The difference in the way the wars were fought was huge - one was a war which took a year and cost 1,000,000 casualties, another took four and a single took 1,000,000 casualties. However, the technologies (except for the machine gun) used at the beginning of the war appear to be fairly similar.
However, the technologies (except for the machine gun) used at the beginning of the war appear to be fairly similar.
Nothing could be further from the truth; the Franco-Prussian War was fought using muzzle and breech-loaded artillery pieces, without recoil systems. from the 1890s onwards, artillery pieces began to appear with recoil systems, mostly hydraulic based, that allowed for a far higher rate of more accurate fire. In the case of the French 75mm Mle 1897, it could fire 15 75mm rounds per minute.
Rifles were magazine fed, and utilized smokeless powder which gave bullets a higher velocity, longer range, and flatter trajectory. Throw in machine guns, and weapons technology was far more deadly in 1914 than it was in 1871.
Now add in wireless communiations, motorized transport and aircraft, and it's clear that 1914 was a different kind of warfare than that waged in 1870-71. The armies of 1914 were far larger than those of 1870-71, so that also must be factored in. The Second Industrial Revolution had changed the way war was fought.