Switch Theme:

Do WW1 generals deserve their bad reputation?  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Poll
Do WW1 generals deserve their bad reputation?
Yes 50% [ 28 ]
No 30% [ 17 ]
Don't Know 20% [ 11 ]
Total Votes : 56
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

We're all familiar with the terms lions led by donkeys, chateau generals, Napoleonic War mindset etc etc

And given the appalling losses suffered by all sides during the conflict, the generals have borne the blunt of the blame over the years, but is it really that simple?

For sure, Conrad von Hötzendorf should not have been entrusted with an empty cardboard box, let alone millions of Austrian-Hungarian troops, whilst Luigi Cadorna could have served Italy best by jumping off a cliff in 1915!

And of course Douglas Haig remains a controversial figure in Britain to this day.

But consider the following:

The sheer scale of industrial warfare that took everybody by surprise.

The pressure on generals to have the boys home for Christmas, therefore forcing them into quick attacks.

The difficult learning curve needed to overcome the trench and the machine gun.

Transport in its infancy i.e cars and tracked vehicles, which made defending easier than attacking e.g trains rushing in reinforcements for the defender, whilst the attacker slogs over a crater filled wasteland

The evolution of tactics from 1914 to 1918 showing lessons learned: e.g compare platoon size and armament in 1918 to 1914. Combined arms tactics were learnt, but at a high cost.

The surprisingly high numbers of generals killed and captured during the war...

To be honest, I'm on the fence on this one when it comes to critically assessing WW1 generals. Not every general yearned for a glorious Waterloo style cavaly charge.

What does dakka think?

And in response to feedback and complaints, the poll question matches the title of this thread!


"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Of course not all were bad, but not all were good and considering the vast number of lives lost in tactics that were, repeatability proven to fail, does suggest that there were some critical failings going on that passed high up the chain of command.

A general is nothing without an army so its rare that only the general could be the only element in the wrong; but they are the icon that marks the fact that it was the upper ranks view, perception and direction of the war that resulted in massive casualties and the use of tactics that were ineffective in a very new warfront. Also it got highlighted, because unlike many wars before where you'd have a few pitched battles and once the main armies met it was sort of over once the battle was done - in this you had a very prolonged trench war which ground the war on and on and on.

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

 Overread wrote:
Of course not all were bad, but not all were good and considering the vast number of lives lost in tactics that were, repeatability proven to fail, does suggest that there were some critical failings going on that passed high up the chain of command.

A general is nothing without an army so its rare that only the general could be the only element in the wrong; but they are the icon that marks the fact that it was the upper ranks view, perception and direction of the war that resulted in massive casualties and the use of tactics that were ineffective in a very new warfront. Also it got highlighted, because unlike many wars before where you'd have a few pitched battles and once the main armies met it was sort of over once the battle was done - in this you had a very prolonged trench war which ground the war on and on and on.


In defence of the generals, a lot of air force pilots were lost, and a lot of ships were sunk with high naval losses...

It took a long time for the British Admiralty to get a grip on the U-Boat problem, so incompetence was prevalent in the other service branches, not just the army.

"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in gb
Drakhun





Short answer, No.
Long answer, you'll have to wait until I finish work.

DS:90-S+G+++M++B-IPw40k03+D+A++/fWD-R++T(T)DM+
Warmachine MKIII record 39W/0D/6L
 
   
Made in gb
Is 'Eavy Metal Calling?





UK

I think the reputation of callous butchers that Britain's generals have in the popular perception is one that is wholly undeserved. While their conduct of the war can certainly be criticised, actually examining the evidence debunks a lot of the myths that the more traditionalist school of thought would have you believe.

For instance, the idea that they all sat in French chateaus miles behind the lines is completely overstated. In fact, in 1915, British HQ actually had to issue an order against high-ranking officers from spending too much time with the troops near the front as too many were getting injured or killed. 78 British generals in total were killed in action, which is a significant figure that doesn't really square with the idea that they were all sitting miles behind the front drinking champagne and eating fine food. The reason Allied headquarters were so often based in chateaus and mansions has far more to do with them being large enough to facilitate the number of personnel needed to actually run an army rather than any concerns over making the high ranks comfortable.

Another common misconception is this idea that they were all old-fashioned cavalry officers, unwilling to try new methods or technology and totally out of their depth. The truth in that is that yes, their military experience was largely of pre-industrialised warfare and yes, they were initially out of their depth, but only because the nature of the First World War changed warfare so instantly and dramatically that no one in 1914 could ever have had the adequate training or experience. In fact, I'd suggest the British generals were among the most effective when it came to adapting to the new way of warfare. They were the first to put tanks into action, had arguably the most successful air force for most of the war, and while they lagged behind in some areas (mission-oriented command, at the tactical level, for instance, came about rather slowly in the British army compared to the German army) I think it's fair to say a general progression can be easily observed. By 1918, you can see massive progress in all levels, with the Hundred Days offensive representing one of the most successful offensive operations of the war. Combined arms, effective planning and a coordinated and disciplined advance broke the Hindenburg line and was at least in large part responsible for the Allied victory.

As for the rates of attrition, encapsulated in the popular imagination by the first day of the Somme and often the main criticism levelled at the British command, a key thing to remember is that Britain (and France) had to be fighting an offensive war at that point. The initial German advance had captured enough ground that to simply stay on the defensive would be to cede large amounts of French and Belgian land to Germany, while the Germans could stay defensive and dig in at their convenience. Charging across an open field at machine guns might not be particularly effective, but ultimately, if the enemy are on the other side of a field and have machine guns, and you need force them back, you don't have a lot of options. To use the Somme as an example, it's hardly a bull-headed waste of life. Its aims were strategically valid (remove German pressure from the French at Verdun, push back along a wide front), there was adequate preparation (extensive mining under German lines, aerial recon and coordinated planning) and actually saw new methods and technology (most notably the tank and new artillery techniques) being implemented, all of which runs counter to the idea that Haig simply sat down one morning and said 'you know what, let's do The Somme' which a lot of people seem to believe. The attack itself might have failed, but the planning, preparation and conduct of it do not suggest callousness or incompetence, and to say the offensive was pointless is to entirely misread the nature of the war.


So yes, I'm firmly in the revisionist camp on this one. Certainly, there are individuals to be criticised and plenty of criticism to be levelled, but in terms of how the war was conducted, I think the British Generalship gets a highly undeserved reputation. If you want to 'blame' something for the immense loss of life and the lack of progress made over portions of the period, I think that has to be considered a product of the dynamics of industrial war. It was the machine gun, the artillery and the fortification of lines that created a situation whereby every inch of ground taken had to come at great cost. Generals were forced to adapt to this and at time, may not have done the best job in the world of it, but they consistently endeavoured to make it better, not worse as some would have you believe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

It took a long time for the British Admiralty to get a grip on the U-Boat problem, so incompetence was prevalent in the other service branches, not just the army.


I'm not sure you can correlate incompetence with inexperience, or with the scale of the losses. The navy is outside my wheelhouse so I'll avoid that, but when it comes to the Royal Flying Corps, aside from a few short periods (the Fokker Scourge and Bloody April) I'd say the leadership learned very rapidly, adapting effectively and operated appropriately.

Trenchard is often considered the 'Haig of the air' on account of his pursuit of an offensive doctrine (particularly in 1916-18). However, much like Haig, this can be seen as a necessity and a valid approach. Trenchard understood that for air operations to have any usefulness whatsoever, you actually had to be able to operate over the front. Yes, this meant a large-scale and costly offensive had to be maintained against the German Air Service, but without that, there was no scope for the RFC to conduct aerial recon, artillery spotting, photography, bombing, ground support, all the roles that actually made them useful to the army as a whole.

Much like Haig's offensives on the ground, Trenchard's operations over the Somme were not just casually throwing away pilots and aircraft, they were part of a concerted effort to actually achieve something, based in sound doctrine and within the scope of the RFC's capability. If anything, they were more successful than on the ground, as by July 1916 the German Air Service was entirely on the defensive; its aerodromes bombed to bits, its numbers depleted and the RFC left free to conduct vital supporting roles over the Somme as the offensive began.

Costly, yes, incompetent, no.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/31 12:50:27


 
   
Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

Yeah, good post Paradigm.

I will disagree with you on a few minor points.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Lord Kitchener, when his ship struck a mine near Scapa Flow, en route to Russia, has to be one of the worst levels of incompetence I have ever read about regarding the Royal Navy. So yeah, actions like that, can't be chalked up to inexperience. And of course, the Gallipoli debacle, with the Navy's failure to neutralise Turkish gun positions, is another black mark against the Royal Navy.

I take nothing away from the Navy, who have went above and beyond for Britain, on so many occasions, but WW1 was not their finest hour IMO.

As to haig, it's often overlooked that Gough and Rawlinson did a lot of the planning for the Somme, but in saying that, when it was clear the offensive was going nowhere, Haig should have pulled the plug on it, rather than continue to suffer further losses.


"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in gb
Is 'Eavy Metal Calling?





UK

Fair points regarding the navy, as I say that's not something I've really looked into so I'm inclined to agree there.

As for simply calling off the Somme, I'm not sure how viable that would have been. Say you get to August and it's clear the initial advance has failed, pulling back at that point gives the Germans at least 3 months of fighting time before winter set in to launch a counterattack against a massively depleted British army which could well have broken it. By keeping up the offensive, the Germans are at least prevented from launching that manner and scale of counterattack, even if it was costly to do so.

There's also the issue of morale, which is rather more nebulous; while British morale likely sagged after the immense early losses, it may well have been the case that simply calling the whole thing off would do even more damage; While the early 20th century 'Cult of the Offensive' among European commanders overstates things, it's probably fair to say than army fighting aggressively (even with limited results) will have a stronger moral core than one that has suffered an unmitigated disaster and retreated, and then has to sit in place for a few months knowing that was all for nothing and that the enemy could overwhelm them at any moment. As demoralising as constant attacks likely were, I think you could at least argue that admitting the failure of the early offensive and withdrawing might be even more of a drain on morale. I guess the French mutinies stand as a counterpoint to that though, given that they were a refusal to take further offensive action rather than a refusal to fight at all.

 
   
Made in gb
Keeper of the Holy Orb of Antioch





avoiding the lorax on Crion

Short answer..

No one had faced a major war in Europe for maybe 100 years. The only battles where smaller colonial fights but nothing anywhere near the scale. The continent did not have a major infrastructure to support a large army like Europe.

One of thr largest was the Zulu wars when UK deployed around 20,000 men. Even then they pushed the limit of the capability.

The generals have no experience in the scale or warfare, the machine guns, massed artillery, this was a entirely new form, scale and type of warfare. The largest battles in Africa, middle east. USA, no one had anything like scale of WW1

Same with submarines. No one had ever used them.

The early war was part a brutal, bloody learning curve.

At end of day. Tanks. Plans, machine guns, artillery and submarines had never been used on such a scale, so widely and trench warfare was new.

Defense advantages where enormous and almost like seige warfare than anything else. Many ainciant examples require serious numerical advantage to win, and even then its bloody..

All considered.
Alot of generals did not know at start did not know quite how to work in this new age. Everything had to reinvented and that is not a easy task.




Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.

"May the odds be ever in your favour"

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.

FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.  
   
Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

 jhe90 wrote:
Short answer..

No one had faced a major war in Europe for maybe 100 years. The only battles where smaller colonial fights but nothing anywhere near the scale. The continent did not have a major infrastructure to support a large army like Europe.

One of thr largest was the Zulu wars when UK deployed around 20,000 men. Even then they pushed the limit of the capability.

The generals have no experience in the scale or warfare, the machine guns, massed artillery, this was a entirely new form, scale and type of warfare. The largest battles in Africa, middle east. USA, no one had anything like scale of WW1

Same with submarines. No one had ever used them.

The early war was part a brutal, bloody learning curve.

At end of day. Tanks. Plans, machine guns, artillery and submarines had never been used on such a scale, so widely and trench warfare was new.

Defense advantages where enormous and almost like seige warfare than anything else. Many ainciant examples require serious numerical advantage to win, and even then its bloody..

All considered.
Alot of generals did not know at start did not know quite how to work in this new age. Everything had to reinvented and that is not a easy task.





I'm not sure.

The Russo-Japanese War was a pretty bloody conflict, and that had only been 10 years before or something, and all the European powers, and the USA who sent a young MacArthur, sent observers, who reported back on how bloody it was, especially the effective use of Japanese artillery, but sadly, the warnings from the observers were ignored.

There is off course the lessons from the American Civil War, whch were either ignored or not known about...


"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in gb
[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Killer Klaivex







You have to remember that the Boer War was equally in recent memory alongside the Russo-Japanese war and actually had British participants (the other was limited primarily to Royal Navy observers). Saying that they should have looked at both wars and said that 'this one is the right one to learn from and this one wasn't' is something you can only do with hindsight.

Not only that, they went to great lengths to try and learn/plan from the Boer War. There are fat stacks of documents in the British National Archives on that specific subject if anyone wants to go and take a look.


 
   
Made in fi
Confessor Of Sins




 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I'm not sure.

The Russo-Japanese War was a pretty bloody conflict, and that had only been 10 years before or something, and all the European powers, and the USA who sent a young MacArthur, sent observers, who reported back on how bloody it was, especially the effective use of Japanese artillery, but sadly, the warnings from the observers were ignored. There is off course the lessons from the American Civil War, whch were either ignored or not known about...


The civil war was ancient history at that point, but Russia vs Japan was something that did shock the European powers. It was almost inconceivable that some backwards far eastern country could build up so quickly and beat one of the strongest "Old Powers" in war! Various aid and political manuevering bailed Russia out and forced Japan to back down though, so maybe it was seen as more of a curiosity than a change in warfare? Russian incompetence and Japanese double-dealing (for surely the japs couldn't beat Europeans in honest war)?
   
Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

 Ketara wrote:
You have to remember that the Boer War was equally in recent memory alongside the Russo-Japanese war and actually had British participants (the other was limited primarily to Royal Navy observers). Saying that they should have looked at both wars and said that 'this one is the right one to learn from and this one wasn't' is something you can only do with hindsight.

Not only that, they went to great lengths to try and learn/plan from the Boer War. There are fat stacks of documents in the British National Archives on that specific subject if anyone wants to go and take a look.


There was ten years between the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese war, and WW1. Plenty of time for lessons to be learned, studies to be done etc etc

One of the first things the Germans did after WW1 was ask themselves why they had lost it. Their conclusions obviously led to their doctrine for WW2.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spetulhu wrote:
 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I'm not sure.

The Russo-Japanese War was a pretty bloody conflict, and that had only been 10 years before or something, and all the European powers, and the USA who sent a young MacArthur, sent observers, who reported back on how bloody it was, especially the effective use of Japanese artillery, but sadly, the warnings from the observers were ignored. There is off course the lessons from the American Civil War, whch were either ignored or not known about...


The civil war was ancient history at that point, but Russia vs Japan was something that did shock the European powers. It was almost inconceivable that some backwards far eastern country could build up so quickly and beat one of the strongest "Old Powers" in war! Various aid and political manuevering bailed Russia out and forced Japan to back down though, so maybe it was seen as more of a curiosity than a change in warfare? Russian incompetence and Japanese double-dealing (for surely the japs couldn't beat Europeans in honest war)?


Ketara's an expert on Russia's military/armaments pre-WW1, but from my limited reading, the Russians actually did implement a lot of changes in their army as a result of the Japan debacle.

So yes, somebody obviously learned some lessons

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/31 14:00:40


"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in gb
[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Killer Klaivex







 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

There was ten years between the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese war, and WW1. Plenty of time for lessons to be learned, studies to be done etc etc

The British made considerable efforts to observe and learn from the Russo-Japanese war; far more than any other nation. The concept of a general staff and forward planning were extremely new for the British Army at that point however. The British Army Council and General Staff were only created in 1904. You have to remember that the bulk of funding/attention went tot he Royal Navy, not the British Army. They did spend some considerable time and effort overhauling their artillery however, coming up with plans for war in Europe, and several other things.

To put it bluntly, you can say 'they didn't do this', but that's because you're ignoring all the things that they did right; on account of the fact that your attention isn't drawn to it. Nobody when writing a history of the war says, 'this particular Victorian logistical supply chain procedure was overhauled successfully' because they're too busy writing about how the British had no howitzers. Nobody says, 'the Royal Family were finally extracted like a sore bloody tooth from the command structure' because they're laughing at how Kitchener announced new armies with no weapons to give them. To give a direct parallel, everyone is so busy pointing at the fact that machine guns were treated like artillery doctrinally, but fail to give credit for the fact that the new Vickers machine gun had been successfully trialled, tested, and rolled out (albeit in small numbers).

Nobody ever notices the things that are done right. It's like the news today; all that gets reported is stuff that goes wrong. The NHS never gets a headline reading 'Everything going quite well for the last week'.


The pre-war British Army did some things right, and some things wrong. Some of those things done wrong were the result of politics, financial constraints, or other relevant aspects. But the sheer complexity can't really be summed in a 'Did they do it right or not', anymore than the question at the top of this page can be.

Ketara's an expert on Russia's military/armaments pre-WW1, but from my limited reading, the Russians actually did implement a lot of changes in their army as a result of the Japan debacle.

More British than Russsian I'm afraid. I can usually pinpoint continental sources when I need them, but I'm not quite bilingual yet.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/01/31 14:23:44



 
   
Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

 Ketara wrote:
 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

There was ten years between the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese war, and WW1. Plenty of time for lessons to be learned, studies to be done etc etc

The British made considerable efforts to observe and learn from the Russo-Japanese war; far more than any other nation. The concept of a general staff and forward planning were extremely new for the British Army at that point however. The British Army Council and General Staff were only created in 1904. You have to remember that the bulk of funding/attention went tot he Royal Navy, not the British Army. They did spend some considerable time and effort overhauling their artillery however, coming up with plans for war in Europe, and several other things.

To put it bluntly, you can say 'they didn't do this', but that's because you're ignoring all the things that they did right; on account of the fact that your attention isn't drawn to it. Nobody when writing a history of the war says, 'this particular Victorian logistical supply chain procedure was overhauled successfully' because they're too busy writing about how the British had no howitzers. Nobody says, 'the Royal Family were finally extracted like a sore bloody tooth from the command structure' because they're laughing at how Kitchener announced new armies with no weapons to give them. To give a direct parallel, everyone is so busy pointing at the fact that machine guns were treated like artillery doctrinally, but fail to give credit for the fact that the new Vickers machine gun had been successfully trialled, tested, and rolled out (albeit in small numbers).

Nobody ever notices the things that are done right. It's like the news today; all that gets reported is stuff that goes wrong. The NHS never gets a headline reading 'Everything going quite well for the last week'.


The pre-war British Army did some things right, and some things wrong. Some of those things done wrong were the result of politics, financial constraints, or other relevant aspects. But the sheer complexity can't really be summed in a 'Did they do it right or not', anymore than the question at the top of this page can be.

Ketara's an expert on Russia's military/armaments pre-WW1, but from my limited reading, the Russians actually did implement a lot of changes in their army as a result of the Japan debacle.

More British than Russsian I'm afraid. I can usually pinpoint continental sources when I need them, but I'm not quite bilingual yet.


A good post as always, but you've overlooked the fact that all the reforms in the world won't help the British Army when Sir John French is the man at the wheel!

To say he was a controversial figure is an understatement.

"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in us
Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH

I'll say that when we talk about "generals," by WWI you need to distinguish between brigadiers or even division commanders, and that high command leading Corps, armies, and army groups. There were no shortage of capable flag officers, because there was high turnover.

When we look at high command, I think the biggest thing we can blame them for, at least on the Western Front, is insisting on doing "something" when it hasn't worked the prior time. After the Somme, the British didn't really learn that massive breakthroughs were unlikely, they just kept trying. Ditto the French offensives. The Germans, aside from Verdun, avoided offensives between the race to the Sea and 1918. OTOH, Austrian and especially Italian high command were very poor.

On the other hand, the Western Allies were pretty creative in ways to exploit strategic flanks, they just botched them badly, for example at Gallipoli. The Mesopotamian campaign was badly run, but eventually caused the ottomans to collapse.
The Salonica front was... there, I guess.

It's common to point to the Civil War for lessons on WWI, but as many are quick to point out, there aren't the sharp tactical or even stratgegic lessons there. The ACW was still fought in lines of battle, artillery could not destroy the most secure fortifications, and while the end of the war was trench warfare, Grant never reallyl figured out how to break a trench stalemate. The bigger, more real lesson from the civil war was about the economic realities of industrial war. In both the ACW and WWI, the victor carried out a successful naval blockade which caused economic collapse on the home front.

With 20/20 historical hindsight, we know that the Union in the ACW could have avoided every direct attack on Richmond, and simply fought in the west, splitting the confederacy, and starving the south out with blockade. Likewise, the Western Allies in WWI could have focused on reinforcing Russia, fighting in the Balkans and the Middle East, and waited out the starving Germans.

That's a great theoretical strategy... but it's hard to convince a government or a people that you're winning a war when you're sitting in trenches, ceding ground to the enemy.
   
Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

 Polonius wrote:
I'll say that when we talk about "generals," by WWI you need to distinguish between brigadiers or even division commanders, and that high command leading Corps, armies, and army groups. There were no shortage of capable flag officers, because there was high turnover.

When we look at high command, I think the biggest thing we can blame them for, at least on the Western Front, is insisting on doing "something" when it hasn't worked the prior time. After the Somme, the British didn't really learn that massive breakthroughs were unlikely, they just kept trying. Ditto the French offensives. The Germans, aside from Verdun, avoided offensives between the race to the Sea and 1918. OTOH, Austrian and especially Italian high command were very poor.

On the other hand, the Western Allies were pretty creative in ways to exploit strategic flanks, they just botched them badly, for example at Gallipoli. The Mesopotamian campaign was badly run, but eventually caused the ottomans to collapse.
The Salonica front was... there, I guess.

It's common to point to the Civil War for lessons on WWI, but as many are quick to point out, there aren't the sharp tactical or even stratgegic lessons there. The ACW was still fought in lines of battle, artillery could not destroy the most secure fortifications, and while the end of the war was trench warfare, Grant never reallyl figured out how to break a trench stalemate. The bigger, more real lesson from the civil war was about the economic realities of industrial war. In both the ACW and WWI, the victor carried out a successful naval blockade which caused economic collapse on the home front.

With 20/20 historical hindsight, we know that the Union in the ACW could have avoided every direct attack on Richmond, and simply fought in the west, splitting the confederacy, and starving the south out with blockade. Likewise, the Western Allies in WWI could have focused on reinforcing Russia, fighting in the Balkans and the Middle East, and waited out the starving Germans.

That's a great theoretical strategy... but it's hard to convince a government or a people that you're winning a war when you're sitting in trenches, ceding ground to the enemy.


Fair points, but you have to consider that 1916 was a pivotal year in WW1, and doing something, as you say, could have led to victory.

Russia's Brusilov offensive of June 1916, almost knocked Austria-Hungary out of the war. A few weeks later in July, the Somme offensive started. This had obviously been loosely coordinated between Russia and its Western Allies.

Obviously, neither offensive worked, but I can't fault the logic of doing something at the time, even if the execution wasn't up to the mark.

As to your American civil War point, it's a good point, but the lessons of that conflict were also lost on you guys.

General Pershing was convinced that superior American marksmanship would give the doughboys the edge in combat. Sadly, the doughboys learned the harsh realities of trench warfare the hard way.

Every nation struggled to adapt to new realities of warfare.

"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in us
Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH

Yeah, that's my point. Based on what they knew at the time, and the pressure from their governments, the commanding generals were focused on winning the war through offensive actions. That's also how every war prior had been won.

The real villains of this story aren't the generals, who spent a life time learning how to win wars through battles. It's the governments of both sides, that weren't willing to accept a negotiated peace.

I don't know about the Pershing remarks, it's possible he really felt that way, or it's possible he said it to boost morale. I do know that German High command saw American involvement as the beginning of the end, partially due to the loss of neutral ports, and also due to weight of numbers.

I think that looking at the situation, especially in the Western front, and trying to come up with a better strategy is actually really tough. We know now that the offensives there were mostly wastes of lives... but if any of them had worked, it could have saved lives.

I guess I would say that I'm not terribly impressed by much of the generalship on the Western Front, while the eastern, middle eastern, and Italian fronts were wildly mixed bags. Certainly in the Western Front, while I don't think much was done well, there's also a good argument to be made that it could not have been done better.
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

You really need to narrow this down to the Wetsern Front in Europe I think.

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





I've not done as much reading on the leadership in WW1 so much as I have the rank/file during the war, but I do have a few thoughts. . .


I think there were decent/competent generals in most armies, and there were definitely those who were anything but. I'm not sure who the French general was that was in charge of the 112th US infantry at the Battle of Fismet, but it was this precise battle that gave Pershing the ammunition he needed to say "american troops will serve under american command"

On the competence front, I think there's something to be said for the large scale "chess" game that went on. According to some books and whatnot I've been through, certain units performed better when faced with certain groups from the other side. IE, apparently the Bavarian regiments absolutely hated the Scottish Highland regiments (and vice versa), some Prussian units had a thing against counterparts from Belgium or England, etc. so the "game" for the generals became how to ensure the offensive/defensive goals of the campaign, and how to match up these units to ensure that fighting happened.

On the failure front, look at the troops "live and let live" policies (exception the groups I mentioned above) that most of the men in the trenches adopted. There are numerous stories of German soldiers liking the smell of the French food, signalling that he'd like to come over for a bite to eat (and being allowed to do so, without being captured!), or how a british officer telling his troops to fire on the German lines when they are eating. . . . The troops receive that order, and send a rock, with a note over to the Germans reading "we're being ordered to shell you while you eat, we will blow our whistle three blasts before we begin, so that you can cover your food. Don't hold it against us, just following orders."


Edit: I also think a "failure" (though it may be too strong a term) has to be in the political front: I've read far, far too much diary/letters/troop writing to not notice the trend that the enlisted core of each army truly believed that they were fighting someone else's war, for no gain on their part. They didn't believe that if they didn't fight, they'd lose their homes (well, the French perhaps did have existential crises) and existence. This is something that I think was done to much greater effect in WW2 and beyond (for those countries who have remained militarily active post-ww2)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/31 18:28:56


 
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

 jhe90 wrote:
Short answer..

No one had faced a major war in Europe for maybe 100 years. The only battles where smaller colonial fights but nothing anywhere near the scale. The continent did not have a major infrastructure to support a large army like Europe.


Not correct. To name a few:

Franco Prussian War-between the two big competitors no less.
Crimean War
Greek War for Independence
Russo Japanese War

You can name in one hand very few decent generals (Foche for example) at the corps level or higher. For YEARS they did the same thing. Sure they added in tanks, aircraft, gas. But at the end of the day every side decided to keep launching millions of men across No Man's Land in bad weather.

Further, the statements themselves by many of the generals are horrific in their lack of concern for casualties. Even Zhukov would have blanched at some of these guys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Polonius wrote:
I'll say that when we talk about "generals," by WWI you need to distinguish between brigadiers or even division commanders, and that high command leading Corps, armies, and army groups. There were no shortage of capable flag officers, because there was high turnover.

When we look at high command, I think the biggest thing we can blame them for, at least on the Western Front, is insisting on doing "something" when it hasn't worked the prior time. After the Somme, the British didn't really learn that massive breakthroughs were unlikely, they just kept trying. Ditto the French offensives. The Germans, aside from Verdun, avoided offensives between the race to the Sea and 1918. OTOH, Austrian and especially Italian high command were very poor.

On the other hand, the Western Allies were pretty creative in ways to exploit strategic flanks, they just botched them badly, for example at Gallipoli. The Mesopotamian campaign was badly run, but eventually caused the ottomans to collapse.
The Salonica front was... there, I guess.

It's common to point to the Civil War for lessons on WWI, but as many are quick to point out, there aren't the sharp tactical or even stratgegic lessons there. The ACW was still fought in lines of battle, artillery could not destroy the most secure fortifications, and while the end of the war was trench warfare, Grant never reallyl figured out how to break a trench stalemate. The bigger, more real lesson from the civil war was about the economic realities of industrial war. In both the ACW and WWI, the victor carried out a successful naval blockade which caused economic collapse on the home front.

With 20/20 historical hindsight, we know that the Union in the ACW could have avoided every direct attack on Richmond, and simply fought in the west, splitting the confederacy, and starving the south out with blockade. Likewise, the Western Allies in WWI could have focused on reinforcing Russia, fighting in the Balkans and the Middle East, and waited out the starving Germans.

That's a great theoretical strategy... but it's hard to convince a government or a people that you're winning a war when you're sitting in trenches, ceding ground to the enemy.


Polonius has the way of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Edit: I also think a "failure" (though it may be too strong a term) has to be in the political front: I've read far, far too much diary/letters/troop writing to not notice the trend that the enlisted core of each army truly believed that they were fighting someone else's war, for no gain on their part. They didn't believe that if they didn't fight, they'd lose their homes (well, the French perhaps did have existential crises) and existence. This is something that I think was done to much greater effect in WW2 and beyond (for those countries who have remained militarily active post-ww2)


All of them WERE fighting someone else's war, except the Serbs. Everyone involved had an empire they were protecting or trying to expand, except maybe the US. Further, many of the belligerents involved were led by royalties who were actually closely related to each other.
Frankly it all could have been avoided if the Kaiser stepped in to negotiate a calm down between the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire, or let them chew each other up. Literally every power except Serbia and Austria went to war because it was sticking its nose in someone else's business.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/01/31 19:14:36


-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
Made in us
Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH

One other thing to keep in mind about the whole "Why didn't they learn from the American Civil War?" debate: the generalship in that conflict, outside of a small handful of commanders, was highly flawed. McClelland famously frittered away a couple of opportunities due to timidity, and Meade's counter offensive after Gettysburg is one of history's great lost chances.

If I were attending a war college in the late Victorian era, and I read about the ACW, I'd see missed opportunities all over the place. You can make the very real argument that McClelland's aversion to causalities extended the war.
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

 Polonius wrote:
One other thing to keep in mind about the whole "Why didn't they learn from the American Civil War?" debate: the generalship in that conflict, outside of a small handful of commanders, was highly flawed. McClelland famously frittered away a couple of opportunities due to timidity, and Meade's counter offensive after Gettysburg is one of history's great lost chances.

If I were attending a war college in the late Victorian era, and I read about the ACW, I'd see missed opportunities all over the place. You can make the very real argument that McClelland's aversion to causalities extended the war.


But then you would look at the casualties at Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, Antietam, and Chickamauga, and the trenches at Petersberg, and you should have realized, frontal assaults are bad. Frontal assaults usually lost. Outside of Chatanooga I cannot think of one that actually worked against even minimal entrenched positions.

The Franco Prussian War and Russo Japanese War would have reinforced that. Indeed, we should remember that the advent of (then) modern artillery was viewed almost in nukelike terms, which turned out to be entirely prophetic.

OT, but I was watching a presentation on Gettysberg. it was enlightening. If one looks at what Lee thought the union positions were on Day 2, the attacks that were intended for Longstreet look very reasonable, almost Chancellorsville esque as they would have hit only the absolute edge of the supposed Union position and then drove in behind and effectively rolled up the flank. Fortunately the union line was further down than anticipated and stretched further when a Union colonel saw hood's forces in movement.

Quite interesting:


-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
Made in jp
[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

The Russo-Japanese War showed that determined infantry frontal assaults could work, at the cost of high casualties, and failed to reveal an alternative.

This led the western front generals to adopt this as the basis of their infantry offensives.

The eventual alternatives involved tanks and precision artillery barrages, which weren't possible at the time, and also infiltration tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The key difference on the western front was that the objectives were too large to be captured in a single day's operations.

When the assault units succeeded -- which they did at Verdun and the Somme, at the cost of major casualties -- they got out of communication and line of supply of their supports.

This made it easy for the defenders' second line units to mount a successful counter attack.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/31 20:44:19


I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in us
Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH

The Western Front of WWI was actually pretty unique, because it combined geography, demography, and technology at a very specific point. Basically, it was the first time that you could run a front line from Switzerland to the Channel and have it all fully defended. That requires massive mobilization in a relatively small area. Further, not only were there plenty of troops to stretch across the front, you had copious reserves, and often multiple lines (albeit not the classic defense in depth from Kursk and later).

With no ability to outflank, frontal assaults are the only tactic left. What every offensive showed is that they actually worked... to a point. The problem is the lack of breakthrough, caused by the multiple lines and reserves of the defender, and the limited communication and transport capacity to exploit any gains. Even 10-15 years later, you'd be seeing maturing Automotive and radio industries that would allow for better exploitation of breaks in lines.
   
Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

 Easy E wrote:
You really need to narrow this down to the Wetsern Front in Europe I think.


I'm going Pole to Pole

On a serious note, there blunders in Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and the Eastern Front, so limiting it to the Western Front narrows the discussion, in my humble opinion.

On the Italian front, huge blunders were made at battles of the Isonzo river. If memory serves, the Italian war plans ended up being published in an Austrian newspaper or something (or vice versa) and Cardona still refused to alter his plans, even when he found out about it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Polonius wrote:
One other thing to keep in mind about the whole "Why didn't they learn from the American Civil War?" debate: the generalship in that conflict, outside of a small handful of commanders, was highly flawed. McClelland famously frittered away a couple of opportunities due to timidity, and Meade's counter offensive after Gettysburg is one of history's great lost chances.

If I were attending a war college in the late Victorian era, and I read about the ACW, I'd see missed opportunities all over the place. You can make the very real argument that McClelland's aversion to causalities extended the war.


Forgot to mention this earlier

But from a British POV, the British really were scathing about anything American related back then. In this day and age, yeah, we're used to the Special Relationship, but even up to WW2, the British didn't rate the Americans too highly, considering them to be naive amateurs in foreign diplomacy and military matters, so it's unlikely that the British would have wanted to learn anything from the American Civil War.

If you're familiar with Haig's diaries, he obviously had meetings with Pershing, and obviously, for the sake of the alliance, it was all cordial, but the diary entries can be summed up as thus: What the feth do the Americans think we've been doing for 3 years!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Russo-Japanese War showed that determined infantry frontal assaults could work, at the cost of high casualties, and failed to reveal an alternative.

This led the western front generals to adopt this as the basis of their infantry offensives.

The eventual alternatives involved tanks and precision artillery barrages, which weren't possible at the time, and also infiltration tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The key difference on the western front was that the objectives were too large to be captured in a single day's operations.

When the assault units succeeded -- which they did at Verdun and the Somme, at the cost of major casualties -- they got out of communication and line of supply of their supports.

This made it easy for the defenders' second line units to mount a successful counter attack.


Apologies for the spelling error as I'm on the move, but I would disagree with your point about objectives. Yeah, you're not going to march from Germany to Paris in a single day, but the German advance in 1914, the Schieffling plan (yes that's not how you spell it )

shows how rapid the early weeks of the war were. The BEF nearly got cut off in Belgium. Russia advanced quickly through East Prussia. Germany nearly made it to Paris.

Given what I said earlier about pressure being on generals to finish it by Christmas, the war of rapid movement nearly worked in 1914, and I can't be too critical of the generals for giving the dice a roll.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Polonius wrote:
The Western Front of WWI was actually pretty unique, because it combined geography, demography, and technology at a very specific point. Basically, it was the first time that you could run a front line from Switzerland to the Channel and have it all fully defended. That requires massive mobilization in a relatively small area. Further, not only were there plenty of troops to stretch across the front, you had copious reserves, and often multiple lines (albeit not the classic defense in depth from Kursk and later).

With no ability to outflank, frontal assaults are the only tactic left. What every offensive showed is that they actually worked... to a point. The problem is the lack of breakthrough, caused by the multiple lines and reserves of the defender, and the limited communication and transport capacity to exploit any gains. Even 10-15 years later, you'd be seeing maturing Automotive and radio industries that would allow for better exploitation of breaks in lines.


I'll say to you what I said to Kilkrazy: I think you're overlooking how quickly the armies advanced in the early weeks of WW1.

There were no trenches for a start. At the Battle of Mons, the British were fighting German columns that marched on them like something out of the Battle of Waterloo!

The cavalry clashes were also pretty fast moving and brutal.

The outnumbered British Expeditionary force had to force march its way back to safety, lest it be cut off by the Germans. The speed was there in 1914.

If memory serves, the Germans were using Armoured cars to outflank the Russians in East Prussia in 1914.

Yeah, with hindsight, it went wrong, but like I say, I can't fault the generals for trying to win it quick. If the French didn't hang on outside Paris, the Germans might have beaten them in 1914...

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/01/31 23:04:11


"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

Depends on which reputation you are talking about.

Reputation for being careless butchers? Not really.

Reputation for being naive and unable to adapt? Totally.

Basically the vast majority of WW1 generals were trained and educated in the 1800s. Napoleonic warfare strategies were all they knew and they were rather set in their ways. Likewise, training for individual soldiers hadn't really caught up with the new technology either. Military Tactics and Strategy were still firmly in the Smoothbore-Musket-Line-up-and-shoot-the-enemy-who-is-also-lined-up era.

So really the generals of WW1 were at worst naive fools who were set in their ways.

Honestly the invention of armored vehicles is all that prevented WW2 from being the same bloody stalemate. WW1 lacked that key component of warfare since the ability to construct defensive positions and have weapons capable of repelling direct frontal assaults meant the other option of brute forcing through a defended position was suicidal.

Prior to WW1, if the enemy was holding a fort you had options. 1) You either surrounded it and starved them out. 2) Pounded it with artillery and mounted a frontal assault. Trench warfare and machineguns made both of these options impossible. You couldn't surround a fortified position that for all practical purposes was several hundred miles long. Trenches were incredibly resistant to artillery, and machine guns meant a frontal assault would simply result in annihilation. And Cavalry as a mobile element didn't work because they were vulnerable to the same machine guns that infantry were.

Tanks broke this wide open because now a hundreds of miles long trench system could simply be bypassed. You drive over the trenches and break through and disrupt the supply lines behind it while your own infantry swarm through the gap. Which means that fortified positions now go back to being single strong points instead of a diffuse system. Which means they can be surrounded again. War then changes back to a game of maneuver and speed instead of attrition alone.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





When the war started there were a lot of doctrines that were poorly suited to the new technologies of war. But a lot of adaptation happened really quickly, and it isn't easy to develop new tactics and have them adopted by conscript armies. At the Somme for instance the British knew about more sophisticated squad level tactics , but had little confidence that they could be used effectively by conscript troops seeing their first taste of war.

I think more than that, though, the war has come to defined by this idea of futile trench assaults across no man's land. It's not actually true. Most offensives reached the enemy trenches, and something like a third actually managed to capture at least the first wave objectives. The problem came after that, as the attacker was trying to establish if an attack worked based on man drawn wire lines and signal flags, and then deploy reinforcements by foot. Meanwhile the defender could be updated by telegraph, and bring in reinforcements by train. So most initially successful assaults were generally defeated by a quicker reacting counter-offensive.

It's fair to say that most armies failed to adapt to that reality quick enough. The British stuck with attempting deep breakthroughs until painfully long in to the war (at Amiens Haig still had his cavalry ready to exploit the hole made by the tanks). But given that even today most people don't realise or understand the primary challenge was the defender's advantages after the initial assault, I'm inclined to give the generals learning as they went something of a pass for failing to really address that problem at the time.


 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
And of course, the Gallipoli debacle, with the Navy's failure to neutralise Turkish gun positions, is another black mark against the Royal Navy.


Gallipoli was the first contested landing in generations. It was a balls up and parts like the lack of HE rounds were terrible, but they were basically doing something completely new, mistakes will happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Paradigm wrote:
As for simply calling off the Somme, I'm not sure how viable that would have been. Say you get to August and it's clear the initial advance has failed, pulling back at that point gives the Germans at least 3 months of fighting time before winter set in to launch a counterattack against a massively depleted British army which could well have broken it. By keeping up the offensive, the Germans are at least prevented from launching that manner and scale of counterattack, even if it was costly to do so.


If you're at a point of weakness and fear a counter-attack, the last thing you do is keep up an attritional offensive. That wasn't the concern at all. Through the campaign the British and French doubled the Germans in the area, and the Germans had more than enough trouble with their own operation at Verdun.

The reason the Somme continued was because by the fairly cruel measures of the Western Front it worked. Casualties were roughly equal, the British and French lost a few more than the Germans, but not by much. And just as importantly it drew in more than a million additional Germans to the area, taking pressure off the French at Verdun. Given the wealth of British resources it could be argued the British should have done better, but that's a long way from saying the campaign failed, or that doing nothing or calling it off sooner would have been preferred.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
There is off course the lessons from the American Civil War, whch were either ignored or not known about...


True, but then consider the Americans turning up in WWI, and taking on board almost none of the hard won lessons of the European powers. Resulting in the Americans going through their own very steep learning curve.

I think we just don't do a very good job of learning from other people's experiences. We dismiss their experience, because they have this problem, or because we have this special thing. And then oh god its happening to us just like it happened to them who could possibly have seen this coming.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/02/01 08:15:09


“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in gb
Stone Bonkers Fabricator General




We'll find out soon enough eh.

I expect the common perception is down to the fact that it's a lot easier to get away with justifications like "they had to learn" when "learning by doing" doesn't require you to feed (other) human beings into an industrial scale meatgrinder by the thousand.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/01 09:44:29


I need to acquire plastic Skavenslaves, can you help?
I have a blog now, evidently. Featuring the Alternative Mordheim Model Megalist.

"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal 
   
Made in jp
[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

British popular perception of the war centres around the Western Front trench warfare. It has been deeply conditioned by Allan Clarke's The Donkeys, by Oh What a Lovely War, and by Blackadder Goes Forth, all of which depict the plucky Tommy led by useless champagne Charlies into pointless, unsuccessful slaughter.

We like to lament the Gallipoli campaign too, which of course bogged down into static trench warfare and produced disproportionate casualties for the very meagre gains.

We tend to ignore the Imperial engagements in Mesopotamia, which were highly mobile and successful.

It’s true that the Schlieffen Plan produced a fast moving campaign in 1914, but it was an operational and strategic failure. Plus, incidents like the “Kindermord” battle showed that the casualty rate went up rapidly in the wrong circumstances.

There was of course a lot of mobile warfare on the Eastern Front.

There was significant mobile warfare in 1918 with the last German offensive and the final push of the Allies into Germany.

My point about the Russo-Japanese war was that the Japanese were successful in assaulting Russian entrenchments, despite high casualties, getting decisive results, and no-one found a different way to do it. (Until tanks and infiltration tactics.)

However, the same tactics did not produce decisive results in Western Front warfare because the sheer size and depth of the defensive lines made it impossible for the attackers, because they outran the supply and communications technology available to them.

It’s worth noting that tanks were only a valid frontal assault weapon until the development of good anti-tank weapons and tactics, after which they became as vulnerable in their way as the poor bloody infantry of WW1.

WW2 also brought a huge improvement in mobile communications, and great development of air support providing a new kind of roaming artillery.

To return to the original question, there were good generals and bad generals, and even the good generals had to operate within the situation they found themselves.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

 Yodhrin wrote:
I expect the common perception is down to the fact that it's a lot easier to get away with justifications like "they had to learn" when "learning by doing" doesn't require you to feed (other) human beings into an industrial scale meatgrinder by the thousand.


There you go

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
 
Forum Index » Off-Topic Forum
Go to: