The watchtower wants us to believe that World War 1 brought all kinds of new weapons into warfare and that is why it is different from previous wars. the following is a quote from the July 15/83 WT.
" There was an escalation of violence in the world before the Great Deluge—until God himself executed judgment in bringing to ruin those who were ruining the earth. (Genesis 6:13, 17) From the time of Noah’s great-grandson Nimrod, the “mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah,” there has again been an escalating of violence through the ages, perhaps gradual at first, but steadily gaining momentum. (Genesis 10:1, 6, 8, 9) There came in time the sword, the bow and arrow, the spear; and in more modern times the musket, the cannon and other firearms. But World War I, starting in 1914, brought astonishing new weapons of violence—the airplane, the tank, and also poison gas. In that war, use of the submarine caused much terror and machine guns took literally millions of lives."I always took this that they were saying that submarines and machine guns were first used in WW1 while in fact machine guns were in use in the 1880's and the Hunley, a submarine, was used in the american civil war.