[SLB]

Salute to all our veterans from all wars.

[sit-rep]

Veteran's Bump!!

[Monterrosa-24]

"Furthermore, the war on the Western front was a series of senseless infantry charges in which the Allied general staff threw millions of British, French, and American soldiers against the meat grinder of entrenched German forces. Throughout the war, the generals appeared to learn very little. For months, the forces would face each other from trenches separated by mere yards, murderously killing each other in the mud, the snow, and the carnage."

Those charges, supported by artillery prep, smoke, and supporting fire won the war. "Senseless" better describes this writing.

And what would this armchair general have done differently? There are always modifications with hindsight but from the Allied perspective, the War was almost won before Russia's collapse, even with the massive release of Manpower from the Eastern to the Western Front Germany was not able to achieve a decisive victory and soon faced impending defeat.

The English historian, John Terraine alway argued that it is "senseless" that history views Napoleon as a great general and Douglas Haig as a failure. Napoleon's destiny was always defeat and ruin while Haig's was always ultimate victory.

It was not the general's job to avoid the war. The war was the failure of the politicians. The general's job was to achieve victory and the Allied generals did achieve victory over a tough opponent.

[Stirner]

"The last day of World War I saw Allied forces take more casualties than would be taken on D-Day in 1944. As Persico explains, "According to the most conservative estimates, during the last day of the war, principally in the six hours after the armistice was signed, all sides on the Western front suffered 10,944 casualties, of which 2,738 were deaths"

I thought that there were 10,000 Allied deaths in the first hour of D-Day. Can anyone with historical knowledge confirm or deny this for me?