Science and World War I

Abstract
When the battle of Waterloo was won and lost and the fog of war finally cleared, the peoples of Europe found themselves face to face with a unique spectacle: an industrialized nation, Great Britain. During the Napoleonic wars the British had completed their industrial revolution; they had built great textile mills, and had equipped them with newly invented high-production machinery; they had even installed lifts, which they called ‘teagles’. They had developed great iron and coal industries and covered the country with a network of canals for transporting goods. The heavy machine-tool industry, vital for any developed economy, had begun in Britain. The ubiquitous steam-engines were far more efficient, versatile and powerful than any to be found in Europe. It was the successes of British steamengines, particularly the Cornish engines, that led Sadi Carnot to write his Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu.

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