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From an article on the International Committee of the Red Cross’s website:

Junod also confronted the appalling reality of mustard gas and its effects: “That evening [18 March 1936] I had occasion to see with my own eyes [a Fascist] aircraft spraying the ground with an oily liquid, dropping like fine rain and covering a huge area with thousands of droplets, each of which, when it touched the tissues, made a small burn, turning a few hours later into a blister. It was the blistering gas the British call mustard gas. Thousands of soldiers were affected by severe lesions due to this gas…”

(Possibly NSFL.)

Potentially NSFL recording of the gassing and its effects. Click here for potentially NSFL photographs.

Sulphur mustard (commonly known as mustard gas) was a chemical weapon that differed from older asphyxiating gases such as chlorine and phosgene in that it was less lethal: for WWI, the idea behind it was to merely debilitate soldiers rather than massacre them. Even so, sulphur mustard still killed some victims directly and they could die within the span of either minutes or decades depending on the level of exposure. The most immediate effects of moderate exposure were skin blisters and eye irritation, but high exposure could be lethal: some victims inhaled it repeatedly and thereby blistered their throats in the process, killing them.

For survivors, recovery from the short‐term effects usually took as long as six weeks. On the other hand, long‐term effects included skin cancer, scarring, respiratory issues, and blindness, which some WWII veterans are still suffering, and it is probable that some elderly Ethiopians have these problems as well. Unfortunately, I know of nobody interviewing Ethiopian victims of sulphur mustard.

The Fascists, no doubt encouraged by their earlier successes deploying it against Libya (where they held chemical warfare storage facilities throughout the 1930s), decided to reuse their sulfur mustard against Ethiopia when they were only two months into invading it. Quoting Lina Grip’s and John Hart’s The use of chemical weapons in the 1935–36 Italo‐Ethiopian War:

Chemical weapons do not appear to have been used in the war until Ethiopia launched its ‘Christmas offensive’ of 1935, which blunted [a Fascist] offensive and succeeded in temporarily cutting off some communication and supply lines.¹⁰ In December 1935 [Fascist] aircraft dropped tear gas grenades and asphyxiating gas over the Takkaze Valley in north‐eastern Ethiopia. [The Fascists] controlled the air and initially dropped sulphur mustard air bombs but later shifted to the use of aerial spray tanks.

Sulphur mustard air bombs reportedly caused most of the chemical weapon casualties.¹¹ The use of sulphur mustard played an important rôle in shifting the momentum of fighting in favour of the [Fascists] and in demoralizing the Ethiopian forces. Its use resulted in many long‐lasting, painful injuries and in a significant number of deaths.¹²

[The Fascists] also used chemical weapons in the Battle of Shire (29 February–2 March 1936), the Battle of Maychew (31 March 1936) and in attacks on the remnants of Ethiopian forces in the Lake Ashangi region starting in April. The last reported use of chemical weapons by Italy was in April 1936.¹³ That month the Ethiopian Government also provided a list of towns it said had been attacked with chemical weapons (see table 1).

Although the Ethiopians did have some gas masks, they were evidently in low supply, and many Ethiopians died from sulfur mustard:

[The Fascists’] use of chemical weapons had a strategic effect on the conduct of the war and, as operations progressed, [they] were able to deliver large quantities of sulphur mustard against target areas. Chemical weapons were used to protect the flanks of [Fascist] supply routes and lines of attack and as a ‘force multiplier’ to increase disruption in the Ethiopian forces by hindering communication, demoralizing troops and confusing troop movements.¹⁴ A Soviet estimate states that 15 000 of the 50 000 Ethiopian casualties in the war were caused by chemical weapons.¹⁵

Similarly, quoting Laura J. Hilton in World War II: A Student Encyclopedia, volume I, page 278:

The [Fascists] employed it to protect their flanks by saturating the ground on either side of the advancing columns. They also targeted Ethiopian communications centers and employed mustard gas against Ethiopian military personnel.

In fact, the [Fascists] deployed more than 700 tons of gas against the local population, either as bombs (each container contained about 44 pounds) or sprayed from aircraft. Their use of chemical weapons was indiscriminate, targeting both military and civilian areas. One‐third of all Ethiopian military casualties in this conflict resulted from exposure to chemical agents.

Aside from the effects on the population, this atrocity also had geopolitical effects:

The [Fascist] decision to employ chemical weapons on a large scale in Ethiopia prompted other nations to renew their production of such weapons and to plan for protecting their armed forces and civilian populations.

France began production at a phosgene facility at Clamency in 1936. The U.S. government reopened mustard gas and phosgene plants in New Jersey the following year. The Soviet Union opened three new chemical weapons production plants. And in November 1938, after the Munich Conference, the British government issued tens of thousands of gas masks to civilians and mandated a minimum level of production of 300 tons of mustard gas per week, with 2,000 tons held in reserve.

Grip’s and Hart’s presumption that the ‘last reported use of chemical weapons by Italy was in April 1936’ is, unfortunately, inaccurate. Even after the conflict officially ended in 1936, the Fascists continued deploying sulphur mustard against Ethiopian antifascists, most notably against those in Amazegna Washa during 1939:

On April 3, the siege of the cave began. The Arbegnoch put up stiff resistance, which was initially successful. The [Fascists] were in a difficult position, as the steep rock walls on either side of the cave left them exposed to enemy fire.

The Ascari used machine guns, artillery, grenades and tear gas bullets, but failed to flush out the partisans. The situation had reached a stalemate, even though they even tried to use flamethrowers. After seven days of siege, the [Fascist] command decided to call up the chemical warfare platoon from the port of Massawa in Eritrea, which arrived with hundreds of artillery shells loaded with arsine and an airplane bomb containing about 212 kg of mustard gas.

On April 9, the chemical platoon, after funneling the mustard gas into 12 containers connected to electric detonators, dropped them in front of the cave entrance and blew them up. Thus began the inferno of Amazegna Washa.

(Emphasis added in all cases. Source.)


\ Further reading: I gas di Mussolini. Il fascismo e la guerra d'Etiopia

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