Military Innovations- (tanks, poison gas, airplanes, machine guns, U-boats, trench warfare)
(tanks) In 1914, the “war of movement” expected by most European generals settled down into an unexpected, and seemingly unwinnable, war of trenches. A solution presented itself, however, in the form of the automobile, which took the world by storm after 1900. Powered by a small internal combustion engine burning diesel or gas, a heavily armored vehicle could advance even in the face of overwhelming small arms fire. Add some serious guns and replace the wheels with armored treads to handle rough terrain, and the tank were born. The first tank, the British Mark I, was designed in 1915 and first saw combat at the Somme in September 1916. The French soon followed suit with the Renault FT, which established the classic tank look. Despite their later prowess in tank combat in WWII, the Germans never got around to large-scale tank production in WWI, although they did produce 21 tanks in the unwieldy A7V model.
(Poison gas) The first successful use of chemical weapons (poison gas) occurred on April 22, 1915, near Ypres, when the Germans sprayed chlorine gas from large cylinders towards trenches held by French colonial troops. The Germans pioneered the large-scale use of chemical weapons with a gas attack on Russian.
(airplanes) Airplanes had been around for just a decade when WWI started, and while they had obvious potential for combat applications as an aerial platform for bombs and machine guns, it wasn’t quite clear how the latter would work, since the propeller blades got in the way
(machine guns) The machine gun, which so came to dominate and even to personify the battlefields of World War One, was a fairly primitive device when general war began in August 1914. Machine guns of all armies were largely of the heavy variety and decidedly ill-suited to portability for use by rapidly advancing infantry troops. Each weighed somewhere in the 30kg-60kg ranges - often without their mountings, carriages and supplies.
(U-boats) The U-boat proved its worth as a serious fighting machine right at the beginning of WWI when Kptlt. Otto Weddigen in his small U-9 sank 3 British cruisers in less than hour on 22 Sep 1914. From then on the U-boats, although never committed fully until well into 1917, caused the Allies very serious problems and scored incredible victoires while suffering their own losses as well. U-boat, German U-boot, abbreviation of Unterseeboot, a German submarine. The destruction of enemy shipping by German U-boats was a spectacular feature of both World Wars I and II.
(Trench Warfare) The early offensives of 1914 quickly demonstrated that the nature of warfare had changed. Troops that dug themselves in and relied upon modern rifles and new weapon-the rapid-fire machine gun-could easily hold off the attacking forces. On the western front, troops dug a network of trenches that stretched from the English Channel to the Swiss bored. The space between the opposing trenches was known as “no man’s land”, a rough barren landscape pockmarked with crates from artillery fire.
New medicine in WWI
-Buddy-aid- treatment of injuries, soldiers were paired, one took care of another in case of injury or death.
-Field medics provided emergency care, armed and unarmed medics were sent out to the battlefield, and they provided a quick response with treatment.
-Field stations 500 to 1000 yards behind the regimental, field stations were set up out of range of the foes artillery, the soldiers were transported there, and taken care of.
-anti-tetanus serum was given to the soldiers in order to prevent the dangerous bacterial infection, called tetanus or lockjaw.
-Casualties were moved from aid stations to field hospitals, which were a combination of local buildings and tents.
-Doctors and surgeons performed urgent surgery for hemorrhage, perforating head and abdominal wounds, immediate-need amputations, and bone splinting.
-Warfare has spurred physicians, surgeons, and researchers to major, sometimes spectacular advances.
-The scientific and clinical victories are bequeathed to civilian populations that inherit the peace. Many advances were then developed and used in everyday civilian medicine.
-Out of human destructiveness emerge potent new strategies of protection, remediation, and self-preservation.
-Field medics provided emergency care, armed and unarmed medics were sent out to the battlefield, and they provided a quick response with treatment.
-Field stations 500 to 1000 yards behind the regimental, field stations were set up out of range of the foes artillery, the soldiers were transported there, and taken care of.
-anti-tetanus serum was given to the soldiers in order to prevent the dangerous bacterial infection, called tetanus or lockjaw.
-Casualties were moved from aid stations to field hospitals, which were a combination of local buildings and tents.
-Doctors and surgeons performed urgent surgery for hemorrhage, perforating head and abdominal wounds, immediate-need amputations, and bone splinting.
-Warfare has spurred physicians, surgeons, and researchers to major, sometimes spectacular advances.
-The scientific and clinical victories are bequeathed to civilian populations that inherit the peace. Many advances were then developed and used in everyday civilian medicine.
-Out of human destructiveness emerge potent new strategies of protection, remediation, and self-preservation.
Agricultural Innovations
World War I had created an atmosphere of high prices for agricultural products as European nations demand for exports surged. Farmers had enjoyed a period of prosperity as U.S. farm production expanded rapidly to fill the gap left as European belligerents found themselves unable to produce enough food. And the technology, such as the combine harvester, meant the most efficient farms were larger in size and, gradually, the small family farm that had long been the model were replaced by larger and more business-oriented firms.