THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR had shown that this was not always true; the combination of more accurate guns, more powerful artillery and the mobility of railroads made the defenders far stronger than attackers in many battles. European observers scoffed at these lessons, however, and believed that a similar situation would never occur in more civilized Europe. They were to be proved very, very wrong, at the cost of millions of lives.
WHEN ATTACKS WERE ORDERED, allied soldiers went ‘over the top’, climbing out of their trenches and crossing no man’s-land to reach the enemy trenches. They had to cut through belts of barbed wire before they could use rifles, bayonets, pistols, and hand grenades to capture enemy positions. A victory usually meant they had seized only a few hundred yards of shell-torn earth at a terrible cost in lives. Wounded men often lay helpless in the open until they died. Those lucky enough to be rescued still faced horrible sanitary conditions before they could be taken to proper medical facilities.
WORLD WAR 1 introduced for the first time widespread use of machine guns, modern artillery and airplanes to the battlefield. Railroads made the supply of vast, stationary armies possible, and even the taxi cabs of Paris were employed to bring men to the front in 1914. Horses were removed from the battlefield except as beasts of burden, and tanks entered service in 1916. But the most destructive weapon of World War 1 was invented in DeKalb, Illinois in 1874 to help cattle farmers keep control of their flocks. Farmer Joseph Glidden invented a useable form of barbed wire after seeing an example at a county fair. Initially used to fence large sections of the American West, during World War I barbed wire was strung by the mile in front of the opposing trenches. As soldiers from one army charged across the shell-cratered hell of No Man's Land, they would become tangled in the wire, easy pickings for the machine gunners in the opposing trench. The massive artillery bombardments commanded by Haig that characterized the first years of the war were aimed primarily at cutting the enemy's wire, a job at which they failed utterly.
BEFORE WORLD WAR 1, there were no machine guns. Instead, hand-cranked Gatling guns could fire hundreds of rounds quickly, and riflemen had to reload after every shot. By 1914, however, gas-driven, water-cooled machine guns had been perfected. Now a two-man team could fire hundreds of rounds per minute. Carefully placed machine guns could command the entire front of a trench line, and when combined with barbed wire to slow or stop attacking troops, machine guns ruled the battlefield.
AEROPLANES were also used for the first time in battle. World War I started only eleven years after the Wright brothers had flown the first power-driven aeroplane at Kitty Hawk, yet aviation had made great strides during that time. Aeroplanes were initially used only for observation of the front line, in replacement for the hot air balloon. Quickly each side sent their own planes to deny the enemy any advantage through the air, and thus the air battle was invented. The most famous pilot of the war was Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the "Red Baron." Famously parodied in the Charlie Brown cartoons, Richthofen's record of 80 planes shot down was no laughing matter to the Allies.
THE MOST FEARED WEAPON of the war was poison gas. First used by the Germans at the Battle of Ypres on 22 April 1915, chlorine, mustard and other gases were used to try to break the stalemate of trench warfare. The effects of gas were horrific; chlorine caused the lungs to break down and choke a victim to death; mustard gas blinded its victims, and other forms of gas caused the skin to burn and nerves to seize. The most famous of the many poems to come from the trenches, Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est, speaks of the horror of watching a friend fail to get his gas mask on in time. The full saying at the end of the poem Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country. Gas never managed to create a decisive advantage for either side, and its use diminished after 1916 as each side adapted technologies to negate the impact with gas masks.
ANOTHER TECHNOLOGY aimed at breaking the brutal stalemate on the Western Front involved yet another twentieth-century invention: the tank. Desperate to break through German wire, the Allies built the first primitive tanks in 1915 and 1916, but their use did not become widespread until 1917. There were some successes and many failures and the tank was not the decisive weapon its backers thought it would be. More tanks actually broke down than were ever damaged by enemy fire. However, during the Allied summer offensive of 1918, which eventually won the war, the tank played an increasingly large role and was instrumental in breaching the German lines.
THE ARMIES AND AIR FORCE were not the only branches of service to undergo technological development prior and during World War I. The naval race before World War 1 was one of the factors that meant World War I occurred in the first place. This was due to a new class of Battleship the British had designed in 1906, the first ship in its class being the HMS Dreadnaught, the largest battleship ever to that date. It was a huge advancement in naval ships and meant Britains original superior naval force was now at threat as Germany began to build the new class of ships also. Submarines were also perfected before and during the war, and they played a major role by bringing the United States into the war when Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917. By 1917, the war was not going well for Germany on the western front. Unrestricted submarine warfare was a result of desperation and the belief that the ferocity of such a tactic might just keep America out of the war if the results were spectacular and shocking enough. However, the effect it had was the exact opposite as by March 21st, seven American merchant ships had been sunk by the Germans. As a result Woodrow Wilson summoned congress and on April 6th 1917, America entered the war.
OTHER TECHNOLOGIES that had a major impact on World War I were wireless telegraphy, invented by Italian Guglielmo Marconi in 1910, that allowed communication with ships at sea; radio and telephone that allowed communications over land; effective battlefield medicine that cut death rates markedly from previous wars; and powerful artillery guns, one of which—the famous German Big Bertha—was moved on railroads and could fire a shell the size of a VW Bug over 70 miles. None of these weapons proved decisive, and all of them managed to increase the death toll to unheard-of levels. During World War I, the world learned the high price of too much firepower and not enough mobility.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
World War I brought enormous changes to warfare and to the lives of millions of people. Complete one of the following written assignments to show your understanding of these changes.…
- 719 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
military technology would have affected civilians due to the frontlines developing within civilian populated areas. Unlike militarily involved countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America, who entered in 1941; due to the geographical positions of these allied countries they were not affected by most land technology. Yet, the development of bombing strategies, aviation and naval capabilities allowed for enemy forces to affect even these isolated countries. Bombing became a heavily used tactic during the war, with huge bombing campaigns becoming a norm. The German offensive on Britain was one of bombing major cities and military factories. ‘At Bath the numbers known to have been killed in two air raids were 148… and the…
- 514 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
New Technologies created many more advantages for soldiers fighting in World War 1. Many new technologies were introduced to warfare including airplanes, poisonous gasses, automatic rifles, tanks, and artillery. Automatic weapons were one of the largest step-ups from the single fire rifle, which is probably a reason why trench warfare was named the bloody stalemate because soldiers could go fire multiple shots at soldiers in trenches without having to reload. This made it easier to reload and allowed soldiers to not have to stop in the middle of battle and reload ever time they shot. Also armored tanks were starting to be produced by allied and central powers. Although airplanes were still not as important as ground-warfare because technologies were not as developed yet so not as useful until World War 2. These innovations were a huge modernization to more deadly warfare in WW1.…
- 406 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Over the course of two centuries, the ways that wars and battles are fought have changed drastically, and yet the end goal has always remained the same, to win and not be defeated no matter at what cost. As the progression of the Industrial Revolution escalated, it paved the way for what could be produced to help military forces win in battle. Industrialization during the 18th & 19th centuries caused the battles of Waterloo and the Somme to be a great example of how industrialization helped evolve war tactics and weaponry to effectively defeat the enemy.…
- 1182 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
There were all kinds of technological advancements during World War I like flamethrowers, tanks, poison gas, machine guns, warplanes, sanitary napkins, Tracer bullets, depth chargers, Hydrophones, aircraft carriers, pilotless drones, mobile x-ray machines and plenty more advances. These advancements made the war a lot worse than it could have been especially mustard gas. The advancements were also great for the war because if the United States did not have some of these weapons then nazi Germany more than likely would have won the war. However even though all of these advancements were very fascinating I believe that poison gas was the most fascinating advancement of them all only because it was banned after World War I.…
- 313 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
During World War I, the defensive weapons used by the German were way more advanced than the offensive weapons of the U.S and their allies. Although the U.S came out on top breaking through the German defenses and forcing their troops to retreat to their trenches, we suffered a great amount of casualties. The lost battalion went into Argon Forest with approximately six hundred men, they left with over four hundred dog tags and less than two hundred men because of the defensive lines advanced armory. Thousand of men were lost during world war I because military leaders were slow to adapt their old-fashioned strategies and tactics to the new weapons. New technology made war more horrible and more complex than ever before. The United States and other countries felt the effects of the war for years afterwards.…
- 386 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The First World War was a war that represented the cultural changes that would take place directly following it. It was a war of new weaponry and new ways of communication. However, much like the new era of culture in the 1920’s, it came to a standstill; stuck in the trenches of some far off land.…
- 438 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
World War 1 began in 1914. This war started in Europe. This was a major conflict. In the war 65 million man fought. Soldiers struggled in the trenches but, there were many reasons why the United States entered the war. Till this day we still ask ourselves many questions. Like, what caused the war? What was life really like in the trenches? How did the United States enter the war in the first place? There were four main causes of World War 1. The causes were militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism.…
- 613 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
World War One, also known as the Great War, was a war that would change all wars. Never in the history of humanity had there been a war fought in such a manor, and it would change the way all wars that followed it were fought. World War I was expected to be a relatively short war, as those in the past had been, and a war of great battles and movement. However WWI was typified by its lack of movement, years of stalemates and "great battles" that turned out to be massive slaughters where hundreds of thousands of men died for a very small gain in territory. The most important aspect of WWI that made it so unique was its use of a new tactic of digging a series of connecting trenches that carved up the landscape of the Western and Eastern fronts. This use of trenches by both the Allies and the Germans was one of the primary reasons that WWI lasted as long as it did. Life in the trenches was a horrifying experience for any man who served in the Great War. The terrible conditions in the trenches would only be fully known by the public after the war was over in late 1918. The armies of the Allies had strict rules against the public gaining knowledge of the details of the war and used many methods to prevent them knowing the truth.…
- 1784 Words
- 5 Pages
Powerful Essays -
World War I lasted four years and produced almost forty deaths with ten million of them being civilian casualties. Both sides felt that the Great War would be over quickly, especially Kaiser Wilhelm II when he proclaimed “I will have Paris for lunch, and St. Petersburg for dinner.” It only took a few months for both sides to discover that this war would not be fought and won quickly or cheaply.” It was the long term impact of the industrial revolution that separated WWI from any other previous war. A century of industrialization meant that Germans, French, and the British could keep their men armed, clothed, fed and free from lethal epidemics on the fronts all year long. Military…
- 1090 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
communication. The most famous code during World War Two was the Nazi’s Enigma Code. The…
- 1503 Words
- 7 Pages
Powerful Essays -
In 1914 the world began to experience a war like no other. The Great War was the first occurrence of total war in the modern period. Total war is when a country becomes entirely involved in the war effort, economically, socially and politically. The governments and civilians of the time were faced with the problems of industrial warfare. It was a period of radical and often painful adaption for military and civilians. Prior to The Great War, nations had rather small armies and involved men fighting on distant battlefields, resulting in the men returning home triumphant or defeated. This contrasted with the modern war that nations were facing in 1914. The new aim was to merge countries’ resources, supplying all effort to the mass of conscripted solders battling on the fronts. Immense impact on the home front during The Great War consisted of increased government regulation, changes in the economy, recruitment and conscription, propaganda, censorship, politics, the revolution of women and changed attitudes towards the war.…
- 4274 Words
- 11 Pages
Powerful Essays -
After the intial bombardment the troops armed with bayonets would go 'over the top' of their trenches and charge across the burnt out shell that is no mans land, through the deep shell holes which provided shelter in hope of overpowering the enemy and taking their trenches, this often resulted in suicidal and hopeless attempts from the troops who knew that they could do little to affect the outcome. 'After the bombardment he sent out an officer and twenty-five men as a feeling patrol. As they reached the No Man's Land there was a burst of machine gun and rifle fire. Only two men regained the trench... The Sergeant Major sad 'It's murder, Sir'. Of course it's murder, you bloody fool' I agreed, 'but there's nothing else for it, is there?' quoted from a British soldier, R. Graves after a bombardment. 'The bombardment stops. The attack has come... We use machine guns, rifles and band grenades. The enemy cannot do much before they are within forty yards. A whole line has…
- 893 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The Trenches – WW1 I’m encapsulated in the unending nightmare of fear. The rain continues to bore on infinitely, pounding on the grubby ground and turning it into vast lakes of murky water. The miserable, grey clouds covered the sky, only letting a few rays of sun slip through. The monotonous sound of raindrops beating on the helmets of the soldiers thundered down like bullets. Everything was miserable, grey, and lacklustre.…
- 675 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In the wars prior to the First World War, soldiers fought with individual honor on the battlefield, often fighting in a confrontational sword battle. Industrialization allowed for massive production of goods, steel and weapons of war. The power of tanks ("iron horses"), poisonous gas, shells, machine guns and hundreds of kilograms of bombs made its first appearance and accounts for much of the manslaughter. Poor war tactics that were not revised to meet the technology of modern day warfare also led to the senseless death of millions of men.…
- 335 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays