Land Warfare
Land warfare, as the name implies, takes place on land. The most common type of warfare, it can encompass several modes and locales, including urban, arctic and mountain warfare.
The early part of the nineteenth century from 1815 to 1848 saw a long period of peace in Europe, accompanied by extraordinary industrial expansion. The industrial age brought about various technological advancements, each with their own implication. Land warfare moved from visual-range and semi person-to-person combat of the previous era, to indiscriminate and impersonal, "beyond visual range" warfare. The Crimean War (1853-1856) saw the introduction of trench warfare, long-range artillery, railroads, the telegraph and the rifle. The mechanized mass-destruction of enemy combatants grew ever more deadly: in World War I (1914-1918) machine-guns, barbed wire, chemical weapons and land-mines entered the battlefield. The deadly stalemated trench-warfare stage was finally passed with the advent of the modern armored tank late in the First World War.
One major trend involved the transition away from massed infantry fire and human waves to more refined tactics. This became possible with the superseding of earlier weapons like the highly inaccurate musket.
Read more about this topic: Industrial Warfare
Famous quotes containing the words land and/or warfare:
“The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow sky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next years seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (18861968)
“The transformation of the impossible into reality is always the mark of a demonic will. The only way to recognize a military genius is by the fact that, during the war, he will mock the rules of warfare and will employ creative improvisation instead of tested methods and he will do so at the right moment.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)