Michael Freemantle

Chemistry was not only a destructive instrument of World War I, but also protected troops and healed the sick and wounded. From bombs to bullets, gas to anesthetic, khaki to camouflage, chemistry was truly the alchemy of the war. This history explores its dangers and its healing potential, revealing how the arms race was also a race for chemistry, to the extent that Germany's thirst for fertilizer...

Within months of the start of the First World War, Germany began to run out of the raw materials it needed to make explosives. As Germany faced imminent defeat, chemists such as Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch came to the rescue with Nobel Prize winning discoveries that overcame the shortages and enabled the country to continue in the war. Similarly, Britain could not have sustained its war effort for ...