SMOKE BARRAGE. 181

Note the sharp curtain which is formed, behind which the infantry advance.



INTRODUCTION


No one who has the welfare of the country at heart can fail to share
Major Lefebure's anxiety that a clear, accurate, and unbiased
account of chemical warfare should be presented to the public,
so that the many erroneous ideas now prevalent in regard to poison
gas and its uses may be dispelled.

The whole subject of chemical warfare is at present _sub judice_,
and there is great danger that the future safety of this
country may be jeopardised by the almost universal ignorance
of the peculiarities and potentialities of this class of warfare.
Recent publications in the Press have shown a tendency to deal
with the subject on purely sentimental grounds, and attempts
have been made to declare this form of warfare illegitimate
without full and careful consideration of all the facts and their
significance for the future.

Major Lefebure has therefore attempted in his book to make it quite
clear that no convention, guarantee, or disarmament safeguard will
prevent an unscrupulous enemy from employing poison gas, especially if
that enemy has discovered some new powerful agent, or possesses,
as Germany does in her well-organised and strong chemical industry,