World War I: The I Stands For Idiotic. (Great Britain, facts, Washington)

[stillkit]

Originally Posted by Mikestone8

Yes they are. Maybe they shouldn't be, but that's the way it is. They were (and are) what people remembered.

Watch Blackadder Goes Forth sometime. Never mind it's historical accuracy or lack thereof, just keep in mind that a British audience still understood the black humour - seventy years after the Armistice. That says it all.

Alright, let me rephrase that: The trenches are not historically correct, though they are symbolic in the public mind.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by stillkit

The commonly accepted idea that the French are a bunch of cowards who won't fight is a lie. When the shooting starts, you couldn't ask for anyone better on your side.

Americans like to talk tough but they've never suffered losses like the Europeans suffered in the Great War and WW II. We have a couple of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and it's front page news, how would we deal with something like Verdun?

[Fullback32]

I find the early days of air power to be a very interesting aspect of WWI. Just seeing it evolve from "what are we to do with this new tool" to the early days of aerial combat and strategic and tactical bombing is fascinating to me.

[PullMyFinger]

Originally Posted by ovcatto

In WWI who was who?

A good question for sure.

[Mathguy]

Today's plan is a direct frontal assault on the German positions.

Since it failed the first 17 times, they will not expect it and we will have the element of surpirse.

A cunning plan m'lord.

[ovcatto]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

Today's plan is a direct frontal assault on the German positions.

Since it failed the first 17 times, they will not expect it and we will have the element of surpirse.

A cunning plan m'lord.

Ah, oui. l'esprit de la baïonnette!

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by Mathguy

Today's plan is a direct frontal assault on the German positions.

Since it failed the first 17 times, they will not expect it and we will have the element of surpirse.

A cunning plan m'lord.

Is it fair to slam generals for not using flanking attacks in a situation where there were no flanks?

In France, from late 1914 to the summer of 1918, if there was going to be an attack, it had to be a frontal one. With their options on this so limited, the generals on both sides had to devote themselves to coming up with ways to make an effective frontal attack. They tried lots of different things, gas, immense prepatory bombardments, attacking with elan, mining underneath the trenches, tanks, surprise attacks without preliminary bombardments, storm trooper tactics....and none of these things were effective enough to alter the static strategic situation.

The one attempt at an end around resulted in the Gallipoli calamity.

What would you have done if you had been one of the generals in this situation?

[slowlane3]

And many of the poor bastards who fought and died, could not even vote. Because Britain did not approve universal male suffrage until, I think, 1928.

I keep thinking of the last scene in Mel Gibson's "GALLIPOLI" when wave after wave of ANZAC troops kept futilely running onto the beach, and 100% of every wave were immediately mowed down and killed, and yet they kept on coming, over and over, unquestioningly. (the Maps their commanders had were faulty and showed the ground as being flat, instead of having cliffs full of Turkish machine-gunners). Another WWI movie I like, is "All Quiet on the Western Front" with Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Is it fair to slam generals for not using flanking attacks in a situation where there were no flanks?

In France, from late 1914 to the summer of 1918, if there was going to be an attack, it had to be a frontal one. With their options on this so limited, the generals on both sides had to devote themselves to coming up with ways to make an effective frontal attack. They tried lots of different things, gas, immense prepatory bombardments, attacking with elan, mining underneath the trenches, tanks, surprise attacks without preliminary bombardments, storm trooper tactics....and none of these things were effective enough to alter the static strategic situation.

The one attempt at an end around resulted in the Gallipoli calamity.

What would you have done if you had been one of the generals in this situation?

What is so awful is they had done it seventeen or more times with the identical result, and a good military mind should know there is a point you quit wasting resources, which would be your men. When they had to be forced to go at the point of certain death it should have been a wakeup call that it was not going to work and had become a dark, macabre ritual.

It would be the same as if in WW2 the allies had done repeated small *doomed* beach landings just to show they were trying.

[stillkit]

Originally Posted by slowlane3

And many of the poor bastards who fought and died, could not even vote. Because Britain did not approve universal male suffrage until, I think, 1928.

I keep thinking of the last scene in Mel Gibson's "GALLIPOLI" when wave after wave of ANZAC troops kept futilely running onto the beach, and 100% of every wave were immediately mowed down and killed, and yet they kept on coming, over and over, unquestioningly. (the Maps their commanders had were faulty and showed the ground as being flat, instead of having cliffs full of Turkish machine-gunners). Another WWI movie I like, is "All Quiet on the Western Front" with Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine.

The 1930 version of "All Quiet on the Western Front" starring Lew Ayres is much better. It follows the book more closely until the very ending and the special effects are quiet astonishing for a movie made in the infancy of movies. Moreover, it's not unlikely that people on the set then had actual experience in the trenches as it was released a mere 12 years after the Armistice. I highly recommend it.