History

For the first time in history, new military technology outstretched the battlefield tactics used by leaders on both sides of the battlefield during World War I.   This new technology increased the cost of the war and encouraged leaders on both sides to be indecisive and create a stalemate; some could even say this was the root cause of the development of the trench warfare that World War I is so famous for.   However, the foundation for this new military technology of World War I occurred many years before the fatal bullet even left the chamber, killing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.   New political alliances, the second industrial revolution and the progressive era all contributed to the wide spread of these new military revolutions in technology throughout the world. This new technology would increase the effectiveness of killing to a new level, never before seen by common soldier or the experience officer, in a war to end all wars.
One could argue that the relationships Germany maintained and didn’t maintain in the decades before World War I created the need for new military revolutions and most of Europe was preparing for war anyways, thus a root cause for new military technology development.   Let me explain, Germany realized they had problems with their western neighbor France and the French knew they had a bitter relationship with their eastern counterpart in Germany.   The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 didn’t help matters when the French not only lost the war but lost portions of their country in Alsace and Lorraine, this did not sit well with the French and the French would not forget.   Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck quickly formed an alliance between Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary and when the French moved into Tunisia, Bismarck added Italy to the alliance in 1882. However, trust within this new alliance began to fade as Russia and Austria-Hungary started developing conflicts over the situation in the Balkans in 1887, but...