this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Germany was one of the world leaders in science and technology in the early 1900s all the way up to WWII

One of the greatest ironies of WWI is that going into the war, British and French propellants and explosive charges for artillery made extensive use of synthetic chemicals purchased from Germany, while German artillery propellants relied on guano from South America. The British Navy immediately choked off German supplies of foreign guano (and obviously France and Britain could no longer purchase German chemicals) leading to the so-called "shell crisis" that afflicted all sides with severe artillery shortages after the first few months of the war exhausted their stockpiles.

"Fortunately," all the combatants quickly found substitutes and ramped up production, allowing them to slaughter each other in enormous numbers for years more. Another fun fact: during WWI, approximately 260 artillery shells were fired for each soldier killed (and only about 2/3 of all dead soldiers were killed by artillery).

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Were the other 1/3 from flu/illness or are gas attacks not included in artillery deaths maybe?

Mostly machine gun and rifle bullets. Deaths from gas were quite rare, relatively speaking, although it caused a lot of non-fatal casualties. By "soldiers' deaths" I meant combat deaths, not illnesses, which in almost all wars in history killed more people than actual combat.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Not sure how "fun" that fact is, but yeah, the number of artillery shells fired in WWI is just amazing.