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Military Technology During The First World War

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During the First World War(WWI), no radical victory occurred especially at the Western Front during 1914-1917 due to military technology limits. This further limited diplomatic negotiations and concessions. Thus even when multiple chances of peace showed up, war leaders on both sides failed to grip them. Based on these factors, this essay reasons that military technology, both its failures and successes, instead of diplomatic stalemate caused a 4-year Great War instead of a shorter one. The range and efficiency of the heavy guns and artillery guns were fatal to infantry and created horrifying casualty . However, the improvement in machine gun technology fastened neither German invasions nor the Allies ' counter attacks due to developed …show more content…

The effective defence system plus the determination to win the war by attacks emphasized the ineffectiveness of some weapons. Together they explained militarily why neither side can make significant strategic progress. Apart from the large number of ill-maintained and out-dated artillery that could not break trenches beneath earth, infantries lacked training . Tanks lacked strategic use in WWI. They were ill-developed and inflexible to use, which made them giant easy targets . These indicate that the war could have ended earlier if any of these weapons had maximized their efficiency. In 1915, German troops used lethal gas as weapons in the battles. However, the weapon was quickly studied by the Allied as well . The very little advantage of Germany was the gas shells. Also Isabel V. Hull argues that this military technology had failures in both design and usage, otherwise it was able to end the war earlier . Stevenson also added that neither side considered gas to be a critical weapon and in multiple battles like Verdun, Ypres it did not yield any radical results . The case of gas warfare shows that, most critically, it was not just technological successes and failures that resulted in the military stalemate, but also the absence of a distinctive advantage on one side. Unlike the nuclear technology in the Second World War, neither side in WWI gained an overwhelming

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