Originally posted by: techs
Originally posted by: Genx87
Originally posted by: techs
I'm currently reading Paris 1919 which is about the peace conference.
Immediate impressions:
France really did get screwed. The measures put in place to prevent Germany, a country with 75 million people and an economy over twice that of France to keep them from again waging war against France a nation with 40 million people were wholly inadequate.
Woodrow Wilson bungled the campaign to get the US into the League of Nations, which was part of the whole peace plan. Without it, yet again, France was screwed.
When Hitlers Germany disregarded the treaty and continued their military expansion the Allies sat on their ass. I wouldnt say the treaty is the problem, nobody was willing to back it with force was the problem. The United States being in the League of Nations wouldnt have done shit. The American public were isolationist and felt the war was Europe's problem. FDR was hand tied on what he could do.
France had the largest land army in Europe. When Hitler reoccupied the rhine they could have crushed him.
In reading abou that time, it was generally believed that trench warfare would be resumed and that France would lose huge amounts of soldiers if it tried to do something. England said it wouldn't help. And if the Germans could just sit behind their trenches for 6 months to a year they would have mobilized far superior forces to the French.
It was obvious to everyone that England was not interested in engaging in another large-scale war. Pressures from abroad and the rising cost of maintaining their empire meant that another large-scale land war in Europe was to be avoided at all costs. That being said, the French had the most professional and largest army in Europe at the end of the First World War. If they had the balls, they would have mobilized after Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland. Not only do I believe that it would have been impossible for Germany to win such a conflict, but the Wehrmacht would not have simply let themselves be destroyed by the French. From their memoirs we know that the German High Command would have overthrown Hitler if the French had even moved an inch towards the Rhineland.
Now, a Germany without Hitler might have avoided World War II, but I do not believe that Europe, defined by the Treaty of Versailles, could have lasted. Fundamental flaws left Germany severely disadvantaged, with no significant ally, and without a way of repaying the debts against it. Some sort of conflict was nearly inevitable.
To the original post -- World War I ushered in the tactics and weapons of modern warfare. In the hands of unimaginative, blinded, and cautious generals these weapons produced some of the bloodiest and most disgusting losses of life ever recorded. My heart goes out to those men who needlessly perished in battles like the Somme, Ypres, and Verdun.
The posts here outline the tragedy of The Great War. Nobody really remembers it for the conflict it was, only as a precursor to World War II, particularly in the US. The bloodiest battles of the Second World War pretty much pale in comparison to their counterparts in WW1. Trench life was awful, medicine was woefully inadequate (though much better than at any other point in the previous 200 years), and a lot of these soldiers were thrown away because of fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of warfare. T
he war can, and should, be looked at it in two distinct phases. 1914 - 1916 is really a period of misunderstanding. Generals and strategists believed that the war would be one of fluidity and mobility. New weapons like the machine gun combined with new inventions like the car and truck would allow armies to race across the battlefield. Airplanes would decimate the enemy and the entire war would end quickly in a series of extremely violent, but brief, battles.
This time period is generally where the bloodiest battles fall because, while these generals would ultimately be vindicated, the technology was woefully behind. Machine guns were too heavy to be considered offensive weapons. They required crews of eight to ten men to operate and weighed nearly 80 lbs. Artillery was also heavy, slow, and immobile -- poor for offensive operations.
As 1916 rolled around, however, new technology and strategy would come into play. Rolling artillery barrages shielded advancing infantry from attack. The shells would fall about 20 - 30 yards in front of the infantry, forcing defenders to fire blindly into the smoke and explosions from the shells. Counter-battery fire improved with the use of airplanes to help spot enemy artillery and help aim friendly shells at them. On the ground, infantry no longer advanced in walking waves, but began to move from cover to cover. Machine guns became lighter (though not that light!) and more maneuverable. The first tanks, designed to counter the machine gun, took the field in 1916 and, although they were inefficient and poorly designed, the ideas behind them were right. They were used to cover advancing allied infantry, to destroy machine guns, and, eventually, to push the battle beyond the trenches.
The Spring Offensive of 1918 by the Germans shows us how far warfare had really come. The Germans employed closely coordinated artillery, aircraft, and infantry strikes at specific points. The idea was to use specially-trained shock troops, equipped with submachine guns and flame throwers to drive the battle far into the allied trenches. At first, this strategy was profoundly effective, as demonstrated by the gains made in the summer. However, the German shock troops were prone to dying and, as the trained soldiers dwindled and Ludendorff became increasingly desperate to end the war, he returned to the strategies of 1914-1916, sending waves of men 'over the top' and trying to smash the allied lines with artillery. Obviously, this was not effective and once-promising offensive ground to a halt.
Sigh, it was such a bloody and forgotten war.
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