World War I took place in the early 1900s, and in the process revolutionized the way in which war was fought. Not only did the Germans bring about blitzkrieg, lighting fast strikes on the enemy, but also many new weapon and tactics were introduced. War was made deadlier then anything anyone had seen before. The common tactic of fighting was trench warfare in which soldiers dug out trenches to take cover.  The area in between the trenches was called “no man’s land” and it was covered in mines and barbed wire. A victory in the trenches was often just gaining a few hundred yards at the cost of many lives. Wounded soldiers were taken to horribly unsanitary conditions and often died or lost a limb from infections. This was also the first war in which submarines played a major part. It often took multiple destroyers just to protect a boat from the U-boats. Another advancement and probably the most significant of them all was the machine gun. A rifle was a soldiers best friend and still is but the advancement of automatic guns allowed soldiers to fire a lot of bullets in a short amount of time which many military strategies were not prepared for. It turned crossing “no man’s land” into basically a death sentence. 

Another new weapon was poison gas. It made its first appearance when the Germans attacked Flanders, Belgium in 1915. At first it was released into wind from large cylinders, but then later developed into artillery shells that were shot into enemy trenches. Both sides started using them in 1918. The German’s used gas the most because they thought soldiers with gas masks on could not fight as well. The gas caused soldiers great suffering and even death. Gas continued to be used especially by the United States in Vietnam when we dropped Napalm in order to burn down the trees. 

Airplanes came on the scene as a powerful attack when the Germans developed a strategy called Blitzkrieg. In the early goings they were only used as surveillance but eventually people noticed their potential. As enemies became tired of their plans being ruined by the surveillance they began shooting down the enemy planes. The German’s decided to start arming their planes with machine guns and soon the allies did the same. Following this fighting ensued in the air and before anyone knew it fighting in the air became a deadly game. These fights became known as dogfights and many of the pilots in the front lines did not survive because they did not have parachutes and would often get trapped in their flaming planes. The Germans then used these light maneuverable planes to bomb cities and camps with lighting speed. This tactic would leave enemies confused and vulnerable allowing the Germans to usually be on the offensive.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/

http://ncpedia.org/wwi-technology-and-weapons-war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_World_War_I