In war is ok to kill people but not kill them too much?
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Look at it from the reverse perspective:
People who were perfectly comfortable with industrial artillery war and mass unwarranted death during WW1 have seen the horrors chemical warfare and unanimously decided “no, never again”. That’s how horrific chemical weapons can be.
Of course then other people decided to forget these lessons, then re-learn them all over again. Or pretend there’s no consequences (*cough cough* agent orange)
And it’s not for any one reason, they’re just horrific all around.
They’re indiscriminate. You can’t really “aim” a chemical weapon. This is especially bad if civilians are involved. But even if it’s purely military…
They’re often persistent. Many chemical agents stay in the soil, ground water etc. So even after a conflict ends, the very land will be poisoned for potentially decades or centuries. Not to mention any unexploded duds still hiding.
They’re particularly cruel. Yes, so is being maimed by a high explosive shell. But chemical weapons usually cause immense suffering before killing someone. So you might suffer from a conventional weapon before dying, but you will suffer from chemical weapons. I guess the most… “humane”? of those are nerve agents, because they don’t melt your flesh and just paralyse you, but it’s still a nasty way to die.
Finally… They’re not even necessarily lethal. Congratulations, you potentially get to suffer the absolutely gruesome consequences for the rest of your natural life! That’s the part that particularly horrified everyone after WW1, seeing survivors of chemical warfare come home, destroyed in body and mind. More so than regular combat injuries, that’s how horrific they were.
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