Heavy Artillery: This cover illustration shows a British 6-inch naval gun as adapted for field service in France in 1915, being drawn by a motorized tractor. Image: Scientific American, February 6, 1915
Siege Artillery: Two Austrians with a shell for the giant 30.5 cm (12-inch) siege howitzer made by the Skoda works. The shell is either the 633-pound high-explosive shell or the 847-pound armor-piercing round for use against stoutly built forts... Image: Scientific American, April 17, 1915
Armored Cars: Crude but useful, made by the Autocar Company of Pennsylvania and originally armed with Colt 1895 “potato digger” machine guns. The Canadian crews are shown training on Salisbury Plain in England; they arrived in France, in June 1915, as the 1st Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigade... Image: Scientific American, January 2, 1915.
Gas Warfare: An early defense by the Allies against toxic chlorine gas came from chemical industries where workers were exposed to “atmospheres containing chlorine and sulphurous acid gases:” a simple liquid-soaked flannel breathing mask, with no eye protection... Image: Scientific American, June 12, 1915
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Observation Balloon, Arras, France, 1915: The French used this balloon to see what the Germans were doing and where artillery shells were falling. The painting and article are by Neal Truslow, an American civilian who went to France in June 1915... Image: Scientific American, August 28, 1915
Prisoners of War: There were 8 million POWs during World War I. These prisoners (possibly Serbians?) in a German POW camp are making baskets, work permitted under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.&.. Image: Scientific American, July 3, 1915
The Needs of Transport: Large quantities of food, ammunition and other supplies were needed by the “vast armies employed.” Here, a soldier uses an improvised raft pulled by two horses to move supplies over a river... Image: Scientific American, October 16, 1915
Useless Invention: The goal was to reduce casualties from machine guns. But there was no motor, so hauling this heavy steel contraption across a muddy churned-up battlefield would have been impossible—and would have attracted a lot of gunfire. ... Image: Scientific American, July 17, 1915
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Field Gun: A 60-pounder artillery gun having just been fired by troops from the British Royal Artillery, during a battle on the Gallipoli peninsula near Constantinople, 1915. Image: Scientific American, December 4, 1915
Primitive Warfare: Sometimes rocks were better than artillery. Here, Austro-Hungarian troops lever boulders off a mountainside downhill against a mass of attacking Italian troops in one of the many desperate battles in the Alpine region in 1915... Image: Scientific American, November 20, 1915