🚫 The ban
In 1925 many countries signed the Geneva Protocol. It banned the use of poison gas in war. It did not ban making or storing gas, and it had no way to punish countries that broke it.
The Changing Nature of Warfare, 1919-39 » Warfare After 1918: Gas, Tanks and Heavy Artillery
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B6, Key topic 1
- What armies learned from the First World War about gas, tanks and heavy artillery
- Why people feared gas, and how the Geneva Protocol of 1925 tried to ban it
- How new thinking about fast-moving tanks grew up between 1919 and 1939
- What changed in land warfare, and what stayed the same
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Unlock This CourseThe war that armies had just fought
The Changing Nature of Warfare and International Conflict, 1919-2011, is one of eight Paper 2 Section B breadth studies. You study only one of them, so use this option only if it is one of your chosen ones.
This option is about change over time in warfare, from 1919 to 2011. It follows five themes: land warfare, sea warfare, air warfare, weaponry, technology and communications, and guerrilla warfare. This first lesson is about land warfare and weapons in the twenty years after the First World War (1914-18).
On the Western Front, machine guns and barbed wire made attacking very costly. Defenders in trenches could stop most attacks, so the war became a long stalemate. Armies tried three things to break it: gas, tanks and heavy artillery. Between the wars, generals argued about what each one had really taught them.
Key terms:
- Heavy artillery: large guns that fire shells over long distances at targets they cannot see.
- Stalemate: a situation where neither side can make progress.
- Armoured warfare: fighting with tanks and other armoured vehicles.
Gas: feared and banned
Germany used chlorine gas on a large scale at Ypres in April 1915. Both sides then used gas, including mustard gas, which Germany first used in 1917. Gas burned the eyes, skin and lungs. Over 1 million soldiers became gas casualties, and about 90,000 died.
Gas did not win the war. Gas masks soon protected soldiers, and a change in the wind could blow the gas back on to the attackers. Even so, it caused a lasting fear because it was terrifying and hard to escape.
💨 The fear
Many people feared that future wars would see gas dropped from the air on cities. From 1938 gas masks were handed out to civilians in Britain. Italy used mustard gas in Abyssinia in 1935-36, even though it had signed the Protocol.
Learn this
Gas did not change the result of the First World War, but the fear of it changed how governments planned. Most countries held back from using it against well-prepared armies in the 1939-45 war.
Tanks: two ways of thinking
The British first used tanks in battle at Flers-Courcelette, on the Somme, in September 1916. They were slow and often broke down. At Cambrai in November 1917, nearly 400 tanks attacked together and broke through the German trenches, though the advance was later pushed back. In 1918, tanks helped British and Allied attacks, such as at Amiens in August.
After 1919 there were two main ideas about tanks:
- Support the infantry. Tanks should move at walking pace beside foot soldiers and help them take trenches. France mostly followed this idea and spread its tanks among infantry units.
- Fast, independent tank forces. Tanks should work together in large groups, move quickly and strike deep behind the enemy. British writers J.F.C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart argued for this, as did France's Charles de Gaulle. Britain tested the idea in an Experimental Mechanized Force on Salisbury Plain in 1927, but it was not kept up.
Germany took the second idea furthest. The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 banned Germany from having tanks, poison gas or heavy artillery, and limited its army to 100,000 men. German officers such as Heinz Guderian studied the lessons of 1918, and when Hitler began to rebuild the army, Germany set up its first three panzer divisions (tank divisions) in 1935. Guderian published Achtung - Panzer! in 1937.
Key terms:
- Geneva Protocol (1925): an agreement banning the use of poison gas in war.
- Panzer division: a German army unit built round tanks, with infantry, guns and engineers able to keep up with them.
Heavy artillery: still the great killer
In the First World War, artillery caused most of the casualties. Armies used it to destroy trenches and wire before an attack and, from 1916, to fire a creeping barrage, a curtain of shells moving just ahead of advancing infantry.
Between the wars, big guns stayed important. France built the Maginot Line in the 1930s, a chain of strong forts with heavy guns along its border with Germany, on the belief that defence and firepower would again beat attack. The change was in speed. Artillery began to be towed by motor tractors instead of horses, and radios helped guns hit targets more quickly. Yet in 1939 even Germany still relied on horses to move much of its equipment.
Change and continuity
🔄 What changed
Tanks became faster and more reliable. Motor vehicles replaced horses in some armies. Gas was banned by treaty. Some armies began to plan for quick, deep attacks, not slow trench battles.
⚖ What stayed the same
Artillery was still the main killer. Many generals still saw tanks as helpers for infantry. Gas was still made and stored. Armies still relied on horses and on strong defences.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Geneva Protocol stopped all gas. It banned use only, and Italy broke it in 1935-36.
- Saying every country used tanks in the new way. Only some did, and Germany went furthest.
- Forgetting artillery. In an essay on land warfare, mention it as continuity.
Exam-style question
Explain TWO causes of the new thinking about the use of tanks in the years 1919-39. [8 marks]
Model answer
One cause was the experience of trench warfare in the First World War. Machine guns, wire and artillery had made attacks very costly, and the Western Front had been a stalemate for most of four years. At Cambrai in 1917, nearly 400 tanks attacked together and broke through the German trenches, so writers such as J.F.C. Fuller argued that large groups of fast tanks could end stalemate and win wars quickly. This led armies to rethink tanks as an independent weapon, not only a helper for foot soldiers.
A second cause was Germany's defeat and the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty banned Germany from having tanks and limited its army to 100,000 men, so German officers such as Guderian looked for a way to win with a small, highly trained force. They believed fast tank units could do this by striking deep behind enemy lines. When Hitler began rebuilding the army, Germany formed its first three panzer divisions in 1935, which put the new thinking into practice.
What lifts it to the top level: two causes, each with precise facts and a clear link to the new thinking about tanks.
Exam tip
For "explain two causes", give two separate causes and, for each, add a date or name and then say how it led to the outcome in the question. An answer with only one cause cannot score more than half marks (4 out of 8), so always write two paragraphs.
Recap
- Gas caused terror in 1915-18 but did not win the war. The Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned its use, and fear of gas bombing stayed high.
- Tanks first fought in 1916. Between the wars, some armies saw them as infantry helpers, others as fast independent forces.
- Germany went furthest, forming panzer divisions in 1935.
- Heavy artillery stayed vital, and horses were still used in 1939.