Romancing Chemical Warfare

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Ah, the romance of history. The First World War, for example, the war to end all wars. Wasn't that romantic, leading as it did to the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty to end all treaties? And the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which unequivocally condemned "recourse to war for the solution of international controversies?" All of 62 nations ratified this romantic document, which proclaimed that the settlement of all conflicts, no matter of what origin or nature, should be sought by only peaceful means.

Germany joyously signed the Pact in 1928, and eight years later Hitler's troops joyously crossed the Rhine, which perhaps led a distinguished American historian to call Hitler an "authoritarian romantic." Which certainly gives us a new view of romanticism. The New York Times, furthermore, a romantic journal if ever there was one, promised that after crossing the Rhine …