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This is a secondary source that summarises the battle of the Somme. The battle of the Somme was one of the deadliest and bloodiest battles on the Western front. The battle was so deadly because of the involvement of military technology. The way weapons were fought in the war forced soldiers to tremble into fear. Artilieries filled with high explosive shells, inflicted the most deaths on the battlefield. The fourth British army ordered 60,000 soldiers to cross no man's land at a 'steady pace'. The military equipment had disadvantaged the soldiers because of 30kg of equipment and infantry while the enemies have artilleries. “The infantryman was so heavily laden that he could not move faster than a walk.”The war was so oppressive and difficult and nobody was winning. The war strategy changed. Soldiers had to resort to defence and resources. "Douglas Haig adopted the attrition method of limited advances aimed to wear down the German strength."This was now a battle of attrition. This supports my inquiry question because military weapons changed the way war strategies developed onwards.

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William Barker, in full William George Barker, (born November 3, 1894, Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada-died March 12, 1930, Rockcliffe, Ottawa, Ontario), Canadian World War I fighter pilot who was the most-decorated war hero in Canadian history.

The eldest son of a farmer who was also a blacksmith and sawmill operator, Barker grew up on the frontier in Manitoba, where he became proficient at riding horses and shooting. Although he was a good student, Barker often was required to miss school to work at the family farm or sawmill. Early on, he demonstrated intellectual independence and an intensity of focus that complemented his kinesthetic skills. Having seen "flying machines" at agricultural fairs, he also indicated an early interest in becoming a pilot. In 1914 he left high school and enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) to fight in World War I. He joined the 1st Regiment, Canadian Mounted Rifles (CMR), trained as a machine gunner, sailed to England with his unit in June 1915, and served in the Ypres Salient in Belgium that fall and winter. Barker found service in the muddy trenches to be cold, wet, and discouraging, and in early 1916 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), where he became an observer and was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

He quickly gained combat experience, performing artillery spotting and photographic reconnaissance as well as acting as a gunner on the Blériot Experimental 2 (B.E.2) reconnaissance plane. Flying in France during the First Battle of the Somme with No. 15 Squadron, he earned the first of the 12 gallantry awards he would receive-the Military Cross (MC), for supporting the capture of Beaumont-Hamel in November. He then trained as a pilot in England, completing all ground and flying training in only four weeks and returning to the Western Front in February 1917. While flying a Reconnaissance Experimental 8 (R.E.8), he was awarded a bar for his MC, promoted to the rank of captain, and appointed a flight commander. After sustaining a head wound in August, Barker was assigned to duty as a flying instructor in England. However, he had no desire to teach. After he performed an unauthorized aerobatic display over Piccadilly Circus in London, the RFC reassigned him to combat as a fighter pilot flying the Sopwith Camel.

Barker returned to France in October 1917. Over the next 12 months he shot down 50 enemy aircraft on the Italian and Western fronts. Barker's tally placed him in the top 10 of Royal Air Force (RAF) aces and fourth among Canadian-born flyers. Barker's Sopwith Camel, No. B6313, was flown almost exclusively by him. With an unprecedented 46 enemy downings in one plane flown by the same pilot, B6313 has been called the single most-successful fighter aircraft in the history of the RAF. Remarkably, Barker never had a wingman killed while flying with him or an aircraft he was escorting shot down.

During 11 months of continuous combat on the Italian Front, Barker was awarded a second bar to his MC, a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and bar, a French Croix de Guerre, and an Italian Silver Medal for Valour, the last for dropping an Italian army espionage agent behind enemy lines at night. On October 27, 1918, while flying a Sopwith Snipe in France on the final day of a 10-day roving commission, he downed one enemy two-seater plane and then was attacked by a large formation of single-seater Fokker D.VII fighters and was wounded three times. He shot down three of the enemy aircraft (raising his victory score to 50). He escaped from the remaining German fighters and crash-landed. For that final aerial battle, he was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).

After the war, Barker partnered with fellow ace and VC recipient Billy Bishop in an airline and aircraft sales company. However, it went out of business within a few years. Barker returned to the military in 1922 and was appointed acting director of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in April 1924. After leaving the RCAF in 1926, he served as the first honorary president of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, and in 1930 he became president of Fairchild Aircraft Ltd. While demonstrating a Fairchild KR-21 biplane at Rockcliffe, Ottawa, Ontario, on March 12, 1930, he crashed and was killed. Some 50,000 spectators witnessed his national state funeral, the largest the city of Toronto had ever held.

Wayne Ralph

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

World War I, an international conflict that in 1914-18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the Central Powers-mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey-against the Allies-mainly France, Great...

Manitoba, province of Canada, one of the Prairie Provinces, lying midway between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. The province is bounded to the north by Nunavut territory, to the northeast by Hudson Bay, to the east by Ontario, to the south by the U.S. states of Minnesota and North...

First Battle of the Somme

First Battle of the Somme, (July 1-November 13, 1916), costly and largely unsuccessful Allied offensive on the Western Front during World War I. The horrific bloodshed on the first day of the battle became a metaphor for futile and indiscriminate slaughter....

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William Barker, Canadian World War I fighter pilot who was the most-decorated war hero in Canadian history. The eldest son of a farmer who was also a blacksmith and sawmill operator, Barker grew up on the frontier in Manitoba, where he became proficient at riding horses and shooting. Although he

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Article of WWI: Technology and the weapons of war

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This is a secondary source of an article that thoroughly explains the effect and cause of industrialized weapons in WW1. The complicity of new industrial weapons created a struggle for new military strategy. While everyone perceives World War One as soldiers climbing out of their trenches and crossing no man's land to advance to the enemy's trenches. It confirms this was true. But the source also explains that it was also the industrialized weapons that caused these trenches to appear as a consequence. Many modern weapons were identified in the article. Navy submarines at U-boat campaign, chemical warfare. Machine guns on the battlefields, planes and war in the air. The impact of these military weapons made Warfare impossible to be won. "The power of defensive weapons made winning the war on the western front all but impossible for either side." The key difference between modern World War and old fashion is that the influence of new industrialised weapons made the war last longer. Due to the potential of these weapons, a huge number of casualties were from the war. "One of the saddest facts about World War I is that millions died needlessly ..." This was a long term effect.

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by A. Torrey McLean
Reprinted with permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian, Spring 1993.
Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History

See also: WWI: Life on the Western Front

One of the saddest facts about World War I is that millions died needlessly because military and civilian leaders were slow to adapt their old-fashioned strategies and tactics to the new weapons of 1914. New technology made war more horrible and more complex than ever before. The United States and other countries felt the effects of the war for years afterwards.

The popular image of World War I is soldiers in muddy trenches and dugouts, living miserably until the next attack. This is basically correct. Technological developments in engineering, metallurgy, chemistry, and optics had produced weapons deadlier than anything known before. The power of defensive weapons made winning the war on the western front all but impossible for either side.

When attacks were ordered, Allied soldiers went "over the top," climbing out of their trenches and crossing no-man's-land to reach enemy trenches. They had to cut through belts of barbed wire before they could use rifles, bayonets, pistols, and hand grenades to capture enemy positions. A victory usually meant they had seized only a few hundred yards of shell-torn earth at a terrible cost in lives. Wounded men often lay helpless in the open until they died. Those lucky enough to be rescued still faced horrible sanitary conditions before they could be taken to proper medical facilities. Between attacks,the snipers, artillery, and poison gas caused misery and death.

Airplanes, products of the new technology, were primarily made of canvas, wood, and wire. At first they were used only to observe enemy troops. As their effectiveness became apparent, both sides shot planes down with artillery from the ground and with rifles, pistols, and machine guns from other planes. In 1916, the Germans armed planes with machine guns that could fire forward without shooting off the fighters' propellers. The Allies soon armed their airplanes the same way, and war in the air became a deadly business. These light, highly maneuverable fighter planes attacked each other in wild air battles called dogfights. Pilots who were shot down often remained trapped in their falling, burning planes, for they had no parachutes. Airmen at the front did not often live long. Germany also used its fleet of huge dirigibles, or zeppelins, and large bomber planes to drop bombs on British and French cities. Britain retaliated by bombing German cities.

Back on the ground, the tank proved to be the answer to stalemate in the trenches. This British invention used American-designed caterpillar tracks to move the armored vehicle equipped with machine guns and sometimes light cannon. Tanks worked effectively on firm, dry ground, in spite of their slow speed, mechanical problems, and vulnerability to artillery. Able to crush barbed wire and cross trenches, tanks moved forward through machine gun fire and often terrified German soldiers with their unstoppable approach.

Chemical warfare first appeared when the Germans used poison gas during a surprise attack in Flanders, Belgium, in 1915. At first, gas was just released from large cylinders and carried by the wind into nearby enemy lines. Later, phosgene and other gases were loaded into artillery shells and shot into enemy trenches. The Germans used this weapon the most, realizing that enemy soldiers wearing gas masks did not fight as well. All sides used gas frequently by 1918. Its use was a frightening development that caused its victims a great deal of suffering, if not death.

Both sides used a variety of big guns on the western front, ranging from huge naval guns mounted on railroad cars to short-range trench mortars. The result was a war in which soldiers near the front were seldom safe from artillery bombardment. The Germans used super-long-range artillery to shell Paris from almost eighty miles away. Artillery shell blasts created vast, cratered, moonlike landscapes where beautiful fields and woods had once stood.

Perhaps the most significant technological advance during World War I was the improvement of the machine gun, a weapon originally developed by an American, Hiram Maxim. The Germans recognized its military potential and had large numbers ready to use in 1914. They also developed air-cooled machine guns for airplanes and improved those used on the ground, making them lighter and easier to move. The weapon's full potential was demonstrated on the Somme battlefield in July 1916 when German machine guns killed or wounded almost 60,000 British soldiers in only one day.

At sea, submarines attacked ships far from port. In order to locate and sink German U-boats, British scientists developed underwater listening devices and underwater explosives called depth charges. Warships became faster and more powerful than ever before and used newly invented radios to communicate effectively. The British naval blockade of Germany, which was made possible by developments in naval technology, brought a total war to civilians. The blockade caused a famine that finally brought about the collapse of Germany and its allies in late 1918. Starvation and malnutrition continued to take the lives of German adults and children for years after the war.

The firing stopped on November 11, 1918, but modern war technology had changed the course of civilization. Millions had been killed, gassed, maimed, or starved. Famine and disease continued to rage through central Europe, taking countless lives. Because of rapid technological advances in every area, the nature of warfare had changed forever, affecting soldiers, airmen, sailors, and civilians alike.
A. Torrey McLean, a former United States Army officer who served in Vietnam, studied World War I for more than thirty years, personally interviewing a number of World War I veterans.

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by A. Torrey McLean Reprinted with permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian, Spring 1993. Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History See also: WWI: Life on the Western Front One of the saddest facts about World War I is that millions died needlessly because military and civilian leaders were slow to adapt their old-fashioned strategies and tactics to the new weapons of 1914.

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The war of the nations : portfolio in rotogravure etchings : compiled from the Mid-week pictorial. Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, 1914 to 1919 

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Modern industrialised weapons heavily impacted how the war was fought during 1914-1918. This primary source (newspaper article) represents an example of a modern weapon of mass destruction used throughout the war. It provided useful information about how tanks were used in trench warfare. Modern warfare uncovered more advanced strategies because of newer military technology. Tanks were stronger and more durable than enemies armed with guns shown in the photo in the article above. They were able to move as fast and warfare was not simple. Tanks would build strong defensive networks and it helped allies advance to the enemy's trenches. Tanks changed World War One into a more serious and harder battle. This answers my question on how modern weapons. In the writer's opinion, the source suggests tanks was the key to victory. "Not only that they have broken down defences that otherwise would be impregnable, but they've saved thousands of lives."