Artillery

Artillery in the early 1900’s were mounted firearms that could shoot a distance of  up to 2 km and they could fire 4-6 pound ammunition which was classified as light artillery and the other ammunition was a 8-12 pound shot which was classified as heavy artillery.

Krupp produced a large artillery gun that could fire a 2100 lb shell that could go a distance of 16’000 yards. The gun weighed 175 tons and was transported in five sections to the firing site and assembled there. Because boats and trains could not get everywhere the gun concerned the Germans so they asked for it to be adapted to move on the road to places.  In 1914 the new gun made and was named after Krupp’s wife and was called the Big Bertha. The new gun weighed 43 tons and could fire a 2200 lb shell over 9 miles. It was transported by Daimler-Benz tractors and it took a 200 man crew 6 hours to assemble the weapon at the firing site.

Armoured Vehicles

Armoured cars were first used by the British Army. By the outbreak of First World War the allies in Europe were using armour-plated, open-topped vehicles with machine guns or other light guns or artillery pieces. The most popular British car was the Napier that was first produced in 1912.

The Commer lorry was a first aid vehicle that transported stretchers and medical stores to a first aid post. It was a great success and then they asked the company to produce a new vehicle that would carry injured horses.

The British army began thinking of ways to quickly transport soldiers to the war in the early 1900’s. In 1911 they decided they needed motor transport. When the world war started in 1914 the British army acquired 1200 Dennis lorries, By the end of the war 7000 Dennis Lorrie’s had been built and used. The Dennis lorry could reach up to a speed of 55 mph even when loaded with people and it weighed 3 tons.

Machine Guns

Hiram maxim invented the first portable automatic machine gun in 1884. The Maxim gun could fire 400-600 small calibre bullets per minute.

In 1912 the British army adopted the Vickers as its standard machine gun. Produced by the Vickers Company, it was a modified version of the Maxim Machine-Gun. The Vickers could fire over 600 rounds per minute and a distance of 4500 yards. When war was declared in August, 1914, Vickers was manufacturing 12 machine guns a week. Demand from the British Army was so high that Vickers had to find new ways of increasing production. By 1915 Vickers supplied the British armed forces with 2,405 guns.

John Moses Browning created the Browning machine gun. It was inspired by the maxim machine gun. Unlike Maxim Browning used propelling gas as a motive force. In 1895 the Browning machine-gun was purchased by the US Navy. In 1910 browning made a new 0.30 inch machine gun but it was not purchased by the US army until 1917 and over an 18 month span 57,000 were produced for soldiers fighting in the western front.

Bolt Action Rifles/ Pistol

Mauser Gewehr

Nearly all infantrymen in the First World War used bolt action rifles. It was invented by a Scottish immigrant that went to the United States. You had to manually reload the gun to fire again; it only took around 3 seconds to reload so it was very effective in combat.

Peter Paul Mauser is the creator of the Mauser Gewehr. This gun was the answer to the French gun the Lebel m1888. The Mauser Gewehr is said to be the most successful bolt action rifle ever.

All British officers in the army carried pistols and they tended to prefer the Webley MkIV. It was originally created in 1887 but it was improved in the early stages of the war. The Webley was a strong heavy-calibre weapon. It is estimated that over 300,000 Webley pistols were distributed to the British officers during the war.

Winning side

Conclusion of the war:


- Surrender of Germany and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which ordered Germany had to pay Allied forces in Europe for war damages, give up control of the Rhineland (picture below), a limit on the soldiers they could have in their armed forces, and a ban placed on them manufacturing weapons
-This caused great political and economic instability in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s which gave Hitler the opportunity to come to power and that lead to World War II.  Hitler promised to bring Germany back on top. He was a good public speaker so the people in Germany wanted him to become the leader. They didn't know that he was a Crack head.