Technology and a New Kind of Warfare

The Germans followed an altered Schlieffen plan. They were not able to take Paris in
six weeks as originally planned because of underestimation of the French resistance
and Russians in the East.
Warfare in nineteenth century Europe was based on mobile cavalry and infantry units,
where speed was the greatest asset. Soldiers and commanders expected the war in
1914 to be a war of movement and territorial conquest. However, machine guns were
not used to full extent in war prior to 1914 and strategists had not anticipated the use of
machine guns against an opponent also armed with machine guns (they had been used
by the British in Africa against people armed with spears).
The battle of the Marne Allied forces took advantage of German vulnerabilities and
the Germans were forced to fall back. Much of the significance of the battle of the
Marne is that the Germans were unable to achieve a decisive victory and swiftly take
the French out of the war. it is evidence of severe miscalculation of the military leaders
on both sides who had expected a different kind of war.
Race to the sea after the battle of the Marne both side tried to beat the other side to
the coast because of the strategic value of the sea ports.
Six weeks after the start of the war soldiers were ordered to dig ditches, pile sandbags
and mount machine guns to fight a defensive war.
The war of 1914 was a deadly combination of old and new styles of warfare which led to
stagnation and stalemate. Along the western front long periods of inactivity were
punctuated by intense instances of bloodletting. The dream was a decisive offense that
would lead to victory what existed was a war of attrition.
Equipment and Tactics
The shovel and the machine gun transformed war because it transformed an offensive
style of warfare into a defensive war of attrition.
The new technologies did not provide the breakthrough that was needed to end the
stalemate of trench warfare as each invention was quickly matched, i.e. gas and the
invention of gasmasks.
Heavy artillery was used to punch through the opposing lines. The hope was that you
could punch through the enemy lines to then flood through and take control.
Poison gas 1915 marked the first use of chlorine gas in warfare (Germans). 1917
mustard gas was later introduced
Aircraft initially used for reconnaissance and eventually for carrying bombs

Submarines their primary success came from their stealth capabilities

Tanks - offered the promise of breaking through defensive lines but often got stuck in
the mud. These were developed by the British and were in place by 1916.
Barbed wire- developed in the American Midwest became an essential aspect of trench
warfare and marking the area of no-mans-land.