Figaro

Why WW1 was a entirely new type of war compared to wars before that time

Cytat

The main thing that made WW1 different from any war before it, is that it was first real mechanized war. First time tanks and shell warfare was done in a big way like that. Humanity hadn’t experienced war like that before, so it was an especially big shock to the system, because there was no training or experience for it. War used to be men on horses or on foot with swords and muskets, etc… suddenly young men are being thrust into the world of metal machinery and explosive long-range warfare that completely changed the game, and things got way more brutal. There was chemical warfare going on as well, which was new at the time too. They didn’t have the kind of international rules of war that we have today, they had no concept of what they were walking into when they signed up or were drafted, because NOBODY DID. This kind of war hadn’t happened before.

I often think about how in today’s world, we’ve gotten used to a lot of things that would probably scare the pants off someone from 100 years ago or more. Flying in an airplane, walking next to a freeway full of vehicles racing at high speeds (just the noise would unnerve someone not used to it), being IN a vehicle traveling at 100 km/h was scary to my grandma, when it feels perfectly normal to me. As new, more extreme ways of living come along, they can be a little extra scary at first, because you’re simply not used to it. It takes time and generations to truly adapt to how much the world is changing.

People in WW2 and later, had more expectation of what mechanized warfare was. It wasn’t as new. There was some better training and rules around things. Defenses against the enemy’s mechines became better, practices for protecting soldiers became better, etc…

But WW1 was the first crazy blowout with machines that was just a real mess in pretty much every way. Humans aren’t really made for that at the best of times… and this was the worst.

I remember my Humanities teacher in grade 11 showing us a poem that written for a war in like the 1880s or something, where it was about the “glory” of men riding on horseback into battle to “dance” with the enemy and achieve a glorious victory and all that. They used to play trumpets and drums to motivate soldiers and march in time respectably. Really uplifting, positive depiction of war. Respectable and somewhat formal even, by comparison.

THEN… we shifted to In Flanders Fields about WW1, and noted how the tone had changed. Humanity’s ideas about war went from “One of the most glorious things a man can do.” to… “This sucks, look how many are dead, and for what?” The cold, dead age of machines, and the mass of more death it brought, just inspired a completely different feeling. Any “glory” there had been to war was gone. You weren’t hearing the glorious Howard Shore music during an exciting and motivating cavalry charge, you weren’t going out there and “dancing” with the enemy in a sword fight, or trading spaced out musket shots… you were just sitting in a dark, cold, dirty trench with a bunch of dead friends, hoping the next deafening, explosive shell wasn’t gonna hit you in the next microsecond before you could even think to move. It was just significantly more existentially terrifying in a way nobody had really experienced before.