I think the modern metrosexual pajama boy would have a better chance of literally imagining themselves as an actual "My Little Pony" than going over the top into the hell that was The Somme.
While I don't totally side with the "lions led by donkey's" history crowd the mindsets that let to this bloodshed is hard to get into even for someone who has seriously studied history. I think a very under-sung fact of the Great War was massive ignorance of how to wage war on that scale and level of technology. Unfortunately every lesson was paid with horrendous amounts of blood, and not every lesson was heeded the first time.
They saw the American Civil War as "an affair between armed mobs", but it provided many lessons.
ReplyDeleteThat said, until the tank came along, there was only so much that could be done to beat the combination of machine guns and barbed wire.
Undersung as well was the truck, if you read there were several potential break throughs on both sides that never amounted to anything because every ounce had to be pulled across mud with horses. Every extra mile from a rail-head was a millstone around any offensives neck. Meanwhile the defender was closer to their own rail-heads to reinforce and bring in artillery.
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