WW1... so, was everyone stonking stupid?

[HansMustermann]

It seems to me like the more I learn about the Great War, the more I end up wondering if I can blame it on the slow rise in IQ during the 20'th century, or on lead water pipes.

I don't even mean the start of the war, but stuff like:

- the French enter the war in red pants, blue coats, and with the doctrine of slowly marching in a tight formation towards the machineguns. Because anything else would be un-French.

- the Brits enter the war thinking that their 100,000 professional soldiers would defeat the millions of Germans. Don't wake up to actual mobilization until after trying a couple more stupid ideas, like the disastrous buddy system that depopulated whole towns.

- Germany enters the war ostensibly against Russia, but doesn't have plans to mobilize against Russia, and for a while doesn't even try to mobilize against Russia.

- Germany relies on a plan against the French that PREDICTABLY couldn't work, because it NEEDS veteran troops it doesn't actually have, and the margins of error on it are actually NEGATIVE in places.

- when an artillery barrage fails, and the French sanely decide to postpone their attacks, the British general decides to go over the top anyway. Gets most of his men killed, like everyone knew would happen, they get hailed as heroes. Except it seems to me that knowingly sending good troops to die for no foreseeable gain is not heroism; it's at best incompetence and at worst borderline treason.

- Russia ignores its own intelligence, attacks frontally against massed German artillery, loses all its gains in a week. And then some.

- Romania delays entering the war until the window of opportunity has passed for coordinating with the Russians to knock Austria-Hungary out of the War. Then does its own YOLO attack, Leeroy Jenkins style, on Austria-Hungary anyway, without coordinating with anyone. Only manages to first cause the Russians to try to save it, then gives its resources to Austria-Hungary when it gets occupied in response, AND lengthens the front the Russians had to defend in the process.

- meanwhile Austria-Hungary... hooo boy, where do I even start... Really, I could make a whole thread just with the stupidity of AH in that war. The sheer amount of bad decisions and incompetence in trying to implement them, dwarfs all other countries combined. It's like their whole high command went AWOL when the brains were distributed.

Etc, etc, etc. Really, you could write a whole book just with idiotic decisions that went against reality.

So, really, WTH was wrong with everyone back then? This goes way beyond not having experience with the new kind of war. In some cases people seemed to be unable to learn even from what was happening right there and then.

Was the effective IQ that much lower back then, or what? Was it the lead water pipes? Or WTH?

 

[Mojo]

Perhaps drink had been taken:

Getting back to the subject of the thread, if anyone's interested, here's my synopsis of the First World War.

Germany, Austria and Italy are stood together in the middle of the bar-room, when Serbia bumps into Austria, and spills Austria's pint.
Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit, because there are splashes on its trouser leg.
Germany expresses its support for Austria's point of view.
Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.
Serbia points out that it can't afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for cleaning Austria's trousers.
Russia and Serbia look at Austria.
Austria asks Serbia who it's looking at.
Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone.
Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so.
Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene.
Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?
Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action.
Britain and France ask Germany whether it's looking at Belgium.
Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone.
Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium.
France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britan and France with one hand and Russia with the other. Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it's on Britain's side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.
Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings, because Britain made Australia do it.
France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change.
Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.
America waits till Germany is about to fall over, then walks over, waves a fist at Germany while Britain knocks it out, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.
By now all the chairs are broken, and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany's fault. While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends.

Nobody comes out of it looking particularly good.

Dave

 

[theprestige]

It seems to me like the more I learn about the Great War, the more I end up wondering if I can blame it on the slow rise in IQ during the 20'th century, or on lead water pipes.

I don't even mean the start of the war, but stuff like:

- the French enter the war in red pants, blue coats, and with the doctrine of slowly marching in a tight formation towards the machineguns. Because anything else would be un-French.

Seems like a gratuitous slur. Do you have a cite for this?

Keep in mind that the war occurred during a period of rapid transition, and military institutions (like most other institutions) can be slow to change.

- the Brits enter the war thinking that their 100,000 professional soldiers would defeat the millions of Germans. Don't wake up to actual mobilization until after trying a couple more stupid ideas, like the disastrous buddy system that depopulated whole towns.

Smaller forces defeat larger forces all the time. Frederick the Great was renowned for securing Prussia against numerically superior enemies. Robert E. Lee held off the numerically superior Union forces for two and a half years, until Lincoln finally found a general who was willing to keep losing until he won. Britain may have overestimated the military genius of its generals, but there's nothing inherently stupid about thinking they had a chance even with fewer soldiers.

- Germany enters the war ostensibly against Russia, but doesn't have plans to mobilize against Russia, and for a while doesn't even try to mobilize against Russia.

Germany realized that it was caught in a vise, with France on one side and Russia on the other. And in fact at the time France and Russia had secret treaties to ally against Germany.

The German strategy, then as later, was to defeat France as quickly as possible, then pivot their entire strength to the East, hopefully before Russia had a chance to complete its mobilization. It may seem weird, but Germany's plan for war against Russia started in France. Given their circumstances, it wasn't a stupid plan at all.

Incidentally, Hitler's refinement was to take a page from the Franco-Russian book, and secure a secret treaty with Stalin himself, before embarking on exactly the same strategy.

- Germany relies on a plan against the French that PREDICTABLY couldn't work, because it NEEDS veteran troops it doesn't actually have, and the margins of error on it are actually NEGATIVE in places.

Details, please.

Keep in mind that boldness is a powerful weapon. Plans that "predictably" couldn't work often just need someone to commit forcefully to them.

- when an artillery barrage fails, and the French sanely decide to postpone their attacks, the British general decides to go over the top anyway. Gets most of his men killed, like everyone knew would happen, they get hailed as heroes. Except it seems to me that knowingly sending good troops to die for no foreseeable gain is not heroism; it's at best incompetence and at worst borderline treason.

Details, please. Armchair generaling is easy, but at least we should know what you're talking about.

- Russia ignores its own intelligence, attacks frontally against massed German artillery, loses all its gains in a week. And then some.

Details, please.

- Romania delays entering the war until the window of opportunity has passed for coordinating with the Russians to knock Austria-Hungary out of the War. Then does its own YOLO attack, Leeroy Jenkins style, on Austria-Hungary anyway, without coordinating with anyone. Only manages to first cause the Russians to try to save it, then gives its resources to Austria-Hungary when it gets occupied in response, AND lengthens the front the Russians had to defend in the process.

I won't deny that some stupid decisions were made.

- meanwhile Austria-Hungary... hooo boy, where do I even start... Really, I could make a whole thread just with the stupidity of AH in that war. The sheer amount of bad decisions and incompetence in trying to implement them, dwarfs all other countries combined. It's like their whole high command went AWOL when the brains were distributed.

... Never mind.

Etc, etc, etc. Really, you could write a whole book just with idiotic decisions that went against reality.

So, really, WTH was wrong with everyone back then? This goes way beyond not having experience with the new kind of war. In some cases people seemed to be unable to learn even from what was happening right there and then.

Was the effective IQ that much lower back then, or what? Was it the lead water pipes? Or WTH?

I'm going with "appeal to incredulity".

 

[Brainster]

IQ doesn't measure anything other than the ability to take an IQ test.

/politically correct mode

 

[Nowhere Man]

TV Tropes for an informal but reasonably thorough account. Useful Facts: World War I

Fred

 

[GlennB]

Blackadder is also a very valuable source in understanding WWI

etc etc

 

[fuelair]

It seems to me like the more I learn about the Great War, the more I end up wondering if I can blame it on the slow rise in IQ during the 20'th century, or on lead water pipes.

I don't even mean the start of the war, but stuff like:

- the French enter the war in red pants, blue coats, and with the doctrine of slowly marching in a tight formation towards the machineguns. Because anything else would be un-French.

- the Brits enter the war thinking that their 100,000 professional soldiers would defeat the millions of Germans. Don't wake up to actual mobilization until after trying a couple more stupid ideas, like the disastrous buddy system that depopulated whole towns.

- Germany enters the war ostensibly against Russia, but doesn't have plans to mobilize against Russia, and for a while doesn't even try to mobilize against Russia.

- Germany relies on a plan against the French that PREDICTABLY couldn't work, because it NEEDS veteran troops it doesn't actually have, and the margins of error on it are actually NEGATIVE in places.

- when an artillery barrage fails, and the French sanely decide to postpone their attacks, the British general decides to go over the top anyway. Gets most of his men killed, like everyone knew would happen, they get hailed as heroes. Except it seems to me that knowingly sending good troops to die for no foreseeable gain is not heroism; it's at best incompetence and at worst borderline treason.

- Russia ignores its own intelligence, attacks frontally against massed German artillery, loses all its gains in a week. And then some.

- Romania delays entering the war until the window of opportunity has passed for coordinating with the Russians to knock Austria-Hungary out of the War. Then does its own YOLO attack, Leeroy Jenkins style, on Austria-Hungary anyway, without coordinating with anyone. Only manages to first cause the Russians to try to save it, then gives its resources to Austria-Hungary when it gets occupied in response, AND lengthens the front the Russians had to defend in the process.

- meanwhile Austria-Hungary... hooo boy, where do I even start... Really, I could make a whole thread just with the stupidity of AH in that war. The sheer amount of bad decisions and incompetence in trying to implement them, dwarfs all other countries combined. It's like their whole high command went AWOL when the brains were distributed.

Etc, etc, etc. Really, you could write a whole book just with idiotic decisions that went against reality.

So, really, WTH was wrong with everyone back then? This goes way beyond not having experience with the new kind of war. In some cases people seemed to be unable to learn even from what was happening right there and then.

Was the effective IQ that much lower back then, or what? Was it the lead water pipes? Or WTH?

Remember one of the rules of war that always gets forgotten: The army (pick any) is always well prepared to fight the last war it was in!!!!

 

[The Sparrow]

As someone else said, massive technology changed the rules in radical new ways that no one knew how to deal with yet.

Hell, it was the end of forts. I believe the French or Belgians had one that was blown to bits by artillery fire. No forts anymore. Something that had been effective for thousands of years now rendered obsolete. Holy ****, what do we do now!

Oh and RADICALLY new things in war, like machine guns!!! airplanes!!! radio!!!

Hindsight 20/20 and all.

 

[The Sparrow]

Plus, hey just as a matter of interest, both my grandfather and great uncle were in the war as part of the C.E.F.

Grandpa made it home, and eventually fathered my dad who contributed to the making of me. Uncle Lloyd got gassed in late 1917. Made it back to Halifax but died there. I have a bunch of his letters home and various artifacts from both their time in the war.

Grandpa was in artillery. Made him quite deaf. My childhood memories are of him with his hearing aid and fairly bad parkinsons disease, carving the Turkey for dinner.

 

[The Sparrow]

Picture of Uncle Lloyd before he went overseas.

Very poignant reading his letters, watching him turn from an innocent farm boy to a hardened cynic.

 

[Giz]

It seems to me like the more I learn about the Great War, the more I end up wondering if I can blame it on the slow rise in IQ during the 20'th century, or on lead water pipes.

I don't even mean the start of the war, but stuff like:

- the French enter the war in red pants, blue coats, and with the doctrine of slowly marching in a tight formation towards the machineguns. Because anything else would be un-French.

- the Brits enter the war thinking that their 100,000 professional soldiers would defeat the millions of Germans. Don't wake up to actual mobilization until after trying a couple more stupid ideas, like the disastrous buddy system that depopulated whole towns.

- Germany enters the war ostensibly against Russia, but doesn't have plans to mobilize against Russia, and for a while doesn't even try to mobilize against Russia.

- Germany relies on a plan against the French that PREDICTABLY couldn't work, because it NEEDS veteran troops it doesn't actually have, and the margins of error on it are actually NEGATIVE in places.

- when an artillery barrage fails, and the French sanely decide to postpone their attacks, the British general decides to go over the top anyway. Gets most of his men killed, like everyone knew would happen, they get hailed as heroes. Except it seems to me that knowingly sending good troops to die for no foreseeable gain is not heroism; it's at best incompetence and at worst borderline treason.

- Russia ignores its own intelligence, attacks frontally against massed German artillery, loses all its gains in a week. And then some.

- Romania delays entering the war until the window of opportunity has passed for coordinating with the Russians to knock Austria-Hungary out of the War. Then does its own YOLO attack, Leeroy Jenkins style, on Austria-Hungary anyway, without coordinating with anyone. Only manages to first cause the Russians to try to save it, then gives its resources to Austria-Hungary when it gets occupied in response, AND lengthens the front the Russians had to defend in the process.

- meanwhile Austria-Hungary... hooo boy, where do I even start... Really, I could make a whole thread just with the stupidity of AH in that war. The sheer amount of bad decisions and incompetence in trying to implement them, dwarfs all other countries combined. It's like their whole high command went AWOL when the brains were distributed.

Etc, etc, etc. Really, you could write a whole book just with idiotic decisions that went against reality.

So, really, WTH was wrong with everyone back then? This goes way beyond not having experience with the new kind of war. In some cases people seemed to be unable to learn even from what was happening right there and then.

Was the effective IQ that much lower back then, or what? Was it the lead water pipes? Or WTH?

Poe, or serious question?

 

[dudalb]

You can make a similar list about every major war.

 

[Damien Evans]

As someone else said, massive technology changed the rules in radical new ways that no one knew how to deal with yet.

Hell, it was the end of forts. I believe the French or Belgians had one that was blown to bits by artillery fire. No forts anymore. Something that had been effective for thousands of years now rendered obsolete. Holy ****, what do we do now!

Oh and RADICALLY new things in war, like machine guns!!! airplanes!!! radio!!!

Hindsight 20/20 and all.

You're probably thinking of Fort Douaumont at Verdun, though several Belgian forts did fall early in the war as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Douaumont

 

[HansMustermann]

Poe, or serious question?

As serious as I can be. Which, granted isn't much, but still... I'm genuinely baffled that some people wouln't just try the same thing 10 times and expect a different result, but try the same thing for a YEAR and still not learn anything. See, Verdun, where the massive losses of the German army didn't stop until the commander was replaced.

 

[Giz]

As serious as I can be. Which, granted isn't much, but still... I'm genuinely baffled that some people wouln't just try the same thing 10 times and expect a different result, but try the same thing for a YEAR and still not learn anything. See, Verdun, where the massive losses of the German army didn't stop until the commander was replaced.

Virtually everything you've posted is (not trying to be rude, just accurate) an ignorant stereotype dialed up to 11.

Even Verdun, for example, was falkenhien's attempt to fight a total war with limited means. Having determined England as the main enemy, he decided that the best/only stroke would be to destroy it's main ally's army (as france was, in 1916, still the dominant land power of the entente ).

Verdun was chosen for two reasons:
1) logistics: the Germans were 8 miles from a good railhead. The French were 30 miles from theirs, down a windy hill road that was in range of German guns.
2) for symbolic/historical reasons, france would have to fight at a disadvantage or suffer a demoralizing withdrawal.

It was too be a grinding, logistical attritional battle. A mill on the me use to grind down the french. (And it was working, until the Somme drew away all the German reserves. Only then did the German rate of losses start to exceed the french)

 

[angrysoba]

I get the criticism that we should not look back at these generals as though they had the same knowledge then that we do now. Nevertheless, it was their frickin' job to know what they were doing and some of their behaviour looks utterly perverse and not just in hindsight. Offensives which kill 10s of thousands of their own troops just replayed over and over again! It seems unjustifiable that the generals could not work out earlier that these things were not working. It was not actually as though there had been no examples of the radical change in warfare, one of which was the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

 

[theprestige]

As serious as I can be. Which, granted isn't much, but still... I'm genuinely baffled that some people wouln't just try the same thing 10 times and expect a different result, but try the same thing for a YEAR and still not learn anything. See, Verdun, where the massive losses of the German army didn't stop until the commander was replaced.

The Union tried the same thing for two and a half years during the American Civil War. You know how they won? By doing the same thing *even more*.

World War 1 was a period of misconceptions and blunders. But it's painfully simplistic to start by accusing everyone involved of monumental stupidity. You're the one studying the events--what have you learned other than that they happened and that you don't (yet) understand them?

 

[HansMustermann]

Seems like a gratuitous slur. Do you have a cite for this?

I'm not sure how picking on something as easily verifiable as the official army uniforms could possibly be a slur, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

The page of an actual inf regiment will do, I hope? http://www.151ril.com/content/gear/1914

Or if you think my mentioning the reason for sticking with the stupid uniform is a "slur", you should see some other idiotic French ideas from the time. Such as their idiotic ideas about "elan" and how the spirit of a determined soldier should overcome odds that even Superman would think twice about. Mentioned in the page I linked, too.

Besides, my calling their uniforms and tactics stupid is still mild compared to what the Germans did. See, the Germans, being an unkindly lot, didn't make fun of their uniforms, but SHOT them. On August 22 1914 alone, 27,000 French marching towards the machineguns in their tight formations and bright uniforms, were KILLED. That's not total losses, doesn't include the wounded or prisoners, that's just the DEAD. In one day.

So, yeah, given the result of that idea that I just wrote above, I feel fairly confident to call that a stupid idea.

Smaller forces defeat larger forces all the time. Frederick the Great was renowned for securing Prussia against numerically superior enemies. Robert E. Lee held off the numerically superior Union forces for two and a half years, until Lincoln finally found a general who was willing to keep losing until he won. Britain may have overestimated the military genius of its generals, but there's nothing inherently stupid about thinking they had a chance even with fewer soldiers.

Smaller forces, maybe. Odds of 1 to 20, against a technologically equivalent army, no. Just no. Never. Not for the British, not for the Germans, not for the Russians, hell, not even Romans against barbarians. Just never.

Mind you, if you think I was just being mean there... I was actually going easy on the Brits by picking that one, instead of, say, Churchill's plan to break through the straights, take Constantinople, and knock the Turks clean out of the war. It not only was a predictABLE complete waste of human life, it was PREDICTED complete waste of human life. As in predicted by three different lords of the admiralty, INCLUDING CHURCHILL HIMSELF. That's right, boys and girls, the dude actually proposed and went ahead with a plan that he himself had predicted would be a disaster.

Or the decision to send the UNARMOURED training tanks into battle, and piecemeal at that. And we're not only talking a tin can that couldn't stop a bullet, but a tin can that also had the gasoline tank in the front, unlike the later battle-ready models. With the entirely predictable results.

Etc. Trust me, I was going easy on Britain there

Germany realized that it was caught in a vise, with France on one side and Russia on the other. And in fact at the time France and Russia had secret treaties to ally against Germany.

The German strategy, then as later, was to defeat France as quickly as possible, then pivot their entire strength to the East, hopefully before Russia had a chance to complete its mobilization. It may seem weird, but Germany's plan for war against Russia started in France. Given their circumstances, it wasn't a stupid plan at all.

Incidentally, Hitler's refinement was to take a page from the Franco-Russian book, and secure a secret treaty with Stalin himself, before embarking on exactly the same strategy.

There's a difference between that and literally having NO PLANS for dealing with Russia at all. Not for securing the border while being busy with France, not after France would be defeated, not at all. For a plan against Russia that "started with France", it completely lacked the part where they actually deal with Russia. The plan didn't just START with France, it ENDED with France too. Which makes it a frikken stupid plan for dealing with RUSSIA.

Details, please.

Keep in mind that boldness is a powerful weapon. Plans that "predictably" couldn't work often just need someone to commit forcefully to them.

Well, how about the fact that from the start, not only they couldn't keep the timetable of the Schlieffen Plan, but that it got stuck early and hard beyond any saving? I'd say it kinda puts the kibosh on any delusions of just needing boldness. Boldness they had. A good plan, nope.

In fact, I'd say that all through recorded history, boldness and a bad military plan and organization just got you killed. Just as rock always beats scissors, gun beats wishful thinking every time.

Besides, it's not even a minority view that the Schlieffen Plan couldn't possibly have worked.

But basically if you want to learn more about it, here's an easy starting point:

Details, please.

Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive. The Russian high command repeatedly ignored their own intelligence warnings that the Germans are massing 2000 pieces of heavy artillery there. Which is an artillery force never seen before.

... Never mind.

No, I mean it.

Check out just Oskar Potiorek for example, possibly THE one most inept general of WW1, of all nations. Even by the standards of Austro-Hungariand screwing up, he was too much, and he only lasted until 22 December 1914 before he was relieved of command. On the whole the only thing he managed to do is an attempted genocide of Serbs in Austrian land, but thankfully he was pretty inept at that too.

Or check out Konrad von Hötzendorf who, for all the unpreparedness of the empire for a war, had tried no less than 30 (THIRTY) times to start a war in just the two years before WW1. For all the predictability of alliances and everything, the dude for all his carreer had wanted wars of conquest like in the middle ages. He wanted to attack every neighbour that wasn't already allied to them (i.e., Germany). And would go to the Emperor like once every 1 or 2 weeks to try to convince him to start a war.

Well, and then when the war started, he screwed up in actually leading troops too. For all his dreams of conquering left and right, he was piss-poor at actually doing the warfare involved.

But seriously, that's just two examples of MANY. I really mean it that I could make a whole thread, or indeed a whole book, just with the Austro-Hungarian screw-ups. If there were a military screwing up olympic, Austria-Hungary would have taken all the gold medals

I'm going with "appeal to incredulity".

Lol, wut? It's only an appeal to incredulity if it goes against actual evidence that the opposite works. Considering that all the above were facts, and none of the above worked by any sane definition... learn some logic before invoking fallacies. They have specific meaning. They're not just some cool words to use when you ran out of arguments.

 

[HansMustermann]

The Union tried the same thing for two and a half years during the American Civil War. You know how they won? By doing the same thing *even more*.

Err. No.

First of all, there's a difference between doing the same thing that worked, and doing what didn't work several times before, and for quite easy to discern reasons, then try it again anyway, maybe it will magically work this time.

Second, no, the civil war saw a quick change in tactics and strategy, phasing out what didn't work and changing to what did. E.g., you very quickly see the transition from the horrible carnage that resulted from standing in a line and shooting at each other, with the new Minnie ball, to pretty much the same kind of trench warfare as WW1 some 50 years before WW1.

Third, the civil war did NOT show the same unpreparedness for the new realities of war. On the contrary, from the get go it used the newest things like the telegraph or railway transportation to good effect. It just doesn't have the same element of being totally surprised that new stuff existed, that the Great War is pretty much characterized by.

World War 1 was a period of misconceptions and blunders. But it's painfully simplistic to start by accusing everyone involved of monumental stupidity. You're the one studying the events--what have you learned other than that they happened and that you don't (yet) understand them?

While I'm open to learning new things, you kinda have to shed some light if you want to claim that someone else didn't understand it. Just positing that no, see, you just didn't really understand it, and stopping at that is just another version of the sophisticated theology defense.

But really, please enlighten me. How is for example ignoring your own intelligence when planning an offensive anything but stupid? I mean, that doesn't even have to do with new weapons or anything. Reading, say, Sun-Tzu, reveals that it was considered sane to have some intelligence even in BC time, let alone modern times. Exactly WHAT don't I understand that would make that anything but stupid?

 

[dropzone]

Perhaps drink had been taken:

Much of history can be best explained by the consumption of alcohol. We, today, are teetotalers by comparison with our forefathers.