Advancement of Weaponry

Shell Dump | With courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.

WWI was the first time that the science of warfare advanced so far that it could bring annihilation. WWI is known for being a modernized war; part of what this means is the mass production and usage of advanced weaponry. For instance, there is a sizable increase in the use of artillery in infantry battle. In addition, there is also the introduction of new weapons such as chemical warfare and tanks. A simple way to see how warfare has changed is comparing weapons of previous wars. In the Early 20th Century the Second Boer War took place and compared to WWI the armies during the Boer War did not have nearly the amount of men and weaponry as seen through the Battle of the Somme. The Boer War was not utterly pre-modern as it did use some advanced weaponry such as large artillery. From 1902 to 1914, the British Army went through a transformation. The Boer War was an crucial military conflict that helped the development of the army to become an elite force during WWI. The war the British encountered in Cape Colony versus the Somme region of France was distinct due to the industrial transformation that allowed armies to become more equipped with a mass amount of weapons and technological advances, making more lethal weapons. Moreover, before the Somme, between 1915 and 1916 armies moved away from 19th-century tactics. 20th-century technology made weapons more potent than ever. WWI was the first time that armies saw a possibility of annihilation due to advanced weaponry.

“The aim of any offensive in modern warfare is the destruction of the enemy. This is the object of the present offensive, the idea being to enclose us in a tactical ring by simultaneous bombardment with long-range guns from the front and the rear. Accordingly the greedy beast began eating at the back lines of the German front. First of all our third and second trenches were incessantly bombarded, mostly by heavy artillery, of which the enemy had concentrated unprecedented masses in the sector of attack. It was dugouts which had to be battered down, so that at the moment of assault all the defenders, except a few survivors, and all the machine guns might be buried. Our second and third trenches were bombarded in order to prevent our bringing up reserves. For the same reason all the communication trenches leading from the rear to the front position were kept under incessant fire. On the Somme every one of our columns had a good communication trench which led from the headquarters of the battalion to the front trench. But the attack against our front from the rear extended still further. All the main and side roads and all the cross- roads were kept under fire so that approaching troops, munitions, supplies, and provisions had to pass through several lines of fire. Bombarding villages and places behind the front where the various reserves are supposed to be quartered is an old trick of the British and French, but this time the principle was carried out more consistently and recklessly than ever. All places up to a distance of 10 miles.”-Lieutenant Alfred Dambitsch¹

Modernizing war can be exemplified by comparing statistics. As the charts below illustrate, the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 the Union army used 32,781 rounds of artillery ammunitions compared to the Battle of the Somme in 1916, in which the British army used 4,000,000. Overall the efficiency of artillery increased, especially with high explosive shells which detonates the bursting charge at high velocity. In comparison to earlier guns to WWI it shows increased muzzle velocity and ranges with shell and shrapnel.²

The video below covers the use of artillery during WWI and how it changed during the 4 years of war. This video goes into more depth about the WWI artillery. It also argues that Artillery tactics transformed considerably from 1914 to 1918. In 1914, artillery in tactics and techniques still had a strong parallel to the Napoleonic era. In 1918, the foundations of modern artillery were there, but the basic principles of indirect fire, massed fire, counter-battery fire, calibration, meteorological corrections, and combined arms were known. Despite not being used often on the field in 1914, these principles were widely employed in 1918.

Modern Weaponry

Technological advancements and industrialization led to advanced weaponry like machine guns and chemical warfare, as seen through the Battle of the Somme. This next section will explore the weapons used by armies specifically in 1916.

Notes

From Charles Horne, ed., Source Records of the Great War, vol. 4 (New York: National Alumni, 1923). Internet Archive or HathiTrust.
The data behind the charts comes from Horne's Source Records of the Great War.

Advancement of Weaponry

Notes

Further Reading