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Battle of the somme canada autonomous
Technology and weapons of ww1
Weapons and technology of ww1
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Stalemate
By the end of 1914 the war had reached stalemate. This was due to the failure of both the Germans Schlieffen Plan and the French Plan Seventeen. Both these plans were said by each side to end the war 'by Christmas' and neither side had perceived the idea of stalemate. So as the next few years came both sides had to produce new ways to end stalemate and win the war. Both sides found ways, which they thought would win the war. I will explain how far they actually went to break the stalemate.
FRONTAL ASSAULT
During the year of 1916 there were two important battles, Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme. Both of these battles inflicted major causalities on both the Allied and German troops. They to some were just a pointless exercise which gave both sides nothing but very large causality lists. The Battle of the Somme was a battle caused the most number of deaths in a single day of fighting, and Verdun where the Germans planned to cause major causalities on the French may have done this but ended up with just as many as the French. Also during 1917 there were also two battles which did not help either side in breaking stalemate, Battle of Passchendaele and the Battle of Cambrai. It was at Cambrai where the tank was first used but this did not help the effort. So with these battles and many other ones did not help to break stalemate. They only helped to cause more deaths and in some cases the attacking side gained only a few miles and lost thousands of men. They, however, could have helped it as they may have helped wear down the Germans and this may have helped break stalemate.
NEW WEAPONRY
During the course of the war both the Allies and the Germans created new weapons; like the artillery, aircraft's, the use of gas and tanks. They had to create new and better weapons to suit the new type of warfare that was taking place. The machine gun, which was not new but the quantities used was, was said to be the most effective weapon on the Western Front. This was because it helped to create stalemate and was so effective when used as a form of defence, against on coming soldiers, and created a great numbers of causalities that both sides decided to stay in their trenches.
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.
Assessment of the Reasons for Allied Victory in 1918 During 1918, the effect of Stalemate along the Western Front saw 4 years of war trying to break it. Ideas and technology were outdated and often tactics were unrealistic. A stretch in German supplies, the intervention of the USA, the strategic strength of the allies along with the deteriorating German homefront effort due to the naval blockade saw the collapse their war effort. From the failure of the Schlieffen Plan due to poor planning and heavy reliance of the 42-day deadline, the German army also had the difficulty of fighting a war on two fronts. These factors reflected poorly on the leadership of the German high commanders.
World War I, also known as the Great War, lasted from the summer of 1914 until the late fall of 1918. The war was fought between the Allies, which consisted mainly of the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire, and the Central Powers, which consisted mainly of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria (Alliances - Entente and Central Powers). In total, it is estimated that twelve million civilians and nine million combatants died during this horrific and devastating war (DeGroot 1). When the war first began in 1914, many people thought that it would be a war of movement that would quickly be over. However, that changed when the Germans, who were trying to reach and capture the city of Paris in France, were forced to retreat during the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (Ellis 10). German General von Falkenhayn, who felt that his troops must at all cost hold onto the parts of France and Belgium that they had overtaken, ordered his men to dig in and form defensive trench lines (Ellis 10). The Allies could not break through the enemies lines and were forced to create trenches of their own (Ellis 10). This was only the beginning of trench warfare. A war of movement had quickly come to a standstill on the Western Front. A massive trench line, 475 miles long, quickly spread and extended from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier (Ellis 10). With neither side budging, soldiers were forced to live in the most miserable of conditions. Simply put, life in the trenches was a living hell. A lieutenant of the 2nd Scottish rifles wrote, “No one who was not there can fully appreciate the excruciating agonies and misery through which the men had to go [through] in those da...
People did not expect the war to develop in the way it did. In 1914
Tactical changes within both main armies fighting on the Western Front would eventually lead to battlefield success for both sides while leading to an impending victory by the Allies. The Germans on one hand developed the use of combined arms, Stormtroopers. These soldiers while extremely successful also led to a destruction of the German moral and reserves due to high casualty rates. On the other side, the Allies stymied their original failures in tactics by maintaining moral and developing their own tactics. These new tactics included the creeping barrage, difeme en profondeur, and bite and hold. By combing these with a genuine strategy the allies overcame the weakened German Army.
World War Warfare was one of the greatest examples of technological advancement and strategic challenge, with the introduction of inventions such as the aircraft and the tank the battlefield transformed from attrition as scene in the early years of the war to decisive by the end of the war.
August 4, 1914 the German parliament decided to support the mobilization of war. With this decision they also declared a “civil peace” which meant that Germany would unite to defend their country, putting all their political differences aside. Many Germans were very happy with this decision, thinking that the war would be quick and victorious; however, as time passed by more growing resentful of the war and the German government. This can be seen through various opinions in the beginning, middle, and end of the war.
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.
Professor Geoff Hayes, “4 August 1914: Slithering Over the Brink, The Origins of the Great War,” Lecture delivered 31 October, 2011, HIST 191, University of Waterloo
The stalemate on the Western front had developed by December 1914 because of the new advances in defensive weaponry where both sides had developed lethal weaponry like the machine guns and artillery, which subsequently led to trench warfare. The Machine Gun was a very dominant weapon in the First World War. It could kill hundreds of men a minute due to its rapid firing rate of 600 bullets a minute. However the machine guns that were used in the First World War weighed between 30kg – 60kg, would require a four to six operators and could heat up extremely quickly; clearly not very effective as a offensive weapon (Duffy, Michael. "Machine Guns.") Machine Guns were only effective for defense as they were extremely heavy, required a lot of ammunition a needed to be fixed into the ground. This made it severely difficult to attack and move with machine guns. Artillery was even deadlier as a defensive weapon and was one of the most important weapons of the First World War as it was the cause of the majority of human losses. The artillery ranged from field artillery to heavy and long range artillery that could fire long distances and would trap the enemies in their trenches. The Trench Mortar was also a very effective weapon in the war, which was a “tube” that would fire at a vertical angle (higher than 45 degrees) and could therefore be fired within the safety of the trench, unlike artillery. All these new advances in technology made trenches almost impossible to attack yet also kept each side trapped in their trenches.
...w warfare. Also since there was a new air force being used, there had to be certain precautionary measures to be taken in order to thwart off the planes, thus the birth of flak cannons. These shot shards of metal not the sky to shoot down the planes. Finally the most important piece of technology that was introduced in World War Two was the Hydrogen and Atomic Bombs; which were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. These two pieces of weaponry ended World War Two in the pacific front and in the world.
The Battle of the Somme epitomizes the harsh realities of trench warfare for the Allies and represents the negligent battle planning and technological advancements that are associated with the stalemate of World War One. Trench warfare was common across the Western Front, with similar strategies being employed by both opposing sides. Sir Douglas Haig, one of the British coordinators for the Somme offensive is blamed with an offensive strategy destined for failure. The British offensive, an utter failure, resulted in a stalemate, which was common throughout World War One. The British development of the tank, while it eventually ended the horrendous stalemate, was ineffectively used during the Somme.
No other weapon in my opinion has changed the face of the battlefield as has the machine gun. It's design and and association with mass death makes it a great and powerful weapon. Two men, Hiram Maxim and Richard Gatling, made huge impacts in the development of the Machine Gun and bringing it to use in the military. These two brilliant men designed capable and reliable versions of Machine guns in a time when everyone was making unreliable models. However before we get into discussion about the inventions of Hiram Maxim and Richard Gatling, it's important to understand how machine guns were developed.
The products of the Industrial Revolution made World War I a war like no other. The Industrial Age brought with it the development of the railroad, a huge factor in the area of transportation of soldiers and supplies. The Revolution also brought changes in warfare at sea. Instead of ships made of wood, iron and steel were the new materials of choice. The products of the Industrial Revolution that had the most impact on the war were by far the weapons created by the new machines and materials of the revolution. The book, Warfare in the Twentieth Century, states that "industrialization dramatically increased the destructive capacity of armies by providing them with weapons of enhanced range, accuracy, and fire..." (3). The weapons of World War I are a perfect example of how reason and progress are not always without consequence; they can sometimes bring about horrible suffering and pain.
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 ...