Kriegstechnik im 1. Weltkrieg

The first fighter jets and submarines, the first tanks and the first so-called use of chemical weapons. When the technology of the industrial age for the first time in large-scale entry into warfare, the result was a cruel, highly efficient destruction. The First World War revealed the dark side of the industrial revolution. The technological progress, the mass production, new transport possibilities and countless inventions, found its way to the battlefields of Europe with devastating consequences. The development between 1865 and 1914 was remarkable. Steel production, explosives development, chemistry, aviation. All this influenced the First World War. Tanks, airplanes, guns, submarines and chemical weapons were invented or significantly improved in the wake of the industrial revolution. The introduction of the tapestry led to faster and more efficient mass production. And even human reproduction increased. Improvements in hygiene and supply led to an enormous increase in the population in the late 19th century. The growth of the population and the growing potential of the weapons meant a bloodbath like no other war. There were more casualties in one battle of the First World War than in the entire American Civil War on both sides. The carnage was huge. About 8 million soldiers and 12 million civilians were killed. But this bloodbath did not come by chance. The prehistory dates back to the 1940s. A whole series of alliances, territorial disputes and concerns could be overruled, driven states to declare war if any member of their own alliance was attacked. Austria and Germany formed an alliance. The tiny Serbia allied itself with Russia and France. And to keep the balance of power on the continent, England allied itself with France. Everybody was lined up on one side of the line. The only thing that was needed was a single spark to ignite the war. This spark was the assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Bosnian Serb on 28 June 1914. The insult of having this man assassinated ignited a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Germany joined Austria and Russia joined Serbia. Within days, France and England also joined. But Europe was not prepared for the consequences of such a great modern war. After the first months, no side was able to withstand an offensive war. So the opponents gathered along the German West Front near the French North-East border. The front moved 800 km from Switzerland to the Ermel Canal. A system of parallel trenches manifested the invasion. The trenches became the home and the grave for countless soldiers. Modern war is now mechanized, a killing machine. Many people are killed for nothing. You align yourself in a putt situation. Neither side wins a decisive victory. It is a war of exploitation. The last one standing has won. But what has he won? Clifford Holliday reported at 16 as a signal hornist. At 105, he was the last surviving war participant from Canada. When I think back now, it's a shadow. I know I was there, it happened. I know it was reality. It was very likely not to come back. Very likely. I spent my 17th birthday in the Schützengraben. One of the most modern war technologies was the tank. Its construction was the direct answer to the stalemate of the trench warfare. The West Front formed over 9,000 km of these about 2.5 m wide and 2 m deep trenches. In front of them, barbed wire was stretched. And here and there, sandbag waves offered additional protection. Machine gun nests spied their bullets. In the deserted strip of no man's land between the lines, bomb craters, tree trunks, burning villages and the corpses of soldiers were on both sides. The challenge was to find something that could easily overcome all this. The answer was the tank. There were role models for the tank. Leonardo da Vinci drew war machines, as he called them. But they didn't have the technology. So he came up with the idea of a tractor, a tracked vehicle with an armored cab. You could drive it over barbed wire. You could add an MG or a gun to suppress the MG machine gun nests. Great Britain quickly developed the Mark series, starting with Mark I. The tank combined various technologies. A combustion engine, steel armor, fixed machine guns and, of course, the chain drive instead of the wheels. The tread is the key, because it can go over terrain that no wheel can get over. You don't get stuck that easily, because you have a large surface with less weight on a certain ground surface. So for slimy reasons, it has a better chance of staying on the ground and not sinking in. With its six-man crew, the first British tanks reached a speed of about five kilometers per hour. Two men took care of the sensitive 100 hp engine, which was built in the middle of the tank. And although many improvements were made to the Mark series, the tank remained extremely uncomfortable and dangerous for the crew throughout the war. The temperature can rise to over 38 degrees Celsius. The smell of oil and gasoline and exhaust fumes fill the interior. The engine is in the middle of the combat area. Driving this thing is like sitting next to the engine in your car under the bonnet. When machine gun fire hits the fuselage, this ringing, this cacophony to the rumbling of the engine is added. But the worst part is that splinters of steel coating and paint fly through the room and cut faces, hands and all exposed body parts of the crew. So now you've got a vehicle with no suspension, six kilometers per hour, 48 degrees hot and you're dressed in leather. How long do you last? Well, not long. But they had no alternative. In January 1916, the British used their tanks for the first time. The first tank attacks in the Battle of the Somme, 36 tanks, they were not particularly effective. But a year later, almost 400 tanks were used at Cambrai, and they overtook the German trenches. It showed what tanks were capable of. They took the positions and conquered 5.5 kilometers. In the meantime, the French, respectively the Renault company, developed their own lighter tanks. With about 7.5 tons, they only had a quarter of the weight of the first British tanks. The French standard tank was the FD-17. It could be armed with an MG or a 37mm gun. It had two crew members. The communication between the commander or gunner and the driver was a bit clumsy. The commander simply kicked the driver in the direction he wanted to go. With just under 10 km per hour, the French tanks were twice as fast as the British. And they had a swivel turret. The French innovation of a swivel turret was extremely important. Instead of having six or eight guns spread out all over the tank, you now had one gun that could shoot from every angle. One of only two unchanged FD-18s was recently discovered on a scrapyard in Afghanistan. It was probably taken out in the 1920s. It was handed over to the Petten Museum in Fort Knox for restoration. This tank was operated by a series of control rods, a regular gas pedal, a clutch and a gear shift lever. The turret was meant for one man. It was rotated by the gunner. There was no driven rotation mechanism. You would just lean back on the two silver belts and turn the turret. There are vision slits around the hatch, the only way to look out. This is the entrance and the exit from the turret, which would be immediately over the engine deck if the turret was installed. This is the four-cylinder power plant that grew from the tank. It had a total power output of approximately 39 PS. This engine represented the state-of-the-art combustion engine technology. The reliability and a sufficient supply of ammunition allowed the tank a range of 56 kilometres. This was far more than the large tanks that were available during World War I. Despite the efforts of the Allies with their mobile fortifications, the Germans lagged behind with their tank production. That was smart, because tanks are an offensive weapon and Germany was in the most defensive positions in the West Front. The tanks of World War I were useless in the defensive. As significant as the technological achievements of the tank development were, the effectiveness of the tanks was limited. They could be very effective, but hardly anyone understood their potential. The tactical use in small battles was not yet understood, because it required a completely new concept. Only in 1918, when the end of the war was in sight, coordinated tank attacks were used to drive the German troops out of France. The tanks were a significant new weapon, and some visionary soldiers had understood that. In combination with an infantry attack, they allowed an advance on enemy territory. Tanks can even achieve strategic significance if they contribute to quickly and definitively defeating an enemy. But tanks should only achieve their actual role in the next worldwide conflict. The first war in which air superiority played a tactical, if not strategic, role was the First World War. The machines that inspired this new concept were the observation balloon, the Zeppelin, and of course the aircraft, this combination of aerodynamics and combustion engine. Balloons for enemy observation with a length of 60 meters and made of rubberized cotton could be placed close to the front. On a clear day, they offered a panoramic view over 22 kilometers and insights into enemy positions and field camps. One or two observers were positioned in a field basket under the balloon. The Germans used them especially successfully on the western front. They were allowed to climb behind the lines high enough to see the lines of the Allies, but without having to fly over them. They were connected to the ground by telephone or telegraph lines, so they could communicate immediately. The Civil War made reconnaissance flights impossible, because there were no more flanks to flank the enemy. Therefore, the possibility of observing enemy positions from a balloon was so important. The Zeppelin was an improvement of the observation balloon. It consisted mainly of divided air chambers filled with hydrogen gas. An aluminum frame held them together, and an attached engine propelled them. The airship was maneuverable and reached speeds of 110 kilometers per hour. When the engine failed, a mechanic could climb out, work on it and climb back in. Almost like an ocean liner, just a whole lot higher. The Zeppelin was invented in 1900. During the outbreak of the war, Germany built special airships. They flew at night and outside the range of enemy guns. In the beginning, they were only reconnaissance aircraft. But in January 1915, a Zeppelin first dropped bombs over England. The bombing was inaccurate. There was no understanding of aerodynamics, and the bombs fell wherever they wanted. Zeppelins were never decisive in war, and in economic terms, they were just a waste of money. They cost a lot in construction and maintenance, and the results they brought were infinitely low. Zeppelins were not harmless to their crew. The hydrogen caused strong propulsion, but was easily flammable. They could set fire to and cause a crash. The greatest threat to the Zeppelin, however, were aircraft, which flew much higher, faster and more agile than any airship. They had only been around for ten years, and when the war broke out, they were hardly more than toy dragons. But in the following four years, there was a rapid development. Initially, the aircraft were weak and slow in World War I. They could not fly very high. If you put them in a dive, the wing would come apart. But quickly, you saw the military potential, and you built more stable aircraft with bigger, stronger engines. And they were able to carry more powerful weapons. Like balloons, aircraft were also primarily used as platforms for photographing. As reconnaissance aircraft, they were very successful. One of the first reconnaissance aircraft was the Bleriot. The one-man aircraft with its 50-hp engine had no armament, and weighed a total of 360 kilograms. Initially, many reconnaissance aircraft were former cavalrymen, who had to look for a new field of activity. They began to take rifles or pistols and shoot at each other. They also used hand grenades, small bombs, mines, even stones, which they threw at people on the ground. They were aggressive. This led to specialized fighter jets, bombers or fighter jets. The goal of the fighters was always to shoot down the reconnaissance aircraft. For the pilots, it was a challenge to shoot down a target without damaging their own aircraft. With a machine gun, you could easily target directly in front of the pilot, but also shoot down your own propeller. Side armament was a possibility, but in many respects, it was unfavorable. The Dutch inventor Fokker found a solution to be able to aim forward and leave the propeller intact. The solution was called interruption gears. If a propeller blade passes the machine gun, it interrupts the fire of the weapon. If the blade is out of the firing line again, it can be shot again. Fokker developed a method with a mechanical lever. If the propeller moves past, the machine gun stops. The first real fighter jet that Fokker's invention used was the German Fokker Eindecker. The light aircraft reached about 140 km per hour. They called them fighter jets. All they had to do was to turn their aircraft against the enemy and shoot down their machine gun. That may sound romantic, but it was basically murder. They tried to sneak up while the enemy was taking pictures and shot him from behind. The men in the gunnery had to get used to the noise of the machines that were rushing over them. You saw them fighting up there. Many people were shooting at each other. But the way it went down was a strange idea. Like a bullfight in Mexico. The air duelists wanted stronger, lighter and faster machines. Engineers tried to save weight, and that on aircraft that were mostly made of canvas and wood. The wings, for instance, were often made of hollowed out pieces of wood. They hollowed out all the wooden frame parts to make them as light as they could. At first you think that only saves a few grams. But all in all, that resulted in considerable weight savings. The aircraft engines also underwent a rapid evolution. The pilots wanted to bring their machines to heights of over 7,000 metres. Let's just take the engines. From the 80-hp engine to the 400-hp engine with 12 cylinders, it was a huge development. One of the most famous combat aircrafts was the Sopwith Camel, named after the small hump near the cockpit. It had a 130-hp engine, whose cylinders were circular and not in a straight line. The propeller blades and the engine rotated around the axis of the propeller. This cooled the engine, but it created a huge spinning effect, so that the plane was very nicely flying in the direction of the spin of the engine. If you tried to steer in the other direction, it was difficult. But for a good pilot, it was still manoeuvrable. It had to be, because the Germans now had probably the best aircraft of the war, the Fokker D-7. It had a powerful Mercedes engine, two machine guns, and unlike most fighters, the wings were unleverable. They didn't need a lot of wires holding together. The fast and manoeuvrable Fokker D-7 showed in a special way the tactical possibilities of aircraft as offensive weapons. But the influence of the air weapon was not really decisive. Even at the end of the First World War, the most important contribution of the aviation was in the reconnaissance. The perhaps greatest success of the air reconnaissance was achieved by the Allies in 1918. General Ludendorff initiated the last German offensive, and he would have been successful. He wanted to win the war quickly, before the Americans got into the field in great numbers. But through their air reconnaissance, the Allies knew what was going on, and they were able to strike where the Germans had a weak spot. The camera was the only equipment of strategic importance on the planes of the First World War. But only the highly developed machines of the Second World War made it possible for the air weapon to play a greater and more offensive role. They controlled the airspace and weapons bombs, which also hit countless civilians. Despite the modern planes and tanks, the weapons of the gunmen were still rifles, cannons and grenades. The machine gun was the most effective of them. Like many weapons of the First World War, the machine gun was also an American invention. The first effective automatic machine gun was the Maxim. The Irish immigrant Hiram Maxim developed the machine gun in 1885. Someone told him, if you want to make a lot of money, invent something that makes it easier for these Europeans to cut each other's throats. Maxim achieved the rapid-fire property of a weapon by using the recoil energy to be able to reload automatically. He had little success selling it to the US Army, so he went to Europe, where he sold it to almost every country. Many of the armies used the Maxim or their base weapon. Another method was also developed. With a shot, the gases spread out, are collected and automatically trigger a mechanism that enables the rapid-fire operation. The best machine guns had a range of 3,600 meters and were quite hit-proof at 900 meters. The battlefields were quickly dominated by the machine gun, which could spew out 400 to 500 shots per minute. In addition, it had a water jacket, which keeps the barrel cool. So you could fire the thing over and over again. Almost as important as the rapid-fire property was the ability to turn the machine gun. The weapons were mounted on a special frame that allowed the shooter to aim well and shoot in an arc or up or down. By swiveling, you could cover 450 meters of the front line with a machine gun. You could shoot out 360 meters and you could kill pretty much everyone with a machine gun before they got too close to you. A typical heavy machine gun weighed about 22 kilograms, the frame 30 kilos. It was not designed to be carried around in combat, but to stay in position. This frame is very stable, so it doesn't jump around while shooting. It was used by about six people. There were ammunition carriers, four people carried the frame, people filled the water cover so that it didn't get hot, and others fed it unobtrusively with ammunition. Carriable machine guns were developed around 1915. They still weighed 13 kilograms and their frame another 9 kilos. A typical example is the French Hotchkiss. You can fire this thing practically forever. It's not water-cooled, it will get very hot. But these large fins, which are typical for the Hotchkiss, create a large surface. The whole thing is guaranteed to glow red, but it will continue to shoot. The air-cooled light Chauchat was by far the worst machine gun. When you're trying to fire it, with the extension here, it shakes. It has an aluminum cover with air holes around the barrel, to improve the cooling. But the only thing that happens is that dirt comes in and disturbances occur, because the magazines are so curved and open. Most people considered it a weapon from hell. Despite technical flaws like the Chauchat, these weapons were killing machines par excellence. Forbidden generals ordered to attack their soldiers, and the men were slaughtered. In practically every battle of the First World War, the machine gun played a decisive role. It was particularly decisive in the early British offensives. Thousands of British were killed on the Somme every day, for six months. They attacked machine gun positions and were slaughtered, because British generals didn't have a better idea. As Churchill said, it is somewhat illogical to attempt to attack machine guns with the chests of soldiers. As devastating as machine guns were, large-caliber weapons, i.e. artillery, were even more destructive. They blew up people and things with explosive shells. These weapons can be divided into three types. The first is a gun that shoots straight in the direction of view. The shells are quite heavy, so the explosive force it emits has to be large. Howitzers shoot in a high angle and usually not very far. The explosion for the shot is smaller, so the grenades can have a thinner coat and more explosive, which causes greater damage. Mortars are like small howitzers, which fire in such an angle that the shells go down almost vertically. For their size, their explosive force is considerable. Even before the graves were excavated, German artillery destroyed defense positions along the Belgian border. The Belgians hoped to defend a German invasion with a series of fortifications. But the Germans had developed huge howitzers, the thick Bertas. With 42 centimeters they had one of the largest caliber of all weapons used in the First World War. Some of these grenades weighed up to 900 kilos and the weapons were so large that they could only be disassembled and transported on railway wagons. The fortifications in Belgium fell in one afternoon. These big guns literally smashed the fortifications. The German army could get through Belgium. So modern fortifications were never destroyed before. The most technologically innovative of all siege mortars was the Paris gun, which had a smaller caliber than the thick Berta. With this gun, the inhabitants of Paris should be forced to do their job. The 210-millimeter weapon had a 40-meter-long steel barrel and could throw grenades over 16 kilometers high into the stratosphere. The range was 120 kilometers. The French didn't know what hit them. They thought a Zeppelin would bomb them or gas plants would explode. Then they found out that the explosions happened in a straight line. So it was a gun. 256 civilians were killed in Paris. The shelling lasted six months. 351 grenades fell on the city. But the Paris gun couldn't handle the drum fire. The barrel had to be readjusted again and again and it was impossible to aim precisely. At some point, the Germans decided to use their own forces and resources more sensibly. Mortars were definitely a much more effective weapon. They consisted mainly of stable tubes into which explosive grenades were inserted. Recoil absorbers were not necessary because they sat on the ground. Mortars like the Stokes 3-inch or the Newton 6-inch threw explosive mines, gas mines, light shells or shrapnel into the air to then almost vertically let them fall on the enemy trenches. The key is that mortars were small enough to move into the trenches. We had a short range of 400 to 700 meters but enough to hit the trenches nearby. The soldiers could only dig a hole and hope that no grenade fell right in it. In combination with machine guns, mortars were deadly weapons. MGs shot down the soldiers and mortars let death rain down on them. But both opponents of the First World War developed another, even more terrible weapon. A weapon that was almost invisible but was supposed to be very real. Chemical weapons were by far the most homegrown development of the war. The extensive chemical warfare began in the First World War but the concept was developed much earlier. Even during the American Civil War there were concepts of using chlorine type grenades. But they were always rejected because they were supposed to be against warfare. Germany had quickly thrown such a scruple overboard. According to the Hague Act of 1899 it is forbidden to use grenades whose central purpose is to spread poisonous gas. In order not to violate this they mixed explosives with the chemicals. Early on, both sides used not deadly but very unpleasant chemicals like tear gas. It irritates the tear ducts and blinds the affected person. But every chemical has to saturate the air in order to work effectively. The Germans used tear gas first but the French were spared. Probably the wind was too strong. And during the operation against the Russians the tear gas froze. After these failures, the Germans used deadly gas which was supposed to be shot with grenades. The renowned chemist and later Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber took part in the necessary research. His patriotism led him to develop weapons with chlorine and phosgene. Chlorine and phosgene are inhaled and attack the lung. The victim dies by literally drowning in their own bodily fluids. The Germans used chlorine gas in 1915 during the battle for the Belgian city of Ypres when they tried to break through the British and French lines. But this time they waited until the wind was favorable. The first attack was psychologically successful because the simple French soldier did not know what to expect when he saw the cloud. At first they thought that the German positions were on fire and it was just smoke. But when they smelled it and got gas by it and got affected by it, the word spread very quickly. The soldiers fled before the yellow cloud which was getting closer to their position. The gas attacks claimed about 5000 deaths among the British. But the Germans could not benefit from this success because the Allies stopped the German advance and beat them back. Shortly after Ypres, both sides began to attack with chemical weapons. A chemical competition began where everyone tried to develop more effective weapons. But to release enough poison gas to create a sufficiently saturated deadly cloud was a technical challenge. 75 and 155 mm shells with great range carried a lot of gas into the trenches. But sometimes you needed hundreds of grenades to create a cloud. In turn, Fritz Haber offered his help. Haber decided to simply fill the chlorine gas in gas bottles. So the Germans could store 20 to 50 times more chemical weapons in a gas bottle than in the smaller grenades which also contained explosives. An effective method. But also a clear violation of the Hager-Land-War-Order. Clifford Holliday remembers how he was first exposed to a gas attack. It was a foggy night and when they turned down the gas screws they just stayed right on the ground. But from 1916, Holliday and his comrades were urgently equipped to face the creeping gas cloud. The first gas mask we had was a square canvas soaked in a chemical. And it was in a rubber blind bag and you had to put it over your nose. And when you were under that you just hang it over your nose. Ammoniac and other chemicals neutralized the acid flowing through. But soon all soldiers got masks which contained an active carbon filter. The filter was worn on the back and neutralized the poison. This is one of the later gas masks. The design had this hood over the face, had the lenses to protect the eyes. And this hose was attached to a canister which was carried in this bag. And inside were a metal canister. The material that filtered the air was in this canister. But the disfigured masks didn't only prevent the soldiers from shooting. They also didn't help against the so-called mustard gas which was no gas at all but a sticky liquid. Mustard gas makes bubbles on the skin. It doesn't necessarily kill you but the flesh falls off. A pretty horrible thing. After mustard gas came into use in 1917 soldiers had to wear waterproof clothing to protect their skin. So they didn't use the very painful if not deadly weapon. All of this was difficult for the soldiers. But chemical weapons didn't play a decisive role in the course of the war. Gas masks protected most of the soldiers and because of the dependence on the weather gas was far too unreliable. There were losses but the use of gas wasn't decisive. Poison gas injured more than one million soldiers but it killed less than 100,000. That's less than 1% of the total losses. Fritz Haber, the father of the chemical war leaders wasn't among them. But he also became a victim of his patriotism. His wife, also a chemist, was so horrified by her husband's actions that she committed suicide. The biggest irony is that in 1933 when Hitler came to power he was chased out of the country because he was a Jew The development of the submarine was also an important technological innovation in the First World War. Progressive submarines became a deadly weapon. But simple predecessors had already existed for 200 years. There were already water vehicles that could be called submarines. For example the Turtle with which a British ship wanted to attack in the Independence War. Robert Fulton then developed more advanced versions of the submarine. The Europeans as well. But the father of modern submarines was John Holland, an American from Ireland. In the 80s of the 19th century he perfected techniques that made diving easier and made the ship maneuverable under water. Holland used tanks with water and compressed air to lift or lower the boat. He founded a company that still builds submarines today He sold them in England. The designs were often copied. On the surface they were powered by gasoline and under water by electric motors. You needed two different types of propulsion because combustion engines needed oxygen and could only be used on the surface. Battery-powered engines drove the ship under water. Gasoline engines were originally used on the surface but they could explode and the toxic gases damaged the crew. What they gradually discovered was that the diesel engine was heavier in flammability than the gasoline engine. So the diesel engine was by far a better propulsion source for surfacing. And they could use batteries for the surface and charge the battery for the diesel engines. Even if an American developed a modern submarine Germany became the pioneer of submarine technology in the First World War. The Germans wanted to meet the superior British Navy by going under water. Originally the German submarines stayed close to the harbour but the technology and strategy developed further. They dived from 60 to 75 meters with 8 knots so 15 kilometers per hour under water and 15 knots so 28 kilometers per hour on the surface. They could become an aggressive weapon. Until 1918 the Germans had a fleet of 44 submarines. They varied from small short-distance submarines with a crew of 24 men to huge 1,500 ton submarines with a crew of 60 men. Hot air or hot gases propelled them. In the course of the war the torpedo became faster and more precise. The turbines allowed it to drive itself so that greater ranges and speeds of about 50 kilometers per hour were reached over a longer distance. They contained TNT or shrapnel and could be designed for a certain number of targets that were alone and unable to defend themselves. It was cheaper to sink them with a cannon than with a torpedo which was very expensive. Submarines sunk more than 6,500 ships of the Allies in the First World War a single alone 224 ships. But the biggest advantage of the submarine weapon was not its firepower. Its primary weapon was stealth. You simply could not see it. Diving was always a risk. The greatest danger for a submarine was water bombs. Explosives that only explode in a certain depth under water. The Allies tried everything to hit the enemy submarines with water bombs. But it was extremely difficult to detect them at all. The Germans were not satisfied only to sink warships. If they wanted to win the war even if they were under the flag of neutral states. There was also a major debate that ships should not be torpedoed because they are trade ships. The Germans said what you bring in these ships are war goods. As far as we are concerned these are warships. The attack on the supply ships would have brought victory for the Germans and their allies because they cut off the Allies and the US. America joined the war on the side of the Allies because German submarines had sunk a number of their trade and passenger ships. The British passenger steamer Lusitania and tons of armament went under. 128 Americans died. The use of unrestricted submarine warfare allowed America to intervene in the war and the new soldiers were crucial for the victory of the Allies. The weapon that had almost brought victory to the Germans brought defeat to them. Both sides took their advantages from the new technologies in the war. The American soldiers and especially the American economy brought victory to the Allies. America's reserves had become a laboratory for destructive technologies and so the war ended from 1914 to the ceasefire on November 11, 1918. And when the people celebrated the end of the war the prohibitions of the next conflict were already visible. Some historians believe that the Second World War was only the continuation of a global war that could not be denied that the seed of technologically efficient destruction that was sown in the First World War bore bitter fruits in the Second World War, and in a much larger extent than one could have ever guessed.