At the Battle of the Somme, British tanks effectively disrupted that paradigm and began to break the stalemate, cementing their place as a vital component of modern warfare. By the Second World War, tanks were accepted as the backbone of modern armies and, along with increasingly powerful airplanes and mechanized infantry, comprised the German Blitzkrieg. Tanks have been a feature of war for nearly a hundred years and they continue to be used in armed conflict today, though not on the same scale as during the World Wars. Nevertheless, the armies of the industrialized world have continued to innovate and improve upon the design of the modern tank as they are still used in battlefields around the world today. Before the World War I, cavalry was one of the most effective ways for an armed force to disrupt an enemy in a fixed position. Cavalry forces were, after the advent of gunpowder, often equipped with a pistol and a sabre and deployed in a fashion that enabled them to abuse the mobility afforded them by riding on horseback to flank infantry or other forces made vulnerable by immobility. (Bevin 2002) The proliferation of machine guns continued through the beginning of World War I, rendering cavalry charges and generally any activity exposing one to prolonged line of sight ineffective if not close to futile. The trenches in Europe were created as a direct response to the development of the machine gun seeing as to how machine guns could fire with some accuracy and speed at hundreds of rounds per minute. French and British forces could not charge from their trenches against the German trenches without suffering withering fire from machine guns and vice versa. The stalemate continued for a couple years and involved the creation of hundreds of miles of trenches adorned with layers upon layers of barbed wire and machine guns nests. Facing the prospect of a protracted conflict with appalling conditions for men in the trenches compelled the Germans and the British to counter the dangers posed by no man's land. It is from this sentiment that improved mortars were designed as well as shells that could be lobbed into opposing trenches that sprayed poison gas into the air, filling the trenches and killing the men inside or simply incapacitating them. Needless to say, morale on both sides was extremely low as the environment was so tremendously hostile and the war seemed bound to continue indefinitely. The development of the first tank was undertaken by the Brit