The invention and appearance of novel and different types of weapons in the early 20th century prevented armies from relying on horses on the battlefield, and new weapons with advanced technology were routinely included in warfare journeys to the modern world. Fixed-wing bomber aircraft, tanks, railway guns, gas masks, etc., were the technological developments in the arena of military weapons that helped bring the battle lines of WWI to mechanized warfare and stalemate. Italian militarily used bomber aircraft first in 1911 during the Italo-Turkish war in Libya. These fighting machines were aimed to be used for ground attacks and reconnaissance. Later, strategic bombers were developed to shoot down the enemy’s planes, which was mainly done by the British. Similarly, the invention of tanks triggered a series of new warfare theories based on technological weapons and significantly changed the notion of how war was waged before the 20th century. In fact, the early 20th century witnessed the fastest pace of weapons development for the security of national as well as international territories. In 1914, the following year WWI started, the usage of cannons, mortars, and machine guns was commonplace to directly fire at the target as these weapons were placed on the frontline to spot and range the target. Tanks, among all of these primitive weapons, were the most powerful land-based weapons that served the concept of safe mobility of troops, continuous track, a large amount of the internal combustion engine, and the protection of firepower. (Hermann, 1997)
To accomplish this purpose, Britain, during World War I, began serious developments to invent and launch the tank and use this weapon in battle. Britain and France created a tank, which was first used on September 15, 1916, in the Battle of Somme as a solution to mechanized warfare. At the same time, the French introduced a decisive tool for warfare, which was a tank with a rotating turret. Meanwhile, the British military showed its potential by fielding hundreds of tanks in November 1917 during the Battle of Cambrai, where British tanks broke the Hindenburg Line during that battle. British army thought this new invention of the tank would end the stalemate as a response to the trench warfare on Britain’s Western front and would serve as a mechanized weapon for the warfare. Britain hoped that tanks as the mainstay of ground armies would allow British armed forces to quickly and effectively advance against the German army. The world’s first combat tank was named Mark I and emerged as a decisive technology on September 15, 1916, as a demoralizing weapon that caused terror around the world during the First World War. Since the invention of the tank in the early 20th century, the tank has made history and was symbolized as a weapon of political power, terror, and military strength. The first battle fought with tanks in the First World War inaugurated a new era of warfare in history. Meanwhile, the invention and usage of this fighting machine in the battle served another purpose, and it was exploited to spread propaganda about the military power of Britain, which first used tanks on the battlefield (Hermann, 1997). In fact, the use of technology during the First World War reflected an effective trend toward the mass production of military weapons, which paved the way for industrialism in warfare. All of the powers of Europe and its colonial empires in World War I were mobilized to fight the war through all the possible resources of the European society, whether it was industry, labour, food production, or finance for the invention of new mechanized weapons towards the military purposes to promote industrialism as this fight gave priority to warfare through mobilizing all the resources of the society to achieve military targets over non-combatant needs and wants of the civilians.
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