![]() Note the difference between the simple strands the inventor thought would face the infantryman and the dense tangle presented here. The gun is then fired, the ball instantly severing the wire, or even, as experiment shows, a rod of several times the usual diameter of a barbed wire or cable.” Barbed wire defenses surrounding the German territory around Jiaozhou Bay in China. ![]() In use, whether the user is prone or otherwise, the gun is thrust forward until an entanglement wire is engaged between the projections and brought to the forward end of the block and directly across the opening. Briefly, the wire shooter cutter consists of a closely fitting steel block which is slipped over the blade of a bayonet and held in place with a set screw. “With a view to facilitating the destruction of barbed wire entanglements by charging infantrymen, an ingenious little device, which its inventor chooses to call the wire shooter cutter, has been developed It is the invention of Joseph A. ![]() Credit: Scientific American, February 24, 1917 This wire-cutting gizmo was supposed to slip onto the end of a rifle and bayonet. Here’s some bright spark’s simple idea for helping soldiers cut through “barbed wire” on the battlefield. He declined to ask Congress for a declaration of war at that time, arguing that Germany had still not committed any “actual overt acts” warranting a military response.Inventors were just as appalled as everyone else by the massive casualties being caused by the fighting in the First World War. could mobilize and arm troops to land in Europe.Īlthough President Wilson formally broke diplomatic relations in February 1917 when the unrestricted submarine warfare resumed, he was still unsure how far public support had moved. might react with intervention, German military leaders calculated they could defeat the allies before the U.S. ![]() U-boats resumed unrestricted attacks against all ships in the Atlantic, including civilian passenger carriers. They hoped to break the British stranglehold blockade of crucial German supply ports and knock Britain out of the war within the year. Germany was already experiencing food shortages and had imposed unpopular compulsory service either in armed forces or war industries. By 1917, it had 140 and the U-boats had destroyed about 30 percent of the world's merchant ships.Īt the dawn of 1917, the German high command forced a return to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, engineering the dismissal of opponents of the policy that aimed to sink more than 600,000 tons of shipping a month. Germany built new and larger U-boats to punch holes in the British blockade, which was threatening to starve Germany out of the war. might go to war over the incident, Germany backed down and ordered its U-boat fleet to spare passenger vessels. The Germans asserted the Lusitania was carrying war matériel and was therefore a legitimate target.įaced with the possibility that the U.S. The Allies and Americans considered the sinking an act of indiscriminate warfare. Nearly 1,200 men, women, and children, including 128 Americans, lost their lives. On May 7, 1915, German submarine U-20 torpedoed the Lusitania, a Cunard passenger liner, off the coast of Ireland. The goal was to starve Britain before the British blockade defeated Germany. They were Germany’s only weapon of advantage as Britain effectively blocked German ports to supplies. The formidable U-boats ( unterseeboots) prowled the Atlantic armed with torpedoes. ![]() Germany retaliated by using its submarines to destroy neutral ships that were supplying the Allies. Britain's blockade across the North Sea and the English Channel cut the flow of war supplies, food, and fuel to Germany during World War I. ![]()
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