Technological advancements leading to WWI made war on an international scale possible. Communication allowed nations to forge alliances, it also allowed growing armies to stay united and organized. Advances in machinery had the possibility of taking 20th century militia into a new era of warfare, but they didn't. Why with all the technological improvements didn't military planning change? The war proved static because incredible new weaponry was coupled with outdated and ineffective tactics.
This provokes the question, Why? There were many renouned military planners during this time and none of them was innovative enough to come up with a solution. It's hard to discern an explanation for this, perhaps the vigor of world war came as a surprise, or planners didn't want to believe times were changing, in either case a lack of adaptation in battle plans lengthened an extremely deadly war.
I agree that there should have been more military planning during the war. With all the technological advancements you would think there would also be advancements made in battle plans and strategy.
ReplyDeleteKate,
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest reason why WWI became such a long and deadly war was simply the fact that the supposed "brilliant" military leaders of the time refused to recognize the fact that times were changing. In the past numbers were the biggest factor on the battlefield. Outnumbering your enemy was the best way to achieve success on the battlefield. They probably should have adjusted better. Idk though, it would be difficult to take if most of what you had been taught for years was suddenly obselete.
I think that there was military planning, but it was just molded to fit old-style technology, which was no longer in use. I think that's where their problems began.
ReplyDeleteThis is always my reaction to World War I! The most brilliant minds in these countries kept repeating the same mistakes over and over again. This leads me to wonder, did they have any choice? Was it an odd time in history when technology was best suited to defensive tactics? The technology that was so effective in WWII, such as tanks and bombers, were too new for WWI. This being said, was the war out of the hands of the generals and largely at the will of the technology?
ReplyDeleteI believe that despite the technological change it wasn't enough change to exactly change their tactics from the old military tactics. I mean they had tanks and aircraft but they didn't provide any real changes in battlefield tactics and certainly weren't the turning point of the war. While the tanks were cool and new the design of the tanks weren't up to standards yet so I agree with Mr. Geary that it was too new but at the same time technology didn't evolve enough to make any significant changes. With the exception of the German U-boat.
ReplyDeleteAgree agree agree. I basically wrote about the same thing. It's funny how there was this incredible stalemate during times of innovation. Neither side could get any farther. The best they could do would be send in more troops to die, hoping this prolongs the battle and keeps them in the game. The German U-boat was truly one of the greatest things to come about, in my opinion. It was the first thing that drastically changed the course of the war.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think the military commanders were so "old school" in comparison to the technology that they were clueless as to developing strategies. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. I do agree with Alex to some extent, that the technology didn't bring about the turning point in the war, but how did it pull different nations in? Japan was involved in Dogfights, yet we don't see their actions much in the war elsewhere. The United States was brought into the war in part because of the U-Boat and Germany's decision to unleash Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. It's almost as if the war was fueled by poor, agressive reactions to poor, agressive mistakes.
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