Trenches during WWI were unsanitary places that exposed soldiers to rats, lice, trench foot, and shell shock. New weapons in 1914 like machine guns, airplanes, and tanks were developed, but commanders failed to understand how to effectively use this new technology. As a result, battles involved attrition strategies that led to massive casualties. Poison gases, larger artillery, tanks, planes, and submarines increasingly inflicted death on a larger scale and changed the nature of warfare.

1. New Technology of WWI

2. Trenches
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Trenches were stinking cesspools, and often had rats
Clothes would become infested with lice
Trench foot – swollen black feet, amputation
Seriously injured were left to die in “no man’s land”
Many survivors were left in “shell shock” – uncontrollable shaking
Trench Warfare:
Trench Warfare
Shell Shock:
The effects of brutal bombings
Trench Foot 

3. New Technology
• 1914 new weapons developed: machine guns,
airplanes, armored tanks
• Commanders failed to understand new
technology and their applications
• Therefore, their war strategy was the “War of
Attrition”, each side repeatedly attacked the
other until exhausted and unable to continue.
Very ineffective strategy with this new
technology

4. New Technology (cont.)
• Germany used dirigibles
– Inflated airships for scouting and bombing
missions
– British also used dirigibles
Hindenburg
burning

6. New Technology (cont.)
• Bigger field guns and cannon
– Germany’s “Big bertha” artillery was capable of
hitting targets 12 km away
– These guns fired shells which weighed 820kg
each, filled with explosives and fragmentation
objects

7. “Big Bertha”

8. New Technology: Tanks
• Tanks
– The British developed tanks to crush barbed wire and
shelter
– Soldiers followed wide line of tanks through “no mans
land“
– The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of 49
British Mark I tanks at the Battle of the Somme,
September 1916, with mixed results; many broke down,
but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. only
nine made it across "no man's land" to the German lines.
WWI
Mark IV
Tank

9. New Technology: Gas
• Poison Gas
– Germany was the first to use poisonous gas in the
Battle of Ypres 1915
– Chlorine - burned skin and lungs
– Phosgene gas – caused suffocation
– Mustard gas – burn skin
– Easier to kill more people
– Later, Anti-gas respirators were developed

10. World War I, British soccer team with
gas masks, 1916

11. New Technology: Planes
• Planes
– Fighter Planes
• First, they were used to locate and photograph enemy
positions
• These photographs were then used to better attack
enemy positions
• Later, they were used for battle but they feared the
machine guns would shoot their own propellers to
pieces. Each side attempted to design and perfect an
interrupter device to time the machine guns to fire
between the propeller blades

12. Gotha G.V German bomber, 1917

13. Billy Bishop: the ultimate ace
– Canada did not have own air force, so pilots
had to join the British Royal Flying Corps
– Billy Bishop was a famous Canadian ace
– To become an ace a pilot had to prove that he
had shot down at least five enemy aircraft
– officially credited with 72 victories, making him
the top Canadian ace in World War I.
– During the Second World War, Bishop was
instrumental in setting up and promoting the
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
Billy
Bishop
1914

14. Bishop c.August 1917, in the cockpit of
his Nieuport 17

15. Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter
in Aisne, France 1917

16. New Technology: Submarines
• Submarines
– Although US and Britain were responsible for submarine
development Germany used U-boats more often
– U-boats (under-sea boats) were equipped with torpedoes
– In 1915, a U-boat sank the Lusitania. Which was a British
passenger liner killing about 1200 passengers.
– Allies unable to retaliate at first, later developed a
underwater listening device to locate and destroy U-boat
• Not all ships were used for battles, merchant ships, would ferry
munitions and supplies to Britain.

17. German submarine U9

18. Assignment
• Review the description of technology and
trench warfare from your notes and/or on
line.
• Think/Pair/Share: how would you explain
the huge numbers of soldiers killed in World
War I? How did the introduction of new
technology in WWI change the nature of
warfare?