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If Rawlinson had committed his reserves then the outcome of the war would not have been changed. Many commentators hold up Rawlinson's early view of 'bite and hold' as the major lesson that should have been learned. Even Rawlinson, however, recognised that this tactic was not war-winning in general either. As long as the major combatants were prepared to keep going then the war was going to exact a high price on manpower. Although a temporary minor advance in tactics might reduce manpower losses for a brief period, the long-term price was going to be the same no matter what.There were plenty of attempts at rising about the 'pattern of extremely rapid adaptation'. General Nivelle's ill-fated Chemin des Dames offensive in 1917 was just such an example. Gallipoli was another.Each incremental tactic change may have been 'brief' but they were constant and multiple. There was no respite, as all sides constantly sought to gain a lasting advantage. Ultimately, manpower reserves, manufacturing capacity, and access to resources won out but none of these strategic elements were 'brief' in execution or time to conclusion.Respectfully, you over-estimate the mistrust between the British and French. I have read many accounts from various British and French politicians, generals, liaison officers on both sides (not just Spears), senior staff officers (for example, Pierrefeu's accounts of French GQG) and others. There were diverse opinions, disagreements, but rarely severe dysfunctional failures. The oft-reported incidents between Generals French and Lanrezac in August 1914 were not representative of the working relationships across the spectrum of political and military liaisons. Indeed, there was a tremendous sharing of information and lessons-learned, along with detailed strategic debates and planning sessions, such as General Joffre led in late 1915/early 1916. The French-Russian-British plans were undone by the German Verdun offensive, reminding us that the enemy never stood still.Robert
With respect to wargaming, I have focused on reproducing the huge scale of WW1 battles. The most interesting was the First Battle of the Marne, where we set out 50' of tables, with 10,000 figures, and reproduced the battles involving the German First and Second Armies versus the French Vth and VIth Armies as well as the BEF.I can't comment on whether Grant wanted to run a meat grinder but the reality is that, even with the various additional efforts of Sherman and Sheridan, the war continued to exact a heavy toll on casualties until the end. So it was with WW1 as well. There was extensive cooperation between the British and French forces on the Western Front for example; the more so after Foch was appointed Generalissimo. He worked closely with Haig and Pershing, as well as Pétain, to ensure that the Germans were hit with multiple rolling offensives across the whole line. This high-level strategy finally broke the German resistance but the casualty rate during the last 100 Days was amongst the highest in the war on the British side.Robert
If better strategic considerations had allowed something like the Hundred Days to take place in 1916 or even 1917, the overall casualties of the war as a whole would no doubt have been lower even if casualties in a major breakthrough campaign would have been high in any case.
The initial German invasion of France was an example of an all-out and everywhere attempt to destroy the Entente armies in Western Europe. First Ypres was another, though lesser attempt as it only covered a small proportion of the front. The former produced another very high casualty rate, mirroring the last 100 Days, but did not come close to achieving what the latter did. The British, French and Germans were able to feed in huge numbers of reinforcements in the first months of the war. Once the ability to manoeuvre was curtailed then the lack of heavy artillery and, more importantly, munitions prevented anything like the impact of 1918 from occurring in 1914. By 1918, the combination of massive manufacturing capabilities, extensive rail networks and other logistics improvements, American reinforcements, heavily depleted and over-extended German forces plus enormous Entente firepower finally brought the war to an end. These factors were not in place in 1916 or 1917. The combined efforts of Russia (Brusilov's offensive), Verdun, and the Somme did not have the same effects as the last 100 Days because, in part, the German forces were not depleted to anything like the same degree as 1918.Note the parallel to the length of time it took before the Soviets could mount the same type of rolling offensive actions in the latter stages of the Great Patriotic War.Robert
It seems we're talking past each other again, where I'm judging and speaking of higher levels of strategic planning and leadership than you are, and even beyond that to the causes and results of the war as a whole. Increases in artillery shell production (and reliability of the product!) were a real supply issue for Britain, but British shell production was hardly the be-all, end-all of the war.
I used British shell production as one example of a key strategic element of the war. The same issue affected all major participants in the war and was part of a wider strategic consideration around the up-scaling of production for all types of weapons, munitions, transport, etc, etc. It took years to ramp up production across all aspects of war-related materials. My point was that the first phase of ramping up was just to keep pace with the requirements of the time, ie catching up from a standing start to deal with the gaps in production and frontline needs due to the unexpected consumption/utilisation as well as the increased requirements imposed by the leap-frogging of new measures and counter-measures. It took 3-4 years before there was sufficient production capability across all aspects, not just shells, in order to outfit the Americans, maintain a constant rolling programme of attacks, etc, etc that resulted in the end of the war. Generals played a major part in demanding the expanded production but, until the war-time production reached the peaks that it did, there was no quick wins or easy fix to avoid casualties/shorten the war. You see the same pattern in the American Civil War and in World War 2.Robert
But if we're looking at that as an overall factor, we can see that all participants suffered from the same issues and all ramped up munitions production... Indeed, Germany held a massive advantage in munitions production in 1915 (triple the British output, and the divide is even starker if we factor in the quality of output) and still possessed a dominant lead through 1916, yet this did not lead to victory for the Central powers by 1916.
It was precisely because all participants suffered from the same issues and all ramped up production (across munitions, etc) that the war did not end quickly. The strategic blockade (executed mainly by the British) took several years to fully kick-in, steadily hampering German production through increasing scarcity of resources like copper for driving bands on shells and nickel for example. But it was the effect of attrition on manpower and morale, combined with the blockade's effect on German civilians back home in the Fatherland, that proved the final decisive factor in the end. Ziemann's superb analysis, published in his book 'War Experiences in Rural Germany', provides a detailed account of how the determination of the German soldiers was inexorably undermined until it reached the nadir of November 1918. The major combined effects of the strategic blockade and the Materialschlacht, ie the massive impact of industrialisation on the battlefield, wore down the numbers and the morale of the German army. This was never a war about a set of incompetent muddling generals. Britain, France and Germany faced the same problems, pushed for decisive advantage albeit at slightly different rates, found any advantage nullified, and refused to give way. Germany tried to match the strategic blockade but could not. Indeed, the U-boat campaign resulted in the full might of America being brought to bear.I respectively disagree with the significance you place on the comparison between British and German shell production in 1915. Britain had 3 times fewer forces in the field in any case; it was France that was the dominant player on the Western Front in 1915 as in the rest of the war. My point is that not even the combined production of Britain and France, alongside with the increase in German war production, resulted in anything like the impact of 1916, let alone the last two years of the war. As Ziemann notes, the first significant signs of decline in the German army began in late 1916. The Battles of Verdun and the Somme featured heavily in triggering these changes. These were archetypal attritional battles on a massive scale (up to that point in the war) but, just like the American Civil War and the Great Patriotic War, many more had to happen before one side finally collapsed from exhaustion.Robert
I hope that the debate has surfaced some perspectives that other readers may have found interesting and, perhaps, surprising.