The Technology

Battle of Attrition = “grinding down”; to grind the other side down in order to outlast them, repeatedly attacked until exhausted and/or unable to continue. Trench warfare made it nearly impossible for one side to gain the upper hand = instead of decisive victories, each side simply tried to grind the other side down = very ineffective strategy with new technology.

Total War = All resources (human and natural) of a nation are organized/put towards the war effort for one purpose – to win the war; the home front was just as important as the battlefield in total war = to take the word “total” in total war very literally.

On the Western Front during the First World War, the military employed specialist miners to dig tunnels under No Man's Land.

The main objective was to place mines beneath enemy defensive positions = when it was detonated, the explosion would destroy that section of the trench and the infantry would then advance towards the enemy front-line hoping to take advantage of the confusion that followed the explosion.

WW1 saw the invention and use of several new weapons including the machine guns, airplanes, and armored tanks (finally!). Yet, Commanders failed to understand new technology and their applications – kept on with attrition/trench warfare.

“Lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms. Rigid = Zeppelins Non-rigid = Blimps Germany and Britain used dirigibles for scouting and bombing missions.

Germany’s “Big Bertha” (howitzer) artillery was a single siege gun that was at that time the world's largest and most powerful yet only 4 were ever produced by Krupp– needed a crew of 1,000 men to assemble. Was capable of hitting targets 15 km away; fired shells which weighed 820 kg each, filled with explosives and fragmentation objects.

Although initially termed "land ships" by the British Army, the first of these vehicles were referred to as "water-carriers" (then shortened to "tanks") to preserve secrecy.

The development of tanks in 1915 began as a solution to break the stalemate (stagnated fighting) which trench warfare had developed into on the Western Front (name given to the battle areas in western Europe – France, Belgium, Germany). First used at the Battle of the Somme, July 1916.

The British developed tanks (Mark V) to crush/roll over barbed wire and shelter soldiers in no-man’s-land; were immune to machine gun fire. Got stuck in the mud and were clumsy so at first tanks did not have a huge impact in the war yet by 1918, the tank became the reason for the Allied victory.

Germany was the first to use poisonous gas in the Battle of Ypres 1915 via hoses pushed into no- man’s-land against Canadian and French troops. Exposure caused blindness, stripped the lining of the lungs, eventually caused people to choke, rather drown, to death due to the fluid build-up in the lungs.

Types of Gas: Chlorine gas - burned skin and lungs Phosgene gas – caused suffocation Mustard gas – burned skin Easier to kill more people but could backfire = gas could be blown back by breezes and kill the troops distributing it.

At first there were no respirators and soldiers were ordered to urinate on a piece of cloth and hold it over their noses and mouths to neutralize the gas. Later (1916) anti-gas respirators (small box respirators) were developed.

Although in 1914 the British did not think that machine guns would be very effective, it soon became obvious that machine guns were very efficient at killing enemy troops as they advanced over no-man’s-land – the German’s realized this from the beginning.

Machine guns and artillery fire accounted for most of the deaths throughout the First World War.

The 1914 machine gun, usually positioned on a flat tripod, would require a gun crew of four to six operators; large field guns fired shells and required a crew of twelve. In theory, they could fire small-calibre rounds per minute, a figure that was to more than double by the war's end, with rounds fed via a fabric belt or a metal strip.

The reality, however, was that these early machine guns would rapidly overheat and become inoperative without the aid of cooling mechanisms; they were consequently fired in short rather than sustained bursts. Cooling generally took one of two forms: water cooled and, increasingly as the war developed, air cooled.

Sir Hiram Maxim ( ), USA inventor, designed the machine gun in London, England bearing his name: Maxim. Used by Germany = Maxim + Maschinengewehr Used by Britain/Canada = Vickers + Maxim Used by France = Hotchkiss Used by the USA = Browning

At first submarines in WWI were very small and inefficient but their torpedoes could sink the largest ship = torpedoes were fired underwater at a moving target with precision.

Although US and Britain were responsible for submarine development, Germany used U- boats/Unterseeboot (under-sea boats) more often – they were equipped with torpedoes.

The main role of German submarines was to destroy merchant ships supplying Britain with war material and other domestic goods (via Canada + USA) = the goal was to starve Britain into submission.

Supply ships from Canada + USA regularly crossed the Atlantic to Great Britain and were often attached by German U-boats = created the convoy system where supply ships (merchant marines) were escorted by armed destroyers (battleships) that surrounded the fleet = ended threat of U-boats.

In May 1915, a U-boat (U-20) sank the RMS Lusitania which was a British Passenger Liner that was travelling from New York to Liverpool (wealthy people still went on vacation during the war!) Killed a total of 1200 US and British passengers = contributed to bringing the USA into WW1.

Allies unable to retaliate at first. Later (for WW2) they developed an underwater listening device to locate and destroy U-boats: Centimetric Radar.

Planes were very much in the experimental stage in WW1; they were worth studying because of the impact they would have in WW2. The first fighter planes in WW1 were flown by a single pilot and could not remain airborne for more than an hour before refuelling.

Unarmed airplanes were used to scout enemy positions behind enemy lines = locate and photograph enemy positions. These photographs were then used to better attack enemy positions.

Because both sides sent planes into the air, “dogfights” (aerial battles) often occurred between rival pilots. In 1917, the peak year for aerial dogfights, the average life expectancy for a RFC (Royal Flying Corp) was only three weeks.

Canada did not have own air force, so pilots had to join British Flying Corps, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

Billy Bishop (aka “Billy” or “Bish”)= Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop (8 February 1894 – 11 September 1956) was a Canadian First World War flying ace.

Officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace, and according to some sources, the top ace of the British Empire - to become an ace a pilot has to prove that he shot down five enemy aircrafts – was awarded the Victoria Cross for courage + bravery.

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The Red Baron = Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), was a German fighter pilot with the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) during WWI. He is considered the ace-of-aces of that war, being officially credited with 80 air combat victories, more than any other pilot.

Later, planes were used for battle but it was feared that 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. They would get it right for WW2.

Canada in the Trenches