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Machine Guns
A machine gun was first used after being created in the United States. When the Crude Machine Gun was no longer powerful or fast enough, this new invention lead the war. Machine guns became a standard tactic in World War One. Shooting hundreds of rounds of bullets in one minute, this gun became responsible for thousands of deaths in the first World War. -
Getting to Know Lloyd Brown
Lloyd fought in the World War as a member of the Navy. He was the last known US Navy member to be fighting in World War 1. Although he was never a prisoner of war, he experienced many hard fought battles from the Seaman Second Class. Lloyd had many different responsibilities on the Navy ship. -
Archduke Assassination
There were many causes that fueled the first world war, but it was a last straw when the son of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was in a parade that was going on, when both him and his wife were shot in the head by a group called the Black Hand. This was the spark of the war. -
Trench Warfare
In the early part of the war, nations began to use trench warfare. These trenches were ditches in the ground that were made of wood. They used them so that they could take cover, but still shoot. After all sides began using trenches, stalemates were created because neither side could proceed, they just hid. Trenches had a large impact on the war. -
Germany Makes a Move
Germany made a move by shooting fire filled chlorine gas shells at the Allied military lines. The using of a lot of gas became a new concept of the war, based on this event. The French lines nearly were completely taken out by this method of gas, but survived. -
Load em’ up
Of many duties, one of Lloyd’s jobs was to load the guns and machine guns of the ships with ammunition. He had to have the guns ready at all times just in case of submarine or other ships attacked. Lloyd doesn’t remember everything that he encountered, but was aware of a few times that his ship went to battle. It was hard to tell when they actually took down a ship. -
Fire Away
Lloyd had to keep in contact with people everywhere to ensure safety. There was a time when the tower that had been looking out for Lloyd’s ship had radioed in to say that there was a submarine nearby. After firing at what they could barely see of the submarine it went underwater. Him and his crew were not aware if they hit the submarine and sank it, or if they dove under to avoid being hit. -
Cleaning Up
On the ships there are manholes that coal gets shoved down, this creates a big mess all over the whole ship because the coal settles everywhere. Lloyd and his crew had to hand scrub the boat everywhere, to get it clean for the rest of the crew. After this they even used bricks to sand down the deck to make it smooth. He references this as quite a house cleaning job. -
The Battle of Jutland
This was the largest naval battle of the first World War. Battleships from British and German fleets came together to fight one another. 250 ships and 100,000 men were involved in this battle. The British lost over 6,000 men but were still prepared for battle, while the Germans lost 2,500 men and never challenged the British of the sea again. -
Zimmerman Telegram
There was a Zimmerman Telegram that was intended to be sent to Mexico, from the German ambassador. This code relayed that Germany wanted Mexico to secretly join the war on their side and attack the neutral United States. This angered the United States because they were neutral with Mexico and didn’t want any problems. The British decoded this message and handed it to the United States to make them aware of the telegram. -
United States Joining the war
The United States military decided to join the war for a multitude of reasons. We joined the Triple Entente Alliance, also known as the allies. The US decided to finally join the war when we realized that the allies really needed him. As Well as when a British ship named “Lusitania” was sunk and killed 100 Americans. After being neutral with Mexico, and finding out the Germans had asked Mexico to join them on their attack on us, the United States fired back. We were now apart of World War 1. -
The Somme Battle
This battle was when the British and the French came to gesture to try to beat the Germans on the Western Front. This was one of the first, and most painful battles for the British. They were put against the Germans which were a very organized military. 19,240 were killed to make it the bloodiest day the British military. -
The German Submarine
Lloyd was on the United States ship that took over the German submarine. He says that they captured the boat and took it to Philadelphia Navy Yard. People could get on the boat and see what it looked like, on display. All of the German navy that were on the boat were captured and taken in as prisoners that were controlled by the government. -
Casualties
After this long fought world war many people had died. 8,556,215 troops in total from all countries had died. Along with all the deaths there were still missing and injured soldiers. 7,750,945 were missing, and 21,219,452 were wounded in this war. This was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but was just the beginning of another World War. -
Treaty of Versailles
After many years of war and bloodshed, many countries were becoming defeated and ready to give up. After the war, the Treaty of Versailles was put in place to make World War 1 the war that ended all other wars, although this was true for a short amount of time, it didn’t last long.
