Were the WW1 generals idiots?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

At least before 1918, the Allies on the Western Front were focusing on trying to create a breakthrough as a means of driving the Germans out of France. Most of their commanders didn't realize just how big of a breakthrough needed to be made for anything to be accomplished. To compound that mistake, they failed to grasp the new weapons, logistics, and tactics the Germans had developed, their choices for locations of potential breakthroughs were worthless unless a breakthrough developed (and one never did), and in lying to themselves about how poorly the war was going for themselves they were continually overoptimistic about the likelihood of a breakthrough happening. So you had your Vauquois and Somme and Passchendaele.

The idea of bleeding out the Central Powers was based on the idea that Germany was running out of men (they weren't) and as spin for the horrific casualties the Allies suffered in pointless assaults. If you could pretend that the Germans lost double the men you lost on the Somme then it made sense to continue fighting there no matter the cost. But it was largely fiction.

[Oleander Ardens]

The idea of bleeding out the Central Powers was based on the idea that Germany was running out of men (they weren't) and as spin for the horrific casualties the Allies suffered in pointless assaults. If you could pretend that the Germans lost double the men you lost on the Somme then it made sense to continue fighting there no matter the cost. But it was largely fiction.

The myth of a the favorable "exchange" in casualities at the Somme was created to justify the unjustifiable. To quote Wikipedia:

The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme, made at the Chantilly conference on 15 November, was 485,000 British and French casualties versus 630,000 German.[61] These figures were used to support the argument that the Somme was a successful battle of attrition for the Allies. However, there was considerable scepticism at the time of the accuracy of the counts. After the war a final tally showed that 419,654 British and 204,253 French were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner; of the 623,907 total casualties, 146,431 were either killed or missing.[61]

The British official historian Sir James Edmonds maintained that German losses were 680,000, but this figure has been discredited.[61] A separate statistical report by the British War Office concluded that German casualties on the British sector could be as low as 180,000 during the battle. In compiling his biography of General Rawlinson, Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice was supplied by the Reichsarchiv with a figure of 164,055 for the German killed or missing.[62]

It is quite striking that most English literature still gives more credit to estimates founded on the necessary myth than on hard facts.

But I would not rate the efforts of Allies in the realm of tactics as low as you did. Their integration of recon and surveillance with the combined arms were indeed sophisticated.

OA

[KrooK]

How can one form of generalship be more immoral than another? You are still leading men to their deaths. A battlefield is a mass slaughterhouse. Does it really matter if the objective is expressively to kill them, or to kill them in order to achieve something? Death is death, and the only thing that distinguishes it is a death at peace or a death in fight.

Death for country, life sacrificed for country is biggest gift that could be given.

[A Very Super Market]

Depends on what you believe in. KrooK, your reputation as a Polish nationalist preceeds you, so it is no doubt that you believe so. But my post is in reference tp alh_p's, who argues that attritional warfare is more immoral than manuevre warfare. Not, a one-off on the pointlessness of death and war, that would be profoundly off-topic.

[G. Septimus]

The myth of a the favorable "exchange" in casualities at the Somme was created to justify the unjustifiable. To quote Wikipedia:



It is quite striking that most English literature still gives more credit to estimates founded on the necessary myth than on hard facts.

But I would not rate the efforts of Allies in the realm of tactics as low as you did. Their integration of recon and surveillance with the combined arms were indeed sophisticated.

OA

485.000 is not a small number!!!!!!!!
that's a bunch of guys there.
War is sweet to those who never tasted it, and those guys tasted it.
they really got they're asses kicked.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

this is a small part in the Somme,