James Abbazia
Ms. Tiedemann
Global History 3 Honors
12/12/14
Research Paper on World War 1 In June of 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Hungary and his wife were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo (Part of Bosnia and Herzegovina). The Serbian nationalist assassinated them because Austria Hungary was in control of Sarajevo. This assassination was the main cause of World War 1. There were advances in technology never seen before. There was the use of poison gas, submarines, airplanes, gas masks, new weapons and even the use of tanks and other inventions. New warfare was born; there was Trench Warfare, Aerial Warfare, Sea Warfare and the dangerous Chemical Warfare. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 after World War 1 was a major turning point because it left Germany devastated, so Hitler came into power. World War 1 was a major turning point in history.
World War 1 included the use of technology never seen before. According to a weapons encyclopedia “During World War One there was the use of the airplane invented by the Wright
Brothers in 1903. It was used as a recon plane to spot out enemies give information about the enemy. It was soon altered to be used for fighting in aerial combat, and for bombing factories which produced weapons.” (Fitzsimons, Bernard, ed. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th
Century: Weapons and Warfare. New York: Columbia House, 1977. Print.Volumes 1-3). There was the use of the Zeppelin; it was a huge balloon that carried bombs, weapons, and troops. They were abandoned because they were a big target for enemies to shoot down. There was the use of poison gas which was deadly to the human body, so there were the inventions of gas masks. Gas masks helped the soldiers in trenches survive the deadly poison gas the enemies used, but it only protected parts of the face. Other parts of the body were left exposed and harmed so advances in the medical field made it possible to treat the poison. There was the use of new weapons such as machine guns which required four to six men to work them; it had the output of one hundred guns in previous warfare. Due to trench warfare, there was the invention of tanks. Tanks were developed to cope with the conditions on the western front of the war. The early tanks could not cross over trenches, had a top speed of three miles per hour and required three men to operate it.
There was the use of a new kind of invention used in World War 1, the submarine. The submarine was an underwater ship that could not be seen from above water. This was used to take out other ships using torpedoes. During World War 1 there was proper sanitary medical equipment developed. Hospitals were used to help treat soldiers outside of the battlefield.
According to Gerard Fitzgerald “there was the use of blood transfusions on the battlefield; there was the use of x-rays to locate bullets and breaks in the body.” (Fitzgerald, Gerard J. 2008.
"Chemical warfare and medical response during World War I." American Journal of Public
Health. April 2008. 98(4): 611-625. "WWI: Technology and the Weapons of War." NCpedia
Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.)
After World War 1 there was the birth of various warfare’s. Aerial warfare was born,
Trench warfare, underwater warfare, and even Chemical warfare was born. Aerial warfare consisted of the use of airplanes in a series of aerial battles called dogfights. Dogfights were when a series of planes shot down another group of planes on the opposing sides. The airplanes were used to bomb factories in enemy lines. The pilots who flied planes had no parachutes at the time so flying was dangerous. Underwater warfare during World War 1 consisted of submarines.
Submarines were used to take out large and small ships on the water. Submarines were also used to spot out enemy ships and other uses of reconnaissance. Trench warfare started in World War 1 when soldiers dug large ditches to gain protection from