Did world war one have more deaths than any other war before it because of the change in technology?

Answer 1

I think it had a lot to do with the fact that all of the countries involved had large standing armies of about equal strength. They fought to a stalemate, and it became a war of attrition. With neither side backing down, the body count just rose. They also did not deviate from a conventional war tactic, and just lined up and shot at each other.

Technology has advanced today, and more recent wars have seen fewer death tolls.

Answer 2

There were a number of factors involved:

1) Improved and more lethal weapons -- artillery, machine guns, chemical weapons, bolt-action breech loading rifles, tanks, airplanes, etc.

2) Outdated tactics -- the Armies participating didn't recognize that mass wave attacks (Civil War era tactics) across open terrain into the teeth of an entrenched foe with modern automatic weapons was suicidal until well into the war.

3) Lousy medical care -- more Soldiers died from disease than from battle wounds. Antibiotics such as penicillin weren't discovered until a few years AFTER the war ended.

4) Poor leadership that refused to adapt to the realities of the war, resulting in the charnel house that was the Western Front. The major commanders kept repeating their mistakes for years.

5) The sheer size and numbers of troops involved among all the combatants, compounded by the number of nations involved.

6) The extension of the war at sea to non-combatant vessels

Answer 3

There are a number of answers to why so many died during WWI.
First, as your question suggests, there were changes in technology. Personal firearms had been improved and things like the machine gun and extremely large bore cannon were used. In addition to the improvement of weapons, medical technology had not made equal advances. While the causes of infection were known and anaesthetics were available, nothing had been discovered to fight infection after it had taken hold.
Another reason that there were so many casualties was trench warfare. This had been broughrt to a science so that almost every assault was made against an entrenched, reinforced position with artillery support. Even the advantage of defending trenches had its disadvantage. Diseases like trenchfoot were common as was frostbite during the winter. During the battle for Verdun, which lasted 18 months, it is estimated that one artillery shell per square yard was fired. This churned up the earth and made evacuation of the dead impossible. Diseases involved with close proximity to rotted meat were common. According to one survivor, the trenches smelled like rotting meat.
A third reason was the dedication of both sides to out of date tactics. A bayonnet charge across 200-300 yards of no man's land into concentrated machinegun fire spelled an enormous number of casualties. In addition, both sides believed that it was possible to "bleed out" the other side by inflicting so many wounded and dead that the war could not be sustained. Until fire and manouver tactics were possible, the casualties mounted at a rate greater than any conflict previously.

Answer 4

WWI technology wasn't that different from the Civil War. All they had was cannons, rifles and bayonets. They dug trenches and then fought over them for years. With the rise of aircraft and long-distance bombers, armies could strike deep into the heart of the country, and the trenches were irrelevant. If you bomb the snot out of the capitol city, the organization breaks down and the army has to surrender - end of trench warfare. No more armchair generals directing the wars from far behind enemy lines for years, sipping tea while their men died by the tens of thousands each day. The war came to them.

Answer 5

Partly that and partly the sheer numbers of military personnel involved. It is sometimes forgotten that looking purely at numbers can be deceiving as the population grows and more people are available, and in your question. to fight you will have more causalities based on that even if the technology was the same. I think technology played a large part in the higher number of causalities, combined with numbers of personnel involved and lack or tactics to combat the new technology. So a combination of all three.

Answer 6

If you are just referring to American deaths only, the Civil War or the War Between the States had more than twice as many deaths as in WWI because we were involved for only 1 1'2 years in WWI as opposed to 4 years for the Civil War. However, if you count the total number of deaths by all nations involved, then you are probably correct in assuming that WWI had the new record death toll(8.5 million deaths).

Answer 7

Technology contributed to all the deaths. The Machine Gun, dynamite, poison gas, but other factors did to, including the type of warfare, how many countries were involved, the number of troops.

Answer 8

Over 40 million casualties,mainly because,it was as global war to tear down many countries barriers.

Answer 9

No. WWI had so many deaths on account of the Spanish Flu.
War sucks.

Answer 10

Actually, it was trench warfare. A war of atrition Do we have more troops than they do? Let's find out, send a few thousand men over the ramparts. If this plan doesn't work, we'll try the same thing tomorrow. Hopefully, we can kill more of them, then can they kill of us