Show FIRST USE OF GAS IN WAR in crude form that weapon was employed contu centuries ries before the tha coming of christ IN the earliest use of deleterious gases in siege warfare Is recorded in the hlo his tory of the peloponnesian wars from B 0 during this struggle between the athenians and spartano spartans Spar taus tans and their respective allies the cities of apalatea and dellum were besieged wood saturated with pitch dna and sul chur was set on fire and burned under the tha walls of these cities in order t toj generate cli choking oking and poisonous fumes which would stupefy the defend defenders defender eri lt and make the task of altaf attacking king forces less jess difficult another form of thi same method of attack k used about thil athla date was to fill a caldron with molten pitch sulphur and burning charcoal and to blow the fumes with the aid of n primitive form of bellows and air aari blast over the defenders lines greek fire about which much waa heard board in the wars of the middle ages was all a liquid quid the tha c compos tUon of which Is now unknown that was spurted through the air chiefly in sea fights in order to set fire to the ships of the enemy and it was used by the byzantine greeks at the sieges of constantinople inthe in the years 1201 1261 and 1412 |