So. It's 100 years since thousands of men went over the top in the worst day in British Military History, 60000 casualties. What went wrong?
>>1355383
yuropeen onion huehuehue
>>1355383
Lack of planning and overconfidence on the pet of the British. They lost the element of surprise by launching a massive week long bombardment, so the Germans knew something big was coming in that sector. The British artillery used mostly shrapnel shells, which are useless against fortifications and barbed wire, but somehow they failed to realize that. As such they didn't bother giving out any wire cutters iirc, and the Tommies went out into no mans land with all their gear they would usually leave behind because they assumed that no German could have survived their massive fusillade and they would be able to just occupy the enemy positions with little to no fighting. Obviously it didn't play out that way. When the artillery stopped and the British infantry charged, the Germans scrambled from their bunkers and manned their MG's. A few hours later 20K British had been killed with another 40K wounded. Hard to find a better example of the futility of war.
>>1355383
>What went wrong?
Generals not realizing the days of honorable royal battles and wars being played like an aristocratic chess game are gone, and we are now in an age of total war, grinding two nations until one bleeds to death, and in the end everyone involved loses.
All the British had to do was sit in one place for another couple of years, there were already riots in Germany before the Somme, the Russians were beating the Austrians raw, the attack on Verdun was easing up, the Ottomans were losing in Arabia and Mesopotamia, the Bulgarians were looking to make a separate peace deal so they don't have to fight their slavic Russian brothers, more and more colonial troops were being recruited and freed up from Africa to join the conflict in Europe, and so on, and so on.
The situation allowed to sit and wait out a victory, but nope, us military elite gotta get our honor, chargeeeeee!!!!!!
It was a similar flaw in command and outdated views mixed with machismo and hubris that caused the disaster at Gallipoli. I find these two british projects very similar.
>>1355522
>Hard to find a better example of the futility of war.
Italy-Austria front, all war long.
>>1355383
Miserable outdated tactics with modern weaponry.
in 50 years our textbooks will say men and women
>>1355596
>outdated tactics
What would you have suggested they do. No hindsight
>>1355600
Will you stop entering random threads to make off topic and uncalled for SJW posts?
>>1355383
>What went wrong
We should have slaughtered the germans when they were weak and divided.
>>1355603
This guy made a good point
>>1355582
The British Empire could have probably comfortably outlasted the stalemate while Germany imploded.
That being said, it probably falls into the hindsight category. I'm not sure if the British and French were aware of how shit the situation was for the Germans back at home.
As for tactics, I said they were outdated but I suppose they couldn't have really done anything else at the time. They did what they could with the technology that was there and obviously made good progress with tank warfare.
>>1355582
Germany was starving Britain into submission.
>>1355621
Tactics were being updated all the time, they weren't outdated at all.
Planes for war, digging tunnels and filling with explosives, gas attacks, flamethrowers, submarine warfare, sea mines, shock troops, tanks and mobile armor, these were ALL new tactics introduced for the war.
>>1355712
It was the other way around. Britain was starving Germany, and indeed Germany capitulated because of starving people starting a revolution, rioting for food.
Fucking Austria was raiding German grain convoys from the Balkans, because people in Vienna too were dying of hunger.
>>1355582
Britain had no choice to wait it out. Its not like other countries are cool with one coalition member just chilling while their own guys are dying in droves.
>>1355712
>Germany was starving Britain into submission.
Aren't you thinking of WW2? Nazi Germany realised they couldn't take on the Royal Navy in a 1v1 engagement so they used submarines to sink merchant vessels delivering food ad supplies to Britain. They hoped to starve the country into surrendering.
I don't think that happened in WW1.
They were using Napoleonic wars tactics against machine guns, it didn't work. They were lions led by donkeys, you cant stand in a line and fire against a machine gun
>>1355739
What were the french and russians going to do, declare war on Britain? Get real.
Britain could've just sat there holding the line and everything would've gone the same, except with less dead anglos.
>>1355744
>They were lions led by donkeys
Ebin
>>1355383
>What went wrong?
The people in command were very conservative and out of touch with modern warfare.
>>1355383
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8UKN5aGzMY
>>1356293
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ9j5mDRCwQ
>>1356302
>>1356293
i am moved
A young Tolkien was there, thinking about what would become the fall of Gondolin and other tales.
>>1355600
>African American men and women
ftfy
>>1355582
They had to do something to relieve the frogs at Verdun.
>>1356293
>le progressive Ghostbusters trailer playing in the background
How the mighty have fallen.
>>1357133
Not either of them, but not really.
A blockade implies nothing gets through. The majority of all runs in WW1 made it through the submarine "blockade". It was more akin to roving packs of guerilla soldiers ambushing trucks that you see in places like Iraq and Afghanistan today rather than a firm blockade.
And the effect of the British blockade on the Germans is overstated. For starters, the Germans had opened up all that territory they nabbed from the Russians by 1918. And there had been pro-peace demonstrations starting in 1916 in Germany.
Germany lost because they lost, not because they were doing fine and the home front collapsed. The Western Front at the time of the armistice had an enormous Western Allied advantage, and one that was growing daily.
>>1357148
>Germany lost because they lost, not because they were doing fine and the home front collapsed. The Western Front at the time of the armistice had an enormous Western Allied advantage, and one that was growing daily.
But also not a single allied soldier had set foot into German land.
They shouldn't have been absolutely cucked in the peace treaties the way they were.
Even though many divisions were mutinying and abandoning their posts they still had the warfighting ability left if they wanted to make the allies pay for every inch of ground.
Absolute surrender should never have happened.
>>1357182
>But also not a single allied soldier had set foot into German land.
Because they did not have to set foot into Germany. That is just how bad the German situation at that point was. Compare with WW2 when they held out far longer - including (especially) the homefront.
>>1356892
>100 years ago
1'5 million soldiers die to win some meters of terrain on a battlefield in france
>Today
Millions argue for the trailer of a shitty movie on the internet in a weeaboo image board
>>1357240
>Millions argue for the trailer of a shitty movie on the internet in a weeaboo image board
...while their countries, their culture, their identity are being erased.
Didn't they put reflective panels on the back of the Newfoundland regiment so they got butchered when ordered to withdraw?
>>1357240
So we can conclude that even if the form change, human retardation never dies
>>1355383
>What went wrong?
Machine guns, insufficient shelling, artillery can't melt steel barbed wire.
>>1357240
to be honest, the great war was pointless
it didn't matter whether shamus mcgee fell in his trench or not
if no one had showed up to the musterings round europe it'd have been so much the better
they weren't fighting for anything that weebs arguing about ghostbusters should be expected to care about
>>1355383
>what went wrong?
It led to this reality we live in.
On a less depressing note, any UK lads watch 'The somme' on more4 today? I caught it before going to work (at work now) It was very moving I thought. what was with the black and white in the shots when people got hit though? was it an artistic coice or cencorship of gore?
I had to laugh at that pussy boy who got a minor injury and got to go home and write about the somme even though he was in it only for 3 hours.
Best bit about him?
>went home to become a communist
why do the good die and that shitter live eh lads?
>>1358695
You sound worthless.
>>1357182
>But also not a single allied soldier had set foot into German land.
So?
>They shouldn't have been absolutely cucked in the peace treaties the way they were.
And if they had dragged out the war for another year or two, you think the peace result would have been better? Germany would have been partitioned for sure if that happened.
>Even though many divisions were mutinying and abandoning their posts they still had the warfighting ability left if they wanted to make the allies pay for every inch of ground.
And what would that get them, except make the ultimately victorious Entente even madder at them?
>Absolute surrender should never have happened.
It didn't happen. Versailles was nowhere close to absolute surrender. WW2 was absolute surrender. Strangely, it generates far less butthurt.
>>1355603
Well not running headlong into machine gun fire would be a good start.
>>1355600
Stop with the threat of Fanatic revisionism, it's not going to happen.
>>1357182
>But also not a single allied soldier had set foot into German land.
And not a single foreign soldier had set foot on Japan at the end of WWII.
>>1358945
That's actually not technically true. The Japanese claimed the Kuril islands as part of metropolitan Japan, and the Soviets had a couple of hundred soldiers there.
Admittedly, they were not a big deal, but there were a few.
>>1357275
Huh??
>>1358953
Well, by the same standard, it's also technically not true that 'not a single allied soldier had set foot into German land'.
You can see part of Alsace Lorraine were occupied.
Here is the Great War video for the week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v48BK5CuBrY
We should have a weekly thread featuring his weekly updates.
>>1358939
>Well not running headlong into machine gun fire would be a good start.
They only did that for the first month of the war. Upwards of 95% of all WW1 casualties were from fragments, artillery or mortar.
