World War I is synonymous with trench warfare, and it is often cited as one of the reasons why the war dragged on for so long...
The tactics resulted in many unnecessary deaths on all sides. The trenches completely altered miles of land and...
...thereby contributed to landscapes often utterly devoid of any trees or any other vegetation. Trench warfare was bleak.
Such barren landscapes also made spying on enemy movements challenging since everyone above ground was exposed.
To spy, inventiveness was required. And so, arose one of the strangest inventions of World War I: false trees or 'Spy Trees.'
These were hollowed-out look-out posts made of iron and fashioned to look like trees. Spies would sit inside and listen in and...
...made observations about enemy movements and plans. Some of these false trees could accommodate desks, listening equipment...
...and as many as up to four men inside them. Great skill had to be taken to make them look as realistic as possible, of course.
There is a debate about who invented these trees, but it's generally accepted that it was the Germans. Their first effort was...
...a one-man 25-foot 'tree' that they positioned near British trenches in the 'Oosteverne Wood' near Messines in Belgium.
For several months during 1917, the German spy tree went undetected. Each night the German spy would crawl out of the tree...
...and report back to German command about what had been observed that day. The tree was only abandoned when British troops...
...dug an underground tunnel right under the outpost. Similar trees were also used by the British and French until the end of the war.
Engineers would design a false tree by taking extensive photos, measurements, and sketches of a dead tree, with a tree that...
...had been actually bombed being the most sought-after. A replica spy tree can be seen at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Cavalries were still a significant unit in combat throughout World War I. Australia alone supplied thousands of horses...
...to the European and Near Eastern battlegrounds. Hundreds of thousands of horses were maimed in the service of troops.
Many other thousands of these warhorses would perish due to disease, poisonous gas, exposure, exhaustion or starvation.
However, not all horses used during the Great War were real, as the French made ingenious use of 'false horses.'
As mentioned already with the spy trees, much of the trenched and bombed territory during the war was bleak and barren.
Entire open stretches of land were dubbed 'No Man's Land' where no one dared venture. Except for the fake horses, that is.
To get as close as possible to enemy lines in No Man's Land, the French found inspiration in a rather ghastly guise...
...in the form of the bodies of dead horses lying around. The first attempt by French soldiers was to hide inside the carcasses...
...of dead horses, which was understandably gruesome and not a favored gambit for soldiers. So, the French decided instead to...
...design and construct hulking shapes that looked just like horses and strategically position them in open land.
The French would drag away a fallen horse near German trenches at night and replace it with a dummy horse for spying.
The false horses were crafted from papier-mâché and hollowed out to allow a soldier to lie inside it, hidden from view.
It worked. From vantage points inside the false horses, the French were able to more closely observe German troop movements.
Like the spy trees, false horses could also be used as sniper nests as a last resort. They too would be used until war's end.
Although not as defining as in the Second World War, aircraft still came to the fore during the latter part of World War I.
Airmen were dashing heroes of the Great War, most famous amongst them the German, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, aka 'Red Baron.'
Warring nations scrambled to engineer early detection methods of these pioneer war machines which wreaked havoc on trenches.
Early detection machinery was vital in alerting troops to incoming aircraft and taking cover or regrouping as needed.
One such early detection device was also undoubtedly one of the strangest inventions of World War I: acoustic horns or 'tubas.'
These bizarre acoustic locators could detect aircraft sounds from miles away and were primarily used by the Japanese prior to WW2...
...although its first use was claimed to be by Englishman Commander Alfred Rawlinson of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, who...
...used them in the autumn of 1916 to help detect German Zeppelin airships that were bombarding the southeast coast of England.
These giant horns or tubas provided both acoustic directionality and gain since the inter-horn increased the observer’s ability...
...to localize the direction of a sound, while acoustics had the advantage of sound being heard regardless of topography or...
...other factors, including weather, due to the way sound travels in what is known in physics as 'sound refraction.'
The British also made use of larger 'sound mirrors,' which were movable microphones used to find the angle that maximized the...
...amplitude of sound received using triangulation. This allowed listeners to determine a sound source’s exact position.
The use of acoustic tubas and other acoustic listening devices became obsolete by World War 2 thanks to the advent of radar.
World War I would also become synonymous with one of the darkest breakthroughs of combat: the use of chemical warfare.
The Great War was decidedly 'un-great' in the way that chemicals such as mustard gas and other noxious vaoprs were used by all...
...the powers involved, particularly in the trenches, and with horrendous loss of life or disfigurement of soldiers.
Desperate efforts were undertaken by nations to combat these toxic gases, resulting in a number of strange creations.
One such distinctly odd invention was the hand-held and soldier-powered 'gas flapper' which was designed to be used...
...by soldiers in the trenches to literally 'fan away' any noxious fumes from chemical weapons. These fans were designed by...
...an Englishwoman named Hertha Ayrton, a civilian scientist. They aimed to clear gaseous residue that had collected...
...in shell-holes and craters in trenches after a gas attack. 104,000 of these 'Ayrton Gas Fans' were sent to British troops.
The fans were 3 feet 6 inches long, had a blade 15 inches square, and weighed less than a pound. These fans were designed...
...to not only be lightweight but also capable of being easily folded and carried in braces behind a soldier's backpack.
An example of an Ayrton Gas Fan can be seen at Britain's Imperial War Museum which has the following information about it:
“...was in daily use at the Front since May 1916; principally for clearing-outs, shell-holes, mine craters, etc., of the...."
...foul gases that always accumulate in [the trenches] under shell fire. It was further stated that the fans allowed gases...
...to be cleared in minutes or mere seconds. They were, "made of waterproof canvas stiffened with cane, with a wooden handle."
Unfortunately the fans weren't particularly useful. In fact, British studies showed the fans often made gas concentrations worse.
It wasn't only horses that played such an essential role during World War I. Other animals and creatures too played their part.
Although not 'inventions,' of course, the use of animals and creatures was indeed inventive during the First World War.
Dogs are swift and light on their feet and so were perfect for troop communications and other duties needed in the trenches.
Doberman Pinschers were excellent guard dogs, while scout dogs were used to smell out enemy positions hundreds of yards away.
The use of carrier pigeons, particularly with regard to the sending of covert communications, was also important.
The British and Americans made the most use of these pigeons and France would award many of them its Croix de Guerre medals of honor.
However, dogs and pigeons had been used in warfare before. There were two creatures used in even more inventive ways, however.
The first of these were glow worms. Trench warfare made use of any light, even candles, during nighttime potentially lethal.
Soldiers soon discovered that glow worms offered enough light to read maps and help find their way in pitch-dark trenches.
Perhaps the strangest creature used in the trenches of World War I was the common slug. Slugs were invaluable for a simple reason:
Slugs would detect gas well before soldiers could. Mustard gas could be lethal and had become extensively used during the war.
Legions of soldiers died excruciatingly or were maimed due to this toxic gas. Slugs would respond to the stress of these gases...
...by compressing their bodies and closing their pores in order to protect their lung membranes. And so, soldiers were forewarned.
The discovery had been made by Dr. Paul Bartsch of the Smithsonian Institute, and so the slugs were introduced in the final...
...months of the war in 1918. It is believed thousands of men's lives were saved due to the 'troops' known as the 'Slug Brigade.'