Ww1 Military Development

What is the most important Military Development from World War I?

World War I was the start of many new military developments, but which one of those was the most important? World War I was known by the people of that era as, " the war to end all wars", or to others as, "the great war". It was the deadliest war in history up to that point with casualties to be more than thirty-five million. That much casualties were made possible by all the new military developments that were made and used during World War I. These military developments were mostly uncommon in the beginning of World War I, but at the end of the war they changed how war is fought. Some major developments of World War I would be chemical warfare, tanks, airplanes, and flamethrowers.

Firstly chemical weapons had been used for years. They have been used in other wars before World War I, but they were not used in the same way that they used it in the Great War. Chemical weapons are substances like gasses or poisons that are obviously meant to harm others. Sarah Everts, an award-winning science journalist, wrote this about other periods in time where chemical weapons were used before World War I. "They were deployed in ancient Greece; the Chinese used them against Genghis Khan; and indigenous people in South America had long used plant extracts as poison on their darts" (Sarah Everts, cenmag.org). Chemical weapons before the great war were mostly used as, " poisoned arrows, boiling tar, arsenic smoke and noxious fumes, etc" (opcw.org). Years before the Great War, many nations including Britain, France, and Germany signed a treaty to not use chemical weapons, but early in the war French troops broke the treaty by using tear gas against the German troops. This led to the Germans using tear gas too, and the start of mass chemical warfare in World War I. The German army used chlorine gas on French and Canadian soldiers. Chemicals were used in World War I as a way to eliminate enemy troops in the trenches. This was a way to kill the enemy in their trenches without destroying the trenches, they could be used by the

The tank is a heavily armored vehicle that has a mounted cannon and sometimes machine guns too. They did not have normal wheels, but instead had tank treads or caterpillar tracks. They used caterpillar treads instead of wheels because during the war there was rough terrain, so normal wheels could not go through the terrain without getting stuck. The tank got its name that because when the British were shipping the tanks they called them "water tanks" as a code name to keep it a secret from the enemy. So soldiers dropped the water and kept the tank. The earliest idea about using something like a tank would be in 1487 when the famous Renaissance artist and inventor, Leonardo da Vinci drew a sketch of the first armored vehicle that had weapons around it. But people thought that it was not a good idea. Some things like tanks before World War I would a war elephant. These are similar to tanks because they were big and were used to push up the line and defeat any enemy troops on the ground. Also, there were armored cars that had guns on them, but none of the armored cars were able to go through tough terrain so people got the idea to put caterpillar tracks on the car instead of wheels and by doing that made the tank. In World War I tanks were used to break the enemy line so the ground troops could advance. They were also used to cross over trenches easily and have the ground troops