Great War Innovation

In World War I there was a lot of new weapon inventions. There were flamethrowers, machine guns, airplanes, tanks, poison gas, etc. The weapons in world war 1 was one of the main reasons we won the war. It helped us kill more enemies. It was a bad thing too. They could use the same weapons against you and kill just as much soldiers as your army does. In the future maybe 90 to a 100 years from now the weapons will get way better then what they are now.

drop in the naval strength of its rivals, paved the way for Great Britain’s rise

A talented tactician named William black (1858-1924) talks about the difficulty to integrate new technology into the battlefield without costing lives. “Nothing could be worse than to place our reliance on the principally on our technical means.” A German analyst a part of a post-war study commissioned by a general Hans Von Seeckt reports the Germans had too many tacticians and not enough technicians who understood the ability of the machines being used. (K. Theobeck) An example of this misuse was in 1917 when the British launched an offensive on the German Hindenburg line to take Cambrai.

During a speech to Congress while the war was still going on, President Woodrow Wilson introduced his “Fourteen Points,” which called for a new Europe and a peaceful world. Ideas expressed in the speech included a policy of open diplomacy with no secret treaties, freedom of the seas, removal of tariffs, arms reduction, fair colonial policies, as well as several boundary changes in Europe. But most important of all was point fourteen. This item called for “a general association of nations for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.” This association, which would come to be known as the League of Nations, was conceived by the idealistic Wilson to keep the peace after the war and to promote open diplomacy between countries of varying types of size and power. In order to maintain peace the league was to be given the authority to impose economic sanctions against offending states, and it

The armed forces of the United Kingdom acted as the backbone of the allies during World War One due to their superior army, economy, and easily defendable land. World War One not only had positive effects on the British army, but to the country as a whole. From the economy to the citizens, almost everything was positively affected. Despite “Joining Russia and France to form the Triple Entente” (Great War) Britain failed to join arms with the French and Russians when the Germans attacked.

The League of Nations had no military muscle of its own, hence one of the reasons of its failure. Created at the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I, the League’s Covenant was embedded in the text of the Versailles Treaty at the insistence of Woodrow Wilson. But when the U.S. Senate proposed reservations to the Covenant, to protect U.S. sovereignty and freedom of action, the president rejected them all. The Senate then rejected the treaty, and the United States never joined the League. When the United States refused to join, it took much of the sting out of the League’s dictates and left enforcement to war-weary Britain and France. The Depression was world-wide and it left nations working to accumulate land and power while clinging to whatever wealth they could garner for themselves. There were deemed to be more pressing problems to individual nations than world peace. (Greenfield History Site,

World War I was perhaps the greatest catalyst for military innovation in modern history. The speed in which the doctrinal, technical and tactical changes were developed and implemented was astounding. At the end of World War I, Britain was at the forefront of doctrinal and technological innovation in the field of armor and aircraft warfare. The factors which caused Britain to lose their innovative edge in these areas prior to World War II was the 10 year rule policy, operational attitude of the British Army, and an emphasis on land based aviation.

I am going to highlight three areas in which technological innovations made an impact – the development of submarines, the use of gas and the building of railways. I have chosen these three examples to demonstrate the different ways in which technological innovations affected the course of World War One. Gas had a huge psychological impact on the soldiers; submarines had a great economic impact, and the railways allowed the war to be fought on a vast scale never seen before.

During the Paris Peace Conference Wilson proposed the “Fourteen Points” which was a plan for the postwar. The League of Nations was part of his “Fourteen Points” plan and consisted of everybody except, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany. In the end, the League of Nations failed to keep peace when the stronger countries challenged the terms hit in the Versailles Peace Conference. Even the objectives that the United States developed during and after the world failed to achieve those objectives.

After the First World War, Europe was left in turmoil; tensions between nations were high and desperation for peace was growing. On January 10, 1920, the League of Nations was officially created as the Treaty of Versailles was generated. It was created with essentially two main goals: to keep peace via collective security, and to encourage international co-operation. It was produced with the idea that if one nation was attacked by another, the members of the League would act together to stop the assailant. Members of the League desired to begin a new arrangement of international relations that would assure an enduring state of peace based on a true mindset of forgiveness and compromise. Although member states were originally

The League of Nations had not been as successful as planned and there were many tensions between strong world powers. After Germany had invaded Poland, rejecting Britain and France’s previous demands for peace, World War 2 had

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson gave a speech to Congress establishing post World War 1 aims and promoting World Peace; “ the process of peace [...] shall be absolutely open.” However, after the rejection of the Versailles Treaty by the Republican Senate in 1920, the US continued its place of isolationism, thus refusing to play an international role corresponding to its economic might. After the failure of the Versaille Treaty, many turned to the League of Nations to bring global stability. The League Of Nations was created in 1920, in order to ensure another World War would not break out and provide a way to resolve international disputes. The main aims of the organisation included disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation and diplomacy, and improving global welfare. However, though championed by President Woodrow Wilson, in 1919, the U.S Senate rejected the League Of Nations and chose not to join in order to maintain their isolationist stance. Furthermore, on August 27 1928, fifteen nations signed the Kellogg- Briand Pact in Paris. The Kellogg Briand Pact was an international agreement in which fifteen nations gathered to renounce war/ aggression as instruments to settling disputes. However, they had no substantial means to enforce the policy considering every nation had their

The league of nations was created by the winners of WWI and was intended to prevent future world wars. The idea was created by the US president Woodrow Wilson. The League of Nations was supposed to be a council that included all the world nations to discuss topics and keep peace. This organization failed in stopping WWII. The League had multiple opportunities to stop the second world war, but failed miserably. The League of Nations had very limited authority on countries such as Japan, Italy, Germany and the USSR. “The main weapon of the League was to ask member countries to stop trading with aggressive countries”(Wheeler). The League of Nations was treated as a joke and could not enforce any of the rules that they set. The League had no authority because they had no army to threaten the aggressive countries. Additionally, countries such as Italy and Germany were not part of the League and therefore had no obligation to listen to them or make peace talks. If the League was set up in a better format and way to work it would not have failed and they could have been able to stop the second world

The origins of the technology that would be employed in WWI were rooted in the developments achieved by the wealthier Western nations of the era. This awoke the concern of Ivan Bloch, a Russian who wrote the 6-volume work titled, in English, Is War Now Impossible?, penned in 1898. It is argued by Bloch therein that to engage in war between great states was largely impossible, as to do so would be a suicidal decision. Accordingly, “The dimensions of modern armaments and the organization of society have rendered its prosecution an economic impossibility”. The technology that was in place during the decades immediately preceding the First World War was thought to hold the potential of suicidal wars between great powers, however as will be clarified below, this is markedly lower than what is currently held.

By using new technology, many people or soldiers died because it is really easy to shoot somebody using guns instead of stabbing somebody with the sword as they used to do in earlier wars. This war killed many sons, husbands, fathers all over the world. In this War of about 16,000,000 soldiers and about 13,000,000 civilians died all over the world in this war. It was hoped that this had served as a lesson to nations and that future battles could be avoided. After World War I the League of Nations was established to settle international argument peaceably like UN for United Nations.