World War I Was The First Modern Warfare Analysis

Many historians debate the origins of modern warfare. Though they concur on some aspects regarding events, trends, eras, and some elements of the definition of modern warfare, they are mostly divided along fault lines of particular definitions and conflicts. This text will focus on the views presented by four authors in three articles. In “Military Developments of World War I”, David T. Zabecki argues that World War I was the original modern war by chronoligcally presenting developments that led up to the First World War. A.D. Harvey tackles the long-standing belief by many historians that the American Civil War was the original modern war in his aptly-named piece, “Was the American Civil War the First Modern War?”. Harvey presents factual

Zabecki, put shortly, references the developmental era of 1830-1910, the changes that occurred during the four years of the war between 1914 and 1918 (which he focuses primarily on changes in doctrine, strategy, tactics, and the fielding of new technologies), and the legacy of World War I from World War II all the way to the 21st century. Harvey cites the developments of the earlier half of the 19th century before presenting the American Civil War as the proving ground for the advent of modern warfare, argues that it is the sole precursor to World War I (which he accepts as a truly modern war), claims all of the major wars between 1866 and 1913 were irrelevant to the development of modern warfare, and concludes with World War I. Lynch and Bravman however, delve much deeper into not only the origin of modern war, but also its evolution and the state of warfare in the present day. They account the tactical and technological innovations along with the wars starting from the latter part of the 18th century, evolving over the course of the 19th century, and concluding with World War II. An aspect of their piece is that they do not cite any one war as the first modern war or the like, rather, they present each war they use as examples as the next stage in the development of modern warfare, ultimately maturing in the First World War, and concluding with the Second. Yet, they do not merely stop, their, they go on reason that the carnage of World War II led major powers to pursue world peace, and that wars since World War II were conflicts that just became smaller in scale over the decades, ultimately concluding with today’s warfare being nothing more than organized crime (terrorist groups) harassing recognized