The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [153]
New Technology
World War I became increasingly vicious. The use of technology for killing saw manifold increases. Germany introduced poison gas to the battlefield (which availed them nothing), being immediately matched by Allied use of poison gas (who likewise achieved nothing). Air power became important for observing and bombing the enemy. Allied troops dug tunnels under the German lines and exploded large mines (which also achieved nothing). At sea, the Germans began unrestricted submarine warfare, often destroying neutral shipping bound for England thus angering the world (not good). Germany used large airships and Gotha bombers to bomb London and Paris (no real impact). Flamethrowers, hand grenades, smaller machine guns, and new artillery shells invented by the warring parties to win the war, only increased the slaughter. Each side hoped to slaughter the other with new technology, but their adversaries quickly picked up the new instruments of war and threw them back into the inventor’s face. All this became increasingly deadly and very expensive. In the final analysis, Allied technology won the war with tanks and airplanes superior to the Central Powers’ and produced in much larger quantities. Tanks were the major land innovation. The Allies thought them up, learned how to best use them, and then produced them in large enough numbers to smash German trench lines. Early on the Germans produced outstanding aircraft, but over time, the Allies produced more and better aircraft, wrestling the skies from the Kaiser. As a result the Allies had better reconnaissance information, and continually harassed the German troops and supply lines bombing and strafing everything that moved. The Allies won with war winning technology combined with new tactics.
Figure 52 Tanks on the Western Front, Vimy 1917
The Eastern Front and Revolution
On the Eastern Front, Russian problems amplified. Inept Russian leadership regularly turned victory into defeat. Russian troops fought with outdated weapons and seldom received supplies of clothing or food needed to keep going. During 1915, Russia suffered 3.8 million casualties, and by 1917 they lost 2.3 million dead and 5 million injured. The government came under intense pressure to do quit, and when they refused the Bolshevik Revolution started in October 1917 overthrowing the Russian Czar, murdering the royal family, and starting a bloody civil war leading to a communist government controlled by Vladimir Lenin (1870 to 1924). The communists sued for peace with Germany. Germany extracted a harsh settlement from Lenin, but he needed Russia out of the war. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, 1918, took Russia out of the war and massively increased the power and strategic advantages of the Central Powers.
Other Fronts
Prior to the Russia defeat in 1917, the Allies in the west tried a few adventures to get around the stalemated Western Front by achieving victories elsewhere. Winston Churchill convinced the British government to attack Ottoman Turkey, who joined the Central Powers in November of 1914, to knock the Ottomans out of the war and open a warm-water supply line to Russia through the Bosporus. After a naval expedition failed to breach the straights using ships alone, Churchill decided on an amphibious assault to clear the Turkish forts guarding the passageway. This transpired in 1915 at Gallipoli with Australian and New Zealand troops achieving surprise landings near the Dardanelles; however, lack of aggressive exploitation resulted in a costly stalemate as bad as the Western Front. It became a disaster for the Allies and Churchill. Following a year of suffering, the British withdrew from Turkey after experiencing serious losses in men and ships. Gallipoli cost Britain’s colonials, Australia and New Zealand, 250,000 casualties. Elsewhere, Italian