How did new military technologies change warfare? Consider the period from 1815 to 1914.

        The coming of the railroad can be said to be the most important strategic development of the nineteenth century. The railroad revolutionized strategic geography, increased pace of power, and of strategic manoeuvre, it also meant armies could be larger and more mobile. The weakening long marches of the past, which had wasted an army’s strength before it even crossed a frontier largely, disappeared. Speedy mobilization and great concentrations of manpower along frontiers even in advance of war were now possible. The first railroad was built in America in 1828 and continental nations quickly followed suit, as even before the American Civil War which lasted between 1861-65 and the German wars of Unification between 1864-71, European armies were practising large-scale movement of troops and supplies by railways.   Van Crevald states that ‘after 1870 the importance of new technologies had been demonstrated … as every general staff hastened to add a railway department to its military structure/strategy’. This view is also emphasised by Hughes, as he states that ‘after 1871 every general staff had a railway department’.

        The telegraph began with the theory of Faraday, who continued with the experiments of Joseph Henry and Sir Wheatstone, and culminate in the invention of Samuel F B Morse. Though Faraday’s invention was complete in 1836, it took him eight years of futile bargaining at home and abroad before Morse was successful in persuading his own government to appropriate money to set up a telegraph line. When it was finally completed between Washington DC, and Baltimore on May 24 1844, Morse transmitted the memorable question “What hath God wrought”- indicating that this new technological development would be used widely during warfare. Indicating that Morse, along with Faraday both knew that they had invented a new device which would radically aid the process of warfare, for example, on the battlefield a commander no longer had to stay close to his army in the field.  The Chappé Telegraph, on the other hand, had been conceived and built primarily with military objectives in mind; this was not true however with regards to the electric telegraph or the railway which were both developed by civilians.

        The coming of the railroad can be said to be the most important strategic development of the nineteenth century as it revolutionized strategic geography and manoeuvre. For the first time in warfare development the railway meant that troops could be delivered to the combat area, fresh for action and in the same numbers as they left their barracks, unharmed  and allowed armies to be larger and more mobile, and was capable of moving men, weapons and supplies on an unprecedented scale. As well as allowing armies to be larger and more mobile, it meant that the weakening long marches of the past which had wasted an army’s strength before it even crossed a frontier disappeared. After 1870, the importance of the railroad had been demonstrated as every general staff hastened to add a railway department to its military set-up and strategy. It can be said that these so-called non-military technologies have shaped strategic military warfare, as well as the armament technologies that were designed solely for military uses in the form of land warfare weapons, such as the invention of the percussion cap, rifled barrels, breach-loading mechanisms, metal cartridges, cyclindro-conical bullet, smokeless powder and TNT filled explosive shells.

        In the armaments industries artisans had to overcome significant technological problems before their guns were able to dominate the battlefields. These significant technological problems included eliminating impurities from the various metals used for gun barrels, achieving greater precision in their manufacture.

         During the first half of the nineteenth century there were two significant inventions, the percussion cap and the cylindro-conoidal bullet.  The percussion cap was invented by Joshua Shaw in 1814, at first his caps were iron then pewter and finally copper. Since it was easy to convert the flintlocks, the percussion cap began to come into general use about 1820, though the British ordance officers, who were conservative were suspicious of it and did not order its adoption till 1836. The cyclindro-conoidal bullet which exploited the rifling that made it possible was invented by Captain Norton of the British 34th regiment. It had a hollow base that allowed it to automatically expand when fired, and seal the bore. This invention was enthusiastically taken up in France where Captain C E Minié gave his name to it – though the Minié ball was neither his invention nor a ball. The new bullet radically altered gun design and made rifling truly practicable for the first time. This allowed the rifle to be loaded from the muzzle at a faster pace. During the 1830s and 1840s inventors perfected muzzle-loading percussion muskets that unlike Napoleonic times could be rifled without any loss of speed in loading. The Minié rifle with an improved bullet was employed in the Kaffir war of 1851 and also in Crimean war of 1854-56.

        The effect of talented men on the science of the time was immeasurable, though none of them were directly concerned with the application of science to war, inevitably many practical applications of their initial theories or experiments were put to use by the military. This view is endorsed by Paddy Griffith, who brings the attention that inventors were often civilians who did not possess any tactical perceptions about what a battle entailed or ought to be like, but who did possess some highly tuned skills in gun making, in physics or chemistry or – in some cases in simple self advertisement unsupported by any science whatsoever. It is seen from the technological developments that the farther the industrial revolution progressed, the more it became clear that a few well-defined advances in weaponry were in fact possible, practicable and realistically procurable. 

        This led to improvements in infantry hand guns to now follow hard upon each other- the race had begun with inventors from many nations contributing changes.

The first satisfactory American breechloader was developed at Harpers Ferry by Christian Sharps; his perfected model became the most popular single-shot breechloader in the Civil War. 

        The American Civil War was an immense proving ground for better weapons of all kinds, as it consisted of new military technologies such as the Gatling gun, barbwire, large scale trenches, and the battle at sea between the Monitor and Merrimack.

 For the first time the achievements of the industrial and scientific technological revolutions were used on a large scale in warfare. There were various weapons for each unit of the military and navy, in the form of ‘rifled cannons and breechloaders for the artillery, breechloading rifles and repeaters for the infantry, and land mines, armoured trains, flame projectors, submarines, surface torpedo boats, marine mines and both free-floating and spar torpedoes for the navy’.

        The American Civil War was the first war to see mass movement of troops by railroad; it saw the first dual between ironclad ships, the Monitor and Merrimack. Steam supplied power for the warships; the telegraph directed general troop movements everywhere except in battle.

        In terms of ships there were immense changes to naval technology during the nineteenth century. New technologies that were used for military use revolutionized sea power during the period between 1915 and 1914, in the coming of the steamship and the adoption of steam.

        The replacement of sail by steam allowed far more effective action,  tactics which had previously been dominated by the direction and velocity of the wind now had to be completely revised, therefore affecting both naval tactics and strategy. The new dependence upon machinery was naturally to the advantage of Great Britain in comparison with her continental rivals, since she had the most highly organised machine industry and best supplies of anthracite coal. It can be seen from this point that technological change, especially in the navy affected warfare greatly.

Warships began to become steadily bigger and more heavily armed, as Iron ships provided a more solid gun platform, and due to its size permitted the carriage of larger guns and heavier armour against gunfire and ramming. The first iron armoured ship was built by the French in 1859, British followed with the Warrior. 

        Along with the phenomenal improvements in naval armour there was a continuous search for means of under-water attack. The second half of nineteenth century saw the further development of the mine, the introduction of the automotive torpedo and the evolution of the submarine from primitive prototypes into deadly weapons of warfare.

The first truly practical submarine to have been constructed was designed by two Frenchmen, Bourgeous and Brun in 1863. France was keenly interested in the submarine and she preceded all other nations in its development. John P Holland was the first submarine inventor to use submergence by water ballast and horizontal rudders. Nevertheless, it was not until the opening years of the twentieth century that this type of warship was totally adopted.

        The impact of the industrial revolution in compliance with its technological role within war and society seemed to reach a new level threatening far more than the valued position held by the individual heroism. This view is endorsed by William McNeill, he wrote that the introduction of technology in the modern war, excludes almost all elements of muscular heroism and brute ferocity which once found expression in hand-to-hand combat’.  Matthew Hughes also holds a similar view; he states that ‘killing was no longer directly related to soldiers’ physical prowess and steely courage in the face of hand-to-hand combat. Instead, it became a matter of trained, professional skill that, with greater weapon range, distanced the soldier from death.’ 

        At the time of these technological transformations, leading military theorists such as Carl von Clausewitz and Antoine de Jomini paid scant attention to the dramatic changes the new technological and industrial age brought to the art of war. Subsequently, thinkers whose interests lay in economics grasped the deep significance of the new technologies of armies and warfare. Unlike the ideals of McNeill and J F C Fuller, Engels welcomed the new military technological changes in warfare, and made it clear that war should be analysed primarily in terms of technological developments, as he believed that ‘generals of genius’ have not radically altered warfare, instead ‘the invention of better weapons and changes in the human material’ have. He saw that new developments in the breech-loading rifles, heavier guns, and four-inch thick armour plating on warships worthy of note, and he stressed that the inventions in themselves, and the tactical developments they fostered were not so much military as economic in character. Therefore, for him the first uses of gunpowder and firearms did not simply represent ‘an act of force’, instead these developments were ‘a step forward in industry’ in terms of an ‘economical advance, as well as changing the nature of warfare.

        In conclusion, it seems that new military technologies did change warfare, as warfare did become determined by the use of these new military technologies. For instance, Maurice Pearton uses the military tactic of the Schlieffen Plan, it seems that he suggests that the Plan itself would not have been important if it was not for the revolution in transport and communications, such as the railway and telegraph which the military technological advances made possible.  Schlieffen thought that ‘railways have become a means and tool of warfare without which the great armies of our time can neither be raised nor mobilised nor led into attack nor sustained in battle’.  From this, it can be seen that Schlieffen thought that warfare determined upon the new military technologies that took place.

          One can assert that the new military technologies that occurred during the period 1815 to 1914 did have great compliance in making technological development in the form of weapons and transport deterministic in war. Moreover however, this can only be assumed partially as Hughes states that ‘victory is invariably a product of a number of factors, of which technology is just one component’. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bernard and Fawn Brodie, From Crossbow to H –Bomb, (Indiana University Press, 1962)

George Raudzens, ‘War-Winning Weapons: The Measurement of Technological Determinism in Military History’, Journal of Military History 54 (October 1990) 403-433.

G Jensen and A Weist (eds), War in the Age of Technology, (New York, 2001).

J.F.C Fuller, Armament and History: A Study of the Influence of Armament on History from the Dawn of Classical Warfare to the Second World War, (New York, 1946)

Martin van Creveld, Technology and War: from 2000 B.C. to the Present, (London, 1991)

Maurice Pearton, The Knowledgeable State: Diplomacy, war and Technology since 1830, (Burnett Books Ltd, 1982)

M. Hughes, ‘Technology, Science and War’ in Hughes and Philpott (eds), Palgrave Advances in Military History, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006).

William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force and Society since A.D. 1000, (Basil Blackwell, 1983).

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