 |
The
stalemate of the trenches required new strategies in order to gain some
territorial "advantage" over an increasingly intransigent enemy.
Thus were spawned innovation, invention and technical solutions which
were to become the blueprints for modern warfare. Manifest in the
lightning advance of German shock troops in March 1918, the use of
chemical agents as early as 1915, the increasing deployment of aircraft
to harrass troops and artillery on the ground, the development and
eventual successful deployment of the tank . Indeed a host of devices
designed to kill, incapacitate and render an enemy helpless and
confused, thus ensuring the "ultimate" victory.
The breadth and scale to which science and technology are applied
during times of mass conflict are nothing short of breathtaking but
this has always been the case, particularly so in the 1914 -18 war.
Most of the technology we enjoy today was probably the spin-off from
the application of science in some earlier conflict where its purpose
then was to bring victory to the side that developed and used it to
greatest effect. There are plenty of examples relating to the first
World War.
The Haber process was developed in Germany to counter the shortage of
nitrates essential to the manufacture of high explosive shells but it
also provided the world subsequently with a cheap
supply of fertilizer. The list is endless.
The aim of this part
of the site, albeit coloured perhaps with a certain ambivalence, is to
provide a technological context within which Sgt.Albert Lewis found
himself during 1916 to 1918. Initially with a certain wonderment,
eventually with real dread and ultimately with fatalistic
resignation.
As the soldier/poet Charles Sorley so aptly put it.....
"I
do so wish that people would not deceive themselves by talking of a
just war. There is no such thing as a just war. What we are doing is
casting out Satan by Satan....."
|
