Churchillian warfare

SIR – Shashi Tharoor (Letters, April 30) claims that Winston Churchill advocated the use of poison gas against Mesopotamian tribes.

Churchill wrote: “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. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.”

He was urging the use of tear gas as a way to minimise fatalities that might be caused with conventional weapons. Tear gas would not routinely be described as “poison gas” today, so it is misleading to use the phrase without explaining that he wasn’t referring to substances like mustard gas or Sarin. Dr David Murray Oxted, Surrey