Yes, they took their sweet time, but by the end of 1914 the Great War had evolved from good "honorable" fighting into horrible grizzly modern warfare, as both sides learned to duck and dig trenches. And by the end the first war looked much like the second, with tanks, air raids, nerve gas and highly-coordinated complex attacks.

With that in mind, don't forget that the Americans entering in 1918 wouldn't listen to the French and English, often refusing to tactically retreat or even crawl on their bellies, instead preferring to charge into artillery and machine gun fire, getting themselves slaughtered in droves just like their counterparts did four years prior.

Edit to add: I mean, even if we didn't believe those pussy Euro's, we should have learned a little something from the Civil War 50 years before. Remember Pickett's Charge, where the genius General Lee got a few thousand kids murdered?

Cite? I'm well aware that WWI crushed any initial or prior romantic notions of what war was, but I don't recall hearing that the US or its service members labored under such notions when entering the war.

Nice, illustative anecdote about WWI from Hardcore History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XMRStSBBog

Hardcore history actually mentions how the americans fought kind of stupidly the moment they entered the war..... they adjusted far more quickly. Foldndark is exaggerating hard. WW1 battles never became more than proto-WW2 battles at best either.

Fwiw, Pickett's Charge wasn't as much of a blunder as elementary school history teachers would lead you to believe.

Fast forward to part six of that series and let him tell you all about it. Btw, where is Dan Carlin from? He sounds like one of the South Park characters when he say's "ageein," agin and agin.

Point being, as you know if you listened to that podcast, war evolved quite a lot in those four years. Carlin repeatedly mentions how crazy it seems to us looking back at the tactics they used and how many lives they spent adjusting to modern technology, but I think he does a pretty good job explaining why stupidity wasn't a reason, though little regard for the common soldier's life certainly was. Some armies adapted faster than others, but the Americans weren't any "smarter" about it at first, and they even had the benefit of the Allies to get them up to speed.

Carlin actually does mention stupidity as a reason, along with a complete disregard from the ruling elite's view of their soldiers lives.

And they still haven't shaved. Seriously, who the **** is their team leader? I'd fly to France just to scuff them up.

As I recall he considers how stupid it looks to us, but points out they were obviously not stupid people, and then goes on to try to fathom what sorts of ideals and conditions of that time could compel people to make such seemingly stupid (with our benefit of hindsight) decisions and poor adjustments.

Yes, he makes little apology for the elite's disregard for human life, often citing how many millions more lives were wasted by these generals compared to Napoleon, who obviously didn't give a **** about his soldiers.

I think just as interesting was how people of that day were able to force themselves time and again to follow orders, wave after wave sent to certain death. I think it shows how much ideals like duty and valor had been instilled into their psyche. I mean, I guess we could call those millions of soldiers stupid too if we wanted to.

So are you saying that Lee sent them marching across an open field into horrific cannon and bullet fire full well knowing they would be slaughtered?

What is "Maginot line" translated to German?

"Belgium this way ->"

Wearing polo shirts for something like that just seems really wrong. They could have at least shown some decorum and wore Lacoste.

If you read up on it, it had some strategic value. It's been translated today into this idea that Lee saw this mile long open field and decided throwing his entire army across it would be a good idea. In reality, 1/2 of it is not in line of sight from the crest + the artillery bombardment beforehand was ineffective. Still, high water mark and all, so theoretically if Lee could have gotten another 1k troops over the wall, who knows what would have happened.

Sorry for the history derail everyone