in article co3l04$ds5$1@nnrp.gol.com, Brett Robson at deep_m_m@hotmail.com
wrote on 11/25/04 12:53 PM:

> 
> 
> Ernest Schaal wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Actually, the nature of war could have been foretold if they had looked at
>> the right previous wars. Both the US Civil War and the Russo-Japanese War
>> could have given them a sense of what would happen in trench warfare against
>> prepared positions.
> 
> It was.

It was what? It was ignored because it wasn't a European war? Commentaries
on both the Civil War and the Russo-Japanese war have noted the reluctance
of British, French, and German military leaders to learn from the trench war
aspects of these wars, mainly because they were considered not to apply to a
"professional" European army. (At the time Russian was considered by main
European generals as being more Asian than European.)
> 
>> 
>> The stalemate occurred because, as you said neither side was able to gain an
>> advantage, but the death toll was due to European generals not learning
>> lessons from previous non-European wars.
> 
> The death toll was because both sides wanted victory and were
> prepared to pay it. This had nothing to do with tactics. The
> Korea War turned out exactly the same.

It had everything to do with tactics. Only a fool hits prepared positions
over and over when they don't have a numerical advantage. Grant did it
because he knew that he had the numerical advantage that would cause him to
win the war of attrition. The European generals attacked, and attacked, and
attacked, because the mantra of the times was "the only good defense is a
strong offense."

Yes, they wanted victory and they were prepared to pay for it. But no, that
doesn't make them great generals. It merely makes them murderous generals,
successfully killing more of their own troops than the defending positions.

> 
> So you have some magic tactic that would prevent deaths in trench
> warfare?

For starters, play defensive more and offensive less.

There is an old saying that says only a fool repeats the same mistake over
and over again and expects a different result. The European generals were
fools in that they continued a losing tactic with no real chance of success,
partly because of their egotistical pride and partly because of their
dogmatic belief in the attack.

>> The end of the war turned out to the Allies advantage only because of the
>> new American troops. If the US had not been dragged into the war, the German
>> troops from the collapsing Russian front transferred to the Western front
>> would have either have prolonged the war or would have caused a different
>> result than the one that occurred.
> 
> Yes that is true. The fresh US troops relieved the British, but
> it was actually the British advances that brought an armistice.

It was a combination of both. The British advances were only possible
because of the American pressure on German troops.

The role of the American troops in the war is an interesting one, with the
Americans wanting to fight as an American unit, and the British and French
wanting only to use them as cannon fodder, as individual replacements in
British and French units. Part of it was pride on both sides. The Americans
wanted to fight as Americans, and the British and French partly feared that
the Americans could succeed where they failed and partly believed that their
four years of failure at the battlefront made them "experts."

One result of the way the British and French treated their Ally is that
after the war America drifted into isolationism that delayed their entrance
into the Second World War.