WTF?

It was like England and France decided to screw up the world to the maximum extent possible and purposely set up another devastating world war in twenty short years.

What was up with that?

My theory is that Europe's leaders were from the aristocratic class. This class was small in number, and had for generations inter-married, in other words they were inbred and many had the lack of intelligence associated with generations of inbreeding. On top of that, they were arrogant, and truly believed they were noble in mind and character. The combination of arrogance and stupidity was deadly.

I'm actually just about through with Hochschild's To End All Wars, which focuses on Britain. It's painfully true that British high command was criminally incompetent, especially Gen. Haig, who saw the extraordinary high casualty figures as indicative of the success of his command. There's a reason why few remember the names of the generals of WWI.

Douglas MacArthur was a damn General in WWI. He was a stud and even got him a Medal of Honor.

Eisenhower was only a Captain. He never made it out of the States.

Funny how that worked out later.

smitty wrote:Douglas MacArthur was a damn General in WWI. He was a stud and even got him a Medal of Honor.

Eisenhower was only a Captain. He never made it out of the States.

Funny how that worked out later.

Wasn't Eisenhower only a Colonel when Pearl Harbor was bombed?

Nope--had been promoted to Brig General two months before--but had never commanded anything larger than a battalion.

He passed by a whole bunch of guys to get the top spot. Kinda like Al Haig.

MacArthur called him the best clerk he ever had. (Ike was a Major in the Philippines when MacArthur was the emperor there -- Ike was a Major for like 16 years).

Don't think you can ignore the need to blame someone for how horrendous WWI was. Chemical Warfare, charging machine guns like they were muskets etc

You would defend the French

pourquois pas?

There's an excellent book by Robert Citino called The Quest for Decisive Victory which describes the period between 1870 and 1939. The military problem of this period, including WWI, is that no country could produce a mobile warfare capability that would allow for exploitation of the enemy lines. The development of quick firing artillery, machine guns, barbed wire, and improved rifles increased the lethality of the battlefield, and the cavalry, the force for envelopment and exploitation, was as if not more vulnerable to new weaponry than anyone else. Until tanks and radios were integrated in the 1920s and 1930s, it was impossible for any mobile force to have the armored protection, the lethality, and the capacity for communications on the move that is mandatory for mobile warfare. The Germans decentralized their mobile warfare operations and allowed lower level commanders to develop the situation based on their judgement. Almost everyone else did the opposite.

The Germans developed and perfected strosstroppen (stormtroop) tactics by 1916. These tactics were exactly the same in 1939-1945, just on a larger scale with mechanized forces. The British, French and American forces did not utilize these tactics at all...the US had a few guys who understood them, most famously George Patton.

The political problems of WWI were long in the making. The British Empire realized in the 1890s that the Empire was unsustainable as it costs too much to maintain. The Germans of the 1890s crafted their Army to crush communists, labor union and socialists - it was internally focused to limit the spread of these leftist elements.

Gotta run. Will write more later.

Here's something mindblowing--in 1917, 70% of British GDP was directed toward fighting the war--triple what it was during the Napoleonic wars, and more than it would be during WWII.

I haven't thought about this stuff in a while. But as I recall, one of the reasons the American Civil War was so bloody was all the Generals were basically using Napoleanic Tactics. Mass formations attempting to turn the enemy flank and then roll them up like a burrito. The Minie ball, rifled barrels and stuff like that resulted in massive deaths and maimings.

This kind of thinking made the casualties of WWI even worse. LG-- was the influence of Jomini and/or Clausewitz part of the problem?

TenuredVulture wrote:Here's something mindblowing--in 1917, 70% of British GDP was directed toward fighting the war--triple what it was during the Napoleonic wars, and more than it would be during WWII.

And we still had to bail their asses out, AMURICAH!!!!!

Luzinski's Gut wrote:There's an excellent book by Robert Citino called The Quest for Decisive Victory which describes the period between 1870 and 1939. The military problem of this period, including WWI, is that no country could produce a mobile warfare capability that would allow for exploitation of the enemy lines. The development of quick firing artillery, machine guns, barbed wire, and improved rifles increased the lethality of the battlefield, and the cavalry, the force for envelopment and exploitation, was as if not more vulnerable to new weaponry than anyone else. Until tanks and radios were integrated in the 1920s and 1930s, it was impossible for any mobile force to have the armored protection, the lethality, and the capacity for communications on the move that is mandatory for mobile warfare. The Germans decentralized their mobile warfare operations and allowed lower level commanders to develop the situation based on their judgement. Almost everyone else did the opposite.

The Germans developed and perfected strosstroppen (stormtroop) tactics by 1916. These tactics were exactly the same in 1939-1945, just on a larger scale with mechanized forces. The British, French and American forces did not utilize these tactics at all...the US had a few guys who understood them, most famously George Patton.

The political problems of WWI were long in the making. The British Empire realized in the 1890s that the Empire was unsustainable as it costs too much to maintain. The Germans of the 1890s crafted their Army to crush communists, labor union and socialists - it was internally focused to limit the spread of these leftist elements.

Gotta run. Will write more later.

Awesome posts like this probably explain why I never quite can bring myself to quit BSG. Thanks.

I think it could be said that the worst thing for the Allies militarily in WWII was winning WWI. The victory, which I think was mostly a matter of the infusion of American resources allowing them to outlast the Central Powers, meant that they didn't seriously re-evaluate after the war. De Gaulle I believe had a clue about mobile warfare in the '30s, but I gather was such an asshole that they essentially benched him for most of the interwar period.

dajafi wrote:

Luzinski's Gut wrote:There's an excellent book by Robert Citino called The Quest for Decisive Victory which describes the period between 1870 and 1939. The military problem of this period, including WWI, is that no country could produce a mobile warfare capability that would allow for exploitation of the enemy lines. The development of quick firing artillery, machine guns, barbed wire, and improved rifles increased the lethality of the battlefield, and the cavalry, the force for envelopment and exploitation, was as if not more vulnerable to new weaponry than anyone else. Until tanks and radios were integrated in the 1920s and 1930s, it was impossible for any mobile force to have the armored protection, the lethality, and the capacity for communications on the move that is mandatory for mobile warfare. The Germans decentralized their mobile warfare operations and allowed lower level commanders to develop the situation based on their judgement. Almost everyone else did the opposite.

The Germans developed and perfected strosstroppen (stormtroop) tactics by 1916. These tactics were exactly the same in 1939-1945, just on a larger scale with mechanized forces. The British, French and American forces did not utilize these tactics at all...the US had a few guys who understood them, most famously George Patton.

The political problems of WWI were long in the making. The British Empire realized in the 1890s that the Empire was unsustainable as it costs too much to maintain. The Germans of the 1890s crafted their Army to crush communists, labor union and socialists - it was internally focused to limit the spread of these leftist elements.

Gotta run. Will write more later.

Awesome posts like this probably explain why I never quite can bring myself to quit BSG. Thanks.

I think it could be said that the worst thing for the Allies militarily in WWII was winning WWI. The victory, which I think was mostly a matter of the infusion of American resources allowing them to outlast the Central Powers, meant that they didn't seriously re-evaluate after the war. De Gaulle I believe had a clue about mobile warfare in the '30s, but I gather was such an asshole that they essentially benched him for most of the interwar period.

At least much was learned regarding the peace treaty. Roosevelt, Truman, and Churchill deserve much credit.

500,000 casualties in the last 5 weeks of WWI, even though it was clear to everyone that the Germans had lost.

smitty wrote:I haven't thought about this stuff in a while. But as I recall, one of the reasons the American Civil War was so bloody was all the Generals were basically using Napoleanic Tactics. Mass formations attempting to turn the enemy flank and then roll them up like a burrito. The Minie ball, rifled barrels and stuff like that resulted in massive deaths and maimings.

Think that's right, though the huge problem was how the Civil War justified generations of American germophobes.

The armistice was signed at 5 am, but didn't take effect until 11 am. In the final six hours, fighting continued for no particular reason. Over 2000 soldiers were killed in 5000 wounded in those final hours.

I've always been revolted by WWI, but now I'm more pissed off than ever. What a bunch of fucktards.

Also, had the US not entered the war, it's quite possible that the continuation of the stalemate would have resulted in communist revolutions throughout Europe.

And then there was Woodrow Wilson winning his Nobel Prize maybe for his part in ensuring postwar demand for munitions would quickly be rekindled

Easy also from here to understand the inspiration for works like The Second Coming

Yet by 1864, the Confederates had begun to utilize trenches, especially in Tennessee. The European observers, on both sides, did not take the American Civil War seriously because it was being fought by Americans. Social Darwinism didn't ignore the military.

Smitty - WWI was the end of Jomini as a serious theorist. After WWI, the military thinkers around the world realized that World War I could never be fought again because it literally ripped holes in the fabric of society. Jomini's scientific approach to warfare, deeply rooted in geography and Cartesian philosophy, would be sent to the scrap heap.

He was the dominant theorist during this time period, especially on the French and American side. World War I quickly became a tactical battle once the initial German invasions were neutralized in Northern and Eastern France; the same could be said about the Italian front. It was more of an Operational fight along the Eastern Front because the distances were so vast that it was still possible to find gaps in the line and simply avoid the battle. Africa was even more interesting in my opinion; Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck fought a guerilla warfare campaign against the British and was the most successful German commander of the war...he literally had nothing and drove the Brits up the wall.

smitty wrote:I haven't thought about this stuff in a while. But as I recall, one of the reasons the American Civil War was so bloody was all the Generals were basically using Napoleanic Tactics. Mass formations attempting to turn the enemy flank and then roll them up like a burrito. The Minie ball, rifled barrels and stuff like that resulted in massive deaths and maimings.

This kind of thinking made the casualties of WWI even worse. LG-- was the influence of Jomini and/or Clausewitz part of the problem?

World War One was the most destructive political and societal event since the Hundred Years War in Europe. You should be pissed off. It destroyed many vestiges of the world political and economic system, it directly brought about World War II, and directly brought the Communists into power in Russia.

The French were so badly bled in World War One - they suffered 73% casualties of the men who word the uniform (the Russians suffered 76% casualties if you can believe it) - that they suffered war exhaustion for an entire generation. That's the underlying reason why the Maginot Line was built and why the French collapsed so quickly...they had no will to fight.

TenuredVulture wrote:The armistice was signed at 5 am, but didn't take effect until 11 am. In the final six hours, fighting continued for no particular reason. Over 2000 soldiers were killed in 5000 wounded in those final hours.

I've always been revolted by WWI, but now I'm more pissed off than ever. What a bunch of #$!&@.

Also, had the US not entered the war, it's quite possible that the continuation of the stalemate would have resulted in communist revolutions throughout Europe.