England could deploy WMD in 1914
The Seattle Star., December 18 1914
England Guards Secret Engine of Destruction Which Could Wipe Germans Off Map in Hour
LONDON', England, Dec. 15 —Will England. driven to desperation, annihilate the Teutonic race? Will she resort to the secret that, for more than 100 years, she has considered too terrible to use? Will England employ "Dundonald's famous destroyer" and at one blow exterminate millions of human beings? Three times England, when in sore straits, has considered using Dundonald's destroyer," which is the mystery of the world's warfare and three times the military and civil authorities of England have revolted at the idea of such "wholesale slaughter!"
What is Dundonald's destroyer? At the present time it is said, the appalling secret is locked up in sealed vaults in the Tower of London. But three persons one of the royal family, one of the army and one of the navy know what it is.
Thomas Cochrane tenth Earl of Dundonald, one of the most daring of the British sea lords, was also the greatest inventor of his time. In 1810 he led the British in the attack upon the French fleet in Basque Roads, one of the greatest feats of British naval history. He was kept from destroying the enemy only by the gross conduct of his superior officer, Lord Gambler. In a rage Dundonald made a frantic assault upon Gambler, and Gambler, backed by the corrupt admiralty, succeeded in disgracing Dundonald and forcing his retirement. Dundonald. experimenting with gases and chemicals, suddenly appeared before the admiralty, demanding the appointment of a small committee to investigate his "new invention." He claimed that his invention furnished an "infallible means of securing at one blow our military supremacy; of commencing and terminating a war by one victory."
A royal committee investigated. It reported that Dundonald's destroyer would do all that he claimed; that either on sea or land it was irresistible and infallible! The government refused to adopt it, however. The committee had reported that its "devastation would be inhuman; it would transcend the limits of permissible warfare." The report urged "that it be kept a secret, lest some other power get it and use it for the annihilation of England and the conquest of the world." In 1846 the admiralty appointed another investigating committee of high officials. In January, 1847, this committee reported that, "beyond aid's destroyer not only would defeat, but would actually destroy, sweep out of existence, annihilate any hostile force. To use such utter devastation would be contrary to the principles of warfare." During the Crimean war the government, hard pressed and desperate, was inclined to use the mysterious destroyer against the Russians. The admiralty once voted to use the device, provided Dundonald would instruct two officers as to how to employ it against Sevastopol. He stated that we would use it himself personally if permitted full freedom, and that it "meant the death of the operator as well as the enemy." The government again refused to permit such a crime against humanity. Tradition among military experts is that the committee of 1847 wrote a full and complete list of direction as to the operation of the destroyer and that these direction have been sealed in a vault in the Tower of London for years.
