How WWI Influenced the Development of Communications Tech

     World War One was one of the most devastating events in recorded human history.  It was the was the "war to end all wars". Along with being a cause of massive loss for the world population, it was also the catalyst for many new developments in the ways humans communicated.  Communications technologies saw many advances during the time period surrounding the war.  As is the case with most wars, this was the time of rapid development all over the planet even with communication as slow as ever with the exception of trains.  Airplanes were becoming more modern, radio began to be an excellent source of home entertainment and a way to relay information, the post service saw a boom because of soldiers sending mail back home, even language of many cultures changed due to soldiers conversing in the trenches, and government communication to the masses began to take a new turn.

WWI Aerial Photography

       Let us start around the end of the war when America finally decides to join in on the fun.  Military leaders quickly saw the advantages of new airplane and photography technology.  In order to gather intelligence on the whereabouts of enemy troops many scout missions consisting of airplanes with photographers hanging over the side of the cockpit to take pictures behind enemy lines.  This had never been available before this time.  It was a massive change in the way war was fought.  Although this new technology was able to more clearly communicate the business of enemies to officers it was still an excruciatingly long process.  The cameras of the time were nothing like a Polaroid camera.  It took hours to develop even one hazy photograph taken from hundreds of feet off the ground.  This form of communication of information took many steps from the time of WWI to the time of WWII and is still being developed today.

Radio Developments During the War

Wireless Telegraphy unit

     Radio is one of the biggest developments of communication caused by the war.  Before this time everything was wired in.  If you wanted to make a call you needed to be at home, work, or in a telephone booth.  Luxuries such as these were sadly unavailable to troops fighting in Europe. However soldiers on the front lines needed ways to communicate back to headquarters with out having to send a messenger to deliver a communique in person.  Thus radio, at the time called wireless telegraphy, was developed.  This technology would have been very useful to possibly prevent the war in the early 1900s.  Because the only form of communication many of the time had access to was a the post maybe traveling by train the leaders of the countries involved did not have the most communicative relationships.  It is known Germany was very unlikely to want to go to war if Britain was to intervene.  This knowledge could not be properly communicated in time to stop Germany from beginning its warpath.  Radio has become one of the most popular technological advancement of the last two centuries and if it was only invented a few years earlier could have prevented a world war.
       Unbeknownst to many modern citizens of the world, WWI was very influential in the development the language of the different cultures involved in the conflict.  Cushy, crummy, lousy, dud, and trench coats are all examples of slang developed by soldiers communicating in their horrid time spent in the trenches.  The mixing of social classes during the war made slang words known all over the world possible.  This shows how a war can influence almost every part of a society even into the vehicle for which people communicate.  I found it amazing that words like lousy and crummy refer to items in the trenches infested with lice.  It was always known to me that soldiers tend to have a knack for making slang and words like these from WWI demonstrate that point nicely.

Learn NC WWI Posters

     Government communication was also unable to escape the influence of the war.  In order to enlist more troops into the military America needed to sway the public opinion of the war.  To do this the best idea they came up with was a huge campaign of poster and propaganda to communicate the viciousness of the germans to the American public.  Posters such as the one depicted to the right were printed and posted all over America.  This one gives the message that as a civilized and powerful nation America needed to wake up and help the distressed European nations.  During the time of World War One American government made some very dissatisfying decisions about public relations.  America had been suffering through a recession and if it entered the war many jobs would blossom thus stimulating the economy.  This is what caused the propaganda which the government pumped into the blood of America.  The war was the cause of this development in communication technology.













My sources and what I learned from them;
The Radio Intelligence Devlelopments has information of the development of radio technology around the time of WWI. 

I learned about government regulation on communications from Europe and the wireless telegraph from The Newseum.
AVL Article "Fed up? Blame WWI" from News Limited Australia told me about how language was influenced by the war.
The Library of Congress had a pictorial concerning new developments in newspaper printing. (primary)
From the New York Times June 11, 1916 edition I learned that during the war newspapers began introducing many more images on their prints.
I found many different examples of Propaganda Posters on this site.
The British Postal Museum told me about the postal services available to soldiers during WWI.