“War is progress, peace is stagnation”*…
Even if one doesn’t share Hegel’s copacetic take on conflict, one can observe that wars do, in fact, usually encourage bursts of technological innovation. Indeed, most of us are pretty familiar (in both senses of the phrase) with the range of epoch-defining technologies that were a product of World War II: radar, radio navigation, rocketry, jet engines, penicillin, nuclear power, synthetic rubber, computers… the list goes on.
But we are perhaps a little less familiar with the advances– now so ingrained that we take them for granted– that emerged from World War I. Readers will recall one such breakthrough, and its author: Fritz Haber, who introduced chemical warfare (thus lengthening the war and contributing to millions of horrible deaths), then used some of the same techniques– nitrogen fixation, in particular– to make fertilizer widely and affordably available (thus feeding billions).
Five other key developments at “The 6 Most Surprising, Important Inventions From World War I.”
* Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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As we look for the silver lining, we might that it was on this date in 1917, “Army Registration Day,” that the draft was (re-)instituted in the U.S. for World War I. Draft board selections were subsequently made, and conscription began on July 20.
These draft boards were localized and based their decisions on social class: the poorest were the most often conscripted because they were considered the most expendable at home. African-Americans in particular were often disproportionately drafted, though they generally were conscripted as laborers.
Young men registering for conscription during World War I in New York City, New York, on June 5, 1917.