Thursday, January 19, 2012

Analyze the ways in which the First World War was fought

War has been used to solve disputes since the beginning of civilization, it’s something that cannot be stopped, its “natural” but after World War 1 everyone tried to avoid it if they could. After the First World War the definition of war should have been changed completely, this particular warfare was reflected by complete savageness, there was no sort of affection to it at all, soldiers did not understand why they were fighting against each other they were almost robotic, they were given instructions and they had to follow them. During World War 1 different ways of fighting were introduced to the public such as the use of propaganda. The very important role of women and the sickening development of weapon technology. This was a war the no one had ever experienced before and hoped would never go through it again.

Technology never stops growing, it rapidly develops and it can’t be stopped, some dispute weather this is a good or a bad thing, but whatever it might be it was part of a terrible 4 year period of World War I. World War I was fought by the use of trench warfare, as all things have their setback there was no real advantage to this. Trench warfare was the use of digging into the ground and making enough room to move around in and protect you with Trenches varied widely from sector to sector and from front to front but they were a few miles long. When said there are setbacks to trench warfare it is understood that rat infestation, the smell, boredom, frogs, lice, horned beetles and many more should not even fall under the category of “setback” Different ways of defeating your opponents were introduced in world war I otherwise known as technology, innovations such as the zeppelins, airplanes, flamethrowers, machine guns, poisonous gas and tanks were introduced to the communal. Zeppelins were much like blips but instead of transporting people from point A to point B, as a tourist attraction, it would transport bombs from above. Airplanes were not like the airplanes we have now not even close, they were much like these “structures” that could just about fly in the air these weren’t as advanced or used as much but when they were used it was more of a spying drone. Flamethrowers, it speaks for itself, there were to gas tanks strapped to your back and a long gun looking tube that would exhale fire which reached up to about 10 meters. Machine guns that fired up to 500 hundred rounds in matter of seconds which were also used in a combination with airplanes, tanks and zeppelins. Tanks started off as a metal protective square on wheels but slowly slowly they became more and more advanced and eventually were indestructible. Poisonous gasses, there were many different variations to this but they all were made to do one thing and that was to basically intoxicate anyone around the perimeter it was thrown to. All of these invention weren’t perfect annihilations, they had minor problems for example the Zeppelins only needed on bullet into them before they were blown up to smithereens, the airplanes couldn’t even be properly flown yet, machine guns would constantly overheat, flamethrowers use to just blow up randomly, tanks weren’t very solid it only needed a very little amount of fire power before it would break down, and poisonous gasses used to be blown back to the direction it was thrown by, by the wind. These technological advancements weren’t a 100% successful and efficient use but it was idea that counted as well as the “creativity” It was the first step to many other advancements to come.

During the war of course many people were dying by the second and as more and more people were enlisting in the war the fewer the people there were to build arsenal, be nurses and more. As mentioned before with so many men enlisting in the war there was a gap in employment, this is where women came in to play a very important role in society at the time, as stated “It gave women an opportunity to prove themselves in a male-dominated society, doing more than cleaning the house and tending to the children.” Some of the jobs women attended to during World War I included nurses, munitions factory workers, sewing bandages, and selling war bonds, shipyards and spies. The Women's Royal Air Force was created, which is where women worked on planes as mechanics. After the war most people saw the great potential in women and that at most jobs they are much more careful, which leads to the job being done better. A few women actually took part in the war. But at the time it was a racist and sexist world, so once again women were not taken seriously.


Last but not least one of the more effective and most efficient ways of getting a point through without violence was the use of propaganda. The definition of propaganda is Information of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Meaning a country would use a sort of lie to motivate the public into doing something. The message was given through the use of posters, movies, songs and through the occasional broadcast or shout out. Propaganda ensured that the people only got to know what their governments wanted them to know. In World War One, the lengths to which governments would go to in an effort to blacken the enemy’s name reached a new level. To ensure that everybody thought in the way the government wanted, all forms of information were controlled. Newspapers were expected to print what the government wanted the reader to read. In fact, though this would appear to be a form of censorship, the newspapers of Britain, effectively controlled by the media barons of the time, were happy to play ball. They printed headlines that were designed to stir up emotions regardless of whether they were accurate or not.”

The First World War was a devastating event in time, everyone hoped that there would be nothing like this again but unfortunately a few years later World War 2 commenced. The fact that it was not only it war it was total war made it even worse, the use of the countries everlasting resources was dreadful.

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