The First World War was different from prior military
conflicts: it was a meeting of 20th century
technology with 19th century mentality and tactics. This time, millions of soldiers, both volunteers
and conscripts fought on all sides. Kitchener's Army for instance was a notable British volunteer
force formed in 1914.
Much of the war's combat involved trench warfare,
where hundreds often died for each metre of land
gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles
include Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Marne, Cambrai, Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The combination of machine
guns and barbed wire was responsible for the largest number of casualties during the First World War.
Machine guns
The machine gun is perhaps the signature weapon of trench warfare, with the image of ranks of
advancing infantry being scythed down by the withering hail of bullets. The Germans embraced the
machine gun from the outset - in 1904, every regiment was equipped with one machine gun - and the
machine gun crews were the elite infantry units. After 1915, the MG 08/15 was the standard-issue
German machine gun. Its number entered the German language as an idiomatic expression for "dead
plain". At Gallipoli and in Palestine the Turks
provided the infantry, but it was usually Germans who manned the machine guns.
Vickers machine gun, WW1 |
The British High Command were less enthusiastic about machine gun technology, supposedly considering
the weapon too "unsporting", and they lagged behind the Germans in adopting the weapon. In 1915 the
Machine Gun Corps was formed to train and provide sufficient heavy machine gun teams. To match
demand, production of the Vickers machine gun was contracted to firms in the USA. By 1917, every
company in the British forces was also equipped with four light Lewis machine guns, which
significantly enhanced their firepower.
The heavy machine gun was a specialist weapon, and in a
static trench system was employed in a
scientific manner, with carefully calculated fields of fire, so that at a moment's notice an
accurate burst could be laid upon the enemy's parapet or at a break in the wire. Equally it could
be used as light artillery in bombarding distant trenches. Heavy machine guns required teams of up
to eight to move them, maintain them and keep them supplied with ammunition.
Other trench weapons
The use of barbed wire was decisive in slowing infantry across the battlefield. Fast moving infantry
(or even cavalry) could probably cross between the lines and reach enemy machine gun posts and
artillery. Slowed down by the wire, they were much more likely to be cut down by the machine guns.
Liddell Hart identified wire and machine gun as the elements that had to be broken to regain a
mobile battlefield.
German stormtroopers with
flame throwers, Marne 1917 |
The grenade came to be the primary infantry weapon of
trench warfare. Both sides were quick to
raise specialist bombing squads. The grenade enabled a soldier to engage the enemy indirectly
(without exposing himself to fire) and it did not require the precise accuracy of rifle fire in
order to kill or maim. The Germans were well equipped with grenades from the start of the war,
but the British did not anticipate a siege war entered the conflict with virtually none.
During the first year of the war, none of the combatant nations equipped their troops with steel
helmets. Soldiers went into battle wearing simple cloth or leather caps that offered virtually no
protection from the damage caused by modern weapons. The number of lethal head wounds that troops
were receiving from shrapnel increased dramatically. The French were the first to see a need for
greater protection and began to introduce the first steel helmets in the summer of 1915.
At about the same time the British were developing their own helmets (Brodie helmet) When they
entered the war, this was the helmet also chosen by the Americans. The traditional German
pickelhaube was replaced by the stahlhelm or "coal-scuttle helmet" in 1916.
Air and Sea weapon technology
Nieuport Fighter Plane, France 1917 |
The First World War also saw the use of chemical warfare
and aerial bombardment, both of which had been outlawed under the 1907 Hague Convention. Chemical
warfare was a major distinguishing factor of the war. Gases uses ranged from tear gas to
disabling chemicals such as mustard gas and killing agents like phosgene. Only a small proportion
of casualties were caused by gas, but it achieved harassment and psychological effects. Effective
countermeasures to gas were found in gas masks and hence in the later stages of the war, as the use
of gas increased, in many cases its effectiveness was diminished.
Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily during the First World War. Initial uses consisted
principally of reconnaissance, though this developed into ground-attack and fighter duties as well.
Strategic bombing aircraft were created principally by the German and British empires, though the
former used Zeppelins to this end as well.
German submarine U16, WW1 |
U-boats, or submarines, were first used in combat
shortly after the war began. Alternating between
restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare during the First Battle of the Atlantic, they were
employed by the "Kaiserliche Marine" (German Imperial Navy) in a strategy of weakening the British
Empire by attacking its merchant shipping. In 1915, the RMS Lusitania liner was sunk with United
States citizens aboard, affecting the United States' entry into the war.
At the beginning of 1914, the submarine remained something of a nautical curiosity of uncertain
usefulness. By the end of 1918, the value of the submarine as a weapon had been proved beyond all
reasonable doubt.
Please see some Banknotes from WW1
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