Why You Can't Stop an Attack in the First World War

[@BrandonF]

In case you haven't seen it from any of my more recent videos, I am living in the Boston area again for the next year or so! That means that I'm able to offer tours of the city again. If you are interested in a private tour for you and your friends or family (they are priced per group, not individual), you can find the details at my website: www.nativeoak.org/ And of course feel free to email me with any questions you may have!

[@KneecapVanisher]

Brandon F.: Author, Gamer, KZbinr, Streamer, Historian…Now tour guide!?

[@BrandonF]

What WILL he think of next?

[@PickleIsMyDoggo]

@@BrandonF why are you in boston again?

[@BrandonF]

Bureaucracy, mainly. Had to delay the UK move by a year (hopefully no more!)

[@Thenarratorofsecrets]

hey you're a local!

[@geralddrake3002]

I remember reading that one of the reasons that the British commanders always wanted to keep pressing was because during the opening days of the war when under attack from the Germans they had gotten to the point where if the Germans had come one more time they wouldn't have been able to stop them, but the German commander had decided that the British position was too strong and decided to call off the attacks. The German commander couldn't see how badly mauled the British were, how low they were in ammunition, and how thin the line had become. If they had only pushed one more time they would have carried the position and won the day. They had internalized that you can't effectively see the damage you've inflicted on the enemy and you can't know how far they are from breaking so you have to keep hammering away.

[@buddermonger2000]

I mean yeah that's simply completely accurate. Especially with regards to the trenches. If you don't have good Intel on whether or not they'll break, you do simply have to send in enough to break through

[@ianwalton5156]

Rubbish, you do not reinforce failure

[@xyztogrutamamenchi7894]

ianwatson, I think the point was that you couldn't know wether it would be success or failure before succeeding, and that the way you would definitely fail was to stop. Or at least that seems to be what those in charge thought according to the comment.

[@danielcaponi9839]

@@ianwalton5156Agreed, you can see what happens even today in the Russian-Ukraine war. I’ve seen countless videos of Russians just going wave after wave with minimum results.

[@mikolajtrzeciecki1188]

@@ianwalton5156 How would you know it was a failure?

[@jamesharding3459]

Even at the scale of a rifle platoon, it's an absolute nightmare to keep control without the benefit of radios -- especially if, like me, your shouting voice can't match an angry First Sergeant. You can only say so much with an orange flag, a whistle, and a couple of pen flares. Even with the aids of modern sensors and communications, redirecting an operation on the fly is one of the most difficult and potentially deadly things an officer can attempt. That’s at the scale of 40 men, spread over a frontage of a few hundred yards, where the officer can usually see the entire action with Mark 1 Eyeball - no communications lag, no miscommunicated reports, no vague written orders.

[@nvelsen1975]

That's why I've seen the Ukrainians in better equipped parts of the front use a sort of 'order interpreter' whose job it is mainly to move along or just behind foxholes/trenches and listen to a radio and feed the radio information so they can actually react to what's unfolding. This means more communication power gets put together with one officer who can effectively order a platoon around with just a half dozen or so radios. In more sparsely populated sections Ukrainians sometimes just forego a line defense or leave the odd single guy there to delay and operate purely based on 'fire brigades' who move along the front as required. Why? Because there's a shortage of coms and that one fire brigade communicates better than the same 20 guys stretched across 400 meters. Nine times out of ten drone operators spot any attack before it starts or as it crosses their front, so this works. Even though admittedly it produces harsh demoralising images of the one delay guy getting slaughtered by a dozen or so Russians if the system fails to operate. Russians meanwhile mostly still use a 'officer presses button, it unfolds as pre-planned and no different' approach that wouldn't have stood out in WW1, complete with 'barrier troops' to ensure the 'meat' is herded to their death instead of escaping. Also mainly due to a lack of coms, as well as a purposefully rigid and dumb command structure meant to operate despite the lack of communication.

[@jamesharding3459]

@ Interesting. They must not have enough radios to issue them out as widely as the US does - a platoon would have a minimum of 6, but usually more like 15. Of course, that doesn’t help when yours has stopped working and you need to find one that hasn’t.

[@nvelsen1975]

@@jamesharding3459 Well, it's a mixed bag (not every unit gets the same) and I don't know everything. Ukraine overal lacks everything and has to make do, but at the same time they've a decent amount of kit and especially better 'making do' compared to the Russians. Imo it's pretty heroic. And related trivia: There's a video out there of a Ukrainian drone operator using his own phone to guide his drone on the frontline, then the broadcast stops because he gets a call: Hi, it's the conscription officer, you're being called to service. 😆

[@SusCalvin]

They use field phones. Landlines connecting for example an observation post, a battery, a command station etc. These things need to be laid out and kept on repair, physically rolled out from a spool of cable. They could also splice into civ lines, if available.

[@jamesharding3459]

@@SusCalvin Field telephones are useful between two fixed points. Less so on the advance over broken, contested terrain.

[@nematolvajkergetok5104]

I once met an elderly Canadian guy whose grandfather served at Passchendaele. He and his unit arrived at the front in the darkest of the night, and trench runners, who were familiar with the area, guided them to their defense position. As they arrived, he glanced out of the trench, and saw mountains against the night sky. He was pretty surprised, he expected Flanders to be all flat land. When the morning came, he saw that those weren't mountains but huge piles of dead bodies, not very far from their position.

[@Ryan_Winter]

2:20 There are lots and lots of military engagements throughout all of human history, which perhaps were not meaningless, but absolutely pointless. Entire wars have ended with the foreseeable outcome "Status quo ante bellum". Many others have made both sides worse off. To say that men had a duty to die for no tangible benefit to those who survived is cruel stupidity. The excuses made and the attempts to de-legitimize valid criticism disqualify the entire narrative presented in this video.

[@MrZauberelefant]

@@Ryan_WinterBut people often died due to structural issues, like lines of communication being too slow to allow for quick reaction, inadequate tactics, etc. To err is human, but in war, errors are fatal. I do not think the "narrative in this video" is flat false or defending mistakes made, but there are valid reasons why one could not have done better than the people who called the shots.

[@buddermonger2000]

​@Ryan_Winter The problem is that it's not, in fact, valid criticism. Say what you will of the conflict generally, however, when it is not physically possible or in fact stopping would get more people killed than launching the attack, the criticism isn't valid. The mistake would be fighting the war in the first place perhaps, but when you're already in, your options are to fight or die. Just remember: surrendering saves more lives than fighting. The easiest way to have the least amount of lives lost is to let yourself be invaded and put up no resistance. Always throw in with the winner and or stronger party. To let conquest come saves lives of invader and invaded alike.

[@Stargun-vj1uh]

@@buddermonger2000 At a cost. Sure, no resistance and letting conquerors conquest uncontested is absolutely going to ensure the least amount of total lives lost. But at the cost of your country, and depending who is invading, at the cost of your freedoms, liberty, and being subject to the mercy of your conquerors. France was invaded by Germany, and it suffered under it. Poland lost so many of its jewish population, the entire german conquests were just horrendous and atrocious to anyone seeking liberty and freedom to live their life, in whatever manner it is they wanted to, simply because the government said they will have you killed for this if not worse. There is a reason to lose lives, even if surrender is what will save the most, sometimes, the good of lives saved does not outweigh the cost of the quality of life you and everyone else will now lose.

[@buddermonger2000]

@@Stargun-vj1uh Correct. What this simply shows is that there are other ideals and other things worth fighting and dying for. It's why I brought it up. It's obviously silly. Even if you don't win, the opportunity is in itself meaningful.

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

I think a lot of people are spoiled by modern telecommunications. There are few people alive today who lived at a time when the most common method of communication was a hand written letter or, if you were fortunate, a telegram. Even for the armies, often the most effective form of communication was a man carrying a written message from Point A to Point B.

[@SEAZNDragon]

I was thinking that too until Brandon mention the general on the hill. Given the time period I wouldn’t be surprised if the average soldier and civilian view of war was based on oil paintings of the Napoleonic wars where you got said general on a horse on top of a hill overlooking a battle.

[@MONTANI12]

A warning of agression was passed to pear harbour because the goverment didnt pay the premium to get the message out there to them faster.

[@TheGahta]

Plus one always has to think of the ways a line of communication can be disturbed or meddled with. Especially in wars where orders means death for some of the soldiers, confirming its a real one is really important 😅

[@The_Faceless_No_Name_Stranger]

@@SEAZNDragonand that practice ended quickly as soon as sharpshooters, marksmen and snipers started to appear on the battlefield.

[@MrZauberelefant]

@@SEAZNDragon That would still require someone to cover sometimes miles of rugged terrain, perhaps under enemy fire, to convey an order. People tend to be stupid with things outside their actual experience.

[@justinrastin8802]

This is an incredible video that has helped me reconsider a lot of the assumptions I had about the upper leadership in the First World War. However, I can’t help but imagine myself standing ankle deep in mud and hearing the whistle to go over the top, and then having this gentleman explain the logistical reasons that my death was inevitable.

[@River.E.M]

Quite an amusing comment lol.

[@rustybayonette6641]

Well modern war isn't quite so enjoyable for the individual lol

[@fot6771]

Statistics are generally depressing for the average person in history

[@andrewmstancombe1401]

You say you would be worried but what about the 18 Yr old Lieutenant ( pronounced leftenant ) Who always went over the top first with nothing but a riding crop and a holstered Webly revolver. The men followed their officer over the top not the other way round as usually shown in the movies. That officer was often the first man killed. Statistically the Rich upper classes lost more men than the working class Tommy. Some rich families lost their heir and the family disappeared after the war the young men who would take over the family business had been killed and often the business would end and its workers made redundant or if lucky be sold. So remember the soldier had his rifle. The officer who went over the top first had a riding crop or walking stick. That takes guts and is rarely ever mentioned or made a point of in any film.

[@josephahner3031]

I wouldn't blame the generals of WW1, who have just as many options as the privates at the end of the day, but the politicians who failed to prevent it. I sometimes feel that Brandon treats war as something that just happens, as if its a natural disaster.

[@vampirecount3880]

When I didn't understand anything about how an army works, and I watched movies about the First World War, I had the impression that the generals and officers were incompetent, arrogant and stupid. When I started reading books, researching bibliography and studying in depth, I realized that the generals and officers were not only not incompetent, but were also very experienced and capable. The more you learn, the more you appreciate the work of those who knows what they are doing.

[@Marinealver]

It was an institutionalized incompetence. Sure, it was the doctrine that had been taught and practiced up to this point while failing to take in lessons from prior engagements. Remember General Haig wanted a Cavalry charge to break through the western front, only to call that off in the realization that it would just be the Massacre of the Light Brigade on steroids leaving the PBI to suffer the brunt of the offensive. It is a story that is repeated to this very day of command staff insisting on fighting an ideal war that they want to fight rather than recognizing the shape and form the war takes which is beyond their control.

[@thurbine2411]

And then there are always those who aren’t good who at wonky appointed in peacetime but then don’t do well in war but in most armies they didn’t stick around for long.

[@vinz4066]

​@@Marinealver He wanted to use cavalary to exploit a breakthrough not create it. They actualy ended up doing that in the 100 days offensive.

[@skibbideeskitch9894]

​@@MarinealverThe American Civil War was on the British Army Staff College syllabus, and the British Army had plenty of recent practical experience fighting a European enemy with modern weapons in Boer War. The idea Haig wanted to punch a massive hole in the frontline with cavalry isn't true either

[@michaelsinger4638]

During WW1, horse Calvary was still the best way to move quickly. And Calvary was used VERY effectively in other theaters of the war. Haig’s idea made a lot of sense in theory. It’s just that the Western Front in particular was the extremely unfavorable to the attacker.

[@jochum334]

300.000 That's an entire Iceland.

[@THECHEESELORD69]

How did they do it? I guess they went into the multiverse to get more of Iceland?

[@unnamedchannel1237]

@@THECHEESELORD69really? You couldn’t work out what the person was referring to ? If you could, you still chose to make your comment ?

[@neiabaraja8040]

​@@unnamedchannel1237 It's a joke brotha calm down

[@gaborfabian1239]

And thats just the fighting men. Count +900.000 dudes working in supply and logistics to keep them fit for battle.

[@jakethorn9585]

Re: Time tables, this stuff is still a problem today. In Bakhmut, I was involved in the assault to retake control of Khromove highway(the only major supply route for bakhmut at that time), and in the planning the previous evening we had worked out coordinating grad strikes on the positions we were assaulting. There was a 10 minute window between when the grad strikes were supposed to occur and when our assault was to begin, but the strikes never happened that morning for us due to counter battery fire. The guys in the first wave went across the road, we had already risked moving to the last friendly positions anyways and needed to retake control of the highway to get casualties out and supplies into the city. 10 minutes later my group followed, to the trenches just over the highway where what was left of the first wave was. We managed to take the first 1/3 or so of the positions we were supposed to capture but took 100% casualties in the process. The 3rd wave came up behind us about an hour later just to help us hold what we had, but we couldn't leave to evacuate casualties until the fourth wave came another hour later. I have no idea how many people died in total that day in Bakhmut but I had to walk over the bodies of six friendlies in the approach, and at least a dozen died fighting for the single position we were at, the northern most bend in the road. You knew you didn't want to let the guys who went before you down by leaving. We didn't want to let go of the progress we had made that cost us blood, and I'm sure the guys who came up after us thought the same. I'll never forget what one of the guys in the fourth wave said before we left, "It's ok, we'll go to storm, you're not alone now."

[@xxOmponxx]

You should make story videos on your channel if you’re comfortable with that. I’d love to hear more about your experience.

[@jakethorn9585]

@@xxOmponxx This is video from some of the guys who came a little while after us if you're interested, they fought through some of the positions to our west. I am in the video very briefly at 19:15 providing first aid. First and second wave had the yellow tape, blue some of the regular units that followed after. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y33YnZR3YrpqY68si=29YHO0yS26a_GbTn

[@jarvy251]

By the time Vimy rolled around just a few months later, and you're seeing sophisticated combined arms and highly drilled infantry taught to work on personal initiative at the lowest level. To act as if the British Army didn't learn from the Somme is nonsense.

[@88porpoise]

And the tactics that succeeded at Vimy were stopped when they ran into the new German defensive lines (Vimy having still been based on their 1916 tactics/strategy).

[@mill2712]

​@@88porpoise And that's the issue with waging a war. (Among its multiple other problems.) The enemy isn't stupid. They learn too and they have a say on your plans.

[@richardodonoghue]

yes, strolling towards enemy machine guns while kicking footballs was a fundamentally flawed strategy by my local accrington pals battalion, im glad they stopped that practise and reserved it for christmas celebrations.

[@nothanks9503]

You saying they added “for whom the bell tolls” to the playlist?

[@adamjd7645]

​@richardodonoghue A bit disingenuous, no? After "learning lessons" in '14-'15 they treated the German positions with the largest artillery bombardment in history up to that time. They didn't expect resistance to have survived. To pretend like that one-off in special circumstances was "tactics" belittles their memory.

[@georgepatton93]

Remember folks, logistics and organization takes time, very subtle, and unglorious, but it is what wins war, Haige being called a butcher is like grant being butcher, out of context and speaking from a pedestal mindset

[@TheManofthecross]

and in the case of grant. he was called that by the confederacy mainly due to the two head on assaults to try and take viskburg head on.

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

And especially when it's on the scale of operations in WW1, hiding the buildup at the front is basically impossible, so your enemy knows where you'll attack well in advance, and prepare accordingly.

[@TheLucanicLord]

Imagine all the calculations to work out how many bullets, biscuits and all the other things are needed at what places at what times - when the nearest thing to a computer is a stick with lines on it.

[@seanoconnor8843]

@@georgepatton93 I think you are projecting modern military theory on these "gentlemen". It is quite wrong to try to excuse their behaviour. Remember that the men who came back did everything in their power to ensure it never happened again. They wrote the doctrine because of these monsters

[@washingtonradio]

@@TheManofthecross You could argue Lee was the real butcher in Virginia, his casualty rates were very high, too high for the South to sustain, and much higher than Grant's. Also, look at the blundering at Gettysburg.

[@commissarchenkov4257]

I think in the UK we often see this whole "lions led by donkeys" trope more as a political and class thing. Fundamentally the war was being fought for no meaningful reason to the people on the ground so any battle no matter how well logistically organised was a total waste of life.

[@Aureus_]

Indeed our perception is very much based on a hatred of the Generals and officer corps.

[@TheCreepyLantern]

this is exactly it, at no point in this video, no matter how complex and in depth he describes the work and the communications or supplies can i think anytihng but 'and every man on both sides dying is doing so because the assholes at the top are playing chess with an entire generation.'

[@88porpoise]

​@@TheCreepyLanternThat was literally their job. And those men were a resource to move around and expend to with the war. The exact same thing can be said about Ike and the generals of WWII or every other war. WWI's big difference was that at that time technology gave the defender a massive advantage and the scale of the armies compared to the geography on the Western Front removed any possibility of maneuver. And in each major power there was fairly broad support for war in August 1914. There were certainly opponents to it, but they were very much the minority in the UK, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. It was only when it's impact started being felt and the war dragged on that opinion started to change, and even then there was a strong element of the sunk cost fallacy in every country. If you checked with the British public in August 1914, you would get a lot of enthusiastic support. If you asked them two years later, it would mostly be them not wanting the war but viewing its continuation as necessary.

[@THECHEESELORD69]

@@TheCreepyLantern I wouldn’t say they are assholes, what would you do in their shoes, I’m not saying that it’s fine that a lot of young men died in conflict, but it’s really more complicated then “they don’t know what it’s like to be out in the field!!!”

[@wtfroflffs]

Two and a half million British men volunteered to fight in WW1. They wanted to fight. They knew what they were fighting for.

[@biyurica]

My late grandpa always referred ww1 as not "the war to end all wars" but "the war to end all hope for humanity" Edit: can ya'll stop arguing in the comments

[@ThommyofThenn]

Yea humanity on the whole is a disgrace

[@Godman545]

​@ThommyofThenn wow what a stupid comment😂😂😂

[@ThommyofThenn]

@@Godman545 With that username I knew I was in for some great intellectual discussion. You prove your arguements with such conviction and deft rhetorical skill. I was not disappointed!

[@Cheekia2]

People say this about every war. Were the Napoleonic Wars any better? Was the Taiping Rebellion any better? If WWI was the war to end all hope for humanity, then why was there ever any hope in humanity? War by it's very nature is a cruel and horrendous act.

[@ThommyofThenn]

@Cheekia2 it could be said all war is equally tragic and I would probably agree, or that we still have a chance at peace, but I'm currently seeing it from the poster's pic. Indeed, I find the differences that charactarised WW1 such as scale and increasingly brutal weapons support its implications

[@ShuRugal]

The Battle of the Somme was a major failure of leadership. But the leadership which failed was not military. It was political. The issue was not "the generals kept sending men into a meat grinder", it was "the politicians created a situation where there was no choice BUT to send men into the meat grinder".

[@naamadossantossilva4736]

Bingo!

[@gwensmosh5532]

Exactly! The only people to win WWI were the Russians, who went home. It took a bloody revolution to pull it off, but it at least had a purpose in contrast to the imperial conflict of WWI

[@HateBear-real]

All of these dudes were absolute Chads that were willing to die for Duty and what they believed what was moves.

[@HateBear-real]

*right

[@ShuRugal]

@@HateBear-real No, the dudes I am talking about were the ones who were willing to send other people to go and die for them, while they were safely at home continuing to cock everything up.

[@Source98705]

I had family in Ww1 and my great granda lost the use of his hand because of a grenade but he still worked a farm for 60-70 years after it

[@BrandonF]

That is very impressive! I hope you have fond memories of him.

[@THECHEESELORD69]

If I recall correctly my great grandfather served as a dentist in the navy.

[@robertsteinbach7325]

My great grandfather fought in WW1, in 1918, avoided getting shot but weakened from gassing afterward. The flu got him a year later.

[@DaHuuudge]

My favorite thing about your channel is that it provides an antidote to the temptation to think about war in poetic terms. There’s nothing poetic about people butchering and torturing each other, dying en masse of disease and starvation and the elements, obliterating in moments works of beauty that took generations to create.

[@THECHEESELORD69]

“The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation!” -mark from rent “la vi bohem” -also mark from rent

[@cattysplat]

It's also why all of our simulations and even much of our written history inevitably end up being romantic individual heroism, adventures of excitement and glory in the name of righteousness and dehumanisation of the enemy as faceless goons for scoring points. The reality is the filthy employment of death and destruction, turning individuals into ruthless killers whilst running killing machines effectively, to destroy the vague thing over there that may be enemy, friend or civilian. From the bottom to the top, it was simply a job, where the greatest hope for anyone is to make it out alive mind and body intact. Let those who wax lyrical in peace try to make sense of the chaos afterwards.

[@BWSamurai69]

I feel like yet it’s bad, war is constantly romanticized. Whether you look at the fighting, bloodshed, death, losers, and victors, every aspect can be romanticized. Heck I used to train martial arts and some of the talk when people would be preparing for mma fights sounded insane to an outsider. Talking about what they wanted to try, the feelings of pain they were gonna feel, etc. Yes it is a sport that you have to train and put effort into, but at the end of the day it’s still attempting to maim, bludgeon, and cause harm to another person at the end of the day. And they talked about it with love and care in such a crazy way to witness

[@fukkitful]

@@BWSamurai69 In the past it was. Now with bodycam videos showing the brutality, you would have to be mentally insane to enjoy your time fighting. Adrian Carton de Wiart is probably the only person who enjoyed their time fighting on the western front.

[@edgarhilbert4797]

So there is nothing patriotic, in preventing to be masacred by Islamic terrorits. Antisemite.

[@michaelsinger4638]

The thing about the Somme is that the Germans lost about the same number of men defending as the British did attacking. The Germans were HAMMERED by offensives like The Somme and after awhile they could not replace those losses. And German accounts show that their morale was badly damaged as well.

[@ArchmageIlmryn]

That really is the main factor that people forget with modern judgements. Attacks failed in taking and holding ground. They did *not* fail in inflicting attrition. Generals kept attacking because just defending (and letting the enemy come to you) was often just as, if not more costly than launching failed attacks, even if you didn't lose ground.

[@Cdre_Satori]

Verdun was about the same, despite Germans saying they are going to bleed French dry, they were bleeding about the same and now with Some Germans were bleeding from two hands while French and British were bleeding one arm each.

[@silliestsususagest3276]

@@Cdre_Satori Remember the British army before the Somme was Kitchener's army, new raised, inexperienced "At the start of 1916, most of the British Army was an inexperienced and patchily trained mass of volunteers.The Somme was a great test for Kitchener's Army," While the German army was still that first class peace time army "Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria wrote, "What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield"" And well the Somme destroyed it. The Somme ultimately become a battle of attrition between the British and German empires. And well the turned the Hastily mass raised British volunteers into soldiers and reduce the German army into a militia. Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word. - Friedrich Steinbrecher The battle that led to the eventual destruction of the German, French, and British Empires The youth of these great nations sent to die in a muddy field in Flanders and in France and for what

[@nathanrose3523]

The Somme was ultimately a failure by any metric

[@River.E.M]

Your average western front ww1 offensive before 1918 had roughly equal casualties on either side. So yes sort of

[@DaFinkingOrk]

Over a hundred British generals died in WWI. Compared to far less in WWII and as far as I'm aware none since. It's very much a misconception that they were all sat around way behind the front too.

[@greenflagracing7067]

it was about 78. Davis, Frank; Maddocks, Graham (1995). Bloody Red Tabs - General Officer Casualties of the Great War, 1914-1918. London: Leo Cooper.

[@innawoods2131]

That's nowhere near enough, tho

[@john-carl2054]

This is why I don’t start wars.

[@Slayer398]

well *you* can't, so there's that.....

[@john-carl2054]

@ If a 19 year old Serbian dude can then I can too.

[@iceni6409]

Too many sweats

[@generalvikus2138]

It's also worth pointing out that there was great success on the first day of the Somme in other sectors. North of the Somme the attack failed, and south of the Somme it succeeded. Since the British were in the North, the English countries only remember that part of the battle.

[@richardodonoghue]

yeah, i live in Accrington Lancashire...home of the Accrington pals battalion who were annihilated that day when they 'walked towards the enemy machine guns kicking footballs as they went' this town is still traumatised by that massacre over a century later we have permanent 30ft high, x 100ft long banners in the town centre that carry photographs of the battalion and the men who died. many questions were asked of how this was allowed to happen, and really it boils down to 'they walked towards the enemy machine guns kicking footballs as they went' not being a very good idea on a battlefield... unfortunately i can't voice this in town as i really don't relish the idea of getting myself lynched.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

​@@richardodonoghueI thank you, Sir, for saying this. I thank you for your sensitivity. Some of the comments state that men at Gallipoli charged at their own initiative. But it was brave stupidity, driven by stupid culture. I do not think less of those men. They were doubly victims. They were victims of lies similar to this video . Thank you.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

Many men died. So how was there "great success"? It did not stop the war. And how can sending men against machine guns ever ever ever be an acceptable strategy? Drink this poison. You will die horribly. But it will prove your bravery. Name one general who did not know that men were marching into machine guns. Name one general who might have thought that this was a good idea. When I really believe that something is a good idea, I will do it first. What does slow communications have to do with this? This is all a lie.

[@Ryzard]

​@@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d out of curiosity, wdym lies similar to this video? I assume that the things leading them to do that would be different than just logistics

[@mrman6723]

@@richardodonoghue Barley any english left in that town

[@AgasAepad]

On the topic of how long it takes orders to reach units, Grand Tactician The Civil War has a mechanic for this where once you give an order the unit doesn't actually respond to it until a runner physically reaches them, its a game that really puts into perspective how much pre-planning is needed for military actions and how difficult it is to change the orders on the fly once they're underway

[@SusCalvin]

This is very often missing in strategy games where we get the god perspective. Warmaster has a mechanic where senior officers have a zone of influence, and a roll to get their order through clearly. Some skirmish games use sentry rules where units can be aware of unaware.

[@davidhoffman6980]

Yeah. Consider the Napoleonic wars. Prior to Trafalgar, Napoleon had to order the fleet back from the west Indies and to do that he had to send a ship out there to tell them to come back. That took months one way and only worked because the Royal navy didn't sink the ship carrying the message. Also, the task force commander was relieved for cowardice but the wagon carrying the message broke down and the message arrived at port after the fleet sailed. The gap between decisions and actions can be enormous in some combat spaces.

[@LemonHead-sq5ws]

Love that game 😅

[@FelixstoweFoamForge]

Good points all. But I'm going to have to disagree, overall. All of the logistical factors you mentioned still got expended when the attacks went on, and the sole result was a huge casualty list, instead of an equally huge logistical expenditure and less bodies if the attacks had been cancelled. Let's not forget, the Somme battle went on for SEVERAL months. The Generals had plenty of time to see the writing on the wall. And that's what Generals are paid for; to make the hard calls. And a General who continues to throw his men into a meat-grinder with diminishing possibility of success is a butcher. And I'm NOT talking about day one, or two or three of the Somme. I'm talking about maybe two weeks in. The offensive isn't working. Stop it. If, as a General, you don't do that, because you're worried about your career, you're not a butcher. You're something worse. I mean, look at Montgomery in Normandy, (and he's a General I do not rate at all); His repeated offensives all ultimately failed, so he stopped them. Haige ended up playing the attrition game. But all that said, good video.

[@aquila4460]

Three points to that. A) The offensive was working. It was inflicting Attrition was how you win WW1. No other fancy strategy or new technology worked, the war ended when Germany lost the ability to maintain its soldiers in the field and was overrun. B) Two weeks in the French still need relief at Verdun, so you still need to put preassure on the Germans. C) There ís a very big difference between the Trenches in WW1 and Normand in WW2. Montgomery stopped because they had other options for attack. Those did not exist in WW1. The front was trenches from the sea to switzerland.

[@buddermonger2000]

A couple of addendums to the other reply here: Not only was the Somme working, it was working for the French in the south. It also did at steep cost, give the initiative back to the Allies and led to the 1917 German retreat, unrestricted submarine warfare resumption, and thus the events of 1918

[@danielmaher964]

It did not work, it was a waste of lives. John Monash found a way to attack without huge casualties.

[@kino6395]

When it comes to WW1 it's scale is everything, no matter what point in history you pick defence/fortification was always the biggest advantage. Until very recently which makes the major 2 wars that are closest to today influenced by our views and what we know now. WW1 western front unlike any other major front the scale was bigger than the speed. It was a siege on the scale of a nation and unlike sieges of history you couldn't go around as no matter what point you picked there was always fortifications. While we can all agree that WW1 was by far the most inhumane where lives were spent for little gain. Blaming the generals isn't right, if you look into the data the top ranks had really high casualty rate's. While it was 100% influenced by them wearing nice trousers so the snipers could pick them off they didn't have to go into the trenches yet they did. So they all knew it was really bad, yet they still felt it was the best way to progress as there hands were tied because there wasn't another way to influence the war at that point in time. The moment that it hit me on the scale of the loss of the high levels of command and the traditional military families. Is when I did some electrical work for a rich drinking club in London, there was 3x more names from the patrons of this club on there remembrance board dating from the 1914-18 than 1939-45. Adding up to about 250 names from WW1. I don't think anyone was a butcher in WW1, at least not on the western front. (Italian front is... Horrible) As for Monty, his style of command is in direct response to the tolls of WW1. He almost bleed out in the mud of the Somme, so the fact you don't rate him yet say that the other methods are wrong is strange. Read Into Montys command of North African campaign there's a great example of your issues with WW1 generals at El alimain. Where Monty used all of what used learnt from WW1 to break a defensive line.

[@vathek5958]

But it was only the first day that was such a disaster (and mostly in the north). If we’re talking about the whole months long battle, then the Somme was bloody but a success. This is WWI we’re talking about, there are no bloodless victories. If it wasn’t the Somme, it would’ve been some other months long attritional campaign - that’s just what the Western Front was - but this time months later, likely after Verdun had already fallen and Russia had been broken.

[@flyforce16]

Somme 1916 did, at very steep cost, wrest the strategic initiative back towards the Allies' side. Arguable consequences of this on the western front include the German planned retreat in early 1917 and the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. The "big push" did not achieve any decisive breakthrough, but considering its reduction in scope from the initial plan, it did put the German army on the back foot and help bring about the eventual climactic events of 1918.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

But what was gained? At what cost?

[@Rynewulf]

Strategic initiative isnt real, an entire generation dead is

[@colbygordon6936]

​@@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d literally what the dude said? Put the germans on the back foot until their hail mary spring offensive to try to salvage a win before their country imploded.

[@Fusilier7]

When I think of a blood infantry attack in the First World War, I think of the Nek at Gallipoli. Peter Weir's Gallipoli, an Australian war film, is perhaps the best known depiction of the Battle of the Nek, which occurred on 7 August 1915, the film shows how determined the Australian infantry and dismounted cavalrymen charged Ottoman trenches, in the face of machines guns, that even if they suffered casualties, the Aussies still gallantly charged into certain death. Historically, the final bloody charge of by the Australian light horse was not ordered by the officers, it was launched by the soldiers themselves, attacking against orders to stay put, history sometimes lays the blame on high casualties on officers, but the enlisted played a role too, they were very much in tuned with the cult of the offense, something that every combatant in the First World War believed in, tragically, courage is no match for 800 rounds a minute.

[@buckgulick3968]

I was thinking of the Nek and Lone Pine too. Thanks for bringing it up.

[@Antmann71]

At the Nek weren't their rifles unloaded for some mad reason?

[@gussiejives]

Gallipoli is probably the standout example of a “what the hell were they thinking?” operation in the First World War. It’s bad enough that the naval attack failed so spectacularly, but the land operation didn’t have nearly enough time for planning and gathering the necessary supplies, especially so far away from the Western Front and especially if they got bogged down and trapped on the beaches as they did.

[@roadent217]

"tragically, courage is no match for 800 rounds a minute." Nonsense. 155 mm shell rolling barrage followed by grenade spam is definitely a match against 800 rounds a minute. The race to the parapet would usually be won by the attackers. When properly prepared, offense did more damage and casualties than defense.

[@skippygatten8572]

​@Antmann71 it was to encourage the men to move forward not to lay down and shoot.

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

The story I heard, Haig was being told constantly by his intelligence staff that the Germans were about to collapse... Certainly German records expressed the fear that they were about to collapse, one of the German general staff (I think Hindenburg, but may be wrong) said before this battle he had an army, after this battle he had a militia. Certainly it seems more like the Germans seemed to keep pulling a last gasp of of reserves and effort out of thin air time and again, the men usually being rotated out to rest for a few days and barely having time for a shower and a hot meal before going back out. Plus with Verdun ongoing etc. Haig let his divisional commanders have flexibility in execution. He had a rail car set up as a mobile command point (as close to mobile as you can get then). I can forgive him the Somme, Passchendaele however... That was him failing to defy reality, geography, meteorology and physics through ignoring them. It was the wrong place to fight that fight after that weather.

[@heijimikata7181]

I feel like everything kinda evens out when more than half of the generals from both sides were just about as incompetent as the other.

[@adamhavelock2104]

This is easily the most important piece of media on warfare I have seen! Thank you so much for making this.

[@FSUFAN-gr2vp]

Dearest Brandon, I am a huge fan of your channel! As a person who has been studying history since he was five years old (30+) and who has an extreme passion for World War I, this is one of your best videos to date. I am glad you mentioned the movie 1917, one of my biggest gripes with that movie was the notion of being able to call off an attack even if that attack was going to result in a trap or an ambush. Two runners crossing that much ground to warn an Officer of such an issue seemed farfetched to me based on the difficulties at the time. As always thanks for the amazing content!

[@TheHej2]

when I saw the title I first thought it was a "secret" reason that with enough soldiers nothing could stop an attack.

[@garystu9878]

Same here, I thought it was gonna be a video about how attackers had some sort of massive hidden advantage over the defenders in an offensive.

[@River.E.M]

That secret advantage (specifically in trench warfare) would primarily be the ability to choose where and when you attack.

[@Ryzard]

​@@River.E.M their disadvantage: (everything else lol)

[@River.E.M]

@Ryzard my friend there's a way to eliminate most of those disadvantages: Massed artillery

[@dominikvonlavante6113]

One of the largest misconceptions of the first world war was that these attacks were ineffective. Quite to the contrary. By this stage of the war, most attacks were successful. The problem was that equally, so were most counter attacks by the enemy. And even if your side managed to keep the attritional edge in this constant stream of counter -counter attacking, after 3-5km you would reach the absolute limits of supply and couldn't attack further and you risked moving outside of artillery counter battery protection.

[@gussiejives]

One of the major issues at the Somme was how many of those artillery shells-shells that needed to cut through the German barbed wire-were duds.

[@philtonge7522]

Down to the fact that the British Ministry of Supply for the War Department were trying to fill the so-called 'Shell Gap' by increasing the amount of new munitions workers with little training using rushed production methods. Plus a lot of shells supplied were shrapnel types. Good against humans, pretty much useless against wire, where the balls would just ping off...

[@alganhar1]

@@philtonge7522 Another issue was technological. The delay on contact fuses for shells at the time was longer than it is now, so the shells would bury themselves into the dirt a certain amount before exploding, which just lifted the wire up and dropped it down intact. It was not until I believe 1917 that an actual virtually 'instantaneous' fuse was developed. One that activated fast enough that it burst on the actual surface so was better able to cut the wire. Not a lot of people actually realise that. Many of the issues faced in WWI were technological, and are technologies we take for granted today. Even in 1918 many of those technologies did not exist, or were in very nascent forms. Tanks and radios being a good example of existing technologies that were far from mature.... In 1918 tanks made maybe 8 miles an hour on good terrain and had a 35% mechanical failure rate PER DAY. Radios were bulky and required a truck to transport them and the arial. Both are things that all too many modern readers simply fail to comprehend because we see tanks and radios from a modern perspective.

[@RangingMemoriesHistory]

My Great Grandfathers Battalion 1/Connaught Rangers fell victim to pressing the attack during the battle of Hanna on the 21st of January 1916. the bombardment lifted too soon, the ground was muddy from 8 days of rain, and the Ottoman Machine guns were still very much active after the bombardment. The Connaughts still had to press the attack as previous waves of Indian troops needed support. The battalion suffered 273 casualties and they couldn't break through the Ottoman defences.

[@xerpenta]

"The Scale of the Somme" chapter is just a sunken cost fallacy. "We've made so much effort that we might as well just throw people on the wires." At the same time, the planning for this operation was so massive, and no one ever thought to take into account a possible diversion from the Germans. It was an incompetence. It was a Hail Mary operation, planned without any contingency. Companies producing diapers have better planning nowadays than these blokes had. We can stand in front of the fact that military thought was not sufficiently developed and backed by technology, to account for the things that went wrong. But we shouldn't call it "competent".

[@gratefulguy4130]

Exactly

[@onlinecommentator2616]

"Sunken cost" does not exist in attrition war.

[@TonyBongo869]

Visited many Canadian battlegrounds this summer. The Somme doesn’t get near the respect it deserves. The Canadians captured 5 trench lines, and took those learnings forward into 1917 where they were unstoppable.

[@Jaleco12618]

I really appreciate the visual example of scale in the video. I am well aware of my lack of ability to visualize scale. Much like in your Rouke video where you showed what 200 meters (or whatever the range was) of their range their guns, it is very nice.

[@tamlandipper29]

Rouke? Sounds interesting.

[@nebojsag.5871]

Oh, and another important thing about the Somme. *IT* *FUCKING* *WORKED*. The Germans were deeply shaken and their offensive against Verdun failed. They were forced to withdraw from parts of occupied French territory.

[@Rynewulf]

Yet after so many casualties even patriotic Britons were asking 'why are we conscripting an entire generation of hundreds of thousands, on pain of imprisonment or execution, for the sake politicians to send us to all die abroad?' People resent WWI, its yet another war we didnt need to be in but 'our' government decided actually we did. There were many officers among those that made art and politics calling people like Haig butchers

[@samuelgordino]

The reason the Germans stopped attacking in Verdun, was the Bruslilov offensive in the Eastern Front. The Somme only comes later.

[@lightfeather9953]

So if the somme involved 5 million deaths but won the war, you'd consider that a brilliant success? The whole point of the criticism is that the strategies costs outweighed the benefits. WW1 was a tragedy for ALL sides. Everyone lost! We have to be careful about myopically thinking about military outcomes as if it's a video game.

[@roadent217]

@@lightfeather9953 "The whole point of the criticism is that the strategies costs outweighed the benefits." That's a fair criticism for the alternative of not starting the war to begin with in 1914. But how does that help the generals that are stuck having to engage with the war in 1915-1918? What _should_ they have done, instead?

[@kylewilliams8114]

​@@lightfeather9953so if it cost 2 men their lives it would have been a failure? Changing the facts of history to hypotheticals is idiotic. You mean to tell us all that if things were different, we'd think of them different? Wow, much enlightened, very brain.

[@lucasmatiasdelaguilamacdon7798]

There’s an impression that the Somme was always deemed as “The Great Fuck-Up”, which I think is interesting as to this day I have yet to find any actual period source that uses that expression to refer to it. I think it’s very telling that us, modern people, often use the phrase to refer to the Somme, when it seems it wasn’t even used in the historical context.

[@kubaprosek9989]

When have you ever seen either side admit that they fucked up? Do you really expect contemporary sources to say “damn we really fucked this up”?

[@bewawolf19]

@@kubaprosek9989 I mean, I think Cold Harbor is a good explanation of the thought behind it. "I regret this assault more than any one I have ever ordered." Grant was willing to admit such after the war was completed in his memoirs, whilst his dispatches at the time of the combat glossed over the defeat. The time immediately after the action, Grant would dispatch "Our loss was not severe, nor do I suppose the enemy lost heavily.", a severe understatement if not outright lie The reason for this I would argue wasn't pride, but rather simply I'd argue morale. At such a critical time, the last thing you want is having one of your few successful union generals reporting he suffered a massive defeat, which surely wouldn't be good for the men nor the war effort. It is also notable in a report not destined to the public, Grant described it in a more dour tone"On the 3d of June we again assaulted the enemy’s works in the hope of driving him from his position. In this attempt our loss was heavy, while that of the enemy I have reason to believe was comparatively light.". With that in light, I wouldn't expect during the battle of the Somme for people within leadership being happy at the idea of telling everyone, including the soldiers actively dying in the offensive, that it was a failure. That clearly would only make things drastically worse, and may even cause more deaths than it would solve. However if it was a complete screw up then with precedent from other near-contemporary generals own admissions of failures, I'd argue that you would have seen more leadership after the fact honestly reporting it as such. Especially since many of the leadership would've been in positions where they would have known fairly well of the plan but not be responsible for it, meaning that they aren't necessarily even covering for themselves by refraining from comment.

[@kubaprosek9989]

@@bewawolf19 well then Churchill did speak and protest how the battle was led. There is your contemporary source

[@bewawolf19]

@@kubaprosek9989 Fair point. Admittedly I don't trust Churchill the most, but that isn't a real counterargument on my end.

[@lucasmatiasdelaguilamacdon7798]

@@kubaprosek9989Actually yes, or rather, one would expect that if the Somme was “the great fuck-up” we’d see some actual sources of the time using that name. This is not to say that official records would use it, rather that someone should’ve left any sort of evidence. Say, maybe anti-war cartoons or propaganda, political commentators, newspapers, or even the diaries of soldiers should have mentioned at least that such a name existed. Yet nothin exists prior to the 1950’s. If it was also something that bothered high command, like wanting to censor it, one would expect to at least find some report by an officer where it is stated that the term is being used and to try and silence or cesor it. But there is nothing. Not even a mention of “the great fuck-up” exists. Not in any period writing, neither official nor unofficial. Neither officer nor soldier. Neither diary nor cartoon. Neither newspaper nor diary. And that is very telling. Not even in the private diaries or letters of soldiers is the name found. It’s likely then that the name never actually existed.

[@Randomusername56782]

honestly WW1 generals get a pretty bad rep in general, even the ones that were actually really good at their jobs and competent lol.

[@Marinealver]

It was still the aristocracy throwing away the plebiscite.

[@trevdestroyer8209]

​@@Marinealverlike all the previous wars then

[@rotwang2000]

@@Marinealver The Great War nearly broke Britain's back in that losses in the upper class were insanely high. The idea that officers stayed safe while men died is nonsense. Over 200 Brigadiers and higher died on the front lines, thousands of Colonels, Majors etc died leading their troops. When you look at those in Public Schools who joined the ranks from 1914 onward, it's a massacre of the upper classes. Blackadder goes Forth shows this in that Lt George is the last one of his peer group. It's one of the reasons why Churchill and Montgomery start to push for more equipment over men to carry the fight in WWII and that Montgomery will not engage in risky battles that could end up costing Britain more than it could bear giving him the reputation of being a bad general because he doesn't charge at everything that moves like Patton.

[@anon2034]

@@rotwang2000 THIS

[@alganhar1]

@@Marinealver And to jump n with more to shoot down your ridiculous and provably incorrect statement. The two leading British Officers were not aristocrats. Haig was the son of a Whiskey Distiller, wealthy but upper middle class at best. The Chief of the Imperial general Staff, the top ranking uniformed officer in the British Army, was a man named Sir William Robertson. Do not let the sir fool you, he was knighted well into his career. His father was a part time postmaster, his mother a seamstress. He joined the army as a Private, and is the ONLY person in the British Armies long history to go from Private to Field Marshal. He was most assuredly lower class. A man does not go from being a private to the highest possible rank in a military by being an idiot by the way. Robertson was gruff, never lost his accent, and was highly competent. So the two top soldiers in the British Army, the commander of the Army as a whole (CIGS), and the theatre commander, were not aristocrats....

[@EzekielDeLaCroix]

Brandon "Trust in the Plan" Fisichella Brandon "Good Soldiers Follow Orders" Fisichella Brandon "Catch 22" Fisichella Brandon "A Bloody General is a Good General" Fisichella Brandon "Private, Shut Up" Fisichella Brandon "Another Wave" Fisichella

[@groovymckraut7179]

I worked in a relatively large company and even with phones and emails and regular meetings it was often difficult to get everyone on the same page and to be efficient with work tasks. And that’s in an environment where the means of communication are fast and the incentive (paycheques) is high. WW1 is an environment where the communication is slow, and incentives (survival) is pushing people to not want to attack. The fact that it happened at all, and repeatedly, and sometimes successfully at all is crazy to me Good video!

[@mistapoli]

So many people act like they are simply more intelligent than people of the past because they have the benefit of hindsight and modern abundance of knowledge. I think it’s strange that nobody thinks “if doing x was so obvious, why didn’t they?” There’s always a reason.

[@MrZauberelefant]

Especially considering they had adversaries with at least as much at stake, who probably weren't bumbling fools either, who couldn't outdo them.

[@g.holmes9930]

I saw that title and clicked so fast

[@brucermarino]

Thanks. Delighted to be a new subscriber!

[@BrandonF]

Thank you! Glad to have you here!

[@brucermarino]

@BrandonF I appreciate well researched and well analyzed material. Great work!

[@jonathanstoutenburg8634]

I saw your production yesterday, I am at the end of gall bladder recovery. I recognized the voice and your script mastery and here we are!

[@LordTutTut]

This was an excellent video. Thank you! It's hard to shake the feeling that generals were clueless when you see the horrid casualty numbers and read stories from those at the front. But after watching, I can appreciate the fact that these were nations and militaries entering a new era of military history. We can't blame them for getting it all right, especially given that in total war, high death counts are just a part of the game.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

"just part of the game"? Perhaps if it were just a game. I am not attacking you, but this logic. Something is being sold, but I am not buying it. Everyone KNEW that men were dying. Everyone KNEW. And everyone knew that any gains were shamefully small. Why should we excuse anyone for thinking that men charging machine guns might have a happy ending? Poor communications? Did poor communications mean that the generals at the top never learned about all of the dead men? Did the generals never know why they needed thousands of replacements every month? Did anyone assume that all of that German artillery was hitting nothing? Was anyone ignorant about the German machine guns, because of slow communications? Were the generals in another galaxy years away from the battle? High death counts should never be a part of any "game". We must recognize lies to be lies.

[@LordTutTut]

@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d I see where you're coming from, and agree with a lot of what you have to say. To be clear, I do not believe that war is a mere game. Anything that involves the needless killing of a fellow human is a tragedy. I use the term more to denote that in total war, high casualties both on the frontline and homefront are to be expected. It is a tragedy, and the world figured it out the hard way. I thoroughly believe that the men who decided to go to war in the first place are evil. No amount of land is worth the slaughter of a generation. I am endlessly grateful to live in an era of relative peace in that regard. Rather, I sympathize with the fact that mechanization and industrialisation of nations dramatically changed the ways in which war was fought. Tactics and strategies had to be developed on the fly as there wasn't a book already written on how to conduct this sort of warfare. The entire time you're developing these strategies, planning out your moves, and taking stock of the situation, shots are always being fired, and trenches are always under pressure. You can't let up in war, lest the enemy take advantage. So the bodies piled up, and a generation was lost. I do think that there were ways to improve for sure. Gallipoli was a mistake and never should have happened, for example. But I also believe it's easy to criticize those from the past given all that we know now. I wouldn't be surprised if we come to see the Ukranian War in a similar light, with live recordings that show soldiers dying for nothing in the middle of a field when drones are above. And yet, new recruits are sent to die every day. We seem to never learn the most important lesson.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

​@@LordTutTut thanks for responding. I appreciate your closing line, "We never seem to learn the important lesson." I believe that we were created as intelligent and responsible people. I believe that we do NOT need hindsight to learn such lessons. Before you do it the first time you already know that men will not absorb machine guns bullets well . If you are not already sure of that, then you should not be a general. If you do know that then why do you order men to charge into machine guns? The argument is made in the video that the week of preparatory artillery barrage had not destroyed the German defenses. Then why did the over the top charges start? But the generals didn't know??? It's too bad that they didn't have airplanes to check out the German lines during and after the barrage. Oh. I forgot. They DID have planes for reconnesance! Then why didn't they use those planes for reconnesance? Nope. We have a schedule to keep. We didn't calculate time for such TRIVIAL NONSENSE. Don't send men against machine guns. Either we believe that or we don't. My point is that the generals did not care. Planes could have been flying high above the German lines DURING the bombardment, measuring progress. The video restricts us to an artificially restricted issue. Why we couldn't stop it once we started. False and misleading. Don't start it if you haven't first destroyed the German lines. Simple. That could have been done. But they were incompetent. They didn't correct their fire. Remember airplanes? But they had hundreds of thousands of bodies to absorb the bullets. The men are replaceable. Just stay on schedule. Our carefully designed schedule is what is important. We can afford to keep making the same mistake. We can keep throwing more bodies at the problem. They knew that this was wrong. This was not necessary. No conscience. It was not a lesson that needed to be learned. They knew. We know that abortion is murder of babies. Are we waiting until we finally learn? No. We already know.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

​@@LordTutTut thanks for responding. I appreciate your closing line, "We never seem to learn the important lesson." I believe that we were created as intelligent and responsible people. I believe that we do NOT need hindsight to learn such lessons. Before you do it the first time you already know that men will not absorb machine guns bullets well . If you are not already sure of that, then you should not be a general. If you do know that then why do you order men to charge into machine guns? The argument is made in the video that the week of preparatory artillery barrage had not destroyed the German defenses. Then why did the over the top charges start? But the generals didn't know??? It's too bad that they didn't have airplanes to check out the German lines during and after the barrage. Oh. I forgot. They DID have planes for reconnesance! Then why didn't they use those planes for reconnesance? Nope. We have a schedule to keep. We didn't calculate time for such TRIVIAL NONSENSE. Don't send men against machine guns. Either we believe that or we don't. My point is that the generals did not care. Planes could have been flying high above the German lines DURING the bombardment, measuring progress. The video restricts us to an artificially restricted issue. Why we couldn't stop it once we started. False and misleading. Don't start it if you haven't first destroyed the German lines. Simple. That could have been done. But they were incompetent. They didn't correct their fire. Remember airplanes? But they had hundreds of thousands of bodies to absorb the bullets. The men are replaceable. Just stay on schedule. Our carefully designed schedule is what is important. We can afford to keep making the same mistake. We can keep throwing more bodies at the problem. They knew that this was wrong. This was not necessary. No conscience. It was not a lesson that needed to be learned. They knew. We know that abortion is murder of babies. Are we waiting until we finally learn? No. We already know.

[@FedericoMalagutti]

I love the way in which you methodically analyze this kind of subjects.

[@CaptStarlight]

Wastage; British term used during the First World War. Used to describe the losses from those killed, injured, or from the loss of resources experienced during the war either when an attack advanced or when men died holding a defensive position. British lost an approximate average of 7,000 men killed and wounded per day to wastage. This is the horror of WWI.

[@julianschumann9843]

7000 men would mean, over more than a 1000 days over 7 million casualties. I am pretty sure that this is far to high, given the fact that less then a million died, and a killed to wounded ratio of close to 10:1 was only ever achieved by the modern American Military operating under complete air supremecy, with immediate airborne evacuation and modern medicine

[@CaptStarlight]

@@julianschumann9843 This goes into the argued term of casualty. Which may include dead, prisoners, wounded and removed from war service, wounded and returned to war service, whether or not it was during a battle. The statistics for this is rather vague. For this example of Wastage, I use my great grandfather who fought in the Australian Army during WWI. He was injured and taken off of frontline service on three occasions. Once from dysentery, once from being kicked by a wagon mule, and once from shellburst. He was only ever deemed a casualty on the shellburst occasion, which from records was only a minor injury. He served for the rest of the war and survived.

[@smurphy98844]

Dude...the moment I heard you say war by time table, I started tearing up. That's friking mad man, I know they did their best but holy cow. One man slipping could cause hundreds of deaths smh

[@theteaman3357]

I recently started playing a game called foxhole, a massive multiplayer endless war where all the logistics, buildings, guns, everything is made by the players and both armies are fighting... there's this bridge I'm still at where we keep on taking it and loosing it and its sort of a stalemate... but we cannot stop attacking otherwise it will be taken. People die constantly, you may be getting shelled by artillery, but you cannot stop otherwise that area will be taken.

[@xanaxwizard]

I’m really, really glad I found this channel on this insomniac night. Thank you for easing the slow night time hours for a sleepless lad outside Baltimore, Maryland.

[@shireboundscribbles]

Yup, too many people think that changing tactics is like clicking a mouse or sending a txt.

[@THECHEESELORD69]

“Bro please stop the attack we are getting pounded in verdun” -some French general idk

[@stephenpittman4291]

My grandfather was there on July 1 1916, Lancashire regiment, wounded but (obviously ) survived - hence me being here. Without glorifying or scaring me, he shared some of experience with me as a 10 year old in the mid-1960s. I have been obsessed with the whole conflict to this day. I can’t imagine what (all) sides went through for 4 and a half years.

[@buckgulick3968]

Outstanding video. Can almost be applied to any military era with few changes. As a long time historian it even made me give pause and think of many opinions I've held dear and reconsider. Thus is the joy of study and learning. You're always on a quest to know more. (Although I still think Blackadder Goes Fourth was f***ing hilarious!)

[@alganhar1]

Blackadder goes forth was indeed a piece of comedic gold. But thats what it was, comedy, not history.

[@andrewcarter7503]

When Haig died, they held a state funeral. It's said a million people stood on the route, many his old soldiers. They respected him and knew he cared about them. The revisionist history of WWI started in the 1960s.

[@Trebor74]

The whole problem with anti establishment/antiwar 60s was they couldnt use wwii as an example. It was quite obviously a Just War. But memories of wwi were fading,and it provided just the right examples for them.

[@einfachignorieren6156]

Lol, no it wasnt

[@IPlayWithFire135]

In particular, there was an understanding that not only was the killing and dying of wwi pointless, its morality pure cynicism and grandstanding on the part of said donkeys leading lions, but it directly led to the problems that needed the obviously Just War to fix.

[@omppusolttu5799]

@@einfachignorieren6156 Cry about it neo-nazi.

[@BrentWalker999]

​@@einfachignorieren6156 Ww2 wasn't a just war? Are you serious?!

[@einfachignorieren6156]

@BrentWalker999 yes

[@MrMrMadMax92]

your mild anger undermins it perfectly.

[@stamfordly6463]

This is one of those topics where what Sir terry Pratchett called the "Dreadful algebra of necessity" comes into play.

[@obinutkonobi1407]

Brilliant video mate, hope the algorithm pushes this one

[@Fatherofheroesandheroines]

I would say that Haig wasn't incompetent, just thinking in pre-World War I terms. However, Nivelle? Yeah THAT guy was so incompetent, he nearly caused the entire French army to mutiny.

[@skibbideeskitch9894]

Haig was a very modern general. The problems confronting him and his colleagues on the Western Front crystallised in his mind very quickly

[@Cdre_Satori]

Haig was strategic genius compared to Austrians like Hötzendorf, von Bojna and in Italy Cadorna who remember, wanted to fight French in the Alps. Italian war plans were for invasion of France only the Political leadership recognised opportunity to haggle and ultimately Entante had the better pitch.

[@skibbideeskitch9894]

@@Rynewulf "he had to be repeatedly talked down by other military staff from frontal cavalry charges?" When and by whom? Haig treated cavalry as a contingency for enhancing the infantry's "bite", conditional on if the enemy defence had collapsed. He stated explicitly that every attack had to be within the bounds of the available artillery. The idea infantry attacks were repetitive and futile isn't true either. The technology, methods and scale underpinning a standard set-piece attack by late-1916/early 1917 were completely different to what they had been in 1915. He's been called a "butcher" because the politicians who bickered incessantly with the general staff over strategy (and were almost universally wrong, by the way) won the war of the memoirs in the 1930s - and the pacificst left then ran with this further in the 1960s.

[@skibbideeskitch9894]

@@Rynewulf Haig never published any memoirs. I'm not talking about the Labour Party - I'm talking about a thoroughly cultural "understanding" of the war as typified in the 1960s by Joan Littlewood's "Oh, It's a Lovely War!" stage-play. The acrimonious debates between British politicians and generals over strategy during the war is infamous. "Frocks vs brass hats". The politicans (Lloyd George, Churchill) were invariably wrong. Look into it.

[@phytonso9877]

​@@skibbideeskitch9894 "the politicians who bickered incessantly with the general staff over strategy (and were almost universally wrong, by the way)" Unbelievable amounts of [citation needed]. Roberts' "Let's focus on Belgium to the exclusion of ever other front of the war where our seaborne strategic mobility could be used" plan was pretty much followed to the letter, and, uh, I'm not sure that was the best option given 100 years of hindsight.

[@tinyfox7349]

Failure isn’t acceptable on the lowest levels of the military regardless of the reason or excuse. The same standard is expected of the chain of command, however high it reaches

[@NoNo-xh7ru]

According to who? If failure weren’t an acceptable outcome then no one in war would take risks. If no one took risks they would just sit around waiting not doing anything because even standing up and walking around has a risk of failure. Egregious failures as a result of personal misconduct are generally unacceptable but the nature of war is such that expecting perfection 100% is completely counterproductive. You can’t afford that kind of liability in a war.

[@jamalwilburn228]

This true. Unless you're aware of battalion or brigade planning, you have no idea what the "big picture" is. The lowest level who may understand is maybe a high-speed Liuetenant or a Captain. Everyone has their own sector and piece they play on the massive chessboard. Pvt. Snuffy doesn't need to know anything outside his AO and nor would he understand or pay attention if told.

[@jamalwilburn228]

Been explained to me in this situation It's 2AM, and you get a message to conduct a near suicidal breach when you're low on supplies and equipment. What you don't know is that a few months prior, some Spec Ops team had planted a device that was about to go off. Artillery and Air were there on station to provide that limited window to support the breach. All these pieces must happen in rapid synch for this plan to work. Any hesitation and more will die

[@marooner-martin]

I truly love how you explain things that most people brush off and make fun of. I still to this day defend linear warfare because of your video on it and how it wasn’t “completely stupid” for the time being

[@nebojsag.5871]

Then you have people like Hötzendorff, Cadorna and Enver Pasha who essentially did just throw men into the meat-grinder and refused to innovate anything. "Just tell the plebs to fight harder!" It was a titanic challenge to be sure, but some of them really were just horribly stupid. Not most, but some.

[@Slayer398]

That was never a question that some of the generals (on both sides) were horribly incompetent, but overall that moniker of "donkeys leading lions" is horribly wrong.

[@jaredjosephsongheng372]

Cadorna just bashing his divisions against Mountain defences again and again expecting a different result was just insane

[@random240]

@@jaredjosephsongheng372 Cadorna did not do that. I understand that you english speakers do not have access to Italian sources, or in any case have neglected them/have not studied them, but I cannot accept this line of historiography. Before the ""Caporetto disaster"" the front was excellent, and all Italian generals recognized a great chance for a successive offensive along the Isonzo. It is true that there was a staggering level of incompetence on the lower levels, and extreme stubborness on Cadorna's, but if one studies the facts of Caporetto one will see that the blame rested upon failed military intelligence MORE than on CADORNA. Cadorna, also, was instrumental to achieving combined arms warfare and special attack troops such as the Arditi. As an Italian I can say that the man has been horribly misrepresented, mainly due to political intrigues. This was the fate of Haig, too.

[@jaredjosephsongheng372]

@@random240 I'll just say one thing, he went on the Offensive ELEVEN times and when he defends just ONE time, he proceeds to get his army crushed and his Army gets sent to the Piave River.

[@random240]

@@jaredjosephsongheng372 Is that because you have no rebuttal to my argument? The famous eleven offensives served to conquer vital stretches of land in the rocky mountain-line above the Isonzo river. These battles were horrific, yes, just like any other Western Front battle. But just like the battles of the French or British, they served a vital role in the tactical situation on the rocky mountains. They placed the Austrians at a very obvious disadvantage, subject to flanking and great attrition. Both the Italians and the Austrians knew that what was to be Caporetto would Make or Break the entire front - if not the war. I'm going to repeat myself: the circumstances of the "disaster" were not Cadorna's fault alone, in fact he played a More minor role in it than you think. The German expeditionary force to the Isonzo also played a vital part. Summary: those battles were not useless, they served tactical-strategic purposes and succeeded. Even after the "disaster", they had set the stage for the war-ending battle of Vittorio Veneto.

[@Vulcan616]

While I question citing Wikipedia ever as a Historian, other wise many good points mate. Especially pixilated information on a Battlefield. Very well said.

[@markokabel8221]

Dude is talking about an offencive with 400k men. Think about Barbarossa.

[@DarkEmpireGames]

Another amazing video, thanks for a new perspective

[@cbhlde]

Blackadder: It's the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that. Melchett: Exactly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we've done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time! There is, however, one small problem.

[@tamlandipper29]

Blackadder is first rate comedy. Not history.

[@gurigura4457]

Blackadder Goes Forth is very funny, but it does unfortunately contribute to the pop perception of WW1 are a war run by incompetents.

[@Rynewulf]

@@tamlandipper29So why did they infinitely send our people to die in slow walking waves without end? Its a practical issue stopping the march, but they didnt stop. They seemed convinced that thousands dying on a spot to get a single trench was a fair exchange, we get conscripted you see and dont matter to the leading type

[@Apollo890]

You have to remember that Blackadder goes Fourth was written by Ben Elton who was at the time an extremely left wing comedian so he had a vested interest in making upper class British generals look like crass, uncaring, bloodthirsty, upper class twits.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

​@@Apollo890whoever the author, and to whatever end, it is still true. Over the top into machine guns achieves ...what?

[@treky4life488]

One of your best topics and videos sir

[@davidwright7193]

Much of this is nonsense. Long sections on how difficult it would be to redirect active operations on a minute by minute level for a battle that lasted nearly 6 months. In saying Haig ought to have called the offensive off earlier are usually talking about him not launching more attacks in October and November rather than not calling it off at 10 am on the 1st day. The Somme is an artillery battle with infantry support being directed by a 2nd rate cavalry officer who is completely out of his depth. Put the forces deployed under the command of a competent commander, for instance Brusolov and much more would have been achieved. Even allowing Rawlinson to carry out his repeated bite and hold attacks would have pushed the German line back faster, with fewer casualties and more impact on the Germans. Haig made basic mistakes with artillery, diluting his barrage by spreading it over too much ground (he ordered Rawlinson to attack deep targets in that week long barrage which Rawlinson thought were irrelevant and turned out to be when the first wave didn’t take its second line targets). Retained a cavalry reserve to exploit a breakthrough his troops never came within a mile of achieving and sent men over the top to make an advance that was better suited to 1816 rather than 1916. Compare what happened on the Somme to what happened in the east, a month earlier, with a less well equipped and trained army under Brusalov and the deficiency of command becomes obvious.

[@mrpancakes1984]

Agree with you man. The topic about issues of communication and commiting on the attack are really interesting subjects! but defending officers like Haig is really a weird hill to die on. The thing is, the Great War was indeed a wasteful conflict, so many millions of lives lost for naught and so much resources lost. And yeah, even if there is battlefield problems of communications, some officers were indeed foolish and entrenched in outdated doctrines of offensive and to show "higher spirit" than the enemy (the french elan for example), as if that higher morale would beat artillery shells and machinegun fire. There is the example of General Nivelle in the french army, who seeking glory promised victory over the germans in 48 hours, is that not foolish clout chasing by the general at the expense of his soldiers? In fact, that pretty much led to the 1917 mutinies, where the troops didn't even stopped the fight, just refused to keep doing suicidal attacks and kept the mutiny until they sacked Nivelle and placed Petain instead, only stopping after Petain assured the troops there wouldn't be more suicidal attacks. So while I usually like Brandon's videos, I really disliked this smug lecture on how "hah gotcha, popular consensus is wrong" while there was in fact many Generals who sent thousands into the meat grinder to die for nothing only to advance their own careers, and also pretty much validating the actions of these irresponsible officers with "But if you stop attacking, the death of 100 would be in vain! so lets make it into the death of 10.000 instead"

[@vjbd2757]

"Haig made basic mistakes with artillery, diluting his barrage by spreading it over too much ground (he ordered Rawlinson to attack deep targets in that week long barrage which Rawlinson thought were irrelevant and turned out to be when the first wave didn’t take its second line targets)." That was mostly a mistake on the first day of the Somme. Subsequent operations on the Somme after that are mostly smaller, and the artillery targets are much more concentrated in a smaller area. "Compare what happened on the Somme to what happened in the east, a month earlier, with a less well equipped and trained army under Brusalov and the deficiency of command becomes obvious." Unlike the Western Front, the Eastern Front is not bogged down with heavily fortified trench lines. And the Russians' primary target are the Austrians which are less effective than Germans.

[@davidwright7193]

@@vjbd2757 Haig repeatedly intervened in artillery planning to widen and deepen the barrage because the planners were not being “ambitious” enough. The artillery plans improve as general staff aren’t involved in planning the small scale local attacks that occurred more often as the battle went on. Your comments on Brusalov seem to show you don’t really know what he was doing in his offensive. He didn’t use the line advances at a walk that Haig ordered his infantry to use but instead used infantry squad cover and move advances much closer to 1918 stormtrooper tactics than Haig’s tactics on the Somme. This was suggested by British infantry commanders but Haig didn’t think that his troops (with more training, more machine guns, and more NCO’s than the Russian army) could cope with the tactic. Brusalov was also using artillery tactics that wouldn’t be used on the western front for another 18 months focusing on intense short preliminary barrages, with box barrage support for attacks isolating sections of the front and preventing the rapid counter attacks involved in flexible defensive tactics.

[@vjbd2757]

@@davidwright7193 The Brusilov offensive, just like the Somme, was a very costly Allied operation (with 1 to 1.4 million Russian casualties). Both offensives succeeded in diverting German forces from Verdun but fell short of their primary objectives. In a way, the German Spring Offensive was similar to the Brusilov Offensive. Both employed stormtroopers and gained large amounts of land in the initial phases, but they failed to knock France or Austria-Hungary out of the war, lost momentum, and left Germany or Russia unable to conduct large-scale offensives afterward because of the enormous casualties.

[@Phoenix-ej2sh]

Excellent video. One factor that needs to be added into the question is what was called "wastage". This was the eye wateringly massive number of people who were dying while the armies were simply trying to hold their ground. The reasons why things like the Somme were ordered was because the alternative was worse.

[@Elem40]

1 million helmets for 300k soilders. So they had about three heads each. Now that‘s remarkable.

[@thepsychicspoon5984]

Shit gets lost, damage, and stolen. So you have to have replacements for that.

[@ProdigiousScroller]

This is fascinating! What an incredible video. Thanks a lot!!

[@TalabAlSahra]

It’s not like they had gamer headsets where each individual soldier could drop Anti-German slurs before respawning.

[@andresmartinezramos7513]

Les putins des boches!

[@RagnarDollabill]

Nice work. I’ve watched your videos on and off for years, this is your best.

[@BrandonF]

I appreciate that, thank you!

[@Jz4p]

This is a decent video that rightly calls out several of the problems with calling off the Somme Offensive in the first hours or day. It does also accurately bring into consideration the impact on the battle of Verdun. He's also right to say that many others would have made similar or worse mistakes owing to pressure and fog of war. There is also something to be said for the political aspects driving decision making. Politicians got the world into this mess, and they weren't to get anyone out of it. Unfortunately, I think a few of Brandon's arguments are flawed. Stopping an attack that isn't working is not a betrayal of the sacrifices that original attackers made, nor is it dishonoring them (though some small additional losses may come from stranding forces). This is a classic "Sunk cost" fallacy. Brandon takes no effort to spell out specific impacts of halting the battle at specific portions and instead talks in broad generalities which echo the way attritional warfare narrows the focus and minds of its proponents. The deaths in this battle weren't "Necessary." People died here as a matter of history, but it's the most human thing possible to seek alternatives that would have lessened the death and suffering. For every single "Hold your ground at all costs" order that preserves a line and saves lives for one side in a battle, two inane costly orders were likely issued that produced no beneficial effect. Overall, this video does have some value, but I'd caution viewers about taking every statement at face value. Legitimate criticisms can be levied, and this does little to dissuade them.

[@danielmaher964]

Great comment. Monash found that other way but has been forgotten

[@BojackHorseman0098]

Its a universal experience of soldiers who came home and had to listen to everyone in society who thought they knew better than every general

[@schutzanzug6731]

"At 7.30am on 1 July 1916, 14 British divisions attacked. In most cases they were unable to keep up with the barrage that was supposed to take them through to the German trenches. This gave the Germans time to scramble out of their dugouts, man their trenches and open fire. Haig’s infantry were met by a storm of machine-gun, rifle and artillery fire. They suffered over 57,000 casualties during the day." When people are referring to how the Somme was a disaster, they are not saying it shouldn't have taken place. They are saying that they should have fixed the issues instead of pressing on as if they could not wait a week of time to potentially save as much as almost a half a million lives. Basically this entire video is a justification for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of sons and fathers, all to temporarily release pressure for the unstrategic propagated city of verdun. If Verdun fell, there would be more men alive today.

[@enterprise9001]

An extra week would not have fixed the timing issues between infantry-artillery coordination. The quality of British troops in 1916 was largely mediocre and no one from Haig on down had ever led an army that large before. They were only ever going to learn by doing. The blood toll for that was always going to be horrific.

[@nathangreig5884]

When I was in cadets we were told that you match your watches with the artillery, regardless of the real time syncing watches with the artillery Is now the time we go by

[@mario_1683]

If you want to know, how warfare really was as a soldier in ww1, read Ernst Jüngers "Storms of Steel". It shows exactly, what Brandon says and gives good insight!

[@duncanh9468]

You are inspiring. I want to have the same sorta channel when it comes to history. Your channel is giving me more ambition to make mine. I love history and I think you have just helped me tell it to people.

[@seanoconnor8843]

I was fortunate to remember conversations with men who were there. Their opinions were very much that they were lions led by donkeys. Worse even. The commanders of the French, German and British armies eagerly demonstrated their willingness to spill blood. Nothing more or less than that. I'd be grateful if you didn't try to rewrite history

[@alganhar1]

I would be grateful if you got off your backside and read some actual history. History using actual archive material and research. I would be grateful if you did not enter a discussion in utter IGNORANCE of the actual events, or the actual measures those armies took to learn how to fight in a style of warfare that was utterly different to anything in history prior to 1914. I would be grateful, that if you are in fact unwilling to actually educate yourself on the realities of WWI, you shut the hell up and keep your worthless opinion, based on fallacious and preconceived biases, out of the discussion. History is not being 'rewritten' as you so ignorantly and falsely claim, it is being properly understood. History was 'rewritten' in the 1930's with the Battle of the memoirs (which the politicians won), and the purposeful whitewashing of the actual history of WWI in the 1950's and 1960's by a group pf pacifist 'historians' more interested in finding scapegoats than actually understanding the events they described..... Brandon is trying to address that rewriting of history, one YOU fall for. And like you I am old enough to have spoken to many WWI veterans... a large proportion of whom did NOT in fact have the same opinion you ascribe to the veterans you claim to have spoken to. Hell the Lions led by donkeys did not even appear until the 1960's, the author of the book literally ADMITTED he made it up. This was a 'historian'. who claimed that the Kaiser had said that of the British Army, and HE MADE IT UP. If the very title of his book is an outright fucking lie, how much inside follows the same vein? Answer to that? A lot of it..... But if thats the kind of 'history' you ascribe to, more fool you. Now fuck off and let those with open minds continue their discussion. People like you make me sick.

[@arutha3251]

Are you asking someone not so share their opinion because you disagree with it?

[@ihatealderney]

Sorry but their anecdotal opinion doesn't mean a thing. They were just minor cogs in a huge machine beyond their understanding and just because they felt a certain way doesn't make it true.

[@seanoconnor8843]

@ihatealderney not British men. Another anecdote - after a while the officer corp was so depleted that most of the line was controlled by NCOs. Both German and British. They had informal agreements to cause as few casualties as possible. They don't teach that at Sandhurst

[@seanoconnor8843]

@@arutha3251 On this point, yes. It's fundamental to British identity. Bernard Montgomery knew the score

[@Kron161-tf7wo]

This video is how to whitewash a total disaster. By the battle of the Somme It had already been established that concentrated artillery fire would not clear the fields of razorwire in front of the enemy trenches, neither would hit the germans in their well built underground bunkers in their trench system. After the first waves failed, it was clear that the following ones would not do better. Still they were sent forward.

[@vikingsundlof9040]

Did you watch the video? The logistics departement would like to differ

[@elvenfellow8596]

The issue with the first world war is that it was impossible to just sit on the defense from a political situation: no government wants to tell their people "your son's will try to defend for however long it takes, try to attritionaly defeat them", because the support for the war would collapse. That ment that attacks had to be ordered as if they were not, the general/field marshals would simply be replaced by one willing to launch them, that ment that they had to launch attacks, particularly given that the plans of more experienced generals would be at least a little better than completely new people.

[@TheIrishvolunteer]

Love your videos countering myths during the First World War! Relating to the logistics behind the front lines, I’ve always thought the best metaphor for it would be this. Imagine planning a camping trip for 10 close friends. Imagine all the supplies you will have to bring. For your 10 friends you would need tents, food, water, clothing. Imagine the plans you would have to make in case someone got hurt and you needed to find a hospital. And now multiply that group of friends by a literal 1000. I find it helps with some perspective.

[@Schwarzvogel1]

Well said, brother! To add to your analogy, imagine that none of you have access to cell phones, email, VHF radios or any methods of telecommunication other than payphones and whatever other landlines you can access before you head out on your camping trip. Once you're in the field, your only methods of communication are within earshot, or maybe via signal mirrors over long distances. And those woods you plan to go camping in are known to be filled with dangerous wildlife and not a few crazy murder hobos. Watch out for poison ivy.

[@marklynch8781]

This theme of "once started, it can't be stopped" in general is common in the history of WW1. In reality it could have been stopped, it was an issue of not wanting to stop.

[@THECHEESELORD69]

I… eh….. maybe? It’s hard to say with the amount of knowledge I have on the subject currently, something similar might have happened a few years later if it didn’t happen on the same dates as it did. Europe was in a bit of turmoil since a nation that could rival the powers that existed before popped up practically overnight.

[@marklynch8781]

@@THECHEESELORD69 It's as if "any spark will do" and the countries of Europe were happy to march off to war, only to be agasp at the results.

[@jaegercat6702]

What do you mean by it? The offensive? Brandon already covered why you can’t just stop an attack. The war? Once it’s on, both sides have to agree to stop, which is much harder than it appears.

[@marklynch8781]

@@jaegercat6702 Yes both, but to a greater degree the war as a whole. There was an attempt to stop the war at the very start, many histories simply say Oh it was impossible to reverse the trains, I call bullshit. My statement touches on the general mood in the various nations where the people cheered the start of the war. It's strange to us nowdays and the start of WW2 did have the same response from people as they knew what was going to happen as far as the horrors of modern war.

[@schutzanzug6731]

@@jaegercat6702 Well, he was wrong, you certainly COULD stop an attack. It was a matter of incompetent leadership and lack of initative which lead to everyone in the organization, looking at the organization for answers that they were supposed to provide. Nobody, including the top guys wanted to make a decision because of poor leadership.

[@unnamedchannel1237]

Crazy how those men knew what was waiting yet they still ran over the top. A comment on the video it’s self, thankyou for not putting loud music and sound effects . Was easy to listen to.

[@Certified-w5y]

Many people think that the tactics of mass charges during WW1 were stupid; but, when I ask them what they would've done instead, they don't really come up with anything that hasn't been tried and failed. Heck, even I can't think of an alternative.

[@HavokTheorem]

And that's even with the benefit of total hindsight, which clearly the contemporaries of the war did not have since it was, you know, the *first* world war. The only 'safe' option is to stay put and wait for the enemy to run out of artillery shells, which is a pretty hard sell for the public and for the troops even if it didn't give the enemy the initiative. With the advantage of over 100 years of AFV design in the bank it would probably be possible with WWI tech to field a decently effective IFV with enough spaced armour to shrug off .50 cal and get across no-mans-land at a faster pace than a Mk. IV. Since I'm playing the armchair general, I'd say it would be better off with minimal armament and invest the weight of a full size turret into extra protection and additional assault infantry on board. Even the greatest innovations still have to survive contact with the enemy's plans, though.

[@gurigura4457]

Agreed. Not to say there weren't mistakes made (*cough* the Dardenelles), but given the technology available at the time generals were limited in their offensive options. Defence was king, so after the German's great sucess in 1914 it was far harder to dislodge them.

[@0sm1um76]

Just invent tomahawk cruise missiles, Leopard tanks, drones, and satellite communications. Why didn't they do that? Are they stupid?

[@colinbielat8558]

The only real alternative in my opinion would be a highly coordinated mass offensive across an entire front. The advantage the defenders have is that reserves and troops can be allocated to whatever position is being attacked at a given time. However if the entire defensive line is under pressure then the defender cannot reliably move forces and reserves around because they will need to be prepared for a breakthrough at any point, which will work in the attackers favor as when you try to defend a whole front at once eventually somewhere will break. However this really requires coordination with allied forces, logistical planning, the marshaling of huge amounts of reserves for the attacker and officers who are both willing to follow a strict stragetic operational plan but who will have the necessary initiative to exploit tactical breakthroughs. It also in my opinion would require a dedicated rear line change to communicates as a central command would need to be set up with communication wires to command nodes that then spread out further to the divisional and regimental commands in the trenches. Runners would be needed to keep the regimental commands updated who can then pass information through the command nodes to central command. I think this stragety would give the greatest chance for a significant breakthrough with the limitations of the time. Exploiting it is a whole other manner.

[@paulheitkemper1559]

"You couldn't think of something better" is hardly a reason to call a strategy sound.

[@Pellius]

Great video, you’ve earned my sub easily. Time to binge your whole channel

[@creepycrawlything]

When you address carnage on the scale of WW1, it is inappropriate to give any of its movers and shakers the benefit of the doubt. That applies to military personnel, as much as it applies to politicians and ideologues and all those who shape collective understanding. That it began and continued as it did, needs to be the focus of consideration. Were Haig and Kitchener and Allenby and the rest, absolutely competent. The answer is no, whatever the criteria you rely on. They learnt on the job, about an unprecedented war, and the cost of their learning was extracted across machine guns and artillery and disease and battlefield exigency. If you cannot stop an attack which is proceeding across failure to achieve necessary initial goals, then you have simply undertaken an attack unable to recover from initial failure. That is a failure of planning and organisation; where the advisability of choosing attack over defence then figures. It will be argued by some, that the battles of Somme and Verdun were so strategically interlinked, that something of an attritional victory was had across that relation. However, that argument is wide open to counter-argument. Part of the counter-argument, addressing this idea of an attritional victory as mythologising by France and the UK to shield against the potential domestic impacts of the allied human losses involved.

[@TheBigRedOctopus]

Haig canceling an attack because people would say mean things about him is the most Haig thing to do tho

[@Mahros1]

Its not the necessity of the attack I have a problem with but the British learning nothing from 2 years of observing the French (e.g. that the artillery needed to be larger calibre), almost as much could have been achieved by repeated small scale attacks and, worst of all, continuing to attack for 6 months as the battlefield turn into a quagmire while the German defences hardened.

[@Kalabei]

I wonder what would have happened if the other side switched almost solely to a defensive strategy. We all know how dramatically trench warfare favored the defender.

[@Marinealver]

I guess you never heard of Luigi Cardona?

[@taysondynastyemperor5124]

Cadorna was a whole new level of incompetence (mixed with more than a bit of malice), though.

[@River.E.M]

Bwhaha

[@Ema6835]

OMG is that 19:47 a screenshot of HOI4 1.0 from 8 years ago ahaha. Excellent video by the way, immediatly subbed.

[@gandydancer9710]

11:45 "If you don't hit them, they're going to hit you." Well, good thing, right? In WW1 you want to be on the defensive with the other guys in the open against artillery and machine gun fire. If you want to help the French fill the lines at Verdun with British troops. All that cost in materiel for the Somme offensive? Have you ever heard of the "Sunk Cost Fallacy"? Haig would get court -martialed? Sure, preventing that is worth a few huindred thousand casualties, I'm sure. If your name is Haig. Not so much for the dead soldiers. Most of the Western Front offensives were idiocy, and contributed little to winning the war. Until the Americans entered and infused more troops the war wasn't being won anyway. It was the collapse in German morale due to the blockade that won the war, not feeding the armed massed lower classes into the machine guns.

[@Schwarzvogel1]

Nobody ever won any war just by defending. And the first US troops didn't start arriving in Europe until 1918, the very last year of the Great War, when the Germans were already done for and they knew it. America's entry into the war was more akin to kicking the Germans when they were already on the floor (to make sure they didn't get up again) than delivering a decisive knockout blow.

[@JosephBoxmeyer-u3d]

​​​@@Schwarzvogel1 but attacking didn't win the war. At least in defense the men wouldn't have been running into machine guns. The only planes that were sent should have been concentrated on reconnaissance and defending the reconnaissance planes. Not on becoming aces. Proper reconnaissance should have told the generals not to send men over the top of there were still machine guns .

[@ferbogadoaSalirAJugar]

Amazing analysis, I admit that I was one of the ignorant who call them "stupdid" but now I see , thank you for open our eyes of the history .

[@seanoconnor8843]

They were nothing more than card players trying to bluff with the lives of men. They weren't fighting for ground, they were trying to make the enemy surrender

[@vikingsundlof9040]

What is the purpose of war, if not the capitulation of the enemy?

[@jaredjosephsongheng372]

Idk about you but isn't the entire point of a war is to make your enemy surrender????

[@seanoconnor8843]

@jaredjosephsongheng372 sorry, I probably should have said destroy the enemy. You should aim to gain a surrender by taking ground rather than destroying the enemy. I reckon

[@jaredjosephsongheng372]

@@seanoconnor8843 Sounds much better but repeated assaults like this do indeed work in destroying the enemy, the reason why is because even though the enemies aren't taking too many casualties but what they are taking is attrition. Waves upon waves are cut down but the enemy just keeps getting closer and closer, no matter how many are cut down. Something like that really drives fear into the enemies eyes and that's exactly how they'll be able to destroy an enemy.

[@seanoconnor8843]

@jaredjosephsongheng372 I want to avoid destroying the enemy. Ideally an encirclement followed by a ceasefire. Nothing is ideal but that's the mode of thought required. It shouldn't have taken so long for the commanders to realise

[@ericamborsky3230]

I may be totally off the mark, but I think that something a lot of people fail to keep in mind is that World War One was not World War Two. On the surface they may look very similar, with a lot of the same weapons and aesthetics, but there so many differences, especially in logistics and communication.

[@omar-hy3th]

They actually look quite different from each other

[@spiffygonzales5160]

Before even watching I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it has something to do with cell phones not being a thing yet

[@TheGahta]

Wrong 😉

[@aaaajoestar3113]

Great video man

[@frien_d]

"Because it was too much work" and "what would the alied force have thought"...? Seriously? Pretty lame.

[@Т1000-м1и]

This channel went a very long way