The New Technology

Machine Guns
Poison Gas
Flamethrowers
Trenches

Machine Guns

The 1914 machine gun, usually positioned on a flat tripod, would require a gun crew of four to six operators.  In theory they could fire 400-600 small-caliber rounds per minute, a figure that was to more than double by the war's end, with rounds fed via a fabric belt or a metal strip.

Poison Gas

Although it is popularly believed that the German army was the first to use gas it was in fact initially deployed by the French.  In the first month of the war, August 1914, they fired tear-gas grenades (xylyl bromide) against the Germans.  Nevertheless the German army was the first to give serious study to the development of chemical weapons and the first to use it on a large scale.

Flamethrowers 

The flamethrower, which brought terror to French and British soldiers when used by the German army in the early phases of the First World War in 1914 and 1915 (and which was quickly adopted by both) was by no means a particularly innovative weapon. The basic idea of a flamethrower is to spread fire by launching burning fuel.

Trenches

Life in the trenches during the First World War took many forms, and varied widely from sector to sector and from front to front. Many men died on their first day in the trenches as a consequence of a precisely aimed snipers bullet. Lice, frog and rats invested the tranches in millions. The trenches were nasty filled with many disease and the soldiers would have to stand in that filth for days.