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A CLASH OF MILITARY CULTURES:
GERMAN & FRENCH APPROACHES TO TECHNOLOGY
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS
A Paper for the USAF Academy Symposium
September 1994
By James S. Corum
USAF School of Advanced Airpower Studies
Introduction
The First World War was a period of extraordinarily rapid
technological development. Military technology had changed
dramatically in the decades before World War I, but even the
most perceptive pre-war military thinkers of 1914 were
unable to predict the pace of wartime technical development.
The militaries of World War I had to adapt to the emergence
of the airplane, motor vehicle, tank and poison gas as major
new weapons. Commanders, general staffs and war departments
had to try to master the variety of new technology and adapt
technology to operations.
The period in between the world wars was a time of
extraordinary technological development for the world's
militaries. World War I had proven to be a technological
catalyst. Such weapons as the tank, which was introduced in
the war, enjoyed rapid development in the 1920s and 1930s.
Accelerated by the war, motor vehicle development
progressed, while every army engaged in motorization
experiments. Radios and electronics passed out of their
infancy as Britain and Germany developed radar. Most
dramatic of all was the evolution of the airplane from a
useful auxiliary weapon into a very powerful and decisive
arm of the military.
The French military was extremely successful in adapting to
technology during World War I. In many respects, the French
effort in this regard equalled, and in several instances
surpassed, the German. Deficient in heavy artillery at the
start of the war, by 1917-1918 the French Army had created a
superb heavy artillery arm.
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French vehicle production
exceeded the German, and by 1918, the French Army was more
advanced in motorization.
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The most dramatic difference
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In 1917, the French Army deployed the Canon de 155mm GPF as
the standard heavy gun. With a range of 19,500 meters and a
43kg shell, it was highly respected by the Germans and the
Allies. See Peter Chamberlain and Terry Gander, Heavy
Artillery, N.Y.: ARC (1975), p. 17. On other French guns,
see pages 14-19.
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Werner Oswald, Kraftfahrzeuge und Panzer der Reichswehr,
Wehrmacht und Bundeswehr, Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag
