So what would your brilliant solution for winning the war have been?
Couldn’t flank them, as the trenches ran from the Alps to the sea. Attacks, prior to the development of tanks and infiltration storm tactics, were doomed, but sitting in trenches losing men regularly was not politically acceptable.
Any general who told his civilian masters that an effective offensive was impossible would have just been fired as defeatist. Would have been the right thing to do anyway, but the government would have just put in new generals who would attack.
So, I ask again, what would you have done differently? Even with the immense advantage of hindsight.
I will agree that the WWI French, much like the Japanese of WWII, though not to the same extreme, had an unwarranted faith in the ability of morale and elan to dominate against superior firepower.
These criticisms remind me of the criticisms of Grant during our Civil War. Logical explanations of a better approach, given his resources, are seldom provided.
Rather than the frontal attacks that killed so many, I would have advocated the trench-forward warfare that Grant employed against St Petersburg and Richmond.
Given the control of WW I by the politicians, though....all they wanted to hear about was attacks that would win right away.
My brilliant solution would have been what they eventually started to use - more effective use of the “rolling barrage” tactic.