The story of how the armies destroyed petroleum facilities during the First World War

What is it about?

The article is devoted to military operations in Galicia (now part of Ukraine) and Romania. In 1915 and 1916, Entente troops (Russia, Britain, France) attempted to destroy oil reserves and the oil refining industry in these regions so that these resources would not go to the enemy (Germany and Austria-Hungary). These were probably the first examples of major man-made disasters (fires, explosions and spills of oil and oil products) by the military. Although these man-made disasters were much smaller than the most well-known disasters of this type, such as the oil fires in Kuwait and Iraq in 1991, they can still be considered as having an incredibly negative impact on the environment.

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Photo by National Library of Scotland on Unsplash

Photo by National Library of Scotland on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The article shows how the attitudes of the participants in the First World War towards the environment changed. Using the example of the burning of oil fields and refineries, it shows how the environment became a total battlefield in 1914-1918, where there was no longer anything that belonged to one or the other, but only resources that could be destroyed without hesitation if necessary. It also shows how new technologies (oil refining) could become a new threat to the environment because of the nature of their work and the substances they processed.

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