Marion Girard Dorsey. <i>Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II</i>.

The Allies did not deploy poison gas during the Second World War, but its potential use is the subject of this fascinating work of comparative diplomatic and mili­­tary history. Despite international attempts to limit or ban the use of gas after 1918, the Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada) ­­continued to explore the ethical and practical use of gas on the battlefield. This is an important study with a rich archival foundation that details the complexities of creating a common policy among three democratic countries. It also shows that, despite the wider efforts to outlaw the use of poisonous gas, each country was sometimes prepared to use gas if deemed necessary. Marion Girard Dorsey’s Holding Their Breath begins in 1925, when signatories of the Geneva Gas Protocol agreed to ban the use of chemical weapons and biological weapons. Britain and Canada signed the Protocol; the United States did not. Even so, it still posed a powerful check on the use of gas for all three countries. International opinion mattered. Dorsey draws from Susan Grayzel’s work to detail how the British government tried to prepare for gas attacks that never came. Dorsey is on firmer ground when exploring how gas became a powerful diplomatic and propaganda tool. British diplomatic notes to belligerents (and less trustworthy Allies) were worded carefully to avoid any sense that, if a gas war ensued, the Allies were responsible. It was a delicate balancing act. As Dorsey notes, after 1941 “Would a warning [against the use of gas] deter Germany? Would the same announcement backfire and incite Russia, bringing about the very outcome—gas warfare—that Britain hoped to avoid? And, on top of this, what was Britain willing to promise a dubious ally?” (105). Ultimately, in May 1942, Winston Churchill promised publicly that if “we are satisfied” that the Germans had used poison gas against the Russians, the Allies would launch “gas warfare on the largest possible scale far and wide upon the towns and cities of Germany” (105). For their part, the Americans broadened ­­Churchill’s warning, promising “full and swift retaliation in kind” if the Axis deployed gas in Europe or Asia. As Dorsey concludes, the Americans “may have deterred or risked—a global gas war” (107).

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