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Today, biological warfare is strictly banned under international law and global treaties. But in the past, it was often seen as a clever military strategy.
In the pursuit of victory, armies were willing to unleash everything from deadly venomous animals to the bodies of plague victims on their enemies.
In 184 BC, Hannibal of Carthage faced King Eumenes II in a naval battle. Because Hannibal was at a disadvantage at sea, defeat seemed almost certain.
But the brilliant military commander came up with an unexpected way to turn the battle around: venomous snakes. He ordered his men to gather as many deadly snakes as possible, seal them inside clay pots, and hurl the pots onto enemy ships.
At first, King Eumenes II reportedly laughed when he saw the clay pots, assuming they posed no real threat. But that confidence quickly vanished. Once the pots shattered, the enraged snakes struck at anything nearby, throwing his soldiers into panic. The men stopped fighting and focused only on escaping. With his forces in chaos, Eumenes had no choice but to retreat. Hannibal won the battle without sacrificing his own troops.
Hannibal was not the only commander to weaponize dangerous animals. In AD 198, soldiers of the Parthian Empire used a similar tactic in Arabia.
They packed large numbers of scorpions into clay jars and threw them into the ranks of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Terrified, Roman troops scattered, breaking formation and forcing Severus to pull back.
Throughout history, the plague was one of humanity’s greatest nightmares. Yet while many kingdoms and cities were crippled by it, Jani Beg, the Mongol ruler of the Golden Horde, saw disease as the ultimate weapon.
In the 1340s, after failing to capture the city of Caffa on the Crimean Peninsula for three years, he ordered his troops to use catapults to hurl the bodies of plague victims over the city walls.
Historian Gabriele de’ Mussi wrote that “mountains of dead” were thrown into the city, leaving the inhabitants with nowhere to flee and no way to avoid infection. As the corpses decayed, they fouled the air and poisoned the water supply.
Even with such a brutal tactic, Jani Beg did not win. The Black Death devastated not only the defenders inside Caffa, but also his own forces, turning the siege into a disaster for both sides.
The consequences did not stop there. Sailors fleeing Caffa carried the plague by ship to Genoa, Messina, and Constantinople. From there, the disease spread across Europe and helped fuel the devastating pandemic known as the Black Death.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, as Britain expanded into North America, it faced fierce resistance from Indigenous peoples. Seeking victory with minimal effort, British forces were accused of deliberately giving Native tribes blankets taken from smallpox patients in order to spread the disease and kill as many people as possible.
Britain never officially admitted to this act. However, in the diary of trader and militia officer William Trent, he recorded that two blankets and a handkerchief from a smallpox hospital were given to Native Americans.
Trent’s journal is not the only source. Other historical accounts also describe attempts to infect Indigenous communities with smallpox. In one account, Captain Simeon Ecuyer, commander of Fort Pitt, reportedly said he had pretended to act politely while passing along contaminated blankets, all while being careful not to infect himself.
Around the same period, Napoleon used disease as a weapon in a different way. In the summer of 1809, during fighting against British forces occupying Walcheren, an island near the mouth of the Scheldt River, he reportedly ordered malaria-infected soldiers to move through the area in order to spread the disease.
Within a month, nearly 10,000 British troops had fallen ill. The British were eventually forced to abandon Walcheren.
World War I was an era of horrifying chemical and biological warfare, and one of the most feared weapons was mustard gas. As its name suggests, the gas had a sharp smell similar to mustard.
It was first used in July 1917 at Ypres, Belgium. Soldiers reported seeing a “shimmering cloud” around their feet. Because they were wearing gas masks, many assumed they were protected and paid little attention to it. But mustard gas was not only inhaled through the lungs. It could also be absorbed through the skin. It caused severe redness, blistering, and excruciating pain.
Mustard gas does not dissolve easily in water, making it nearly impossible to wash off completely. If inhaled, it caused blistering inside the lungs and serious damage to the respiratory tract. If it reached the eyes, it could injure the cornea and lead to blindness.
The gas acted even faster in damp environments because of hydrolysis. Perhaps the most terrifying part was that it often did not kill immediately. Instead, it left victims with severe burns and open sores, forcing them to suffer for weeks. Death could take as long as six weeks. In Ypres alone, mustard gas caused the slow deaths of around 10,000 people.
In the pursuit of victory, armies were willing to unleash everything from deadly venomous animals to the bodies of plague victims on their enemies.
1. Venomous Snakes
In 184 BC, Hannibal of Carthage faced King Eumenes II in a naval battle. Because Hannibal was at a disadvantage at sea, defeat seemed almost certain.
But the brilliant military commander came up with an unexpected way to turn the battle around: venomous snakes. He ordered his men to gather as many deadly snakes as possible, seal them inside clay pots, and hurl the pots onto enemy ships.
At first, King Eumenes II reportedly laughed when he saw the clay pots, assuming they posed no real threat. But that confidence quickly vanished. Once the pots shattered, the enraged snakes struck at anything nearby, throwing his soldiers into panic. The men stopped fighting and focused only on escaping. With his forces in chaos, Eumenes had no choice but to retreat. Hannibal won the battle without sacrificing his own troops.
Hannibal was not the only commander to weaponize dangerous animals. In AD 198, soldiers of the Parthian Empire used a similar tactic in Arabia.
They packed large numbers of scorpions into clay jars and threw them into the ranks of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Terrified, Roman troops scattered, breaking formation and forcing Severus to pull back.
2. Bodies of Plague Victims
Throughout history, the plague was one of humanity’s greatest nightmares. Yet while many kingdoms and cities were crippled by it, Jani Beg, the Mongol ruler of the Golden Horde, saw disease as the ultimate weapon.
In the 1340s, after failing to capture the city of Caffa on the Crimean Peninsula for three years, he ordered his troops to use catapults to hurl the bodies of plague victims over the city walls.
Historian Gabriele de’ Mussi wrote that “mountains of dead” were thrown into the city, leaving the inhabitants with nowhere to flee and no way to avoid infection. As the corpses decayed, they fouled the air and poisoned the water supply.
Even with such a brutal tactic, Jani Beg did not win. The Black Death devastated not only the defenders inside Caffa, but also his own forces, turning the siege into a disaster for both sides.
The consequences did not stop there. Sailors fleeing Caffa carried the plague by ship to Genoa, Messina, and Constantinople. From there, the disease spread across Europe and helped fuel the devastating pandemic known as the Black Death.
3. Smallpox and Malaria
In the 18th and 19th centuries, as Britain expanded into North America, it faced fierce resistance from Indigenous peoples. Seeking victory with minimal effort, British forces were accused of deliberately giving Native tribes blankets taken from smallpox patients in order to spread the disease and kill as many people as possible.
Britain never officially admitted to this act. However, in the diary of trader and militia officer William Trent, he recorded that two blankets and a handkerchief from a smallpox hospital were given to Native Americans.
Trent’s journal is not the only source. Other historical accounts also describe attempts to infect Indigenous communities with smallpox. In one account, Captain Simeon Ecuyer, commander of Fort Pitt, reportedly said he had pretended to act politely while passing along contaminated blankets, all while being careful not to infect himself.
Around the same period, Napoleon used disease as a weapon in a different way. In the summer of 1809, during fighting against British forces occupying Walcheren, an island near the mouth of the Scheldt River, he reportedly ordered malaria-infected soldiers to move through the area in order to spread the disease.
Within a month, nearly 10,000 British troops had fallen ill. The British were eventually forced to abandon Walcheren.
4. Mustard Gas
World War I was an era of horrifying chemical and biological warfare, and one of the most feared weapons was mustard gas. As its name suggests, the gas had a sharp smell similar to mustard.
It was first used in July 1917 at Ypres, Belgium. Soldiers reported seeing a “shimmering cloud” around their feet. Because they were wearing gas masks, many assumed they were protected and paid little attention to it. But mustard gas was not only inhaled through the lungs. It could also be absorbed through the skin. It caused severe redness, blistering, and excruciating pain.
Mustard gas does not dissolve easily in water, making it nearly impossible to wash off completely. If inhaled, it caused blistering inside the lungs and serious damage to the respiratory tract. If it reached the eyes, it could injure the cornea and lead to blindness.
The gas acted even faster in damp environments because of hydrolysis. Perhaps the most terrifying part was that it often did not kill immediately. Instead, it left victims with severe burns and open sores, forcing them to suffer for weeks. Death could take as long as six weeks. In Ypres alone, mustard gas caused the slow deaths of around 10,000 people.
