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H 100

Transformation in the Shadow of Global Conflict

Strategic Posture, Culture, and Innovation

LTC Walter Luiz de Andrade Miller

Exam Code 1408, Staff Group 1B

20 October 2005

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World War I (WWI) began in 1914 after that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir of the Austrian

throne, was murdered in Sarajevo. A conflict that initially looked to be more one regional problem ended

involving almost every country of the world. The world divided in two groups - Triple Alliance, led by

Germany, and to Triple Entente, that won the war, headed by France. After four years, in 1918, the war

that was known like WWI ended up leaving a destructive track. The death of about 8 million of soldiers

and 6.5 million of civilians was the price that war.

Europe lost its position in the world leadership to the United States, which it emerged on of the

conflict as an economical and military power of the world.

The world saw new political scenery on the European continent because of alterations imposed by

the Treaty of Versailles on the defeated. In addition, the world also saw the rise of social movements for

freedom, liberation, and nationalism. Russia Revolution, Nazism and Fascism succeeded as well.

Therefore, in this essay I will explain the military, political, economic, and social impacts of WWI

and how they were an impetus to the transformation of society.

Military technology suffered a revolution with the new means inserted in the combat. Introduction

of the portable automatic armament revolutionized the technical and tactical aspects of the rifle and

machine gun. The rifle became more efficient and the machine gun had its shot speed increased,

becoming more potent and dominant on the battlefields.

Using poisonous gases as combat weapon in 1915 by Germans against the allied positions in Ypres

and, later in the whole European Theater of Operations, made to appear the masks against gases and other

protection accessories.

With the effects of the Industrial Revolution more and more present in the beginning of the 20 th

century, the means of transport had a considerable progress during WWI. The coming of the motor

provided for the construction of automobiles for military ends. Considerable road net was built, altering

some strategic concepts, such as the one of the troops concentration.

The coming of armored vehicles represented the beginning of a new age in the modern combats.

The English were the first ones to use them, in September of 1916, in the Battle of Somme (Mark I

LTC Walter L. A. Miller Code Exame 1408 10/19/2005 Page 2

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weighed 28 tons and it had the maximum speed of 6 km/h). Armed with cannons of 25mm, the first tanks

were not so efficient, when not employed in mass. However, they revolutionized the commanders'

capacity to influence in combat employing the war principles of the mass and of the maneuver in the

battlefields.

The use of the airplane as military weapon made possible the aerial combat with the introduction of

mechanisms that made possible the machine guns shoot through the helixes. The bombing of objectives

due to use of standardized devices of release of bombs and bombing viewfinders increased the

effectiveness of air raids. Until the end of the war 254 tons of bombs were dropped on military facilities

and civilian objectives. Aerial weapon of WWI was truly daughter of the total war, it equaled civilian and

military objectives and it considered the civilians' bombing an acceptable way of obtaining the victory.

Great development in the medical area: domain of new surgery techniques, particularly of eyes,

face and brain (in the war of trenches 10% of the total of wounds were to the head); larger knowledge on

diseases as cholera, typhoid fever, tetanus; development of psychiatry, used in the soldiers' treatment

traumatized with the heavy bombings of the trenches. Also the pharmacology and the biochemistry grew

with the researches for the chemical agents' victims' treatment.

Devastating use of the submarine and of the torpedo by Germans created the need to find solutions

to locate and to react to the attacks of the submarines. Using of seaplanes in submarine search, and

invention of the sonar and of the depth loads were the answer the threat underwater German.

Doctrine was also a factor of warfare transformation. Automating the rifle, the infantry it got a

considerable fire potency that made to increase the importance in scenery where the predominant actions

were the fire and the shock of the artillery and cavalry. The appropriate employ of the automatic rifle

provided the appearance of the concept "fire and movement", in which a group of men - the combat group

- in tactical formation in turn of the rifle, it could accomplish their displacements, tends a base of fires

that provided safety. As evolution of that concept appeared the tactical calls of infiltration, in which

groups could approach the enemy lines furtively, without need accompanying of great artillery fire

support.


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The coming of the aviation brought with itself the aerial recognitions and more specifically the

aerial picture. Such innovation determined an immediate answer. It was the introduction of camouflage

techniques, to hinder the data collection for those means. The counterintelligence, through the simulation

and dissimulation, it was used widely at the final phase of the WWI.

In November of 1917, during the Battle of Cambrai, 400 armored British, following for infantry

troops, broke and explored the line Hindenburg, capturing 8,000 soldiers and 100 artillery pieces. British

concluded that the tanks should be used in mass; they provide the element surprise; they create wide

breaches to be explored; and they are capable to accompany the infantry in the combat.

Largest range and precision of the artillery materials, the production of lighter cannons, giving them

more mobility, and the best observation means, liaisons and communications allowed the adoption of a

really artillery support to the infantry maneuver. Instead just accomplishing the preparation before the

attack, it was possible to obtain support continuity, with precision artillery barrages and concentrations,

coordinated to the troop movement.

The intensity of the artillery fires took to the need of counter battery fires, preceded by

indispensable location of the enemy batteries. The means more used were the aerial observation and the

recently invented location equipments by the sound.

Employment of the aerial means (captive balloons, dirigibles and airplanes), initially for

observation and reconnaissance, and later for bombing, characterized a threat for which the armies were

not prepared. There was the need of a air defense. The use of the cannons and available machine guns,

with repairs adapted to the shot on the aircrafts, it consisted of the embryo of what would come to be the

antiaircraft artillery.

Chemical agents' use, the increase of the artillery fire potency, and the enlargement of range of

artillery fires forced to a larger dispersion of the means in the battlefield, and the one retreat of the means

of logistic support for more far away from the contact line.


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Largest knowledge in the medical area conduced adoption of procedures today widespread. Medical

evacuation more organized and fast reduced the deaths for gangrene and tetanus. Treatment (chlorination)

of the water supplied to the troop reduced the number of casualties for cholera and typhoid fever.

From the tactical point of view, WWI distinguished from the previous wars for the adoption of

three new weapons: the poisonous chemical agents, the airplane and the tank. The first had its

development with tactical ends interrupted at the end of the conflict and it was not used in WWII. If the

WWI had lasted one more year the last two could have influenced the Art of the War radically

introducing new surprising tactics. Both favored the offensive and the airplane increased the third

dimension of the war.

However, there was not a battle or weapon decisive in WWI. The peace came because of the

exhaustion of the belligerents, especially of the Central Powers, as well as by effective use of the

psychological propaganda on the part of to Entente. In the last two years of war 800,000 civilians died in

Germany due to the hunger and diseases attributed to the poor feeding. As for the psychological action, so

much the Bolshevism (October 1917), as President Wilson's 14 points (January 1918) and more the

planned action of propaganda mined the moral of the German people and they sowed revolutionary ideas.

Concluding, Germany surrendered after the Emperor's abdication.

Great technological development military devices, created new military and made possible to the

commanders altering deeply the current doctrine. All of the countries of the world accomplished a total

revision of their strategies and tactics to adapt them to the new available means. A new form of doing war

was appearing. Victorious countries started to dictate the military doctrine and to export their ideas about

the war.

In the political aspect WWI redrew the world scenery. The Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires

and the powerful European dynasties disappeared. The German Empire turned into a socialist republic,

and the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire became two independent republics: Austria and Hungary.

Turkish Empire became also a republic. The possessions of the defeated were distributed among the

winners establishing a new colonial map.


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Europe had its political map transformed. In Europe some countries gained independence, such as

Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and former Russian provinces of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Poland was rebuilt. Some territories were annexed: Serbia annexed Bulgaria; Transylvania, Rumania;

France, Alsace and Lorena; Italy, Trent and Trieste; and Greece, Thrace.

The United States of America emerged of the conflict as the great world power however, Great

Britain conserved the naval supremacy and France increased its power in continental Europe after

annihilation of its traditional enemy, Germany.

The workers of all of the belligerent countries were the social class that more suffered the

consequences of the war, unchaining in some countries the intention of taking the power. However, only

the Russian Communist Party, lead by Lenin, reached their purposes. In other countries the head class

controlled the popular revolt. There was also an increment in the movements of national liberation. In the

middle of the war, in the end of 1917, it settled in Russia the Bolshevik revolution, that it transformed it

in the Republic of Soviets under communist regime.

Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919 finished definitively the WWI. The president of the United

States, Woodrow Wilson, proposed the creation of a society of nations. The League of the Nations was

constituted by states that fought with Germany and by neutral nations. Geneva (Switzerland) was selected

to settle League headquarters. Although, the United States, it has been the country leader of the creation

of the League, through its president, it did not join, maintaining its political isolation.

The League created to be an International Supreme Court of Justice, which it should intervene as

referee of the conflicts among nations to maintain the world peace, it failed in its purpose of impeding

armed conflicts and it became an ineffective political organism.

Several countries passed for revolutionary convulsion. The economical crisis gave opportunity to

the establishment of dictatorships and the appearance of totalitarian ideologies as the Nazism in Germany

and Fascism in Italy.

WWI had a gigantic political impact. It altered the political relationships of Europe completely and

had results all over the world. The United States started to lead the world politics, however it did not


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assume its role of world political-military power completely, maintaining its isolationism not participating

in the League of the Nations and not interfering in the future events in Europe that would prepare the

terrain for WWII.

WWI was a social catastrophe too. Its more immediate effect was the devastation of extensive areas

in Europe and the death of millions of young. About 15 million of victims, being of more than 8 million

the total of died in the battlefields. The death and/or mutilation of millions of young male caused a great

population unbalance in Europe, with results that can be noticed until today. Hundreds of thousands of

widows, men with psychological problems; finally the survivors were seriously affected by the effects of

the war.

Besides the population aspect there were social problems caused by the economical destruction,

reaching particularly the countries defeated that had to pay avery high economical price for the defeat.

Unemployment and the social desegregation did appear social movements that became politicians looking

for to solve the problems social from the war that ended up taking the world to attend the appearance of

successive political and social revolutions and finally to try a new war that was a direct consequence of

the unjust peace imposed to those defeated.

Women that participated in the war effort continued which in the job market and gained social and

political emancipation.

Social impact WWI was outstanding all over the world. Social transformations led off political

movements that initially looked for the social reintegration of the countries reached by the war, however,

it had disseminated the militarism and the totalitarianism that it came to create conditions for the

appearance of a new world war.

By economical view WWI had high cost. In agreement with studies done by Professor Ernest L.

Bogart, of the University of Illinois, in the United States, total cost of WWI was about 338 billion

dollars. The war left the entire world, especially Europe, in economical crisis and unbalance. Weakness

and impoverishment of Europe made to reduce its credit also all over the world in benefit of the American


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power, as the USA, and Asians, like Japan. The War also destroyed the monetary bases and the

economical stability, because of accumulated divide to finance.

With the economical crisis began in Germany public protests against the Treaty of Versailles.

Central Europe became a conglomerate of small States, with all of the problems of the minorities. That

situation created a fertile terrain to appear ideologies and social movements to restore status quo before

war.

The war did with that the national economies discovered the need of central planning and of the

most rational use of the materials and of the workforce. The world trade won new outlines, with the

beginning of the industrialization process in Latin America and in Japan. The inflation appeared

definitively in the international economical scenery.

WWI was an event that brought many transformations in the world particularly in the military,

political, social, and economical fields. The new age under sign of peace and hope soon were changed.

Democracy did not get to maintain the peace. The lesson of the WWI was not learned. The society that

had technological and military advances also had social and economic problems from WWI. Militarism,

totalitarian ideologies and many other aspects, consequences from WWI, drove a great transformation of

society.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Almanaque Abril 96. Brazil, So Paulo: Editora Abril,1996.

Murray, Williamson & Millet, Allan R.Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, 15th printing. NewYork, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Parker, Geoffrey. Warfare. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Time Almanac 2004. United States of America: Editorial Office Information Please, 2004.

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Student Text 22-2, Writing and Speaking Skills for Army

Leaders. Fort Leavenworth, KS, August 1998.


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