Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 138

thread she identifies is the nexus of the military,
scientific, and psychological thought that encouraged
industry to develop weapons designed to inflict terror
on civilian populations.
The author provides an interesting parallax view of
the impact of these weapons through three lenses. First,
a discussion of the political decisions and reactions to
use of these weapons; second, the way military leaders
wielded and defended against these new capabilities;
and finally, the
impact of these
implements
on soldier and
civilian alike. To
do this, she examines archival
material from
the United
Kingdom,
United States,
and Germany,
as well as extensive files of
war letters and
remembrances
of survivors. Using these resources, she delves into the
efficacy of such weapons, asking the question whether
the military advantage derived from the use of these
weapons was worth the cost of public approbation.
In the case of all three, the answer seems to be “no”;
they were sometimes tactically effective but produced extremely negative public reaction (in the case
of gas and aerial bombing) or strategically disastrous
(unrestricted U-boat warfare being a precipitate for
American intervention). Preston then provides an illuminating look at how these weapons remained largely
unaddressed from a treaty perspective during the
interwar period, leading to the predictable use of their
muc