Civil War, as typified by John Ericsson’s revolutionary U.S.S. The first modern ironclad submersibles, however, appeared during the U.S. The idea of an underwater warship is ancient. German U-19 submarine (first row, second from the right). The attack flouted international law and claimed nearly 1,200 lives including scores of Americans, precipitating the United States’ reluctant entry into the war two years later. On May 7, 1915, a torpedo fired from a German U-boat sunk the British passenger liner HMS Lusitania off the southern Irish coast. This devastation was wrought by early 20th century mechanical and chemical technologies that, a century later, are still evolving for (mostly) peaceful applications. World War I also brought the concept of total war into shocking reality across Europe through air raids, torpedo strikes, and gas attacks that ravaged soldiers and civilians alike.
The bloody intransigence of trench warfare drove both sides to develop mechanized weaponry to gain ground.
World War I failed to live up to that billing, but the planet’s first global conflict succeeded as a catalyst for some enduring technologies.
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