| Mustard agent was a battlefield bust. Developed by the Germans during World War I and adopted by the French and British, the oily, molasses-like liquid caused painful blisters on soldiers on both sides, but the chemical did not inflict death or debilitating injuries in significant enough numbers to justify its continued use.
“Mustard only affected a small, localized area,” says Miguel Monteverde, a former artilleryman and Bechtel’s external affairs manager for defense and space projects. “Armies had to fire round after round for hours for it to be successful. In the end, both sides realized that conventional artillery would be a better way to cause casualties.”
When World War II started, Allied forces feared that Adolf Hitler would resort to chemical warfare, so they stockpiled mustard as well as nerve agents. Thankfully, the Nazi dictator never unleashed those lethal weapons. Still, throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union produced and maintained significant amounts of chemical weapons in the event that one country deployed them against the other.
Today, the United States and Russia are among the many nations eliminating their stockpiles in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.
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