WWI: A tough shell to crack

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Big Bertha was a large howitzer named after German arms developer

Alfred Krupp's wife. By 1912 Krupp had produced this 420mm weapon

that fired a 2,100 lb shell over 16,000 yards.

Here is one account of it's WWI firing:

Major Wesener was a German officer who worked on a Big Bertha at

Liege on 12th August, 1914.

It was a memorable moment as the howitzer discharged the first shell

on enemy soil at 1740 hours on August 12 against Fort Pontisse, on

the south-eastern side of Liege. A hundred-fold cheer accompanied the

shell as it howled and snorted along the high trajectory to its

target. I was gratified that everything had turned out well, and that

the eagerly-awaited opening of fire could be undertaken. Sixty

seconds ticked by - the time needed for the shell to traverse its

4,340 yard high trajectory - and everyone listened in to the

telephone report of our battery commander, who had his observation

post 1,625 yards from the bombarded fort, and could watch at close

range the column of smoke, earth and fire that climbed to the

heavens.

This interesting report concerning Big Bertha's first attack was

issued from the commander of Fort Pontisse (12th August, 1914). He

was on the receiving end of Big Bertha:

Ventilation: very bad; the men were seized with stomach pains,

diarrhoea, nausea and and inability to hold back their urine. The

fort was reeking with explosive fumes from the outside. They tried to

stop up the windows with mattresses but it was no use.

What were they trying to stuff mattresses into the windows for?

Here is a mercury reminder from a modern medicial site:

Acute (short-term) exposure to high levels of elemental mercury in

humans results in central nervous system (CNS) effects such as

tremors, mood changes, and slowed sensory and motor nerve function.

Chronic (long-term) exposure to elemental mercury in humans also

affects the CNS, with effects such as erethism (increased

excitability), irritability, excessive shyness, and tremors.

Acute exposure to inorganic mercury by the oral route may result in

effects such as nausea, vomiting, and severe abdominal pain. The

major effect from chronic exposure to inorganic mercury is kidney

damage.

I also found this article:

" As a result of the World War I experience, it was clear that

cardiorespiratory damage resulting from toxic inhalant exposures

could severely limit exercise capacity. Of primary concern, however,

was whether exercise undertaken after a toxic inhalant exposure

could, in some way, exacerbate the effects of that exposure and thus

increase the morbidity or mortality of exposed individuals.

This was a particularly practical concern in light of the military

needs to return soldiers to active duty as soon as possible and to

require soldiers to participate (insofar as they appeared able) in

their own evacuation.

Toxic inhalant exposures may produce direct pulmonary effects,

indirect cardiac effects, and other systemic effects (eg, central

nervous system [CNS] effects of mercury inhalation). Severe damage to

those systems will be readily apparent; however, identification of

lesser damage may require increasingly sophisticated examination.

Minor organ dysfunction is best identified during stress; that is, an

organ system that is functioning near its maximum capacity is more

likely to demonstrate physiological limitation than a system that is

functioning under conditions of rest.

The principle of organ stress as a method of functional assessment is

well recognized. Both cardiologists and endocrinologists have devised

stress testing methods that allow earlier and more sensitive

demonstration of cardiac and endocrine limitations.

Systems with small degrees of physiological limitation are much more

likely to display such limitations during stress than at rest.

Conversely, an organ system that is impaired may become so

dysfunctional during stress that it exceeds its compensatory

mechanisms (and those of other support systems) and fails, with

resulting catastrophic consequences for the organism as a whole. "

Basic training usually weeds out " unfit " soldiers by putting intense

stress on them. Yet from the WWI the narratives shell shocked

soldiers came by the tens of thousands. In the early stages these men

were often considered to be mere cowards and they were wrongly

executed by superior officers.

Still if shell shock was simply a pyschological ailment why didn't

this get weeded out in basic training? It unbelievable that so many

thousands of troops failed to be detected and weeded out of the

military before they faced battle.

More likely mercury-containing weaponry was the whiz-bang development

of WWI technology. There was a rush to try out the new toys of

warfare. Tested in limited scale they seemed fine, but once employed

on a battlefield scale these mercury-containing weapons back-fired.

As cases of never before seen shell shock mounted " cowards " slowly

became " victims " and were no longer shot as deserters and traitors.

As it appears that fulminate of mercury in war toys was either

discarded or modified from any number of munitions in the 1920s and

1930s. You can bet that there were scientific observations quietly

made of the smoke-filled WWI battlefield beyond the tunnel-vision of

the behaviorists.

Even though shell shock was largely considered to be a pyschological

disorder it is interesting to see efforts in future battles were made

to combat shell shock including limiting the amount of time a soldier

was in the battlefield's toxic evironment. Did this work simply by

lowering stress or did it work by lessening exposures to the extreme

levels of toxicity known to be on the battlefield every day?