It seems to me like the more I learn about the Great War, the more I end up wondering if I can blame it on the slow rise in IQ during the 20'th century, or on lead water pipes.
I don't even mean the start of the war, but stuff like:
- the French enter the war in red pants, blue coats, and with the doctrine of slowly marching in a tight formation towards the machineguns. Because anything else would be un-French.
- the Brits enter the war thinking that their 100,000 professional soldiers would defeat the millions of Germans. Don't wake up to actual mobilization until after trying a couple more stupid ideas, like the disastrous buddy system that depopulated whole towns.
- Germany enters the war ostensibly against Russia, but doesn't have plans to mobilize against Russia, and for a while doesn't even try to mobilize against Russia.
- Germany relies on a plan against the French that PREDICTABLY couldn't work, because it NEEDS veteran troops it doesn't actually have, and the margins of error on it are actually NEGATIVE in places.
- when an artillery barrage fails, and the French sanely decide to postpone their attacks, the British general decides to go over the top anyway. Gets most of his men killed, like everyone knew would happen, they get hailed as heroes. Except it seems to me that knowingly sending good troops to die for no foreseeable gain is not heroism; it's at best incompetence and at worst borderline treason.
- Russia ignores its own intelligence, attacks frontally against massed German artillery, loses all its gains in a week. And then some.
- Romania delays entering the war until the window of opportunity has passed for coordinating with the Russians to knock Austria-Hungary out of the War. Then does its own YOLO attack, Leeroy Jenkins style, on Austria-Hungary anyway, without coordinating with anyone. Only manages to first cause the Russians to try to save it, then gives its resources to Austria-Hungary when it gets occupied in response, AND lengthens the front the Russians had to defend in the process.
- meanwhile Austria-Hungary... hooo boy, where do I even start... Really, I could make a whole thread just with the stupidity of AH in that war. The sheer amount of bad decisions and incompetence in trying to implement them, dwarfs all other countries combined. It's like their whole high command went AWOL when the brains were distributed.
Etc, etc, etc. Really, you could write a whole book just with idiotic decisions that went against reality.
So, really, WTH was wrong with everyone back then? This goes way beyond not having experience with the new kind of war. In some cases people seemed to be unable to learn even from what was happening right there and then.
Was the effective IQ that much lower back then, or what? Was it the lead water pipes? Or WTH?
I don't even mean the start of the war, but stuff like:
- the French enter the war in red pants, blue coats, and with the doctrine of slowly marching in a tight formation towards the machineguns. Because anything else would be un-French.
- the Brits enter the war thinking that their 100,000 professional soldiers would defeat the millions of Germans. Don't wake up to actual mobilization until after trying a couple more stupid ideas, like the disastrous buddy system that depopulated whole towns.
- Germany enters the war ostensibly against Russia, but doesn't have plans to mobilize against Russia, and for a while doesn't even try to mobilize against Russia.
- Germany relies on a plan against the French that PREDICTABLY couldn't work, because it NEEDS veteran troops it doesn't actually have, and the margins of error on it are actually NEGATIVE in places.
- when an artillery barrage fails, and the French sanely decide to postpone their attacks, the British general decides to go over the top anyway. Gets most of his men killed, like everyone knew would happen, they get hailed as heroes. Except it seems to me that knowingly sending good troops to die for no foreseeable gain is not heroism; it's at best incompetence and at worst borderline treason.
- Russia ignores its own intelligence, attacks frontally against massed German artillery, loses all its gains in a week. And then some.
- Romania delays entering the war until the window of opportunity has passed for coordinating with the Russians to knock Austria-Hungary out of the War. Then does its own YOLO attack, Leeroy Jenkins style, on Austria-Hungary anyway, without coordinating with anyone. Only manages to first cause the Russians to try to save it, then gives its resources to Austria-Hungary when it gets occupied in response, AND lengthens the front the Russians had to defend in the process.
- meanwhile Austria-Hungary... hooo boy, where do I even start... Really, I could make a whole thread just with the stupidity of AH in that war. The sheer amount of bad decisions and incompetence in trying to implement them, dwarfs all other countries combined. It's like their whole high command went AWOL when the brains were distributed.
Etc, etc, etc. Really, you could write a whole book just with idiotic decisions that went against reality.
So, really, WTH was wrong with everyone back then? This goes way beyond not having experience with the new kind of war. In some cases people seemed to be unable to learn even from what was happening right there and then.
Was the effective IQ that much lower back then, or what? Was it the lead water pipes? Or WTH?
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2h2F26h
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