Informative Essay on World War 1
“Le feu tue” (‘Firepower kills’) Henri-Philippe Petain – 1916 Verdun. World War 1 is often called “the first modern war”. During World War 1 many new kinds of weapons and technology were invented and improved. Some of these weapons included tanks, chemical gases, grenades, and machine guns.
Chemical Warfare was used for the first time on a large scale in World War I. many advancements were made during the war; in the air, on the ground, and in the sea. World War 1 started by a conflict and was fought between countries that were equipped with modern weapons. Some of these weapons rose and were very powerful like machine guns and others declined like bayonets. Both weapons and technology made a drastic impact on World War
1.Land battles were mostly fought on both the Western and Eastern fronts. Soldiers were surrounded by new technology and weapons that helped throughout the battlefield but also caused danger/death. Soldiers experienced a great deal of hardship while fighting on the fronts. The western front consisted of small parts in Europe, most of the fighting took over in France and Belgium.
The eastern front was made up of battlefields in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia.”But on the last day an astonishing number of English field guns opened up on us with high-explosive, drumming ceaselessly on our position, so that we suffered heavily and came back only eighty strong” (1.4). Land war started by the use of Machine guns. Machine guns were the first and most famous weapon used in war, they are claimed to be the most dangerous weapon because the killed numerous lives during the war.
Machine guns were invented by the Americans, however the idea was stolen by the Germans. Machine guns at the time could fire up to 500 rounds per minute, but they were very heavy and they were very heavy. They had to be used by well trained men who knew how to setup a gun and operate it quickly. Tanks were armored steel plated, belt tired, and heavily armed combat vehicles. First use of tanks on a battlefield was the use of british mark 1 tank at the battle of flers courcelette in 1915. The french soon followed the idea and created renault FT, which established the look of tank we see today.
The germans never got to producing their own tanks in WW1. The only german design of war was the A7V. Flamethrowers were first invented by a German inventor named Richard Fiedlar. The flamethrower was designed to be carried on soldiers backs. It had two tanks, one that carried flammable liquid and the other that carried propellant gas. The squeeze of the trigger would send shooting flammable liquid up to 18 meters away, it was a weapon used to shoot big flames of fire against its enemies.
It was used to burn soldiers and wooden obstacles such as bunkers. The germans used these flamethrowers to attack more than 650 soldiers, mainly the British and French. Small bombs thrown by hand or shot by a rifle attachment were called grenades/bombs. Germans are the ones who created and mostly used these grenades during war.
The British made their own model of a grenade but it needed more work. By the year of 1917 all troops were required to carry extra grenades to capture and hold them against their enemies. Poisonous gas was introduced by the Germans in 1915. It is toxic smoke that can be very deadly if inhaled by humans. When the gas is inhaled it burns and liquidizes your lungs which causes death. If wind currents occurred while soldiers threw the gas at their enemies then it could easily be brought back to them and kill them.
The only way to avoid the poisonous gas was to urinated on a cloth and hold up to ur mouth and nose. However over time gas mask kits were provided to the soldiers. Airplanes were very recent they were invented by the wright brothers 11 years ago. Airplanes were simple machines, more like to birds than anything else. The first missions were carried out as observation.
Most airplanes at the time were slow/flimsy contraptions with barely enough power to lift a single pilot and perhaps one passenger. Airplanes technology developed throughout war they became very important/useful.In the beginning of the war most soldiers used the planes to spy on their enemies strategies. These planes usually carried a pilot and a photographer who would photograph the soldiers positions.
The use of planes became very popular during war, it became a crucial part in achieving victories. One of the first contributions in the war was at the first battle of marne were reconnaissance planes spotted a gap in the german lines. The allies attacked the gap and were able to split the german army and drive them back. Fighter planes came into the war when they wanted to stop the reconnaissance planes. With more planes in the skies, enemy pilots began to fight each other in the air.
At first, they tried throwing grenades at each other or shooting with rifles and pistols. It was useless and it didn’t work very well. Pilots soon found out that the best way to shoot down an enemy is to mount a machine gun to the plane. However because the machine gun was mounted to the front of the plane the propeller would get in the way of the bullets. Soon a new invention called the “interredur” was invented by anton fokker, it allowed the machine gun to be synchronized with propeller, all planes started using this invention. As the war progressed, both sides began to use airplanes to drop bombs on enemy locations.
The first planes used for bombings were made by the russians and could only carry small bombs and they were very powerless to attack from the ground. By the end of the war, faster long range bombers were built that could carry much larger weight bombs.Germany used zeppelins to drop bombs on targets from far away. These were slow moving but could carry a large load of explosives. Zeppelins were filled with hydrogen, so a small spark could blow up the entire aircraft.
As the war continued it became useless because of the fast fighter planes that were used.The battles at sea were known as naval battles. These battles mainly took place in the northern sea and the atlantic.
