What were the reasons for the extensive loss of life in World War 1?

Answer 1

There were so many casualites because of the new weapons that revolutionized warfare. For example, machine guns, gas, much more effective artillery, tanks and ect.

World war one was fought using old tactics during a time of modernized warfare, It was a war of Attrition during an era of mechanized weapons.

Answer 2

Because of Technology & the way that it was fought. Large numbers of men in static positions meant targetting by artillery was deadly. Similarly both the rifle & machine gun had improved out of all proportion to what had gone before. Obviously the Mk1 Human was essentially unchanged. Medicine was essentially still relatively primitive, so many whose lives in later conflicts would be prevented, died. (I don't know where I got this gem from, but I heard somewhere that Pennicillin saved lives in WW2, twice as many would have died but for its invention !) And it might also be a truism that Generals always fight the war before the one they are currently engaged in. As an example many British soldiers died on the first day of the Somme before they even got to the British, the British lines, never mind getting to grips with the enemy. Lions led by Donkeys. Similarly the situation at Verdun was no better either for the French or the Germans for that matter. von Falkenheyn thought that he could win by attrition & he was wrong. In the East the Russians lost very heavily, at Tannenberg for example and the Austrian/Hungarian forces were in turn affected dreadfully by the Brusilov offensive. On the Balkan fron there were 11 battles of the Isonzo, Rommel, famous in WW2, made his name at Caporetto. And all the above goes without the mention of the Tank, the Bayonet, Poison Gas or the Aeroplane.

Answer 3

1. new more effective weapons (e.g. machine guns, long range artillery, poison gas)
2. persistently using old style tactics against these new weapons even when the tactics proved ineffective (e.g. mass charges against machine gun fire, horse cavalry)
3. Old generals that could not consider any tactics but what they had used in previous wars
4. etc.

Answer 4

War had become industrialised, with such weapons as machine guns, artillery, and poison gas.

Answer 5

The death toll was so high in World War 1 because of all the new weapons that they have developed