Considered by many to be the first use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction, the German use of poison gas took place on the 22nd of April, 1915, during the 2nd battle of Ypres. 5'730 90lb canisters were brought to the front lines and opened into the wind, straight into the path of allied forces. This particular gas was known to destroy tissue, like lungs and eyes, killing thousands within ten minutes. German troups were waiting with gas masks near the trenches to pick off anyone trying to flee them.

Over the course of the second battle of Ypres (which lasted about a month), the British/Canadians suffered approximately 60'000 casualties and the French/Algerian approximately 10'000, over 6'000 of which died on the first day of gas related causes.

As a historian, I don't want to focus on the negative. Before the end of the 2nd Battle of Ypres, there's a German civilian who died that I want to talk about, for she is someone I would have liked to have met.

This is Clara Immerwahr, one of Germany's brightest scientists. In 1900, at the age of thirty, she became the first German woman to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry, receiving it magna cum laude.

(No, it's not Becky, though there is a resemblance)

After her graduation from the University of Breslau, she started conducting her own research and being active as a women's rights activist and a pacifist. All this was put to a halt when she married another bright chemist in 1901

Fritz Haber, her spouse, had different ideas about women's rights. He stifled her research and assured that she stayed home, raising the child that she would bear him in 1902. In order to stay involved in the field that she loved, she translated all of his works into English.

His works include the Haber process, the first process to synthesize ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen. We don't give it that much thought, but it's pretty much what allows us to feed the rapidly growing population of the planet*. It greatly improved access to fertilizer and explosives in the early 20th century. For his work, Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918.

*But we don't feed the planet, you say? That's not because we can't. It's because of socio-political forces, not because we don't have the resources to.

When Germany entered the war, Haber put his skills to military use. He developed and oversaw the use of both the poison gases and the masks to protect from poison gases. In addition, he was a key strategist in how they were to be deployed.

When Clara Immerwahr realized what had gone down in Ypres and how close she was to it all, it was too much for her to bear. Using her husband's pistol, she shot herself in the chest on the 2nd of May, 1915. On the 3rd of may, Fritz packed his bags and left for the Eastern Front to oversee another deployment of his gas.

Clara's suicide was hidden from the German people. No autopsy was ever performed.

I don't have any real goal in sharing this other than to share the fascinating tale of the first deployment of a weapon of mass destruction, and the woman who didn't want to live a world where they existed.

TL; DR: Many people died, then one person died, but it was different.