Stalemate in the West - Edward Gutierrez

Lecture given as part the National WWI Museum and Memorial's 2015 Symposium: Global War, 1915 | Empires at War, Churchill’s Gallipoli and an America Divided
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org

[@RasmusDyhrFrederiksen]

This channel is a hidden gem - a lot of great videos.

[@davidsabillon5182]

The first three minutes will get you hooked. His analogy is apt and chilling. No wonder France was willing to fight so hard.

[@billolsen4360]

One of the best WWI lectures ever

[@alganhar1]

As a side note, the Men of Britain will you stand this poster was, if I remember correctly, referencing the Naval bombardments of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool, not the Zeppelin raids. The effect is still the same of course, but the incidents were different. The German raids on the North Eastern coast were specifically designed to attempt to force the Royal Navy, especially the Battlecruiser squadron, to engage and be destroyed by the German High Seas Fleet which was lying in wait for just such an attempt.

[@user-rw5wh6ui9q]

Great lecture

[@johnmacdonald1878]

Very interesting, I particularly liked his comments about not judging with hindsight. I was very impressed he is the first presenter of a WW 1 Museum lecture, who did not describe Haig as some kind of dim bulb or fool. He comments on some of the innovations Haig introduced or were introduced under Haig. Without letting him off with regard to the casualty lists. As he said Haig is a very controversial character from the period.

[@chkmtn]

Thank you to the videographer for moving the camera to the map or diagram when the lecturer is referring to it. Other video operators do not seem to even notice the maps, much less move to the illustrations.

[@deanedge5988]

Really excellent. Viewing it in 2021 and so impressed by an open-mindedness and clear focus that would probably now be academically impossible.

[@sylviahacker6695]

Excellent presentation, great speaker.

[@michealohaodha9351]

Very engaging presenter!

[@granskare]

My father had a good friend named Einar Perala who fought in WW1

[@57Carlibra]

Excellent lecture, one of the best, imho.

[@xylomeat9913]

German casualties weren't lower just because they were on the defensive. The French would counterattack if they lost ground, no matter how insignificant that ground was without any preliminary artillery bombardment ( they had almost none except the 75mm, the wrong gun for this war). Falkenhayn noticed this and thought, if they're willing to sacrifice thousands of men to get back ground that was worthless, what would they sacrifice if the Germans seized something of real importance, like the forts around Verdun? This guy needs to read John Mosier's " The Myth of the Great War" and look at some of the source material instead of just repeating other historians. Winston Churchill in "The World Crisis" actually consulted German records and determined that the casualty ratio was 3 or 4 : 1 in Germany's favor.

[@logangustavson]

Another great lecture from the Museum. I will have to, mostly, disagree with the assertion that the reason or motivation for war is honor. Now, honor has indeed been a reason to go to war many, many times thru-out history. Thinking about it, a slim majority of wars probably does have honor being a primary reason for a war to begin, to continue, or to be escalated. Regardless, I can think of plenty of wars where things like economic interests, geopolitics, alliances, defensive wars, retaliation, pre-emptive strikes, etc. were the major reason for war and honor being a small aspect of it.

[@jthunders]

In the case of the USA it's usually anything but honor

[@jimsheen1]

Shrapnel shells are not better at destroying barbed wire than HE shells.The British found this to their cost at the Somme when much of the German wire was intact after a massive bombardment with mostly shrapnel shells.

[@Nounismisation]

They're effective if exploded over a trench you can'f hit with direct fire though. But for cutting wire, you might as well flick a conker at a slack bit of string.

[@bolivar2153]

At that time of the war, shrapnel shells were more effective. The Royal Artillery set up mock trenches and wire entanglements to test on back in Britain. The problem with HE shells was the fuze, which didn't trigger fast enough, so the shells would bury themselves into the ground before exploding. This caused the ground to absorb a lot of the explosion and resulted in the wire just being lifted of the ground and then just plopped back down again intact. The invention of the 106 fuze in 1916 meant that HE shells would become more effective at breaking the wire, but these fuzes were not available in large numbers until 1917. Up to that point, the breaking of the wire was down to using shrapnel to cut the wire and HE shells to scatter the cut wire.

[@simonbagel]

He left out a critical fact in his analogy at the beginning. If it was an accurate analogy, he would have included that America would have declared war on Mexico.

[@FreeTurtleboy]

Bingo....

[@kakab66]

In the analogy, if USA is France, this Mexico who declares war on the USA. In 1914 the Germans declared war on France. Not the opposite.

[@jezalb2710]

Interesting

[@kevinbyrne4538]

Defense proved stronger than offense. Nevertheless, by 1918, both sides finally figured out how to overcome the defense: the Germans used infiltration tactics, which Russian general Brusilov had practiced in 1916, whereas the Western allies used a prototype of combined arms warfare ("Blitzkrieg").

[@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819]

Kevin Byrne there is always a race between arm and armour, which arm always wins in the end.

[@robertalpy9422]

Robert Lee invented defense in depth trench warfare in 1864. Grant learned that you have to basically besiege the entrenched enemy by entrenching yourself and making regular assaults on their works. Even once you've cut off their supply lines you must make assaults in order to create a gap that can be exploited. Grant learned that in trench warfare, so long as the enemy has at least one supply line, you must rely on overwhelming force to take good works. Grant outnumbered Lee 5-1 and always suffered heavy casualties when he attacked lees works but he knew Lee couldn't replace his losses so while Grant lost 75000 men in killing 40000 of lee's men but Grant had 100000 men left while Lee was down to 20000. Overwhelming force is the only way to beat trenches and casualties will always be .massive.

[@mrmink]

While this lecture is really good, I totally disagree with his opening comment that "hindsight is always 20/20." Actually, hindsight doesn't have the answers all the time, either. It rarely has them. If hindsight was always clear and right, then we wouldn't have endless scholarship about historic events, whether a war, China's revolution, or the crimes of the Reagan administration. I'd say that nothing is every fully known, even in hindsight. And now, back to the lecture ...

[@pittsburghwill]

on breaking the deadlock was there ever any idea of somehow converting a ship perhaps a destroyer or even a cruiser into a giant wheeeled land attack vehicle that could cross nomansland loaded with troops?

[@bolivar2153]

Yes, in a way. The origins of the tank can be found from asking this very question. The idea of the tank was formed by the British Admiralty, who were investigating the idea of "land-ships" as a means of breaking the deadlock.

[@johnmacdonald1878]

What? Like a TANK?

[@larrymistler6014]

The Balfour declaration made it 3 years longer.

[@xylomeat9913]

30:52 Wrong, wrong wrong. High explosive rounds were better at destroying barbed wire. kzbin.info/www/bejne/epOpda2wqsiVobc

[@bolivar2153]

At the time being referred to, shrapnel was extensively tested and proven to be more capable of cutting wire entanglements than HE shells. It wasn't until 1916 and the invention of the British No106 Graze Fuze that HE shells became effective at cutting wire. However, these fuzes were complex and intricate to manufacture and wouldn't be available in sufficiently large numbers until 1917.

[@velocirapture89]

I'm glad I've been educated by a man named "xylomeat."

[@rafaelbogdan9307]

Lol, that intro. If Mexico tried to do that the Americans would turn it into a desert. So, like much of Mexico's north is already, only _on fire._

[@Tom_Quixote]

His point. Your head. Whoosh.