![]() Throughout most of human history, people could only take aim at an enemy they could see. ![]() Many of the maps, which come from the Library of Congress, were featured in a recent paper and two blog posts by Ryan Moore, a cartographic specialist at the library with an interest in military history. ![]() The maps in the gallery at the top of this post illustrate these deadly innovations and other defining features of the war, including the complex networks of trenches dug by both sides and the devastating German U-boat attacks on Allied commercial ships-a major factor in drawing the U.S. Airplanes-another relatively recent invention-allowed both sides to update their maps daily with the positions of enemy troops. Recent cartographic innovations allowed artillery gunners to fire at targets they couldn’t directly see and aim their guns without first firing “ranging shots” that would ruin the element of surprise. It was to become one of the deadliest wars in human history, claiming more than 15 million lives.Īdvances in military technology-including more lethal artillery and rapid-fire machine guns- contributed to the heavy toll. By the time the United States entered World War I, 100 years ago today, the conflict had been raging in Europe for nearly three years.
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