Abstract
Some years before Britain launched its biological warfare research programme, independent scientists had already been enrolled as advisors on the nature of the threat. Need arose as rumours of germ warfare activities in other countries grew persistently throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Previously, and in contrast to chemical agents such as chlorine and mustard gas — agents which had been used with deadly effects as a new form of weaponry during the First World War — germ warfare was far more shadowy, appearing primarily in intelligence reports. German plans to use anthrax, cholera and glanders in various sabotage attempts on livestock in neutral countries were known to British intelligence.l These plans were carried to fruition in Romania, the USA, Norway, Argentina and possibly Spain, although it is unlikely that these activities were known about in the UK.2
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Notes
Hugh-Jones, M. (1992) ‘Wickham Steed and German Biological Warfare Research’, Intelligence and National Security, 7(4), 379–402.
Wheelis, M. (1999) ‘Biological Sabotage in World War I’ in Geissler, E. and van Courtland Moon, J.E. (eds) Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
See Falk, R. (1990) ‘Inhibiting Reliance on Biological Weaponry: the Role and Relevance of International Law’, in Wright, S. (ed.) Preventing a Biological Arms Race (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press) pp. 240–66;
McElroy, R.J. (1991) ‘The Geneva Protocol of 1925’, in Krepon, M. and Caldwell, D. (eds) The Politics of Arms Control Treaty Ratification (New York: St Martin’s Press — now Palgrave) pp. 125–66. The term ‘bacteriological’ reflected the state of knowledge at the time, rather than any deliberate attempt to exclude other living organisms such as viruses.
In addition, Carter and Pearson note that sporadic but poorly supported intelligence reports about bacteriological warfare appeared throughout the 1920s and 1930s. See Carter, G.B. and Pearson, G.S. (1999) in Geissler, E. and van Courtland Moon, J.E. (eds) Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Hugh-Jones, M. (1992) ‘Wickham Steed and German Biological Warfare Research’, Intelligence and National Security 7(4), 379–402.
Hankey, Maurice Pascal Alers (1877–1963). Hankey was a senior civil servant who held posts on many committees including secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (1912–39) and secretary of the War Cabinet during the First World War. He was responsible for the formation of the Cabinet Secretariat in 1916 and was secretary to the Cabinet until his retirement in 1938. He was also clerk to the Privy Council from 1923 to 1938. In 1939 he came out of retirement and entered the War Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio. After Churchill was elected Prime Minister in May 1940, Hankey left the Cabinet and was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and then Paymaster-General from 1941 until March 1942. He continued chairing various committees until 1952. See Roskill, S. (1970, 1972, 1974) Hankey: Man of Secrets (3 vols) (London: Collins).
These were respectively Professor Pfeiffer of Breslau, Professor J. Bordet of the Pasteur Institute in Brussels, Professor T. Madsen of Copenhagen and Professor W.B. Cannon of the Harvard School of Medicine. The scientists were among several who had replied to an appeal for expert information on the possible effects of bacteriological warfare by a subcommittee of the League of Nations Temporary Mixed Commission. The final report of the Temporary Mixed Commission was dated 30 July 1924. SIPRI (1971) The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare. Vol. IV: CB Disarmament Negotiations 1920–1970 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell).
Mendelsohn, J.A. (1998) ‘From Eradication to Equilibrium: How Epidemics Became Complex after World War I’, in Lawrence, C. and Weisz, G. (eds) Greater Than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press) pp. 303–31.
Williams, R.E.O. (1985) Microbiology for the Public Health: the Evolution of the Public Health Laboratory Service (London: PHLS) pp. 1–7.
A recent historical account of German biological warfare contradicts these reports. Deichmann argues that there is little evidence of German interest in biological warfare before 1940. See Deichmann, U. (1996) Biologists under Hitler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) Chapter 6.
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© 2001 Brian Balmer
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Balmer, B. (2001). Bacteriological Warfare as a Public Health Threat. In: Britain and Biological Warfare. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508095_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508095_2
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