Napoleonic France
In his book, Le Crime de Napoléon, French historian Claude Ribbe has claimed that in the early 19th century, Napoleon used poison gas to put down slave rebellions in Haiti and Guadeloupe. Based on accounts left by French officers, he alleges that enclosed spaces including the holds of ships were used as makeshift gas chambers where sulfur dioxide gas (probably generated by burning sulfur, which would have been readily available from volcanoes in the area) was used to execute up to 100,000 rebellious slaves. These claims remain controversial.
Read more about this topic: Gas Chamber
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)