The first real tank that was built was codenamed “Little Willie”, demonstrated on the 11th September, 1915. It had a top speed of 2mph on terrain, carried three people, and could not cross trenches.
The Mark I tank was demonstrated on the 2nd February, 1916, just five months later. It showed a design that was left much unchanged by the British throughout the whole war. Although they were liable to break down during battle, they were useful in warfare psychologically, as they greatly lowered German morale. Their top speed was double that of Little Willie, weighed twice as much, could carry a crew of eight as opposed to three, and most importantly could cross 9ft. wide trenches, an enormous change from the Little Whippet. However, later on the rate of change decreased. There were further Marks before March 1918, up to the Mark IV. Although the Mark IV was able to withstand German anti-tank bullets, it didn’t change much from the Mark I; its top speed, armour thickness, crew capacity and weapons stayed the same.
Introduced in November 1917, was the Mark A tank, the “Whippet”. This tank had a completely different design to the Mark I-IV. It had thicker armour; only had a crew of three, weighed half of what the Mark I-IV did; and most of all its top speed was 8 mph. It was a different genre of tank, a light tank. However, they also did not change much after being introduced.
The Germans did not incorporate tanks into their strategy, and so only had one tank design, of which they built 20, over the whole war. Their attitude to tanks stayed the same, however they did develop anti-tank measures, such as the aforementioned “K” bullets, and later a full anti-tank rifle, designed to penetrate specifically Mark IVs.
The French also designed tanks. On the 16th June 1915, the French Char Schneider tank was demonstrated. It had a crew of six, a top speed of 5mph, was light, and had armour as thick as the Mark I-IV. It was to be followed by the Renault FT, of which a prototype was presented for the first time in January 1917; however the Renault FT was first used on the 31st of May 1918.
Even though the tank had many problems during world war one, we can see by the fact that we still have them today that the change was a long-term one.
All the above tanks were designed as protection against – and for the use of – machine guns. Machine guns were also a novel World War One piece of technology.
At the beginning of the war, the Germans had the Maschinengewehr, of which 12,000 were deployed on the Western Front. In 1914 each infantry regiment had three machine gun companies, each with six guns. By 1917 the number of guns per company had double to 12.
The British had only two guns allocated to each battalion in 1914, approximately 1 machine gun per 500 men. This changed to 1 machine gun per 66 men by 1918, a huge degree of change.
Although machine guns were a major piece of technology to be introduced in WWI, they did not change much over the war. The exception is with making the guns lighter, and available as infantry support instead of just defence, mostly in 1915. For example, the German Maschinengewehr’s weight with stand was decreased from 140 to 42 pounds.
However, even with the advent of the machine gun, rifles stayed as the primary weapon of a soldier, as they were cheap, light, reliable, and soldiers were already well trained in their use.
Machine guns were also used extensively with aircraft, another new World War One invention. In 1914, the Germans had 240 aircraft, the French 150 and the British had 60.
Airplanes were originally only used for reconnaissance. The standard British military aircraft at the outbreak of the war was the BE-2 biplane. It was a slow but stable plane with a top speed of 72 mph, initially used for reconnaissance and light bombing. It remained in use on the Western Front until the middle of 1917, having gone through five versions.
However, as the amount and usefulness of reconnaissance planes increased, there was a necessity to get rid of them. There were many failed experiments in attaching a machine gun to an airplane, until early in 1915, when deflector plates were installed. These were steel plates on the propeller blades which deflected any bullets that would hit them. However, still in 1915, the Germans developed a much better system: the interrupter. This synchronised the firing of the machine gun with the propeller. By the end of the year, most aircraft, Allied or German, had machine guns installed, and stability had been sacrificed for manoeuvrability and speed, e.g. in 1917, the SE5a fighter had a top speed 138 mph, nearly double that of the BE-2. Fighters on one side also influenced fighters on the other side directly, making rapid change necessary.
The ability of aircraft to reach the enemy, no matter what the terrain, led to the development of bombers. Germany especially had a novel idea for bombers, as they were not airplanes, but airships – the Zeppelins. These were at first impermeable to British airplane fire, although they were weak to anti aircraft fire, as the ground-to-air guns were much more powerful than those on airplanes. They were slow, and did not change much during the war, except that they were designed to go higher to avoid airplanes which could now shoot them down due to changes in bullets. Both Allies and Germans also had bomber aircraft, but since they were not directly influencing each other, they had a slow rate of change, and changed only in speed, travelling distance and bomb load.
By 1918 the British had the largest air force with 22,170 aircraft, a significant increase to the 60 in service in 1914. The French only had 4,500; however during the war they had produced 68,000.
Aside from technology, World War One also changed much in tactics. The largest change at the end of 1914 was the switch from the war of movement to trench warfare at the Battle of the Marne (6-10 September 1914), when the Schlieffen Plan had failed, and the Germans had dug trenches to defend the area they did manage to capture. Before the Great War, trenches had not been official. At the beginning of the war, both sides developed three lines of trenches. This did not change until 1916, after the Battle of the Somme.
After the Battle of the Somme, the Germans retreated to the Hindenburg line, they switched to a zone system, consisting of three zones: The Front zone, which was sparsely defended due to enemy artillery, with scattered strongpoints; The Battle zone, out of reach of the enemy artillery, which had reserves to counter-attack, safe from the preliminary bombardment, and artillery aimed at the Front zone, ready to fire at the invading force; and the Rearward zone, which had further reserves.
The system was adopted by the British in end of 1917 due to its success at Passchendaele, however there were changes made to it, most importantly that the Front zone was still heavily garrisoned but in outposts/strongpoints instead of the whole length. Unfortunately for the British, by March 1918 the Battle zone was incomplete, with no dug-outs. The Rearward zone was even more unprepared; it was only some shallow trenches and pieces of tape marking where trenches should be dug.
The trench system in World War One did not change at all except for once, when the whole strategy changed completely for the Germans, and the British attempted to do the same. Therefore, it can be said that the rate of change was minimal, except for one jump. Also, the trenches themselves did not change much at all, as any work on the trenches, especially on the front line, would be a risk.
Trench warfare ended in March 1918, with the Ludendorff offensive, which was caused by the signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty with Russia, which freed up all the soldiers on the Eastern Front to attack at the Western Front. The additional troops enabled the Germans to break through the trenches; however fatigue and losses on the side of the Germans enabled the Allies to counter-attack.
Another change in tactic was artillery. Although artillery cannons stayed much the same technologically, only becoming larger, more accurate and capable of firing over a longer distance, the tactics in their employment changed. At first, artillery cannons were used for simple preliminary bombardment, such as the bombardment of the Germans prior to the Battle of the Somme, 1916. However, this was not that effective, as it did not destroy dug-outs (where the German soldiers quickly hid) and machine-gun posts, and it also informed the defenders of an imminent infantry attack. Preliminary bombardment did change in the shells used. At first, shrapnel shells were the most common, as previously they had been lethal in an open field. However, with the advance of trenches, they were near useless. Therefore, high explosive shell began to be used. Also, gas shells were used as described before.
Due to the warning that preliminary bombardment gave, two alternate strategies were used: the creeping barrage and the Chinese Attack. The latter was a tactic that when artillery bombardment ceases, the enemy would come out of their trenches, whereupon the bombardment would start again. The creeping barrage included an actual infantry attack. Devised in 1916, the artillery and infantry would be synchronised, with the infantry walking towards the enemy, and the artillery increasing its range. By autumn 1916, the Allies could attain a speed of 50 metres per minute.
Another development of the war was tunnelling. Tunnels were dug under no man’s land to place mines. The British especially used this tactic, increasing the size and amount of the explosives every time, from 20 tons in two mines during the Somme offensive, to 600 tons in 20 mines at Messines.
The idea that cavalry would win the war was kept through the whole war, even though the cavalry was nearly never successfully used. In 1914, most of the major armies had around a third of their strength in cavalry. The British, French and German armies all considered their cavalry to be an elite force and had considerable influence over the tactics used during battles.
However, cavalry was not used for reconnaissance, as the new airplanes were much better, and they could not be used for trench warfare, as machine guns were extremely effective against the,. However, at nearly every offensive, the cavalry were waiting for an opportunity to charge towards the enemy. The idea and usage (or lack thereof) of cavalry never changed through the whole war.
In conclusion, even though there were things that did not change in warfare on the Western Front between the end of 1914 and March 1918, the period did see many other changes, both in technology and in tactics, even the whole concept of war changing from movement to trench and back.
