1. WORLD WAR ONE:
A soldier’s story

3. Technology of World War One
In World War One, technology was used to create new weapons of mass destruction. Because of the efficiency of modern weaponry, the # of casualties on the battlefields of Europe was beyond imagination.

4. Machine Guns
Heavy artillery dropped hundreds of kilograms of explosives on troops- blasting the ground out from under them
Machine guns were a new invention that changed the art of warfare
They could take out vast amounts of soldiers in the blink of an eye

5. Shrapnel
Fast-firing field artillery guns spat out shells that burst into showers of deadly exploding shell
SHRAPNEL: sharp-edged metal fragments released from shell as it explodes

6. Chemical Warfare
The Germans started using poison gas at the beginning of the war
Three types were Chlorine, Phosgene, and then Mustard Gas
Most common and deadliest was Mustard Gas
There were no gas masks for the first years of WWI and even the ones that were developed were often ineffective

8. Gas Masks

10. Trench Warfare
Trenches: an intricate complex of tunnels, barbed wire, and command posts
Were set up in zigzags
Trenches closest to front (enemy guns) were the firing lines

11. DRAW A TRENCH

12. The armies’ defense systems were a maze of trenches zigzagging across mud, shell craters, minefields, and barbed wire.

13. Machine guns were placed at key positions to rake enemy lines with bullets
Three or more lines of support trenches at the rear served as command and supply posts
Running along side these were communication trenches which contained lookout posts
Soldiers stayed on front line for 6 days, support trenches for 6 days and then a few days “off”

14. Going “over the top”
Climbing out of trenches and charging across no-man’s land in an attempt to capture enemy trenches.
Attacking troops were often cut down by machine gun fire or they would get tangled up in barbed wire, only to be shot
Men who lay wounded in no-man’s land could not be rescued. Sometimes it took days before they died, and their companions could hear them crying for help
READ LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

18. The reality of the trenches

20. Trench Foot
Condition that occurs from standing in water for days on end
Swelling of feet/numbness
After swelling goes down there is agonizing pain
Normally gangrene set in and the foot was amputated

25. SHELLSHOCK: