![]() ![]() By 1917 other chemicals, including mustard gas, were being used by both sides. Germany launched the first use of a chemical weapon, chlorine gas, at Ypres, Belgium, in April 1915, against French troops. A quarter century later, during World War II, he was the most famous commander of American armored units. tank unit into battle for the first time. In September 1918, a 32-year-old Army lieutenant colonel named George Patton led a U.S. Other armies soon were developing their own versions. The British introduced a large number of tanks to the battlefield for the first time in September 1916, during the battle of the Somme. ![]() One way to break out of the trenches along the Western Front was to bust through with newly developed armored tracked vehicles dubbed tanks. “The Americans by 1917 have to figure this out.” Kyle Hatzinger, a history instructor at the U.S. “Then it becomes, ‘How do we get out of the trenches?’” said Maj. This kind of fighting was unfamiliar to most American forces, who had been trained in the tactics of mobile warfare, always advancing. It forced opposing forces to dig hundreds of miles of trenches, with a deadly “no man’s land” in between where soldiers could get mowed down. But it was American inventor Hiram Maxim’s 1880s design for a single-barrel, portable machine gun and other later versions that became ubiquitous on both sides during World War I. Hand-cranked, high-capacity, rapid-firing firearms had been used as far back as the Civil War. ![]() A look at some of the things that were new to the doughboys that we take for granted today: The world’s first mechanized war introduced enhanced weaponry and equipment, most of it designed to take lives but some of it aimed at saving lives. 11, 1918, more than 4.7 million Americans had served and some 115,000 died. entry into World War I, and some of the innovations that were developed or came into wide use during the conflict are still with us today.Īmerica entered nearly three years after the war began, joining Britain, France and Russia in the fight against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thursday marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. ![]()
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