World War One was the war which caused the greatest political and social changes in Europe, according to historians. (One example would be the fall of many monarchs, including the Kaiser and the numerous petty monarchs of Germany.) My plan was to find a way to show how the old order was destroyed, using a Mark IV tank. Yes, it's very vague, but my basic plan is to show the tank and some destroyed symbol of the old European order. I'm trying to decide as to what.

The tank will take a while for me to complete so I'm in no big hurry.

WW 1, and its ridiculous "piece treaty" create the furtile ground for nazism and thus gave us WW II.

WW I was also the war that gave us tanks and airplanes and the innovative use and combination of these new wapons with classical artillery and infantry led to the breakthough that made the germans give up in 1918.

its quite ironical that the allies forgot about that breakthorugh and buitl huge defecnes (maginot) against germany while the germans had understood the lesson and invented blitzkrieg

the intro of the tank was one of the big discoveries of ww1. as its been said also, the use of planes was another. but a couple other symbols of ww1 would be trench warfare and tunnel warfare.

Well it's not likely the tank would find any convenient German flagpole to run over, but how about it bypassing (or crushing) a German artillery position? The new order, a tank, smashing a 19th Century, horse drawn cannon. Emhar offers a simple (and inexpensive) kit of the German 77mm Model 96 n/a cannon. It needs additional detail (it's only about eight parts, as I recall), but what detail there is, is sharply molded. The figures are rubbish, but the gun would be deserted in this scenario, anyway.

myself personally, if i was to do a dio with that tank, the dio i would do would have a little height to it. nothing crazy, but it would include a few important things of the time. would be a muddy battlefield, nothing really longer or wider than the tank. it would be rolling over a trench, possibly a dead body in the trench, and obviously some barbed wire. here is where some of the height would come from....i would have tunnel warfare going on underneath all of that.

thats just my thought. use it or not. ill probably never do that one, so feel free to steal away

I see I didn't communicate my original point well enough. The idea was not so much to depict a battle scene as to (rather symbolically) show the changes to European society itself as a result of the war. To use another example, the Hundred Years' War caused the lower classes in France to hate their nobility and consider them worthless. The First World War did of course destroy the German and Ottoman empires, but even among the victors things certainly were different on the home front at the end.

I would like to offer some ideas, but I think it would be better if I let you elaborate on your intentions a little more so that I can actually provide some useful input.

I was thinking along the lines of this: the tank is next to some statue, building, or other structure representing some institution that was destroyed or rendered irrelevant after WW1.

That could certainly work, thought the tank would have had to break through well past the trenches into a border town, sometime in late 1918. A plastic 54mm kit of a Napoleonic figure on a suitable pedestal could do it, either a foot or mounted figure. Just paint it with a bluish green patina like an aging bronze statue (a metal or resin figure will do as well, but will cost a bit more). The pedestal could be made from styrene and textured to resemble stone.

British women over 30 had the vote in 1918, so why not have your tank passing a factory with a crowd of cheering women outside. The start of many changes to the 'system'
Paul

Hi there!
As I am currently into a WWI aircraft modelling rut, I also expanded my readings on this time period, so I'll add my 2 cents to the discussion hoping to be of help.
As someone else have already said, WW1 brought women on the scene (both politically and socially). Another upturn WW1 brought was the fall of the liberal dream-world of the '800 of progress, science, order and development. Think of the changes for the British empire and the rise of what now we call emerging markets that, at the time, was the Us.
WW1 was also massive and not restricted to a military elite as the previous wars, so almost every family was touched by it (consider that in Italy, but I think also in other countries, up to 17 years old were drafted...) leaving a deep sense of sorrow in the population: in ANY town and village in Italy you can find a memorial to WW1 fallen but NOT for WW2 fallen soldiers - they just added a plate to WW1 monuments.
All this monumets and memorials (the unknow soldier also was an 'invention' of WW1) could be part of your dio: the war that was to end all wars and the monumet to celebrate its end and its fallen just taken over by yet another war...

ciao
Edo

Hey, this could be an interesting stretch...


Pic is of the destroyed Ernest Louis de Gonzague Vandenpeereboom statue in Ypres, Belgium. He was a liberal party member in and successful Belgian doctor and industrialist. He died on November 11, 1875 (ironic). You could park your tank next to it and perhaps have it sitting atop a German flag or something. The idea being that it depicts the sheer destruction of the war and the hault of (i hope this is true, considering I know nothing of Belgian politics haha) forward thought and progress.

-Mike