Originally Posted by EthanEdwards
Certainly the "new" technologies of Machineguns, tanks and aircraft affected the battlefield in a large way, but the lack of a strategic response to them was what caused the horrific casualty rates in WWI. Both sides insisted on the same strategies as had been used in olden times where these technologies either didn't exist or didn't exist in numbers large enough to be effectual. Specifically, charging an entrenched defensive position defended with machineguns is much worse than even charging one primarily defended with muskets-as was done at Gettysburg.


Once the trench system down the Western Front was completed and fortified, there was no other strategic response available to either side until the advent of the tank..

Both sides tried various method to break the stalemate ie the introduction of gas, and even the bombing of the UK mainland by German Zeppelins but nothing was strategically decisive..

It wasn’t until the various Powers started to worry about the possibility of large scale mutiny/revolution, and the arrival of the Spanish flu to mainland Europe and the UK, that things started to change.


Men of Harlech[Linked Image]