Addendum to Chapter 30

The New Technology of War

The New Technology of WarfareTrench warfare locked the opposing armies into a static battlefield that consumed men like a hideous, gigantic meat-grinder. Armies deployed new technology in attempts to break the stalemate.

Trench occupied by the British Cheshire Regiment, July 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. A sentry keeps watch while the other soldiers, physically and mentally exhausted, sleep.

The New Technology of Warfare

British Mark V tank of 1918. The first tanks used in combat were British Mark Is in the latter stages of the Battle of the Somme, in Sep 1915.

The New Technology of Warfare

The Battle of Jutland took place on 31 May-1 June 1916. It was the only major fleet battle of the war. While the Germans inflicted more damage, they retreated to port and remained there the rest of the war. Their naval strategy now was to increasingly rely on U-boat attacks on merchant shipping.

The New Technology of Warfare

The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval battle ever in tonnage of ships engaged and in total tonnage of ships involved in a single action. It was possibly the largest battle-line action, in terms of numbers of ships engaged. It was the largest surface action and the largest ship-to-ship action, in tonnage of the ships engaged, the largest gun action in weight of fire of the guns involved, and the largest single action—surface or otherwise—in terms of the numbers of torpedoes launched. But it didn’t change anything.

Sopwith Pup landing aboard the aircraft carrier, HMS Furious. Sqdn Cmdr E.H. Dunning is shown here making the first landing of an airplane on a moving ship, 2 August 1917. Five days later, Dunning was killed making a second landing, when a gust of wind flipped his Pup overboard. He was knocked unconscious and drowned in the cockpit.

The New Technology of Warfare

The New Technology of Warfare

Postcard of a German U-boat sinking a British commercial steamer

The New Technology of Warfare

Sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania, 7 May 1915

The New Technology of Warfare

German Zeppelins on a bombing raid

The New Technology of Warfare

Crashed German Zeppelin in France

French Neiuport 17 at an aerodrome in France, 1917

The New Technology of Warfare

Nieuport 17 of the Lafayette Escadrille

The Lafayette Escadrille was formed in 1916 of Americans who joined the French Foreign Legion, then transferred to the Aéronautique Militaire. It became the nucleus of a larger group of Americans, the Lafayette Flying Corps. Raoul Lufbery, French-American who became the Escadrille’s leading ace, sits in the cockpit of his airplane.

Insignia of N. 124, Escadrille Lafayette

The New Technology of Warfare

British Sopwith Camel, 1917

The New Technology of Warfare

German Gotha Heavy Bomber, 1917

The New Technology of Warfare

German Fokker Dr. I Triplane of the war’s leading ace, Manfred von Richtofen (80 kills), early 1918

The New Technology of Warfare

British Handley-Page O/400 Heavy Bomber, 1918

The Search for a New World Order

Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would prove a formidable opponent of Wilson’s vision of a new world order.

The absence of the USA from the League is depicted as the missing keystone. Uncle Sam’s cigar symbolizes America enjoying its wealth (?). Punch, 10 December 1919. WHERE IS WEALTH SHOWN?

The Second Coming (1920)

Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity. . . .

~ William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)