The Strasbourg Agreement of 27 August 1675 is the first international agreement banning the use of

chemical weapon A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...

s. The treaty was signed between

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...

, and was created in response to the use of poisoned bullets. The use of this weaponry was preceded by

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

's invention of

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, ...

and sulfur-packed shells that can be fired against ships. These weapons had been used by

Christoph Bernhard von Galen Christoph Bernhard Freiherr von Galen (12 October 1606, Drensteinfurt – 19 September 1678) was Prince-bishop of Münster. He was born into a noble Westphalian family. Background, education and conversion to Roman Catholicism Christoph Bernh ...

, Bishop of Munster, in the Siege of Groningen (1672) - thus provoking the Strasbourg Agreement between the belligerents of the Eighty Years' War. The Hague Convention of 1899 also contained a provision that rejected the use of projectiles capable of diffusing

asphyxiating Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can ...

or deleterious gases. The next major agreement on chemical weapons did not occur until the 1925

Geneva Protocol The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in ...

. Today, the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons is different from the use of poison as a method of warfare and is particularly noted by the International Committee of the Red Cross as existing independent of each other.

References

"Chemical Weapons and the Chemical Weapons Convention"
*Clarke, Robin (1968), ''We all Fall Down: The Prospect of Biological and Chemical Warfare'' (

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

: Allen Lane; The Penguin Press). * Hersh, Seymour M. (1968), ''Chemical and Biological Weapons: America's Hidden Arsenal'' ( Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company). Arms control treaties Treaties of the Kingdom of France Treaties of the Holy Roman Empire Chemical warfare 1675 in France 1675 in the Holy Roman Empire 1675 in military history 1675 treaties France–Holy Roman Empire relations {{weapon-stub

See also

References