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This is true. And it is also clear that some veterans wrote passionately about the seeming futility and waste. There were some veterans who loved being involved, who wanted to continue, who missed being in action. We see this today, for example, with some veterans taking up arms against ISIS. It seems to be a very small minority but there are WW1 memoirs that are full of these sentiments. The Master of Belhaven is one such book, about a British artillery officer who didn't survive the war but whose diaries were published.Peter Jackson's film is full of comments from veterans that echo what my Grandfather spoke about when he was alive. He never glorified war, quite the opposite. In his view, however, the war was a terrible necessity. In the 1970s, he had no truck for the idea that the generals had little or no idea how to fight a modern war. My Grandfather was very clear that the Germans were an extremely formidable and determined enemy. We can see this echoed in the fact that Germany continued fighting for more than 4 years. There was no simple or 'easy' way to overcome such a determined enemy. Like the American Civil War, the Great War was a massive struggle between two enemies that would not give way or give in. World War 2 was the same. Indeed, the only reason that we lament the casualties in WW1 is that we did not have to do what the USSR did in the Great Patriotic War. Had the Soviets not borne the brunt of the Germans in WW2 then we would be praising the ability of the WW1 generals to sustain so few casualties by comparison.War is a terrible thing. It exacts a terrible toll when determined foes remained locked in battles for years. We miss the point, however, if we think that generals were to 'blame' for what happened in WW1. This approach leads to a desire to praise and admire generals who seem flamboyant and daring. Remember the gasps of admiration as 'smart' bombs struck buildings so precisely in the First Iraq War? And the 'daring' left hook through the desert? But the 'war' was not won. The enemy learned and adapted, just as the Germans (and British and French) did in WW1. We need to stop wars happening the first place...Robert
While "Led by donkeys" is a common trope which is probably overstated, it is true that much of the senior allied leadership were older men, used to colonial wars or who leaned on the memories of the highly misleading Franco-Prussian war. Obviously it's clearer in hindsight, but any war on even footing from the American Civil War to the Edwardian era showed the the dominance of defensive technology vs offensive technology at the time. Funny enough, three years was also roughly the amount of time it took the Union forces to elevate effective leadership to senior positions as well.
Thank you for your reply. I will discuss the various points in different posts.All of the 'senior allied leadership' were familiar with the lessons of the Sino-Russian, Balkan, and South African wars. Observers from all of the major Western powers were present if their forces were not actively engaged. For example, lessons from aerial reconnaissance in the Italian invasion of Libya were applied during the British military manoeuvres before WW1. All of the major powers emphasised fire and manouevre, even down to the section/squad level prior to the Great War. This reflected a clear and oft-repeated analysis of the superiority of defence over attack, which could only be overcome by fire superiority and movement.The American Civil War was studied extensively in the British, French and German military colleges or equivalent. A key lesson from all of these studies (and from Kitchener's personal involvement in the Franco-Prussian War) was that the Great War was likely to be protracted. This view was reinforced in the Great German General Staff by the Volkskrieg [People's War] of the Franco-Prussian War - the long period of guerrilla warfare that took place after the 'highly misleading', seemingly dramatic collapse of France in the first weeks of the war. The German Army strove hard to avoid a protracted war in 1914 but General von Moltke the Younger knew full well what the failure on the Marne meant.It did take the Union several years to settle on General Grant as the most effective leader. His approach was to push and keep pushing, no matter what the cost. Grant's battles of attrition mirror what had to happen in the First World War too. The South was no more likely to collapse than the Germans - both were utterly determined adversaries.Robert
The post-Crimean reforms DID do away with the outright purchase of offices, but the British army still grappled with the effects of class bias on their officer corps (as did many European armies of the age, to be fair). I also feel that the German army on the other hand was less likely to suffer the effects of non-military class distinctions and tended to allow more autonomy to junior officers, which generally led to more effective command at lower levels (a doctrine which they took much further in WWII of course).
Even without the shackles of past experience, the war went on long enough that unworkable tactics were pursued long after it became clear that pre-battle projections were consistently, repeatedly over-optimistic. There's certainly hay to be made arguing about how quickly a person in that position might be expected to learn, or about how much the allied leadership were let down by unknowable factors outside their control (such as the disastrous quality of British shells early in the war, the horrible French attempts at an early light machine gun, or the understandably protracted development period of mobile offensive weapons such as tanks), but it's also clear that there were many younger officers champing at the bit with new ideas who could have been given opportunities one or even two years sooner.
Class bias was an issue in the British and German armies alike; much less so with the Republican French army. Within the German army, there were the biases at the equivalent of the state level. Bavarians, Saxons, Württembergers, etc often wrote about being treated as inferior by Prussians. The biggest problem within the German army, however, was the relationship between the General Staff and the other senior commanders. Writers like Jack Sheldon have clearly shown how the role of the General Staff created significant friction within the German army. The concept also saw men like von Loßberg and Bruchmüller elevated to positions of great influence, without having climbed the normal chain of command. The latter officer planned the artillery barrages for Operation Michael. One German army chose to follow his 'advice'; the other did not. The latter did not succeed anywhere near as well on the first day, despite however well the junior officers were trained and exercised command at the tactical level. Robert
The issue of the 'learning curve' lies at the crux of this debate. The notion is predicated on the idea that there was a way to overcome the Germans but no-one was smart enough to figure it out or flexible enough to lay aside outdated views until several years had gone by. The latter concept conjures up a view of 'stuck-in-the-mud' generals who refused to 'see' what was actually happening.In reality, there was a complex set of processes that mitigated against a 'quick win'. Most significantly, at no point in the war was there a 'simple fix' that, once applied, could overcome the enemy. The reason being that all sides were constantly adapting to each other within weeks, eventually almost in real-time. Take the Battle of Neuve Chapelle for example. This was launched by the British in early 1915 after the introduction of static warfare. A hurricane bombardment, supported by artillery in the front line firing over open sights, opened up the German trenches and enabled a rapid penetration of the British attacking force, except on the British left flank. Despite having been requested by Haig to plan for quick exploitation of such success, Rawlinson refused to let the advance continue immediately. He preferred to consolidate the situation rather than push on, which enabled the German reinforcements to come forward and negate any further advance. The initial assault was so successful that details were published throughout the French army as an example of best practice.The Germans quickly examined the 'lessons learned' by way of their After Action Reports. Immediately, they set about putting counter-measures in place. The depth of trench lines was increased. MG nests were positioned at ground level within the parapets, protected by metal rails. Barbed wire defences were upgraded, with wire being placed below ground level in many cases. This made the wire obstacles invisible to advancing troops. These changes meant that the next time the British attacked, it was not possible to create or maintain a deep lodgement as happened in Neuve Chapelle.The process of development and counter-development went on throughout the war. By way of another example, as the Germans mastered the techniques of immediate counter-attacks with Stoßtruppen in 1916 and 1917 so the British developed new tactics to counter the counter-attacks. In the Third Battle of Ypres, British intelligence officers followed immediately behind the advancing British and Dominion attacking forces in each of the major advances. They quickly interrogated captured German prisoners and read any captured documents. This enabled them to understand, in near real-time, how and where the German counter-attacks would be launched. British artillery were then tasked with interdiction missions, based on the new intelligence. Ludendorff and his architect of the counter-attack, von Loßberg, became desperate to figure out how to negate the advantage that now lay with the British. The new tactics exacted a heavy toll of German forces, causing one German writer to note how drained and worn out von Loßberg had become as he tried to figure the next move. As it happened, Ludendorff decided to go back to packing the German front line with defenders, just like Neuve Chapelle. The consequences were disastrous for the German defenders. Crown Prince Rupprecht wrote of the huge relief that the rains brought late in the extended battle. Otherwise, the Germans would have had to execute their plan for abandoning the Ypres area.Robert
...the Americans demonstrated far too late it would have been possible to greatly increase the effectiveness of trench assaults with a mundane existing weapon - the shotgun - whose absence from earlier assaults was almost shocking in retrospect.
But British efforts in this regard weren't just bad... sometimes they were plain disgraceful. The British attempt to involve Romania - who could have been a major threat to the Alliance, had matters been better planned - was such a complete cock up, that the British essentially destroyed what was left of the country just to deny it to the Germans.
I respectfully disagree. The Romanians were completely responsible for their decision to join the war. They illustrated what could happen when a military force attempted to engage with the Entente after the latter had two years of experience in the war. The Romanian example is one of the best at illustrating how the war had evolved. The major powers had kept up with each other, constantly innovating and nullifying the enemy's progress, who in turn nullified the new innovations. Bring in a new player after two years... the Romanians were no match until the front finally stabilised after the fall of Bucharest. The Romanians were then refitted and retrained, subsequently performing well in the Battle of Mărășești for example. Robert
As it happens, I am translating a copy of a German account of one of the first major battles featuring the American 2nd Division. This is the series of battles that took place in June 1918, in and around Belleau Wood. The 5th and 6th Marine Regiments featured in these battles. The book is entitled 'Sternenbanner gegen Schwarz-weiß-rot', which translates as 'Star-spangled Banner versus Black-White-Red'. The latter refers to the colours of the Reich war flag: General Pershing had come to the conclusion that the British and French armies were using outmoded tactics. He was keen that the American forces should demonstrate a better way to conduct infantry assaults. The Big Red One had enjoyed a minor success in capturing Cantigny earlier, with the aid of French tanks and flamethrower units. Belleau Wood brought home how difficult the problem of assaulting German forces could be. For ten days, the Marines attempted to take Belleau Wood and surrounds. The Germans described their attempts as brave but naive essentially. The initial assaults were cut to ribbons with enfilade machine gun fire. Eventually, in a battle of attrition in which numbers won out, the Marines took and then finally held the wood. The Germans had huge respect for what the Marines achieved in the end but not so for the means.It wasn't possible to get close enough to use shotguns until Day 11 (not that there is any evidence that shotguns were actually used in this battle).Worse was to come in the Meuse-Argonne offensive...The point is not that the American forces were useless, far from it! But there was a massive lesson that had to be learned the hard way - there was no 'simple' bloodless way to beat the Germans in the field of battle.Robert
However, it's not so much the individual tactical changes that I'm focusing on, but the failure to rise above that pattern of extremely rapid adaptation. I've read my share of what-ifs in the wake of bunglings, but even if Rawlinson had committed the reserves, it's unlikely this would have crucially changed the outcome of the war, along with a hundred other what-ifs.
It's the conflicts between staffs and allied nations (the internal German divisions had nothing on the British-French mistrust, well that's my opinion anyway), and the horrible failure to think in larger scales which bother me more. It's a very military habit to focus on those brief incremental tactical advantages, but an excessive focus on them to me indicates a leader promoted well beyond his ability; a case of target fixation no army side could afford.
Military buffs do this too! The what-if of battles past are fun to think about, and as wargamers how often do we see historical battles refought on a 4x6 table? But just as the better leaders in Union in the ACW realized that it was about the larger strategic numbers. Even Grant didn't just want to run a meat grinder, and he took many steps to avoid straight one-for-one attrition as much as possible. What was key was that Winfield Scott, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman all understood very well that losing a single battle was not as important as overall strategic considerations. Grant knew they had to USE the manpower and materiel advantages of the Union in full, especially for major strategic operations which would result in meaningful changes in the war's situation - Vicksburg, being a prime example; casualties were atrocious, but splitting the Confederacy in twain constituted a massive strategic blow. Sherman, in his turn, moved to destroy the tottering economy of the Confederacy. These were grand plans appropriate to their position as high-ranking senior generals, and they worked together harmoniously not only to sketch their operations but to execute them - famously so in Grant and Sherman's case.