1) Machine guns: These weapons were first used in the American Civil War to devastating effect. But with World War One their effectiveness reached frightening new levels. Firing up to 600 bullets a minute (the equivalent of 250 men with rifles), Machine Guns were then deemed to be ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

Tanks: Tanks were known as ‘The Chariots of God’ at First, they were giant blocks of metal that could carry 1-2 personnel and travelled at about 5 kilometres per hour. But scientists and developers kept making new and improved tanks and by 1918 the Anglo-American Mark 8th could carry up to 8 men, and at the same time fire 208 shells and up to 13,000 bullets. Although these beasts were powerful, they were not so reliable. Most broke down and a good example is the battle of Amiens. The British sent 525 tanks, and after four days, only 25 were left in working order. Rolls Royce also joined in the development of these tanks, by building their own armoured car! It could travel up to 88 kilometres and had 8mm machine guns.

The flamethrower, which brought terror to French and British soldiers when used by the German army in the early phases of the First World War in 1914 and 1915 (and which was quickly adopted by both) was by no means a particularly innovative weapon.
The basic idea of a flamethrower is to spread fire by launching burning fuel. The earliest flamethrowers date as far back as the 5th century B.C. These took the form of lengthy tubes filled with burning solids (such as coal or sulphur), and which were used in the same way as blow-guns: by blowing into one end of the tube the solid material inside would be propelled towards the operator's enemies.
The flamethrower was inevitably refined over the intervening centuries, although the models seen in the early days of World War One were developed at the turn of the 20th century. The German army tested two models of flamethrower - or Flammenwerfer in German - in the early 1900s, one large and one small, both developed by Richard Fiedler.

Although mortars had been in use for centuries, they were typically extremely large and heavy siege-type weapons that were not easily transportable. Mortars were curved-trajectory weapons that could lob shells into trenches whose occupants would be unaffected by flat trajectory weapons but, compared to standard artillery, mortars had a relatively short range. The Germans had large numbers of "Minenwerfers" (mortars) ranging from 77mm to 150mm on hand at the beginning of the war, but such weapons are best classified as "trench artillery" since they were not mobile enough to accompany troops. The French and British also utilized some heavy mortars, but these were also relatively immobile and were in the category of artillery rather than infantry weapons.
It quickly became clear that some type of weapon was needed to provide artillery-like fire support to the infantry. While rifle grenades were useful for small-scale work, they possessed insufficient range and power to serve such purposes. A weapon that was fully man-transportable yet could fire reasonably powerful shells at targets beyond the range of rifle grenades was badly needed. The Stokes trench mortar was developed for precisely this purpose.


Planes: These were the new types of weapons use in advanced technological warfare. They had everything from mini scout planes to huge blimp like bombers called Zeppelins. Air warfare was not seen as important as any other type so it did not have its own category.

2) No Man's Land is the term used by soldiers to describe the ground between the two opposing trenches. Its width along the Western Front could vary a great deal. The average distance in most sectors was about 250 yards (230 metres). However, at Guillemont it was only 50 yards (46 metres) whereas at Cambrai it was over 500 yards (460 metres). The narrowest gap was at Zonnebeke where British and German soldiers were only about seven yards apart.

No Man's Land contained a considerable amount of barbed wire. In the areas most likely to be attacked, there were ten belts of barbed wire just before the front-line trenches. In some places the wire was more than a 100 feet (30 metres) deep.

If the area had seen a lot of action No Man's Land would be full of broken and abandoned military equipment. After an attack No Man's Land would also contain a large number of bodies. Advances across No Man's Land was always very difficult. Not only did the soldiers have to avoid being shot or blown-up, they also had to cope with barbed-wire and water-filled, shell-holes.

Soldiers were only occasionally involved in a full-scale attack across No Man's Land. However, men were sometimes ordered into No Man's Land to obtain information about the enemy. When a artillery shell had landed just in front of an enemy trench, soldiers were often ordered to take control of the shell-hole and to try and spy on the enemy.

Small patrols were also sent out to obtain information about the enemy. These patrols would go out at night. They would have to crawl forward on their stomachs in an attempt to get close enough to find out what the enemy was up to. If possible, they would try and capture a sentry and bring him back for interrogation. To stop British night patrols the Germans used a light-shell rocket. Suspended from a small parachute, the flare blazed brightly for a minute giving the defending troops a chance to kill the soldiers who had advanced into No Man's Land.

3) Soldiers in the First World War did not spend the whole of the time in the trenches. The British Army worked on a 16 day timetable. Each soldier usually spent eight days in the front line and four days in the reserve trench. Another four days were spent in a rest camp that was built a few miles away from the fighting. However, when the army was short of men, soldiers had to spend far longer periods at the front. It was not uncommon for soldiers to be in the front line trenches for over thirty days at a time. On one occasion, the 13th Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment spent fifty-one consecutive days in the line.
Being in the front-line was extremely dangerous. Almost every day some enemy shells would fall on the trenches. One study suggested that one-third of all casualties on the Western Front were killed or wounded while in the trenches.

Soldiers in the front line would also be hit by their own artillery. Despite the use of a high parados in the front-line trenches, it has been estimated that about 75,000 British soldiers in the war were killed by British shells that had been intended for the Germans.

4) World War I was a bloody war, fought in muddy trenches and overwhelmed with slaughter. Yet a few soldiers escaped this anonymous end - fighter pilots. They volunteered to fly when just going up in an airplane seemed heroic. However, most fighter pilots achieved only a few victories before they too were shot down. Yet, there was one man, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, who liked to fly in a blazing red airplane and shot down plane after plane. His achievements made him both a hero and a propaganda tool. With 80 credited victories, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron," defied the odds and became a legend in the air.