1. Technology during World War I (1914-1918) reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass-productionmethods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began at least fifty years prior to World War Iduring the American Civil War of 1861-1865,[1] and continued through many smaller conflicts in which soldiers and strategists tested new weapons.
One could characterize the earlier years of the First World War as a clash of 20th-century technology with 19th-century warfare in the form of ineffective battles with huge numbers of casualties on both sides. On land, only in the final year of the war did the major armies made effective steps in revolutionizing matters of command and control and tactics to adapt to the modern battlefield and start to harness the myriad new technologies to effective military purposes. Tactical reorganizations (such as shifting the focus of command from the 100+ man company to the 10+ man squad) went hand-in-hand with armored cars, the first submachine guns, and automatic rifles that a single individual soldier could carry and use.
2. Imperialism contributed to World War I the amount of land that Britain and France owned led to a heightened rivalry with Germany, which sought to acquire colonies later on and only controlled small portions of Africa. Tensions rose during the fight for Africa in the late 1800s, when European powers France, Germany and Britain secured the remains of the continent. During this time, imperial rivalry was present along with powerful nationalism, helping to contribute to prewar tensions throughout Europe. Imperialism, an unequal relationship often found in the forms such as empires and forced upon other countries and individuals, led Europeans to keep a close watch on their access to markets, raw materials and returns on investments by taking
