Today, air power is a vital part of warfare planning, but in World War One, this area of combat was just beginning to be explored. The effectiveness and success of any modern ground assault in today's warfare campaigns hinge on a successful air campaign. In World War One, the concept of using aviation as a fighting tactic was in its infancy, and just being explored. Aviation as a weapon was considered unfair and was not allowed according to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 (Wilkin 57). The significance of World War One was the use of aviation on a grand scale, adding a third dimension to the battlefield, and as a result, forever changing military planning and the way modern wars are fought. Prior to World War One, wars were fought …show more content…
Trenches were deep and laid out in very complicated zig-zag patterns with redundant lines of defense (Reiley 13). Soldiers occupying the trenches would rotate on a schedule, starting in the front trenches, and slowly work back to the support line, then the reserve line, and eventually the rear line, repeating the pattern as the demands of the battle dictated (Reiley 14). Life in the trenches was miserable, with millions of men in the trenches, disease was commonplace, and soldiers often developed Trench Foot, dysentery, or suffer from other trench related conditions (Reiley 18). Even with the rapid development of new and improved weapon technology, neither side could make any progress and this stalemate continued for three years (Reiley 22). In contrast to the trench warfare that was taking place inland, the Allied Powers were also using sea power to blockade the Central Powers. A naval arms race was taking place between the two great powers. Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, an American naval officer, authored the book titled “The Influence of Sea Power upon History” in which Captain Mahan theorized “that every nation that had ruled the waves, from Rome to Great Britain, had prospered and thrived, while those that lacked naval supremacy, such as Hannibal's Carthage or Napoleon's France, had not” …show more content…
Even though the German bombing campaign on London did not play a definitive role in influencing the outcome of the war, it had a psychological effect on citizens and was used in British recruiting propaganda posters with the goal of bolstering recruitment numbers (Robert 330). One specific recruitment example can be viewed on a poster created by the United Kingdom Government, Publicity Department, Central Recruiting Depot. As stated on the poster, "It is far better to face the bullets than to be killed at home by a bomb. Join the army at once & help to stop an air raid. God save the King"(Robert 330). Numerous other posters were put into production to encourage potential recruits, ages 18 to 50, to join the Royal Air Force with the promise that by joining the Royal Air Force, the volunteer could not be transferred to the army (Robert 330). For the first time in history it was possible for a soldier to participate and fight in a war without actually seeing
Trenches were very useful for soldiers as they protected them from snipers from high ground and hiding in bushes were the soldiers can’t see them and tanks that are firing shrapnel and trying to damage soldiers. The trenches were 1-2 meters wide with a depth of 3 meters and they were not dug in straight lines they were dug in a zigzag formation with different levels along the lines (Trenches/history), they had paths dugs so that the soldiers could move between the levels. Between the two countries, fighting was a big piece of land called no man’s land, which would be covered with land mines and barbed wire, and the land was often 50-250 yards long. Inside the trenches, they were often reinforced with wooden beams, at the bottom of the trenches there were wooden boards called duckboards, which this was meant to protect the soldiers’ feet from the water and to not make them get trench foot. Countries had the same idea when they build their trenches and made it a lot harder to fight and would take 3 months to end the war instead of 4 days without trenches
Antiaircraft in the early twentieth century comes out of a rich pedigree of coastal defense and to a lesser degree field artillery. To trace air defense artillery’s
World War 1 is perhaps best known for being a war fought in trenches, ditches dug out of the ground to give troops protection from enemy artillery and machine-gun fire. The trenches spread from the East to the West. By the end of 1914, trenches stretched all along the 475 miles front between the Swiss border and the Channel coast.
World War I was known for its very slow-paced battle and the stage of stalemate. After advancing from Germany on France, battle turned into trench warfare. Trench Warfare is a defensive strategy in a field where the army stays in rows of trenches that were placed along the Western Front during the war. The use of trenches during the Great War was a very significant tactic during battle, by making soldiers hidden but exposed just enough to be able to attack the enemy. On a daily basis, life in the trenches was very scary and filled with horror. Death was upon the soldiers even if there was nobody attacking them. There was a continuous shell fire that would randomly take the lives of many. Some men died on their first day in the trenches, and very few were lucky to make it out unharmed. Shell fire was not the only issue in the trenches. There were plenty of diseases and infections spreading around like a wildfire. Many soldiers got infections and diseases that could not be treated such as Trench Foot or Trench Fever. Although trench warfare acts as a great defensive and offensive measure, it became very dangerous because of the many different causes of death including shell fire, diseases, and infections.
World War I was known for its very slow-paced battle and the stage of stalemate. After advancing from Germany on France, battle turned into trench warfare. Trench Warfare is a defensive strategy in a field where the army stays in rows of trenches that were placed along the Western Front during the war. The use of trenches during the Great War was a very significant tactic during battle, by making soldiers hidden but exposed just enough to be able to attack the enemy. On a daily basis, life in the trenches was very scary and filled with horror. Death was upon the soldiers even if there was nobody attacking them. There was a continuous shell fire that would randomly take the lives of many. Some men died on their first day in the trenches, and very few were lucky to make it out unharmed. Shell fire was not the only issue in the trenches. There were plenty of diseases and infections spreading around like a wildfire. Many soldiers got infections and diseases that could not be treated such as Trench Foot or Trench Fever. Although trench warfare acts as a great defensive and offensive measure, it became very dangerous because of the many different causes of death including shell fire, diseases, and infections.
Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived day and night. There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of the trenches on the allied side. In the middle there was no-man’s land, so called because it didn’t belong to either army. Soldiers crossed no- man’s land when they wanted to attack. Soldiers in the trenches did not get much sleep, but when they did it was in the afternoon during daylight and at night for only 1 hour at a time. They were woken up at different times, either to complete one of the daily chores or the go to fight. The system of trenches was employed because a German commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, decided that his troops must at all costs hold onto those parts of France and Belgium that Germany still occupied. Falkenhayn ordered his men to dig trenches that would provide them with protection from the advancing French and British troops. The Allies soon realised that they could not break through this line and they also began to dig trenches.
Trenches were dug out in the ground for protection, against machine guns and bombs, however the trenches were not made for comfort or for soldiers to live in for a long time. Most trenches were muddy and wet and soldiers had terrible living conditions which would cause disease, and eventually death. In document two, by Robert Donald, he exclaims that “I do not see why the war in this area should not go on for a hundred years.” Usually, life in the trenches meant consent fighting and battles, no side ever won because each side would encounter a bomb or some kind of causality and make their trenches deeper, and deeper. This was one cause of a stalemate, and why it was predicted that war in the trenches would continue for years and many more soldiers would die. In an outside source, a diary written by a man named Endy, talks about his life in the trenches and how their were many deaths. Although, this was not the only reason the trenches were deadly. The use of poisonous gas was also used in trenches caused many
All trenches were similar but the German trenches were stronger and built to a higher quality than the British and this was proven in the battle of the Somme. Along the top of a trench there would be sandbags which soaked up water but also protected the soldiers from bullets and bombs. There would also be barbed wire this stopped the enemy approaching the trenches. In the trench itself there was an ammunition shelf which is self-explanatory; below this there was the fire step to shoot from. To prevent their feet from getting wet/muddy there were duckboards laid down on the ground. A place for the soldiers to keep dry was the dugout in here there was a table, chair and bed where they could get some rest. A soldier would spend one week in a front line trench they would then go back one hundred metres and spend four weeks in a support trench then the soldier would go to a reserve trench for eight weeks which is three hundred metres behind the support.
The use of trenches in The Great War was to protect soldiers while they moved positions and to exchange fire across an empty zone labeled as No Man’s Land. However, as Jennifer D. Keene explains, no soldier ever spent the entire war in the trenches. Troops rotated between the trenches, reserve, or rest areas, which were located in the rear. Keene goes on to tell that the normal rotation duration for soldiers on the line was for three weeks and the duration for behind the line was for one week, however, that time could vary depending on whether a unit was in training or if there was not enough replacement troops at the time (“American Soldiers and Trench Warfare”). Troops, although not always on the front line, were never completely
The living conditions in the trenches where never sufficient enough for living in, especially when the soldiers had to stay in them for a few years. The trenches where just ditches in the ground with no sleeping arrangements. Many of the soldiers would go days without sleep. The rations of food that the soldiers received were often boring and sometimes inedible because they were rarely given fresh food. This would limit a soldier’s stamina in battle and make it more likely for that soldier to get killed. The
The first flight occurred in 1903 when the Wright brothers famously took their airplane for a final test flight in December. In the years after this historic flight many people start to see the potential for airplanes in war, transportation, and shipping. Other builders disregarded previous doubt about flying and began to replicate the ideas of the Wright brothers in creating planes with three axes. In addition, the approach of WWI prompted military personnel to pursue uses of airplanes as a war machine. The airplane influenced many aspects of American culture after it’s invention including civilian life, war technology, and individual possibility.
World War I, also known as the Great War start on 1914, it was the first time largely using modern model firearm in the war. WWI have result a totally different war style under the new firearms, because the machine gun could take hundreds of people in really couple minutes, and the artillery have let each side could boom enemy in long range. The old way standing against each other’s block and shot each other doesn’t work in WWI anymore, so people invented Trenches, it basically is dig in to the ground so it can avoid the machine gun on the ground. Trenches warfare takes months and months to fight, and the trenches have become where those soldier live during the war. The life in trenches is terrible, one of the things trenches have known well know is trench foot, basically let the solider lost legs. Other issue on trench is cleaning, like lice, which end up most cloth solider wear have tons lice on it. There also have some uninvited guest such as trench rat, a huge rat that can ear injury solider alive.
The trenches were long, narrow paths and walkways used to protect both sides from open fire from the enemy. They were dug into the ground and were often two to five meters
Once the Luftwaffe started their attack, the British deployed many fighter jets to push back the attack. Most of the pilots thought that they weren’t going to come back alive, but they knew that they would die with and for their country. The people of Britain believed in the RAF’s fully, and supported their sacrifice with noble honor.
Before and during the Second World War people were fascinated with flight, the speed and the idea of flying high in the sky has kept people interested. Bombers and fighters alike both change dramatically in the twenty years after the Great War. From cloth wings to metal wings planes became bigger, faster, agile, and can hold a lot more fire power. The air war has changes significantly since the First World War. During the First World War bombers played a big role in the air war and after it left many questions whether it is the way to win wars. There has been speculation that future wars would be won by bombers and it can crush and the enemies at home and also the soldiers. Both book, Wartime by Fusslle and Why the Allies Won by Overy explain in depth what was the actual outcome of bombers and their roles before and after the war.