Squad Battles: First World War

In 1914, the world erupted in a conflict that was thought would be over in matter of months. The armies marched off to war in appearance and manner akin to distant cousins of the Napoleonic Period, with many units dressed in colorful uniforms and trained to fight in dense formations. Commanders of the day stressed the operational art of war. Battles were fought on the grand scale of million-man armies where it was thought that tactical issues were of minimal importance since it was rationalized that tactical success or failure would be negated by bypass and maneuver at the operational level. Four years later, with over 10 million dead and Europe in complete ruin, over a thousand miles of trenches had been dug and poison gas, light machine guns, tanks, aircraft, and modern artillery, had all came into existence. This "First World War" had become the genesis of modern warfare, seeing innovative developments in weaponry and tactics as both sides raced to develop tools and techniques in the quest to break the deadlock that dominated the war's main arena: the Western Front. However, one of the most important innovations born out of this conflict was not a specific piece of weaponry, it was a change in the tactical mindset of commanders: the introduction of small unit tactics, or squad level warfare. Ironically, it was the evolution at the tactical level that finally brought about a strategic result to the conflict.