Airplanes played a somewhat different role in the First World War than in the Second. From 1914 to 1918 most airplanes were used for reconnaissance--to observe enemy troop movement and sight long-range artillery on enemy positions. This ability to reconnoiter the enemy's placements and tactics made the other "technologies of war" discussed in this section that much more effective and lethal.
Like many of the other "new" technologies in this section, artillery had been a feature on the battlefield for years before WWI. What was different in 1914, however, was the size, accuracy, and number of these field pieces. These heavy pieces could fire several rounds in an hour at a range in the hundreds or thousands of yards.
Phosgene gas was one of the most pernicious of the new technologies that sprang from this, the first "industrial war." Usually fired by the artillery, the gas would choke, blind, then kill within 48 hours of exposure. There were no effective treatments, and death was painful and often a certainty. The evil of phosgene and other gases motivated the Great Powers to outlaw this inhumane (in this most inhumane war) weapon.
Although neither was invented for the war (both had been around since the 1870s or earlier), barbed wire and machine guns that fired 600 rounds per minute proved particularly destructive. As the wire slowed the advance of infantrymen that had gone "over the top" they became much easier targets for the enemy's machine gun emplacements.
The Battle of the Somme is often considered to be the most horrible display of the effects of these new technologies. View these videos not so much for the names of generals but for the experience of everyday soldiers in the trenches of the Somme.
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