THE FIRST WORLD WAR TRENCH WARFARE Much of the war took place in the trenches. These were ditches dug into the ground, where hundreds of soldiers stayed for months amid mud, rainwater, the wounded, the sick and the dead. MAJOR BATTLES The battles of Verdun (February to December 1916) and the Somme (July to November 1916) were the most bloody, with more than 1,900,000 victims. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, British cannons fired 1.5 million artillery shells. On that day alone, more than 19,000 soldiers were killed. AIR WAR This was the first war in which aircraft were used in reconnaissance, defence and attack missions. Numerous cities were bombed from the air. FIGHTER AIRCRAFT BY COUNTRY 1914 1918 138 4,500 113 3,300 232 2,390 150 1,200 55 740 244 ARMOURED WARFARE The tank was used for the first time, combining several technological advances: armour, the tracked tractor, the internal combustion engine and high firepower. CHEMICAL WAR The use of poison gas was one of the deadly new weapons of the First World War. NAVAL WARFARE The addition of aircraft carriers and submarines to the navy forced research into new technology, which gave rise to sonar, depth charges, etc. OTHER CASUALTIES AND DAMAGE An estimated 40 million animals died and 30,000 km2 of land in France alone were rendered unusable for agriculture. After the war ended, 16 peace treaties were needed. In total, some 40,000 km of trenches were dug (more than 3 times the diameter of the Earth). The machine guns fired between 400 and 600 bullets per minute. Shelter, hospital, command post, dormitory. barbed-wire entanglement No man's land Gas mask The hand grenade was created in 1915 during the war. Mud, excrement, urine, decomposing bodies, etc. Rats, lice, fleas, etc. Shell HUMAN VICTIMS 20 million people killed. 21 million wounded. 6 million prisoners. 10 million refugees. Peace, key to reducing inequalities in the world Peace is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, because armed violence has a destructive ef fect. Tensions should be resolved through dialogue. Acting out a peace conference can promote these values. R E T O I N T H I S U N I T. . . You will analyse the reasons for the war, its development and consequences. You will study what the war was like for the public and the soldiers. You will understand life under the Tsars of Russia in the 20th century. You will discover how the Russian Revolution started and its consequences. You will take action. You will organise a peace conference. CHALLE NGE 25
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