Technology and War

1. Fire Power: Weapons of War
Cartoon depicting the men of the London Irish Rifles booting their football
towards the German Front Line (Battle of Loos, 1915)

2. Structure of Army
• Army under General ~200,000 soldiers
• Corps under Lieutenant-General ~50,000 soldiers
• Division under Major-General ~12,000 soldiers
• Brigade under Brigadier ~4,000 soldiers
• Regiment under Colonel ~2,000 soldiers
• Battalion under Major ~1,000 soldiers
• Company under Captain ~250 soldiers
• Platoon under Subaltern ~60 soldiers
• Section under Lance-Corporal ~15 soldiers

3. 1915: The Death of Innocence?
Lyn Macdonald, 1915: The Death of Innocence (1995).
Stalemate by 1915
Pte. L. Mitchell, 24th Field Ambulance, 8 Div. on Battle of Aubers
Ridge (British offensive on the Western Front) 9 May 1915.
A disaster.

5. John Nash, Over the Top, 1918: Trenches full of men, mud, and rats and more . . .

6. Dehumanization of War
• Fire power turns skill, training, and courage into
gruel, matter of “luck” if survive?
• Hit by large-caliber shells no identifiable remains.
Portable trench mortar

7. Machines and War: The Star of the Show
Maschinengewehr 08 1 or MG 08

8. Germans and Machine Guns (MGs)
• First to effectively use MG in infantry tactics; use
“infiltration tactics”-- short bombardment, followed by
night attack by small group of infantry
• Germans start war with roughly same number of MGs but
organized differently into companies acting together, gave
impression of larger total of # of guns per 1,000 men
• Germans upped #s: 1914, 11 separate MG Cos. Attached to
cavalry divisions, moved independently to cover weak
points
• By 1916, each division had 72 heavy guns, by 1918, 350. By
1916, independent CO. grouped together in units of 3 MG
units, 1918, 87 units. Continued to increase #s of battalions
and guns.
“concentrated essence of the infantry” 1 soldier gains as much
fire power as 40 men with rifles (rifle has 15 shots per minute
compared to machine gun with 600 per minute.)

9. British Lukewarm Start with Machine Guns
Brits begin war with 2 guns per battalion
22 Oct. 1915 Order set up separate MG corps.
Late 1915-- 4 Lewis light machine guns in each
battalion
June 1916--8
July 1916 added 4 more.
By Dec. 1916 one Lewis gun
for every 4 platoons,
by 1918, one for every 2.
1914 Lewis Machine Gun

10. A Matter of Numbers
• On British side, increases pushed through by
civilians and few military thinkers, not by HC.
• Armies remained “obsessed with past
traditions and obsolete conceptions of
warfare.” (Ellis, p. 116)
• “Battle was now simply a matter of numbers,
and the heroism of the individual, or even the
unit, was now an irrelevancy.” (Ellis. p. 116).
Short Magazine Lee-Enfield .303
in No 1 Mk III bolt action rifle,
.303 in calibre, 1913
'Morning star' trench club, 1915
https://collection.nam.ac.uk

11. Suspicious of Gimmickry
Contempt for mechanical methods, even
telephone
Many generals failed to reappraise tactical
thinking vis-à-vis MG. Summed up by Haig: “The
MG was a much over-rated weapon and two
battalions were more than sufficient.” (Ellis,120)
French even more resistant to MG.
Chauchat Machine Gun

12. Machine guns and more
Tanks, mortar shells, gas, grenades.
Repeating rifles silent and deadly.
Periscopes, decoys, and camouflage
German Sommekämpfer, 1916
18-pounder Field Gun3-inch Stokes Mortar, 1918
No. 5 MK. I Hand Grenade

13. Lessons not learned?
• Ellis: “Most tragic aspect of HC’s blindness to the
power of automatic weapons was their chronic
inability to recognize exactly what it meant to
face up to an enemy equipped with such
weapons.” (Ellis,123)
• Large shell bombardments, followed by frontal
attacks, then mowed down by machine gun fire
followed by counterattack—over and over again.
• Not a matter of grit or will.

14. Mortars: A Pipe on a Stand
Inverted siege warfare
Production line of German Minewerfer.
Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-047-37 / CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Men of the KOYLI (aka the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry)
fusing Stokes shells near Wieltje, October 1, 1917

15. 1915: Insidious Gas
• Jan. 1915 Eastern Front at Bolimov. Too cold: gas—xylyl bromide—did not
evaporate
• Second Battle of Ypres (April 22): Germans fire mortars; released
chlorine gas from canisters (cylinder gas) from own trenches. Gas caught
Allies by surprise (though German deserters had warned them).
• Yellowish-green cloud. Chlorine a choking agent; attacked lungs and
respiratory system.
• French and French colonial troops from Algeria fled. Left 4 mile wide gap.
German Commander failed to take advantage of opportunity for
breakthrough.
• Canadians resisted advancing Germans, also caught up in gas attack but
drenched rags in canteen water and covered mouths.
WW I British P Helmet c.1915

16. Gas Attack: Invisible Enemy
• All sides used gas but Germany produced; used more (more than 68,000
tons), France (almost 37,000 tons) and Britain (more than 25,000).
• “Mustard Gas” (Dichlorethylsulphide), aka yellow cross aka “King of the
Battle Gases”
• Introduced in 1917. Effective, though not officially lethal.
• Blistered and burned skin, even through clothing, caused blindness
(usually temporary) and if inhaled could cause death from bronchial
pneumonia, burning the respiratory system. Shell carried and remained
potent for several days in favorable climate.
• Blue Cross. Germans introduced in 1917, fine particles could penetrate
gasmasks—effects of retching, headaches, severe headaches.
• Phosgene (carbonyl chloride) introduced in 1915, delayed action, could
cause sudden death after 48 hours of exposure with victim not realizing he
had been gassed.
• Wilfred Owen, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”
US Army phosgene
identification poster from
World War II

17. • By 1916, artillery shells deliver gas; eliminate dependence
on wind direction
• Cylinder gas in vapor form; shell gas liquid. Classified as
lethal or irritant. Some compounds resulted in instant
death, some delayed-action. Some create years of
suffering.
• Gas dependent on climatic conditions, besides wind
directions, also rain. Some gas might remain active for days,
others dispersed quickly.
• Most frightening aspect of gas--the uncertainty
• Gas casualties small (3-4% overall) but TERROR effective.
• Gas too unpredictable to be war-winning weapon
Cause panic, soldiers hated gas mask.
Two German soldiers
and mule wear gas masks, 1916
Gas rattle used by Lieutenant J T Colledge,
Royal Horse Guards, 1918

18. Detail from Otto Dix's Stormtroopers
Advancing Under a Gas Attack, from his 1924
set of first world war drawings. The
dehumanization of war?

19. British troops blinded by tear gas at the Battle of Estaires, April
10, 1918.

20. Gassed (1919) by John Singer Sargent
Age of Heroes over?

21. Children in Alsace, France, wearing their gas
masks in February, 1918 (Getty Images)

22. 1915 and Tanks: Weapon of the Future
Tank not fully utilized. British navy developed
heavy armored vehicle on treads
Stalemate of 1915. Haig’s breakthrough.
Didn’t happened.
Dehumanizing, frightening.
Heavy tanks “land version of the naval warship”
Light tanks battlefield successor of the horse”
(Audoin Rouzeu, Combat, 183)

23. British Mark I male tank near Thiepval, 25 September 1916.

24. German flamethrowers on the Western Front, 1917Flamethrower first used on February 26, 1915, against the
French outside Verdun

25. Balloons
Balloons used as observation posts and
bombing platforms.

26. Reconnaissance Aircraft
British aerial photographer. Credit: BBC

27. Into the Third Dimension of Combat
Western front main arena for aviation power.
Limited, recon as chief role.
Allies gain technical edge; used planes for aerial combat
(dogfights); strategic bombings.
Fighter planes create revival of cavalry in air Pilots the
new elite, dashing rider of his charger, in France the pilot
“mounted” his plane
Aerial combat took on cavalry traditions. Romantic
images abound.
Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927)
The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1938)
Lanoe Hawker’s Scout C flown on 25 July 1915 in his Victoria Cross-earning
engagement. Dogfight with the Red Baron his undoing.

28. Up in the Air above the Troubled Earth
British gas attack on German
Trenches, June 1916 before
Battle of the Somme.
The Royal Flying Corps took
more than 19,000 aerial
Photographs; produced 430,000
prints over battle’s five months.
Credit: Imperial War Museum

29. 1918 photo shows the near absolute destruction of Ypres.
Imperial War Museum

30. Animals of War
Men of the 10th (Service) Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment of
the 31st Division marching to the front line, 28 June 1916.

31. Gunner with regimental cat in a trench.
Cambrin, France, February 6th, 1918. [IWM]
Studio portrait of a soldier holding a kitten.
Melbourne, 1915. [Australian War Memorial]

32. A dog alongside soldiers in a trench in 1914.

33. British WWI poster regarding
the killing of war pigeons.
Regulation 21A of the
Defence of the Realm Act
www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-
one/10566025/Honoured-the-WW1-pigeons-who-earned-
their-wings.html
“More than 100,000 served with British forces in [WWI],
performing a variety of roles, and with a success ratio of 95 per
cent in getting their messages through.”

34. Animals in War
• Estimated that eight million horses and countless mules and
donkeys died in First World War
• One million dogs died
• Pigeons
• Elephants, camels, oxen, cats, canaries
• glow worms
http://www.animalsinwar.org.uk/
American forces display captured German pigeons

35. The good that came out of war?
Winnipeg, known as Winnie for short, was an American black
bear who was a mascot to Canadian soldiers. The Canadians
gave Winnie to London Zoo in 1914. The writer AA Milne took
his son Christopher Robin to see Winnie at the zoo. Christopher
liked Winnie so much, it inspired his father to write the famous
series of stories about Winnie the Pooh.
www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/28604874
Statue in Winnipeg of Harry Colebourn and Winnie
Pooh by E H Shepard, 1928

36. 12,850,815 tons of shipping was sunk by U-Boats.
Highest total for a single year was 1917. Unlimited submarine warfare
resumed and 6,235,878 tons was sunk.

37. Painting of Dazzle-ships in Drydock at
Liverpool, Edward Wadsworth, 1919
Dazzle camouflage, 1918

38. RMS Olympic in dazzle camouflage during WWI, 1915.

39. Encyclopædia Britannica, 1922.

40. Douaumont French military cemetery seen from Douaumont ossuary. Contains
remains of French and German soldiers who died during the Battle of Verdun in
1916. Artillery as the great killer of WWI.