In the last chapter we saw how airplanes were developed, and how physics is important in relation to them. In this chapter we will see how the airplane was used in war, and also in other ways. We now refer to the war that took place between 1914 and 1918 as World War I, but before 1939 it was known as the Great War, and it was, indeed, the largest, most all-encompassing war the world had ever seen. For years there had been a huge buildup of weapons in Europe, and with the new breakthroughs in science, many of the weapons had never been used in a large engagement before. Horrific scenes resulted, such as hundreds of soldiers being mowed down by machine guns within minutes, whole units wiped out by strange, new deadly gases, and ships sunk with new and powerful torpedoes. Perhaps the most ironic part of the war was its futility. Because of the new weapons—particularly the machine gun—the war soon became a stalemate, with neither side able to move. The opposing armies sat facing one another along hundreds of miles of trenches, with the trenches only a few hundred yards apart.
There's no doubt that many of the advances in weaponry were a result of breakthroughs in physics, but it was really the application of applied physics to weapons that led to the huge stalemate. Some of the weapons in which physics played a role were the machine gun, large cannons that now had become deadly accurate, airplanes, new types of rifles, hand grenades, flamethrowers, torpedoes, submarines, tanks, and new types of ships. And with these new weapons, over the four years of the war, millions of soldiers lost their lives without anything really being solved.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MACHINE GUN
The machine gun played such a central role in the war that World War I is now sometimes referred to as the machine-gun war. The Gatling gun had been invented much earlier, but it was a toy compared to the 1870 invention of the British engineer Hiram Maxim. He devised a system that used the explosive gases set off by one bullet to propel the next one. The gun therefore ejected each spent cartridge and inserted a new one. Ammunition was fed into the firing chamber using a belt-fed system. A water-filled steel jacket surrounded the barrel; it kept the temperature cool enough so the barrel would not crack or melt as a result of the intense heat generated by the explosive gases.1
The major problem with the Maxim gun was that it was relatively heavy and difficult to use. In particular, it needed several men to operate it, and it wasn't highly reliable. Because of this, it had seen limited use before the beginning of World War I. In 1896, however, the Maxim was improved quite significantly. The Vickers Company in England purchased the Maxim Company, and Vickers redesigned and improved the gun. First, Vickers decreased the gun's weight by using lighter metals in its construction, and then he simplified the action. Basically it was now a water-cooled gun that used .303 British shells, the same shells that were used in the standard British rifle, the Lee-Enfield.
Although it took six men to operate it—one to fire it, one to feed ammunition, and four to move it around and set it up—it was quite reliable once it was set up, and as a result it became a favorite weapon among British troops. It was three feet, eight inches long with a firing rate of 450 to 600 rounds per minute, and it had maximum range of about 4,500 yards. It could be fired for twelve hours without overheating or breaking down, and about ten thousand rounds could be fired each hour. At the end of this time, however, the barrel had to be changed. It was particularly effective against troops in the open, and it was one of the major reasons for the stalemate in the war. Later in the war (after 1916) it was used in airplanes, both by the British and the French.2
Another machine gun referred to as the Lewis gun was also used extensively. It was an American-designed gun that was much lighter than the Vickers. It was widely used by the British. Strangely, although it was designed by a US colonel named Isaac Lewis in 1911, it was not used extensively by American troops in the war. Lewis, in fact, became disillusioned with the US Army in 1913 because its leaders refused to adopt his gun, and he left the United States, went briefly to Belgium, and then went to the United Kingdom, where he worked with British manufacturers to build the gun. At twenty-eight pounds, it was only about half the weight of the Vickers, and its length was barely over four feet, so it could easily be carried by a single soldier. It used the British .303 bullet (although some models use the .30-06), and its rate of fire was about six hundred rounds per minute, with an effective range of about 880 yards and a maximum range of 3,500 yards.
The French 75 millimeter field gun also played an important role in several battles, particularly near the beginning of the war. It had a recoil mechanism that allowed the barrel to slide back and forth after it was fired before returning to its original firing position. Because it did this without moving the gun, no reaiming was required. It was tremendously accurate and could fire fifteen shots per minute. For anyone in the open it meant certain death, and in the Battle of Marne over two thousand German soldiers were mowed down in four minutes.
OTHER WEAPONS
It may sound like the machine gun was the only weapon used in World War I. This wasn't the case, and some of the other guns were almost as lethal as the machine gun. Rifles had improved significantly, along with cannons and other artillery, and hand grenades began to play a large role. Flamethrowers were also used. And, as mentioned earlier, it was the large array of new and powerful weapons that led to the stalemate. Furthermore, most of them were a result of breakthroughs in science—particularly physics.3
The muskets of the Civil War were replaced on the British side by the bolt-action Lee-Enfield rifle. The name comes from its inventor, James Perris Lee, and the factory in Enfield, England, where it was first produced. Cartridges were placed in a metal box called the magazine, with a spring at the bottom. When the bolt was open, the spring pushed the cartridge upward into position. As the bolt was closed, the top cartridge was pushed into the chamber, ready to fire. After firing, the bolt was opened, causing the empty cartridge to eject, and a new cartridge was loaded. The magazine held ten shells and was loaded with .303 British ammunition.
The bolt-action was fast and easy to use, and with its relatively large detachable magazine, it was an excellent rifle. A well-trained rifleman could easily fire twenty to thirty rounds a minute with it. It was accurate up to two thousand feet, and it had a range of about 4,500 feet. The Germans used the Mauser Gewehr, which was also a bolt-action gun that was well known for its accuracy. And they also used the Mauser T as an antitank gun toward the end of the war. In addition, pistols such as the British Webley, the German Lugar, and the American Colt .45 were used extensively during the war. They were usually carried by officers.
Cannons and large artillery had also been improved significantly. Howitzers, which are cannons that fire shells in a high, curving trajectory, were used quite effectively against fortifications and hidden targets. They fired heavy shells through relatively short barrels, and were used by the Germans early in the war in Belgium. The huge howitzer known as “Big Bertha” pounded fortresses in Belgium during the German advance through the country. The biggest problem with the large guns was their weight, but this was finally overcome by using railroads. Many were, in fact, mounted on railroad cars, which also helped to overcome their recoil. Such guns could fire huge shells to distances of up to thirty miles.
The mortar was also used during World War I. Like the howitzer, it was a high-trajectory gun, but much smaller. The projectile could easily be dropped into its broad, stubby barrel and fired quickly. It could fire shells as far as twenty-two hundred yards. And antiaircraft guns were also developed soon after airplanes started to play a large role in the war. They could fire four rounds per minute to a distance of three thousand yards.
Crude hand grenades had been around for years. The early Chinese used them, and they were also used by the French in the fifteenth century. Considerable effort went into perfecting them during World War I. The Germans were well prepared with hand grenades at the beginning of the war, but other countries quickly caught up. Trench warfare, in particular, made them very effective. “Bombing parties” from both sides would attack the enemy trenches using hand grenades of various types, and these missions increased in frequency as the war progressed. The British had very few hand grenades at the beginning of the war, but within a year they were producing half a million a week.
Grenades could be detonated in either of two ways: on impact (percussion) or using a timed fuse. The fuse-type grenade was generally preferred because of the danger of setting off the percussion-type grenade accidentally. In the timed grenades a pin that could be extracted by hand became common in the later stages of the war. And they came in all shapes and sizes. The stick grenade had a handle, one of the others was cylindrical, but later on most were oval shaped. Grenades could be either thrown or launched with a rifle. Rifle grenades were attached to a rod that was placed down the barrel of a gun or placed in a cup that was attached to the barrel. A blank cartridge was used to launch them. Cup grenades were particularly popular with the British and French; although they were not very accurate, they could be thrown a couple hundred yards by the blast.
The Mills grenade was introduced by the British in May 1915 and quickly became very popular. It had a serrated exterior so that when it detonated it broke into many fragments, and it was fairly light at 1.25 pounds. A safety pin held down a strike lever. After the pin was removed, the strike lever was held down by hand until the grenade was thrown. It had a four second fuse.
The Germans also had an array of different grenades: stick, ball, disk, and egg shaped. They preferred the egg-shaped grenade because it could relatively easily be thrown up to fifty yards.
Perhaps the greatest terror of the war, at least for the soldiers it was used against, was the flamethrower. Although crude flamethrowers had been used in earlier wars, this was the first war in which an efficient, well-designed flamethrower was used. It was used by the Germans against the British and French soldiers in the early phases of the war in 1914. The Germans had begun experimenting with flamethrowers as early as 1900. They used pressurized air, carbon dioxide, or nitrogen to push oil through a nozzle. As the mixture hit the air it was ignited by a small trigger and became a jet of flame. Early flamethrowers had a range of about eighty feet, but this was later increased to about 130 feet. This made them quite effective in trench warfare.
The Germans had two models, a relatively small portable one that could be carried by a single man, and a larger, much heavier one, that had an effective range double that of the small one. It required several people to transport it. The first use of the smaller variety came at The Hague in Flanders, Belgium. It occurred on July 30, 1915, when Germans with gas cylinders strapped to their backs attacked a British line. The huge flames terrified the unsuspecting British at first, but, after losing some ground, they managed to hold their position. The Germans were pleased with its success and started using it in most of their successive battles. The men armed with flamethrowers soon became marked men, however; British and French soldiers concentrated their fire on the operators, and few lived very long.
The British soon began experimenting with their own flamethrowers. They constructed several models, ranging from a relatively light portable model up to very heavy ones. The larger ones had a range of about ninety yards. The French also developed several models. They were quite effective in the Battle of the Somme in France.
Other weapons that were used extensively included poisonous gas and tanks. They will be discussed in a later section.
HOW THE WAR STARTED
The spark that ignited the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. It led to a sequence of almost mindless events that occurred very quickly, mostly because all the nations involved had treaties and alliances with other nations. Even though Franz Ferdinand was quite unpopular, the Austro-Hungarians immediately accused the Serbians of a conspiracy (Ferdinand was actually killed by a young terrorist from a group called the Black Hand) and issued several ultimatums to them. The Serbs rejected some of the ultimatums, and, as a result, the Austro-Hungarians mobilized their army on July 28, 1914. But Russia, bound by a treaty to Serbia, quickly came to the rescue. In the same way, Germany had a treaty with Austria-Hungry, and, as a result, Germany was likewise drawn into the war on August 1. Then came France, which had a treaty with Russia; it declared war on August 3. As a result of Germany's invasion of Belgium, Great Britain was pulled into the war when the King of Belgium appealed to Britain for help.4
Everyone thought at first that it would be a relatively brief war, but it soon escalated into an uncontrollable nightmare, mostly because of the stubbornness of the nations involved. The three major continental powers, Germany, France, and Russia, all went on the offensive immediately. But to their surprise, they discovered that the new array of lethal weapons that each country now had gave no advantage. Machine guns began mowing down troops by the hundreds. The best defense proved to be a deep trench. Within a short time the front had become two lines of trenches a few hundred yards apart, with neither side wanting to attack. And strangely, for the next four years these trenches moved very little. It was a stalemate. Indeed, in the few attempts at moving the line, hundreds of thousands of troops were slaughtered. Not only were they mowed down by machine guns and other artillery, they were also gassed and bombarded by hand grenades and flamethrowers. And overhead there was something new: airplanes soon began strafing the trenches with bullets.
THE FIRST WARPLANES
The first powered aircraft had been flown by the Wright brothers only a decade before World War I began, but the airplane was soon to play a major role. At first planes were only used for observation and reconnaissance, and indeed they were able to provide an important new view of the battlefield. At the Battle of Mons in southern Belgium on August 23, 1914, British forces rushed to the rescue of the French as the Germans attacked them. Just before the clash, the British sent out an observation plane to see what was going on and discovered, to their surprise, that the Germans were trying to surround them. The British high command immediately ordered a retreat, which saved them from a disaster. A little later a French observation plane noticed that the Germans had exposed their flanks, and the French attacked, stopping an attempted drive to Paris. The value of the observation plane was soon evident.5
It wasn't long, however, before observation planes on opposite sides began to come in contact. At first they merely fired at one another with pistols and rifles, although at times they also tried to throw rocks at one another's propellers. One of the first pilots to escalate air warfare was Roland Garros of France. Although most of the early airplanes used in the war were “pushers,” like the Wright brothers’ craft, with the propeller behind the pilot, it was soon discovered that the “tractor” design, with the propeller in the front, was much more effective. The problem with this, however, was that if machines gun were to be mounted so pilots could easily aim and fire them, they would have to fire through the whirling blades of the propeller, and this would quickly destroy the propeller blades. Garros decided to protect the blades by adding steel deflectors to them.
In early April 1915 he tried out his new invention for the first time. The recipients of his attacks were no doubt surprised when they saw Garros's airplane flying straight at them, shooting a stream of bullets. Garros shot down four German airplanes using his new device, but on April 18 he was forced down behind German lines. His airplane was seized, and the German high command called in Anthony Fokker of the Fokker aircraft company and ordered him to copy the device. Fokker saw, however, that it was seriously flawed: many of the bullets hitting the blades were deflected, and some of them were being deflected backward. Fokker and his team therefore began working on a system in which the machine gun was synchronized with the propeller blade. A cam was placed on the crankshaft of the airplane; when the propeller was in a position where it might be hit by a bullet, the cam actuated a pushrod that stopped the gun from firing. The new device was placed on German airplanes, and for many months the Germans had a tremendous advantage in the air.6
In the meantime the British were also experimenting with the mounting of a machine gun on an airplane. Aviator Louis Strange attached a machine gun to the top of the upper wing of his plane so that the bullets would clear the propeller. However, on May 10, 1915, his gun jammed. He stood up on his seat in an attempt to pry it loose, but as he worked on it the plane suddenly stalled and flipped over, then it began to spin downward. Strange was flung out of the plane, but he managed to hang on to the gun on the upper wing. For several moments he swung his legs around wildly, trying to get back in the cockpit. Fortunately, he succeeded and was able to pull the plane out of its dive just before it would have crashed.
Nevertheless, with the new Fokker design, the Germans quickly achieved air superiority. Strangely, most of their new guns were mounted on the Eindecker G, a plane that was generally inferior to most British aircrafts. The casualties, however, were not as great as they were later in the war because the British pilots stayed clear of the Eindecker. The morale of the British, however, had been shaken, and they rushed to produce fighters that could match the Eindeckers.
The era of the dogfight had begun. A dogfight was an aerial battle between two or more aircraft. The Germans had an advantage when the dogfights first began. As a result, they began knocking down British planes at the rate of the about five to each of their losses. German aces such as Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke became heroes at home as a result of the large number of British planes they downed. Between them they shot down almost sixty enemy aircraft before they were stopped. Finally, though, in the fall of 1915, the British introduced two fighters, the FE 26 and the DH2, which were a good match for the German planes, and they also developed tracer ammunition that helped. With it a pilot could see his stream of fire and adjust it if needed.
Pilots with eight kills became known as aces.7 At first, most pilots went out alone, searching for enemy planes, but after 1917 squadrons were introduced on both sides. The British developed squadrons of six planes that usually flew in a V-shaped formation with a commander in the front. In combat, however, they would break up into pairs, with one of the two planes primarily on attack while the other was a defender. The German squadrons were usually larger, and their groups eventually became known as circuses.
One of the leading British aces was Mick Mannock. He was a leading developer of British air tactics, and between May 1917 and July 1918, he shot down seventy-three German planes. Almost all pilots were under the age of twenty-five, with many as young as eighteen. Many, in fact, were sent into battle with as little as thirty hours of air training. So, as expected, their life expectancy once they joined up was not long.
Dogfight tactics were well known, and everyone used them as much as possible. The major tactic was diving toward another plane from above when the sun was shining in the eyes of the opposing pilot. Both sides also used clouds for cover as much as possible; they would attack, then head for the clouds.
The best-known ace of the war was, no doubt, the German Manfred von Richthofen, who was also known as the Red Baron. He was credited with eighty combat victories during his career. As in the case of most aces, however, many of them were against greenhorn pilots with only a few hours of experience. He did, however, down one of the leading British aces, Major Lance Hayden. During 1917 he was the leader of the German squadron called the Flying Circus. The plane he piloted was painted red, both inside and out. His career came to an end on April 21, 1913, when he was shot down by ground fire near the Somme River.
On the Allied side, Billy Bishop was one of the most celebrated aces; a Canadian, he was credited with seventy-two victories, and he was instrumental in setting up the British air-training program. At one point he fought against the Red Baron, but neither man gained a victory. He was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1917. The best-known American ace was Eddie Rickenbacker. Before he became a pilot he was a racecar driver, so flying a fighter plane was a natural next step for him. When the United States entered the war in 1917 Rickenbacker enlisted immediately and was soon flying over Germany. On September 24, 1918, he was named commander of a squadron. In total, he shot down twenty-six German aircraft. Another major American figure was Billy Mitchell; by the end of World War I he commanded all American air combat units.
Although the fighter planes got the most attention during World War I, a much larger plane also played an important role. It was developed to carry and release bombs over enemy territory. Strategic bombing was used quite extensively during the war. Its object was to destroy factories, power stations, dockyards, large installations of guns, and troop-supply lines. The first bombing missions were by the Germans, who launched terror raids using large Zeppelins (huge balloons) to bomb small villages and civilians as a way to destroy the enemy's morale. There were a total of twenty-three of these raids over England, and at first there was little defense against them. But quite quickly it became evident that they were easy targets, as most were filled with flammable hydrogen and therefore easy to shoot down. So the airship raids finally stopped, but Germany soon developed bomber airplanes. The British also developed the Handley Page bomber in 1916, and in November of that year they bombed several German installations and submarine bases. By 1918 they were using four-engine bombers to attack industrial zones, with some of the bombs weighing as much as 1,650 pounds. They developed a squadron that was able to penetrate deep into Germany and hit important industrial targets. The Germans retaliated, bombing both British and French cities, but in the end the British dropped 660 tons of bombs on Germany—more than twice the amount the Germans dropped on England.
THE WAR AT SEA AND THE MENACE BENEATH THE SEA
When the war began the British immediately set up a blockade in an attempt to stop materials and supplies from getting to Germany. And it worked fairly well, particularly in the later stages of the war. The British navy was given the job of enforcing the blockade; it was, after all, the most powerful navy in the world, and for many years it had been the model for other countries. Furthermore, at the beginning of the war its battleships and cruisers easily outnumbered those of Germany: twenty-one large battleships and nine cruisers to Germany's thirteen battleships and seven cruisers. Germany had no interest in meeting the British navy head-on at sea, and so it generally kept a low profile. Nevertheless, both sides expected considerable conflict, but an incident that occurred at the time gave some indication of what would come.
The British navy trapped the German battle cruiser SMS Goeben and a light cruiser in the Mediterranean. British officers knew that it was likely going to try to break through near Gibraltar, and they waited for it with their guns ready. Although the Goeben had slightly larger guns and greater speed than the British ships, it was outnumbered, and it looked like it was easy prey. But to the surprise of the British, it held them at bay with its superior range, and it easily steamed around them unharmed. In fact, on its way out it picked off a couple of the British ships. The British were stunned, and it was soon obvious that they were no longer lords of the sea. They hadn't fought a battle in a hundred years and were obviously not well prepared for war.
So there were no great sea battles between German and British battleships, but for the next few years there were problems for the British navy. By 1914 the Germans had the best submarines in the world, and although the British didn't take them seriously at first, they were a formidable enemy. In fact, they became a real thorn in the side of the navy, and British leaders weren't quite sure what to do about them. Furthermore, it soon became obvious that they had almost no defense against them. On September 22, 1914, three large British armed cruisers were sunk in less than an hour by the German submarine U-9. Fourteen hundred men drowned, making it one of the worst disasters for the British navy in three hundred years.
Large numbers of German U-boats were now being seen in the North Sea, but they still weren't taken too seriously. For the most part, the submarines were warning their targets that they were going to be sunk, so the loss of life was relatively low. But in November 1914, the German chief of naval operations decided to do away with the warning, and in February 1915, all waters around Great Britain and Ireland were declared a war zone. This meant that all merchant vessels, including neutrals, would be sunk without warning, and over the next four months the Germans sank thirty-nine British ships. This became a serious problem for the British, and they soon began to look for better defensive measures. Then came the sinking of the luxury liner Lusitania, and they knew they had to do something fast.8
On May 1, 1915, the Lusitania began its 202nd crossing of the Atlantic. It set out from New York and headed for Liverpool, England, with 1,257 passengers and a crew of 702. They would never reach their destination, and most would perish. Waiting in the waters near Ireland was the German submarine U-20. On May 7, when the Lusitania approached the Irish coast, the captain of U-20 spotted it coming toward him, and as it approached it turned thirty degrees, making it an easy target. Within seconds a torpedo was on its way. Several people on the Lusitania saw bubbles in the water as the torpedo approached, and someone yelled, “torpedoes on the starboard side.” A large explosion followed, then a second muffled explosion came from the bottom of the ship. Almost immediately the ship tilted by twenty-five degrees, making it difficult to launch lifeboats. One thousand one hundred and ninety-eight people perished—almost as many as in the sinking of the Titanic.9
America was particularly enraged because 128 of those lost were Americans. President Woodrow Wilson sent a strong protest to Germany, threatening to break off relations if there wasn't an immediate stop to the German attacks on neutral ships, and the British were of course outraged. Other nations added their condemnation, and much to the surprise of England, the Germans called off all U-boat activity, and for almost a year and a half no British ships were sunk. This gave the British time to develop effective weapons against submarines. By June 1917, they had developed hydrophones that allowed them to pick up the sound of the propeller of a submarine from beneath the surface. Then they developed depth charges, which were oil drums filled with TNT set to explode at certain depths. In addition, they developed a device for throwing numerous depth charges outward from the deck of the ship.
The British were therefore ready when Germany resumed submarine warfare in January 1917. Less than three months later the United States entered the war, and by then another technique had also been developed to protect ships from submarines: the use of convoys with destroyer escorts. A submarine was lucky if it could sink a single ship of the convoy, and when it tried, it was in constant danger from depth charges. In addition, large numbers of mines were laid at depths up to six hundred feet in the North Sea and in the region between Scotland and Norway. U-boats soon became completely ineffective.
THE FINAL HORROR—POISONOUS GAS
The stalemate was a serious problem for both sides; each wanted to attack but knew that it would be suicide unless some sort of new weapon was developed. In their frustration the German high command turned to the physical chemist Fritz Haber. He had helped them earlier with a problem related to their ammunition, and German leaders hoped he could help again. Was there something that could be fired into the Allied trenches that would force the troops in them to flee? Haber immediately thought of poisonous gas. Several German generals had reservations, saying that the Allies would no doubt retaliate the same way, but Haber assured them that their chemical industry would have a hard time producing a similar gas. Despite these reservations, Haber was told to produce the gas. Haber decided on chlorine, and the Germans introduced it in April 1915, near Ypres. This region of the line was held by a combination of British, Canadian, French, and Algerian troops. Thousands of tanks containing chlorine were transported to the German lines. Fans were then used to blow the poisonous gas toward the enemy.10
On the evening of April 22, 1915, French and Algerian troops noticed a large yellow-green cloud drifting slowly toward them. Puzzled, they became suspicious that it was being used to conceal offensive troop movements, and they stood their ground waiting for an attack. Within minutes the cloud was all around them, and they were choking and gasping for breath. The inhaled gas was destroying their respiratory organs. When they realized what was happening they began to panic, and many of them fled in disorder. Within a short time a four-mile gap was opened along the line. Strangely, though, the Germans were as surprised by the effectiveness of the gas as the French were. And although German troops did advance, they did so nervously and hesitatingly. They managed to seize some land, but the British and Canadians on the right fought valiantly, and in the end little was gained. But a new phase in the war had begun.11
The British press immediately condemned the attack and played up the incident, and other countries, including the United States, soon joined in. Despite the condemnation, though, the British immediately went to work on research into poison gases that they could use to retaliate. There was, however, a problem with the delivery of the gas. If the wind changed direction while it was being delivered, it could blow back upon the troops delivering it. And indeed this happened to both the British and German troops. A better delivery system was needed. Again, the German high command went back to Haber. Was there a poisonous gas that could be easily packed into artillery shells and exploded in the trenches? Haber and his team went to work immediately and soon came up with phosgene. It was similar to chlorine gas, but unlike chlorine it caused no coughing or choking while it destroyed the lungs. As a result, soldiers usually inhaled much more of it before they realized what was happening. As a weapon it was therefore much more potent.
Then Haber came up with the most dreaded gas of the war—mustard gas. The Germans used it for the first time against the Russians in September 1917. Mustard gas was almost odorless, and it caused serious blisters both internally and externally.
Each time the Germans developed a new poisonous gas, however, the Allies soon developed the same gas and used it on the Germans, so in the end it was of little advantage to either side. The Germans inflicted several hundred thousand casualties, but they suffered around two hundred thousand themselves, with about nine thousand deaths.12 Toward the end of the war, however, there were few casualties, as gas masks had been developed.
Although Haber apparently never felt any guilt for his role in developing poisonous gas, his wife was so appalled at what he had done that she committed suicide. His close friend Albert Einstein also severely reprimanded him for his role in slaughtering so many fellow human beings. But in the end it backfired for him. He was of Jewish descent, and in 1933 he had to flee Germany as the Nazi's began rounding up Jews.
THE FIRST TANKS
Another attempt at breaking the stalemate came with the introduction of the first tanks to the battlefield in late 1916. The idea that an armored, bulletproof vehicle could be helpful in battle had been around for many years. Even Leonardo da Vinci designed one. But it was not until after World War I had started that the idea began to be taken seriously. The impetus came from a British officer, Colonel Ernest Swinton. While driving through northern France in October 1914, having seen the large number of casualties inflicted by modern weaponry, he began to think about how troops could be better protected. A friend had mentioned a vehicle he had seen with large caterpillar tracks, and he suddenly realized that it would be extremely helpful to build a bulletproof military vehicle with caterpillar tracks.13
In November he talked to Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Hanley about the idea; Hanley, in turn, sent a memo to the Committee of Imperial Defense. The army, however, had little interest in the new device. Swinton therefore organized a demonstration of a caterpillar-track device for several high-ranking dignitaries in June 1915. In attendance were Lloyd George (minister of munitions, who would eventually become prime minister) and Winston Churchill, the first lord of the admiralty. Both were impressed, and Churchill immediately established what he called the Landships committee to look into the building of such a device. It didn't take long for the committee to decide the new device could be helpful in the war effort, and they agreed to go ahead with the design and building of a prototype model. It was important to keep it secret, so they codenamed it “tank,” so the Germans would not know what it was. And of course, the name stuck.14
Swinton was hired as an advisor, and he suggested several criteria for the new vehicle. It had to have a minimum speed of four miles per hour; it had to be able to cross a four-foot trench and pass easily through barbed wire; and it had to be capable of climbing over objects five feet high. In addition, it had to be bulletproof, and it had to have two machine guns. When it was finally built it was nicknamed “Little Willy.” It didn't quite live up to Swinton's criteria, but it was close. It could move at a rate of about three miles per hour on level ground; it weighed fourteen tons and had a twelve-foot-long track frame; and it was rhomboid shaped and could carry three people. In early tests, however, it had problems crossing trenches, but this was soon corrected in a slightly larger model called “Big Willie.” Of particular interest was that these tanks were produced by the navy rather than by the army.
Everything was now ready for the production of combat models, and the first combat model, called the Mark I, was demonstrated in June 1916. Lloyd George was impressed enough to order the immediate production of full-size tanks. In the meantime, the French had heard of the English plans and had begun work on their own tank.
The Mark I was ready for battle in September 1916, with thirty-six having been completed. Several military leaders, including Churchill, urged complete and thorough testing before it was used, but others wanted to use it as soon as possible. At the time the battle of Somme was in progress in France, and it hadn't gone as well as the British had hoped. As a result there was pressure to begin deploying the tanks. Thirty-six tanks therefore lined up on the front lines at Flers in France in September, and their appearance no doubt stunned the Germans. But Churchill was right: they were not ready. Many of them broke down in the initial attack, and some of them got stuck in the mud, so aside from the shock value, they were not very effective.
Meanwhile the French, having produced 128 tanks by April 1917, took them into battle, but as in the case of the English tanks, they were also not ready, and several problems developed. The first really successful use of tanks came on November 20, 1917, at the Battle of Cambria. With a force of 474 tanks the British attacked the German lines and breached a twelve-mile stretch. In the process they captured ten thousand German soldiers and a large number of machine guns. Surprisingly, though, the Germans did not try to emulate their attackers; they were slow in coming up with their own plans for a tank. One of the reasons, no doubt, was a lack of resources at this stage of the war.
The British and French, on the other hand, poured all their resources into the production of tanks. By the end of the war, the British had built 2,636 and the French had built 3,870. In addition, the United States built eighty-four tanks. The Germans, on the other hand, only produced twenty, but they did develop weapons that were fairly effective against it.
All in all, the British Mark I performed fairly well considering the conditions. Most battlefields were littered with huge craters and strewn with barbed wire. The Mark I was able to move quite effectively over the very rough terrain, and it could easily cross trenches and craters of up to nine feet, and it had no problems with barbed wire. Indeed, it could even knock down small trees.
AMERICA ENTERS THE WAR
The beginning of the end began at the Eastern front, where the Russians had been fighting the Germans for two and a half years. They had suffered several defeats and morale was at an all-time low. The Russian army was in shambles, and the government back home was falling apart. As a result, in March 1917, Czar Nicholas was removed from power and a provisional government was set up. Surprisingly, though, despite the problems and setbacks the war had created, the new government vowed to fight on. But by now the Russian army was starting to fall apart; desertions were becoming more and more common, until finally the generals decided that they had had enough. Seeking peace, the Russians signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.15
Germany was now able to send large numbers of troops to the Western front. They began arriving at the rate of ten divisions a month, and with the new build up, German high officials decided it was time to hit the Allies with a decisive blow so overwhelming that they would quickly agree to end the war. And on March 21, 1918, they struck. Within days a huge gap was opened up between the British and French lines. The Germans pushed forward, trying to take advantage of it, but they were surprised by the resolve and stubbornness of the British troops. They held their line. Meanwhile, the United States had declared war on Germany, and American troops were now coming across the Atlantic in large numbers.
For years President Woodrow Wilson had argued that the United States should stay out of the war, and most Americans agreed with him. But after the sinking of the Lusitania (with 128 Americans aboard), many Americans were angered, but Germany quickly stopped U-boat attacks, causing the anger to subside. On January 31, 1917, however, Germany decided to restart their unrestricted war on all shipping vessels in the war zone, neutral or not. President Wilson was stunned by the news, but the United States refrained from declaring war. But in February and March German submarines sank several American ships. In addition, British intelligence had intercepted and decrypted a message from Germany to the Mexican government. The Germans were promising Mexico that in return for its support all territories it had lost to annexation by the United States would be returned. These territories included Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war, and it was quickly granted. The first American troops began crossing the Atlantic a few months later. A contingent, commanded by General Pershing, landed in France in June. The Germans were still attacking the Allied line, but now with considerably less success. And soon they were facing the first American troops.
A uniform Western command was formed in April 1918 that included British, US, and Belgian troops under General Foch. In the meantime the number of Americans in France doubled in March, and then it doubled again in May and August. The Germans attacked again in July but were quickly pushed back by a counteroffensive. The British then advanced in the north, and the Americans went on the offensive throughout the Argonne region of France. On July 18 Foch's forces along with the French went on the offensive along with nine double-strength American divisions. The Germans began to weaken, and then on August 8, over four hundred British tanks faced them. Soon they were surrendering by the thousands. And Germany's allies began to surrender: first there was Belgium in September, then Turkey on October 30, and finally Austria-Hungry on November 4. German morale plummeted as its resources also began to collapse, and finally, on November 11, 1918, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending the war.