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During WWI, the Germans were the first to employ flamethrowers. Their flamethrowers could shoot flame jets up to 130 feet (40 m).1)
WWI included about 65 million men from 30 countries. Almost ten million people died. The Allies (Entente Powers) lost around 6 million men. The Central Powers lost around 4 million people.2)
During WWI, over two-thirds of all military casualties occurred in battle. In earlier battles, sickness was the leading cause of death.3)
German forces shot and murdered 150 people in Aerschot in August 1914. The assassination was part of a war doctrine known as Schrecklichkeit (“fearfulness”). Its goal was to frighten inhabitants in occupied regions so they would not resist.4)
During WWI, British tanks were divided into “males” and “females”. Male tanks were armed with cannons, whereas female tanks were armed with heavy machine guns.5)
During WWI, “Little Willie” was the first prototype tank. It was built in 1915 and could go at speeds of up to 3 mph (4.8 km/h).6)
The artillery barrage and mines made a tremendous amount of noise. Explosives exploding behind the German lines on Messines Ridge in Ypres, Belgium, could be heard 140 miles (220 kilometers) distant in London in 1917.7)
The Pool of Peace is a 40-foot (12-meter) deep pool in the Belgian town of Messines. It plugs a hole left by the British detonation of a mine holding 45 tons of explosives in 1917.8)
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (1892-1918), also known as the “Red Baron,” was the most successful fighter pilot of the whole war. He downed more planes than any other WWI pilot. He was killed after being shot near Amiens. René Fonck (1894-1953) of France was the Allies' most successful fighter pilot, downing 75 enemy aircraft.9)
Dogs were deployed as messengers during WWI, carrying orders to the front lines in capsules connected to their bodies. Telegraph wires were also laid down by dogs.10)
Big Bertha was a 48-ton German cannon used during WWI. It was named after the designer's wife, Gustav Krupp. It could shoot a 2,050-pound (930-kg) shell 9.3 kilometers (15 km). However, assembling a workforce of 200 workers takes at least six hours. Germany possessed 13 of these massive cannons, dubbed “wonder weapons”.11)
Tanks were originally referred to as “landships”, but in order to disguise them as water storage tanks rather than weapons, the British opted to code name them “tanks”.12)
Just before his death, French Second Lieutenant Alfred Joubaire wrote in his journal regarding WWI, “Humanity is mad! It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre. What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible! Men are mad”!13)
Some Americans were dissatisfied with the United States' initial unwillingness to enter WWI, so they enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, the British army, or the Canadian army. The Lafayette Escadrille, which was part of the French air force and became one of the premier combat units on the Western Front, was founded by a group of American pilots.14)
British cryptographers decoded a message from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Germany's minister in Mexico in early 1917. The message urged Mexico to attack American territory. For more than a month, the British kept it hidden from the Americans. They intended to reveal it to the US at the opportune time to entice the US to join them in the fight.15)