Weapons of War

Many new tactics for warfare were developed by scientific and technological breakthroughs that created new and much more deadly weapons. These tools were a result of the mechanization and continuing innovation of the Industrial Revolution. They just took a deadly turn. Each weapon produced the need for more fire power or more protection of the uniquely created weapons. Men dug trenches to protect themselves from the rapid fire of the machine guns and the deadly explosions of cannon and mortars. They had been charging out in the open as soldiers had done for the past millennium. These tactics of open charging against the machine guns met with high casualties. Even the new barbed wire first used to stop the escape of cattle was used to slow down the charging men resulting in even greater causalities. To cut down on the high casualties, the various countries tried to come up with new inventions that would either subdue the enemy or break his trench lines with little danger to their own men; each trying to gain the advantage in what became a stalemate resulting in a war of attrition. Listed below are quotes taken from the letters written home or from accounts from the soldiers written in their dairies or books they wrote after the war. Identify the weapons that are being used:

"I will never forget last Monday for as long as I live. They used liquid fire on us that day, and to tell you the truth, Mother, I cannot tell you how I got away from it. For the fellow who used it (a German soldier), turned it right at me. It shot in my face and over my head and all around me, but it never touched me. Well, it sure made me a good boy. I said my prayers more than once when I was out in No Man's Land."

"Now a new sound was added to the rising din of battle--something besides the crack of German rifles and the scream of descending artillery. It came in stuttering bursts, like a thousand rifles firing one after the other. Long fiery streaks of tracer bullets spurted across the battlefield. The British went down like a grain cut by a scythe, their bloody hands clutching at the wire. The second wave surged up, and again the hammering of the ... sliced through their line and draped bodies, like broken sacks of grain, over the wire. Then the third wave, and the fourth."

"These first minutes with the mask decide between life and death: is it tightly woven? I remember the awful sights in the hospital: the gas patients who in day-long suffocation cough their burnt lungs up in clots. Cautiously, the mouth applied to the valve. I breathe. The gas still creeps over the ground and sinks into all hollows. Like a big, soft jelly-fish it floats into our shell-hole and lolls there obscenely. I nudge Kat, it is better to crawl out and lie on top than to stay here where the gas collects most. But we don't get as far as that: a second bombardment begins. It is no longer as though the shells roared: it is the earth raging itself."

"Suddenly it howls and flashes terrifically, the dug-out cracks in all its joiints under direct hit, fortunately only a light one that the concrete blocks are able to withstand. It rings metallically, the walls reel. Rifles, helmets, earth, mud and dust fly everywhere. Sulphur fumes pour in."

"At several places there are trmendous craters. "Great guns, somethin's hit that," I say to Kat. He points at one of the trees. In the branches dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squatting in the fork of the tree, he still has his helmet on otherwise he is entirely unclad. There is only half of him sitting up there, the top half, the legs are missing. ....If a mortar get you it blows you almost clean out of your clothes. It's the concussion that does it." I search around. And so it is. Here hang bits of uniform, and somewhere else is plastered a bloody mess that was once a human linb. Over these lies a body with nothing but a piece of the underpants on one leg and the collar of the tunic around its neck. Otherwise it is naked and the clothes are hanging up in the tree. Both arms are missing as though they had been pulled out. I discover one of them twenty yards off in a shrub."

Now that awesome roar was all around them and the dark, ghostly shapes seemed to be moving through the foggy mantle shrouding the ground. Then suddenly, huge, terrible, dark monsters, spouting flame and smoke were upon them. German machine gunners opened up and watche din amazement as their red-hot tracer slugs bounced off the steel sides of monstrous machines. Fire and earth-jarring explosions leaped from the sides of the rolling, heaving behemoths, blasting machine-gun positions into cratered ruins draped with mangled bodies of German soldiers.

The 4 Fokkers saw him coming and were ready. They closed up and turned. He took on the leader. The leader turned and he was on his tail in a flash. But before he could get his sights on him another Fokker was firing at him. He saw the tracer bullets streaking by and had to turn quickly. The Fokker was stuck on his tail. He circled and turned to shake him off. Where was Johnny? The Fokker was firing again. Pretty close! Here were the others. Down came 5 Camels, guns blazing sparklets and phosphorus. A Camel was firing at the Fokker on his tail. He could tell it was Johnny by his streamer. He saw the Camel go down out of control. He began firing at a Fokker and the Fokker was firing at him when both guns jammed. He turned on his side, loosed his shoulder yoke, and worked at the stoppages. One clear. Where's that hammer? Bang! The other gun was clear. 5 more Camels plunged into the center of the whirling mass, each man taking a Fokker as he leveled off. He saw two planes go down in flames--burning like meteors. So swift was their decent that he could not tell friend from foe. All were firing twisting, turning. He saw a Fokker beneath him and pounced on to its tail. The Fokker half rolled, and he turned quickly on to another. There was that damn sickly yellow phosphorus again in front of him. He looked back. Then came to the other eight Huns. ....He looked at his altimeter--10,000 feet. He noted his position. He saw a Fokker explode and blaze up. Fine. Down went another plane, twisting dizzily and smoking badly. A Camel this time. Greatest dog-fight in history!!