So...Europe is almost entirely at war by the time 1914 concludes, and trench warfare has become a way of life for hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the French and German lines. But, as hard as it may be for many people to believe, World War I had not yet reached its full height. There was still a lot of action to come before things would finally come to an end in 1918.
WAR IN THE AIR
As we learned in our section on the Industrial Revolution, the Wright Brothers had made the first recorded flight in a fixed-wing airplane in 1903, but by 1915, planes were already at use in war. Initially, planes and dirgibles were used mostly for spying and for gathering information. That was going to change considerably in the years during the war. Consider this: at the start of the War, France had just 140 planes in its military, and one man, General Foch of the French army, said "aviation is a good sport, but for the army it is useless". That attitude would change, because in less than four years, that number shot up to over 4,500 planes! The militaries of most of the countries involved in the War discovered that planes were good for more than just reconnaissance missions and they were soon used to attack ground targets, such as communications outposts, mostly utilizing bombing.
Fighting IN the air was tricky at first. This is because the first combat pilots had to use their own pistols to try to shoot at each other! Obviously, this was going to be difficult, so a way to mount machine guns on the noses of the planes was devised, and dogfighting was born. Dogfighting is a common term for air-to-air combat between planes. No one was more famous for, or better at, dogfighting than one Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richtofen...better known as the Red Baron. Richtofen was responsible for a recorded 80 kills during World War I. He was the leader of a German air combat unit known as the Flying Circus and was called the Red Baron due to his bright red Fokker DR-1 Dridecker. His most famous battle was actually caught on film..
The Red Baron would be shot down by an unknown shooter on April 18, 1918. He was believed to have been shot down by someone, most likely an Australian fighting for the British, firing out of the trenches. At just 25 years old, he was a legend unlike any other at the time, or possibly since...
Okay, a better representation of dogfighting can be found in the movie "Flyboys"...
WAR ON THE WATER
If the Germans didn't want the United States to get involved in the War, they certainly hurt their cause by sinking the British passenger ship, the Lusitania, in May, 1915. A German submarine or "u-boat" (unterseeboot) called the U-20 fired torpedos into the cruise ship, killing 1,198 people on board, including over 100 Americans. This, of course, outraged the United States and calls for us to enter the War increased. Germany countered that the British ship had been secretly carrying ammunition, (which, decades later, was found to be the actual case), so the Lusitania was a fair military target. Germany agreed, however, to suspend their submarine warfare, so the United States remained neutral...for now.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
While all of this was going on, a British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was starting to make some serious noise. A historian of some note, Lawrence encouraged the Arab princes to seize the opportunities caused by the distractions of World War I and to revolt agains the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, Lawrence fought with a group of Arab irregulars (non-standard military) against the Ottomans. The British army sent troops from Egypt, India, Australia, and New Zealand in 1918 to join the fight, and the Ottoman Empire was crushed in the Middle East region (although parts of the empire remained intact at this time).
WAR IN THE AIR
As we learned in our section on the Industrial Revolution, the Wright Brothers had made the first recorded flight in a fixed-wing airplane in 1903, but by 1915, planes were already at use in war. Initially, planes and dirgibles were used mostly for spying and for gathering information. That was going to change considerably in the years during the war. Consider this: at the start of the War, France had just 140 planes in its military, and one man, General Foch of the French army, said "aviation is a good sport, but for the army it is useless". That attitude would change, because in less than four years, that number shot up to over 4,500 planes! The militaries of most of the countries involved in the War discovered that planes were good for more than just reconnaissance missions and they were soon used to attack ground targets, such as communications outposts, mostly utilizing bombing.
Fighting IN the air was tricky at first. This is because the first combat pilots had to use their own pistols to try to shoot at each other! Obviously, this was going to be difficult, so a way to mount machine guns on the noses of the planes was devised, and dogfighting was born. Dogfighting is a common term for air-to-air combat between planes. No one was more famous for, or better at, dogfighting than one Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richtofen...better known as the Red Baron. Richtofen was responsible for a recorded 80 kills during World War I. He was the leader of a German air combat unit known as the Flying Circus and was called the Red Baron due to his bright red Fokker DR-1 Dridecker. His most famous battle was actually caught on film..
For those interested, these two would go at it again...
...and yet again...
The Red Baron would be shot down by an unknown shooter on April 18, 1918. He was believed to have been shot down by someone, most likely an Australian fighting for the British, firing out of the trenches. At just 25 years old, he was a legend unlike any other at the time, or possibly since...
Okay, a better representation of dogfighting can be found in the movie "Flyboys"...
WAR ON THE WATER
If the Germans didn't want the United States to get involved in the War, they certainly hurt their cause by sinking the British passenger ship, the Lusitania, in May, 1915. A German submarine or "u-boat" (unterseeboot) called the U-20 fired torpedos into the cruise ship, killing 1,198 people on board, including over 100 Americans. This, of course, outraged the United States and calls for us to enter the War increased. Germany countered that the British ship had been secretly carrying ammunition, (which, decades later, was found to be the actual case), so the Lusitania was a fair military target. Germany agreed, however, to suspend their submarine warfare, so the United States remained neutral...for now.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
While all of this was going on, a British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, was starting to make some serious noise. A historian of some note, Lawrence encouraged the Arab princes to seize the opportunities caused by the distractions of World War I and to revolt agains the Ottoman Empire. In 1917, Lawrence fought with a group of Arab irregulars (non-standard military) against the Ottomans. The British army sent troops from Egypt, India, Australia, and New Zealand in 1918 to join the fight, and the Ottoman Empire was crushed in the Middle East region (although parts of the empire remained intact at this time).
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