I rather doubt that tanks made much difference to the outcome. One notable success at Cambrai IIRC. Hand grenades have been around in various forms for hundreds of years and quite probably the German stick-grenades were more effective. Air superiority changed hands several times as planes were developed. Both sides tunnelled but it could be said that the largest mining \ tunnelling battle at Messines was significant in moving towards the defeat of the Central Powers.
odysseus2000 wrote:
The whole effort UK first war effort was secular change across many technological fronts in a very short time that completely eclipsed what the enemy did and lead to appliance of miltary force and power that was recorded by Winston Churchill as an overwhelming force breaking through their lines, an experience that he often could not set down for the horrors he witnessed.
I agree that technological development, particularly of artillery, made a significant difference to the outcome but it is hard to agree that the Germans were 'completely eclipsed', apart from anything else they had better tactics of 'defence in depth' and certainly made better use of machine guns. Surely a significant aspect of the defeat of the Central Powers (mainly Germany in 1918) was the prospect of the US manpower and machinery which promised to materialise in 1919 in large quantities, causing the Germans to over-extend themselves in 1918. I'd suggest it was a close run war which the UK was near to losing due to the destruction of its manpower, it was running out of men to be killed.
RC
History is one of the subjects where I prefer to get first hand accounts written at the time.
There is no question that the war was nearly lost at the beginning and had the German's carried on they could have been victorious and it also the case that much of the early UK tactics and equipment were unsatisfactory, but then there was a huge armaments program powered by Lloyd George that tapped into many brilliant minds. Churchill had previously forced through the adaption of oil fuel for the navy rather than coal and that led to significant advances
I mentioned the hand grenade as, according to Churchill, this was a contest set up to develop a useful weapon and what UK inventors came up with is still, as I understand it, used today.
Similarly I wrote of UK forces breaking through and eclipsing German forces as this was how Churchill described his observations in the final battles of the war. Of course he was responsible for tanks and so one would not expect him to be neutral, but he writes of how the German developed anti-tank rifle bullets but not enough and according to Churchill tanks made important contributions.
Whether this analysis is too superficial I can not know. There have been many books written about the war and perspectives have changed and changed. However, no matter how much weight one wants to put on uk technological growth, there is ample evidence that many major contributions were made to war technologies by the UK. How important they were compared to all the other factors I can not say, but there seem imho very many parallels to what the UK did in the first war to what Tesla are doing in the automotive industry. In both cases problems are being tackled with practical engineering solutions, not by lobbying and diplomacy.
Regards,