Between 1890 and the 1920’s Europe entered in a new era of modernity, “.. the twentieth century was an age of change, and what has long been commonly called the West was the engine of that transformation,” ( Winks and Adams, 1). Europe was transformed in many different ways during that time frame. Some these new modernizations included: rapid changes in population, a new sense of nationalism among people, new technology, and new arts. First of, to understand the context in which Europe was transforming one must first look at the changes in the European population itself. During this time frame there was rapid population growth. By the eve of World War I Europe accounted for a quarter of the World’s population. Simply between 1860-1910 the …show more content…
The war saw beginnings of air warfare. German dirigibles, known as Zeppelins, raided London many times in 1916 and 1917 and both sides made airplane-bombing raids on nearby towns. Moreover, an intensified type of trench war fare was developed.” The machine gun the repeating rifle, and fast-firing artillery, with the guidance of spotter plane, could pour in upon an attacking force such deadly fire that it was almost impossible for either side to break through the opposing trench systems on a wide front,” (Winks and Adams, 91). According to Rosa Luxemburg, “ 16-19 million men, the flower of various nations, armed with the best tools of death,” (5). Other new weapons introduced included chlorine gas and the tank, a British invention. Tanks were first used in 1916 but needed modifications. They were used again in the battle of Cambrai in late 1917 where three hundred tanks broke the German lines . Poison gas was first used in German shells in October 1914 but it was not successful. Later in April 1915 Germans used chlorine gas discharged from cylinders. Because of the new gas techniques a countermeasure technology was produced, gas masks. These new technologies became equipment for every soldier for both sides (Winks and Adams, 92). But because of these modern warfare innovations, people saw loss like never
When we think of weapons that the soldiers used in War World I we think of them as defense. But what is sort of ironic is that the same weapons the soldiers used to protect them selves were the same weapons that killed them. "The development of poison gases took on a new urgency during 1914-18." (http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/index.htm) Poison gas was a lethal or incapacitating gas used as a weapon in warfare. It was used extremely between the years of 1914-1918 in order to torture enemies during war. Another major weapon used during the war was the machine gun. "The machine gun was a fairly primitive device when general war began in August 1914." (http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/index.htm) The machine gun is an automatic weapon that fires rapidly and repeatedly without requiring separate squeezes on the trigger each time. This weapon was one of the most affective weapons and murdered the most enemies. These weapons were similar to the weapons that Remarque described in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front.
The technological advances since WW1 introduced such things as the atomic bomb and new and improved sea and air warfare. The atom bomb was a big part of WW2 as people could be killed from a bomb from a long distance. This bomb also covered a long area killing more people and people of the area bombed could still be feeling the effects in the form of cancer. New air warfare such as fighter jets were introduced in WW2. These planes carried deadly bombs and could take out a large number of people. New sea warfare was introduced, such ships as the corvette were popular, and the corvette was mostly used for shipping ammunition to Europe from North America. Also, submarines proved deadly as they were out of radar and carried deadly bombs such as the torpedo.
...soldiers also used gases to kill the enemy. The big three gases was chlorine, phosgene gas and mustard gas. The one most widely used was mustard gas because it was less detectable. Eventually the tank was invented, the tank was almost impossible to stop so they used it to break through enemy lines especially to break through the trenches. Soldiers would also break through lines by using miners to dig tunnels to the enemy trench and place a mine to blow it up so they could attack them.
No one in Europe wanted this war to last because they felt and shared a common belief that the economies of the European nations would not be able to survive a war of this scale. (MAJ (P) Charles E. Heller, USAR) Therefore, Germany started looking into using gas a weapon within keeping in mind of the Declaration on the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases; Ju...
...Landless peasants were now working in factories, the economy was more stable, government and the military was stronger then ever, and Europe was one step closer to more modernized countries.
One weapon or machine was created, and an even better one was made. New developments such as machine guns, poison gas, tanks, and new strategies to thwart trench warfare affected how WWI was fought and it came with catastrophic results. Poison gas is perhaps the most feared weapon out of all. Created to overcome the long stalemate style of trench warfare, its purpose was to draw out soldiers hiding in the trenches. One side would throw the poison gas into the enemy trenches and they would either wait for their enemy to come out into open fire or perish in the trenches.
In the Western sensibility, the march of progress is normally deemed positive and inevitable. In recent Western history, from the Middle Ages forward, successive improvements in the spread of knowledge, dissemination of culture, and the av...
Mustard gas was not the only example of chemical weaponry used during World War I. The first example of this was the Germans use of a gas called phosgene in mid-1915, which caused drastic damage to the lungs (Mack 2). The Germans began using mustard gas in 1916 and soon both sides began to use poison gas as a weapon. At a lab at American University, which at its peak employed over 1,200 scientists specifically to create chemical weapons for the war, a new gas called Lewisite was developed. Lewisite poisoned its victims through the skin and rendered gas masks useless against it. During the war as many as 50 different gases were used by both sides (Mack 2). When the war e...
From the Scientific Revolution through to the Industrial Revolution changes in science, philosophy, political policy, individual rights, and economics helped shape 19th century Europe into a diverse, volatile, and intellectual community. Although the basis for these ideas were dependent on individual, societal, and state communities of thought, they demanded a marked divergence from feudal subsistence practices. In other words, the scientific and social development of European society was contingent upon agricultural and industrial improvement. Up until the 17th century, the population of Europe was relatively stagnant. However, from 1750 to 1850, the population of the continent had doubled from approximately 132 million individuals to 260
World War I, which from now on may be seen as WWI, may seem like a dirty war full of death and hardship, which it was, but it also was a time of great improvements in technology, technology, which eventually gave way to the massive improvements during World War II, which may now be seen as WWII. WWI saw innovations such as the tank, the flamethrower, poison gas, and a little known thing known as an interrupter gear just to name a few. Tanks were a great innovation that forever have changed the world we have today. At the beginning, men were only in the trenches, and anytime anyone wanted to gain any little amount of ground, they would get destroyed by a flurry of rifle ...
The next theory is the modernization theory, which is the basis for the rest of the essay. The modernization theory is that since the West led the push to modernization, many components of Western culture are embedded in modern society. “As the first civilization to modernize, the West is the first to have fully acquired the culture of modernity.” This theory also heavily relies on the idea that in order to modernize, the country must Westernize and lose its traditional culture. It is then proposed that although in present day many societies are modern, it does not mean they are all the same.
Stott, Anne. "Europe 1700-1914: A Continent Transformed." europetransformed.blogspot.com. University of London, 7 March 2011. Web. 30 November 2013.
Most contemporary historians define the European early modern period from around the beginning of the sixteenth century, up until the commencements of the French Revolution of 1789. The ambiguity inherent in this apparent catch-all period is problematic, and invokes much debate and disagreement among historians. For the purpose of expediency, this paper will have its modernizing genesis in the thoughts of Mitchell Greenberg writing in the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. Greenberg states there was a common modernizing compulsion right across Europe during this time period ‘…marked by both a gen...
Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter. "1989." Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction. Vol. 4. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 1874-1880. World History in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Modernization is the term used for the transition from the traditional society of the past to modern society as it is found today in the West. Modernization theory refers to a variety of non-Marxist perspectives which have been put forward to explain the development or underdevelopment of countries. Modernization theory is a model of economic and social development that explains global inequality in terms of differing levels of technological development among societies. Modernization theory presents the idea that by introducing modern methods in "technology, agricultural production for trade, and industrialization dependent on a mobile labour force," the underdeveloped countries will experience a strengthening in their economies. Modernization theory offers an account of the common features of the process of development drawing on the analysis of Durkheim and Weber. Development implies the bridging of these gaps by an imitative process, occurring in stages, such that traditional sectors and/or countries gradually assume the qualities of the 'modern' western countries. There are many proponents of Modernization Theory, such as, Walter Rostow, W.A. Lewis, Talcott Parsons, and Daniel Lerner, however the theory has it's roots in the ideas of Durkheim and Weber. The proponents of the modernization theory all felt that the rest of the world needed to look to the Western model of modernity and pattern their society like the West in order to progress. Modernization theory was developed as an alternative to the Marxist account of social development. Modernization Theory Divides the World into two kinds of societies: "modern" and "traditional." Traditional societies are backward looking : Dominated by religious a...