The British built the first tanks, used in the Somme front in 1916 during World War I. Here a tank leaves the Germans agape. Despite the tanks, however, the trenches held. But the British tactician J.F.C. Fuller already knew why: to be effective large tank formations had to act on their own with high caliber guns and not serve as mere shields for infantry movements.

At its start World War I was a war of movement as in the battle for Givenchy, the subject of this painting, during which the Germans first captured the village and then had to surrender it to a British counter-attack. Once the trenches were dug movement along the continuous lines became a crawl.

British soldiers fire flares to prevent a German surprise attack on their trenches during World War I.

This painting represents an early dogfight between British and German biplanes during World War I. Some details do not seem right. For one thing they are flying far too high over the ground. For another the machine-gun emplacement on the British plane is probably anachronistic having been replaced by the engine-gun synchronization at an early stage of the war. And finally the German fighter has two engines and, if such a model did exist, it was not in common use.

German submarine warfare during World War I almost choked Britain. All out attacks on shipping began in 1917 and grew alarmingly until they were dramatically curtailed with America's entry in the war and the use of escorted convoys. To save torpedoes, German u-boats generally surfaced and attacked unarmed merchantmen with their cannon, although in this case the sub appears to have surfaced to see the damage a torpedo inflicted.