared, by the then earl of Dundonald, that they had fallen into German hands, where the concept, modified and adapted, was employed in the use of chlorine gas at Ypres in 1915." "Charles Stephenson draws on previously unseen material from the Dundonald family archive in his account of the earl and his invention, and follows the story of the use of poison gas through to its place in modern warfare."--BOOK JACKET.

Om forfatteren (2006)

Charles Stephenson is an established author on naval and siege warfare and the history of fortifications, with the following books in print: The Fortifications of Malta 1530-1945, Zeppelins: German Airships 1900-40, The Channel Islands 1941-45: Hitler's Impregnable Fortress, The Admirals Secret Weapon: Lord Dundonald and the Origins of Chemical Warfare and Germanys Asia-Pacific Empire: Colonialism and Naval Policy, 1885-1914. He was Consultant Editor and a contributor to Castles: A History of Fortified Structures: Ancient, Medieval & Modern. He is also the creator of the three books that (thus far) constitute the Samson Plews Collection.

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