New Technology of WWI

Trenches• Trenches were stinking cesspools, and often had rats• Clothes would become infested with lice• Trench foot – swollen black feet, amputation• Seriously injured were left to die in “no man’s land”• Many survivors were left in “shell shock” – uncontrollable shaking

Trench Warfare:Trench WarfareShell Shock:The effects of brutal bombings

Trench Foot

New Technology• 1914 new weapons developed: machine guns,

airplanes, armored tanks• Commanders failed to understand new

technology and their applications• Therefore, their war strategy was the “War of

Attrition”, each side repeatedly attacked the other until exhausted and unable to continue. Very ineffective strategy with this new technology

New Technology (cont.)

• Germany used dirigibles– Inflated airships for scouting and bombing

missions– British also used dirigibles

Hindenburg burning

New Technology (cont.)

• Bigger field guns and cannon– Germany’s “Big bertha” artillery was capable of

hitting targets 12 km away– These guns fired shells which weighed 820kg

each, filled with explosives and fragmentation objects

“Big Bertha”

New Technology: Tanks• Tanks

– The British developed tanks to crush barbed wire and shelter

– Soldiers followed wide line of tanks through “no mans land“

– The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of 49 British Mark I tanks at the Battle of the Somme, September 1916, with mixed results; many broke down, but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. only nine made it across "no man's land" to the German lines.

WWI Mark IV Tank

New Technology: Gas• Poison Gas

– Germany was the first to use poisonous gas in the Battle of Ypres 1915

– Chlorine - burned skin and lungs– Phosgene gas – caused suffocation– Mustard gas – burn skin – Easier to kill more people– Later, Anti-gas respirators were developed

World War I, British soccer team with gas masks, 1916

New Technology: Planes

• Planes– Fighter Planes

• First, they were used to locate and photograph enemy positions

• These photographs were then used to better attack enemy positions

• Later, they were used for battle but they feared the machine guns would shoot their own propellers to pieces. Each side attempted to design and perfect an interrupter device to time the machine guns to fire between the propeller blades

Gotha G.V German bomber, 1917

Billy Bishop: the ultimate ace– Canada did not have own air force, so pilots had

to join the British Royal Flying Corps– Billy Bishop was a famous Canadian ace– To become an ace a pilot had to prove that he

had shot down at least five enemy aircraft– officially credited with 72 victories, making him

the top Canadian ace in World War I. – During the Second World War, Bishop was

instrumental in setting up and promoting the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

Billy Bishop1914

Bishop c.August 1917, in the cockpit of his Nieuport 17

Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter in Aisne, France 1917

New Technology: Submarines

• Submarines– Although US and Britain were responsible for submarine

development Germany used U-boats more often – U-boats (under-sea boats) were equipped with torpedoes– In 1915, a U-boat sank the Lusitania. Which was a British

passenger liner killing about 1200 passengers.– Allies unable to retaliate at first, later developed a

underwater listening device to locate and destroy U-boat

• Not all ships were used for battles, merchant ships, would ferry munitions and supplies to Britain.

German submarine U9

Assignment• Review the description of technology and

trench warfare from your notes and/or on line.

• Think/Pair/Share: how would you explain the huge numbers of soldiers killed in World War I? How did the introduction of new technology in WWI change the nature of warfare?