Impact of new technology

• WW1 was the war of big guns.
• The stalemate on the western front meant that long range guns capable of firing heavy shells (bombs) over a great distance became very important.
• Creeping barrage
• This meant using artillery to fire at the enemy trenches as the soldiers went over the top.
• Gas was seen as a way of breaking the stalemate in WW1.
• The Germans used gas first but the British soon did too.
• At first soldiers could do nothing about gas attacks but by 1916 British troops were given gas helmets.
• Gas helmets did not protect soldiers from mustard gas.
• Sometimes a change in wind meant that gas attacks blew back on their own soldiers rather than the enemies.
• Dying from a gas attack was horrible.
• Soldiers were very scared of gas attacks.
• The tank was used for the first time in WW1.
• The tank was developed by the British and it was called the Tank.
• The tank was believed to help the British to break the stalemate as they could be used to easily go over no man’s land and smash enemy trench lines.
• To begin with, tanks had many problems and broke down a lot.
• Tanks became more useful as the war went on.
• Machine gun
• Machine guns were very heavy but could fire hundreds of times a minute.
• Machine guns were very useful for defending trenches.
• Machine guns were too heavy to be moved around and used to attack trenches.
• Many soldiers lost their lives to machine gun fire, for example, thousands of British soldiers on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.