New Article: There Was An Incredible Amount Of Military Technological Advancement In the Decades Leading Up To World War I

(75mm pack howitzer M1920, c. 1921 [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

By the end of the 19th century, into the early 20th century, the weapons of warfare were evolving at an alarming rate. Guns, explosives and machines were becoming increasingly more lightweight, powerful and exponentially more deadly. The tragedy of the situation was that very few people knew just how devastating many of these new weapons would be when a major war broke out. True, there were many wars in the years before World War One— such as the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the Boer Wars (1880-1881 and 1889-1902), the Spanish-American War (1898), and the Ruso-Japanese War (1904-1905). Yet, in these wars, countries often remained doubtful about the new weaponry in their arsenals, and were still in a phase of experimentation and implementation. By the start of WWI in 1914, however, most major powers had adopted the latest guns, artillery, explosives, ships and planes, resulting in a Great War the likes of which the world had never before seen.

Continue reading some of the devastating military inventions that came about in the decades prior to WWI, HERE.