Technology that killed millions.
Roham Asgari
History 10
Mr. Keeler
December 15, 2012
Asgari 1
When the death of Francis Ferdinand marked the beginning of WW1 as a "war to end all wars” It also began, the first War that where the newest and most lethal machines were experimented upon the newly armed troops. Only through these lethal and logical experiments did strategists understand the fatal that weapons were capable of. When the weapons were unleashed, tens of thousands could be killed each hour or even second. From there countries adapted, copied, and completely shattered the old ideals of warfare. The war of the past has become the war of the future through intoxicating and gunning down millions. The weapons and strategies became useless, with these new inventions, such as chemical gas and the automatic weapon. As technology spread one man could bring down an army with these lethal weapons. This new technology forced generals to refute the strategies of old, and embrace a new, modern, tactic.
“Weapon of mass destruction”
During WWI there were many new guns that improved armies drastically. These new guns were one of the main killers in the war and accounted for many thousands of deaths. The first machine guns had first been used in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865) and the creator was Richard Gatling (Gatling gun). However, tactics from this war to 1914 had not changed to fit in with this new weapon. Machine guns could shoot hundreds of rounds of bullets a minute and the standard military tactic of World War One was the infantry charge. Casualties were huge. With the new guns such as German Maxim, Italian Fiat-Revelli, French Hotchkiss, Austro-Hungarian Schwartzlose, Russian Maxim and...Est. Many soldiers barely got out of their trench before they were cut down. At one scene British army were not sure about how can machine guns affect their strategy. Therefore most divisions had access to only two machine