So horrified were people by chemical warfare that the use of poison gases was banned for future wars, although not until 1925. In fact, Germany claimed that the Allies were already using mines charged with poison gas. A few weeks after the Germans first used poison gas in Ypres, Belgium, on April 22, 1915, a London newswire to the New York Times described the brutal details of the attack and the immediate effects on the soldiers, concluding: "It is without doubt the most awful form of scientific torture." Yet a Daily Chronicle editorial urged Britain to retaliate with poison gas use of its own (quoted in New York Times, May 7, 1915, 2). Newspapers charted the public's reaction-horror and vengeance-to these technological advancements. Fighter pilot aces such as Manfred von Richthofen, Germany's "Red Baron," became celebrities and heroes, capturing the world's imagination with their daring and thrilling mid-air maneuvers. Although airplanes were technologically crude, they offered a psychological advantage. The stealth and speed of German submarines gave Germany a considerable advantage in its dominance of the North Sea. Guns mounted on ships were able to strike targets up to twenty miles inland. Sea and airborne weapons made killing from a distance more effective as well. The advent of chemical warfare added to the soldier's perils. The British introduced tanks in 1916 they were used with airplanes and artillery to advance the front. This weapon, along with barbed wire and mines, made movement across open land both difficult and dangerous. World War I popularized the use of the machine gun-capable of bringing down row after row of soldiers from a distance on the battlefield. Infantry warfare had depended upon hand-to-hand combat. Although considered a father of science fiction, Wells was observing something all too real-technology had changed the face of combat in World War I and ultimately accounted for an unprecedented loss of human life. Wells, "Civilization at the Breaking Point," New York Times, May 27, 1915, 2). Wells lamented the fate of humanity at the hands of "man's increasing power of destruction" (H. World War I was less than one year old when British writer H. A selection from the Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs Division depicting new (and deadly) weapons that emerged during WWI.
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