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  • I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.

    Winston Churchill's statement as President of the Air Council in War Office Departmental Minute (the original document is in the collection of Churchill Papers 16/16 at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge), May 12, 1919.
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