On March 26, 1975, the international convention on the prohibition of the development, stockpiling and use of biological weapons entered into force. This convention was the first in history to completely prohibit a whole class of certain weapons.
Let's remember the history of biological weapons, as well as what made a person think about its prohibition.
Biological weapons from antiquity to modern times
The idea of using biological material as a weapon is not new and belongs to the ancients. It is known that the famous Carthaginian general Hannibal, during the storming of cities, used clay containers with poisonous snakes that threw over the walls. The snakes were spreading inside the fortress and, according to the plan of the attackers, they had to bite the enemy. However, in reality, such a shelling had rather a frightening effect.
Truly lethal biological weapons have been associated with infectious diseases at all times. The first disease that a person thought of using for the mass destruction of the enemy was, most likely, the plague.
Even in ancient times, the corpses of those who died from the plague were used as weapons - they were thrown into catapults through the fortress walls. In an enclosed space with a high population density and low levels of hygiene, the plague epidemic could spread very quickly.
It is believed that this is how the largest bubonic plague pandemic in the history of Europe began in 1347-1351. It started in the Crimea, where Khan Janibek brought it from East Asia. Desperate to take the city of Kafa (modern Theodosia) by force, he may have thrown a plague-infected corpse into the fortress. The ensuing epidemic claimed the lives of 30 million people - about a third of the then population of Europe.
Promotional video:
* Black Death * as displayed by the artist Pieter Bruegel.
In the 16th century, during the conquest of the Aztec kingdom in the territory of modern Mexico by the Spanish conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes, the Europeans, without knowing it, greatly helped themselves with the help of biological weapons. One of the Negro slaves of the Spanish expedition introduced the smallpox virus to Central America. Since the Aztecs did not have any immunity against the virus, in the shortest possible time the disease cut down to half of the population of the kingdom. It is believed that the indigenous people of America, in a sense, got even with the European invaders, also "gifting" those with a new disease - syphilis.
An Indian dies of smallpox introduced by the Spaniards. Drawing of the 16th century.
In the middle of the 18th century, the British conquerors of North America fought with the local Indians and, unlike the Spaniards, used biological weapons on purpose. It was the same smallpox virus. They infected the Indians with the help of special blankets that contained the pathogen. These blankets were distributed free of charge at special distribution points of the colonialists. The empires of that time did not shy away from anything to achieve their goals.
World War I
In the twentieth century, the first half of which became the bloodiest period in human history, several new types of weapons appeared at once, capable of mass destruction. The First World War became a testing ground for many of them. Most likely, biological weapons were no exception - according to some reports, the French and Germans deliberately sent anthrax-infected cattle to the side of the enemy during the First World War.
Because of the danger of chemical or biological weapons, many soldiers in the First World War fought in gas masks.
The horrors of this conflict have forced the world powers to think about banning weapons of mass destruction. As a result, in 1925, the Geneva Convention was signed, prohibiting the use of asphyxiant, poisonous or other similar gases in war, as well as any bacteriological means. At the same time, the treaty did not say anything about the production and storage of such weapons. This issue will be resolved only in 1972.
The Second World War
It is difficult to imagine what the victims of the Second World War would have been if it had not been for the Geneva Convention. Despite all the conventions, she nevertheless warned the main participants in the conflict against the use of chemical and biological weapons.
But not all countries obeyed her. The Imperial Japanese Army in World War II conducted experiments to spray the bacteria of plague, cholera and anthrax in Manchuria, while conducting research on living people in laboratories.
Shiro Issii - Commander * of Detachment 731 *, responsible for testing biological weapons in World War II.
The use of funds in battle turned out to be not very effective - about 700 people died from an artificially caused plague epidemic in China in the period from 1940 to 1945. While in laboratories from experiments at least 3000 died, including prisoners of the USSR. As a result of the post-war investigation, the so-called Khabarovsk trial took place, at which the organizers of the tests were tried.
The building of the secret Japanese laboratory, where the prisoners died, today.
Biological weapons were actively researched during World War II and in Great Britain. The tests were carried out on a small island off the coast of Scotland. As a result, there were so many anthrax spores on the island that it literally had to be burned out with napalm, and then kept in quarantine for 50 years. Only in 1990 was the clearing of this territory announced.
View of the island from the Scottish coast.
Development of biological weapons in the USSR
In the USSR, biological weapons were developed after the war. Soviet scientists worked most actively with the same anthrax. Tests of new strains of the virus took place at a special testing ground on the Vozrozhdenie island in the Aral Sea. After the shallowing of the sea, this island became a peninsula.
Renaissance Island in 1994.
In 1979, an unexpected outbreak of anthrax occurred in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), killing at least 64 people. According to the most popular among unofficial versions, the epidemic was due to a leak of material from a secret laboratory, which was actually located in this city.
According to the stories of some people who were involved in the development of biological weapons in the USSR in the past, the gloomy Soviet genius was not limited to simple strains of known viruses. In the West, a rather popular horror story is that Soviet scientists in the dungeons of secret scientific research institutes brought out a hitherto unprecedented type of virus, calling it "Chimera". At the same time, it was initially believed that "Chimera" was a terrible hybrid of smallpox and plague. But after the recent sensational epidemic of Ebola in Africa, the press began to write that "Chimera" was a hybrid of smallpox with Ebola.
Biological Weapons Prohibition and the 1975 Convention
Modern science does allow scientists to interfere with the genome of bacteria and produce new strains of viruses, "improving" some properties of diseases and reducing others. Scientists can, for example, increase the lethality of the disease and increase the mortality from it, while reducing the area of its spread.
International biohazard sign.
It is precisely because man has advanced so far in his ability to arrange his own mass extermination that in 1975 the convention banning the development and storage of biological weapons was adopted, which, fortunately, was signed by almost all world states. There are only a few countries on the sidelines that lack the ability to develop and produce biological weapons.
Author: slavomir10