"Was WW1 Uniquely Horrible?" Topic

What do you think of this little Reddit rant? link

First and foremost, it was NOT the first war the literate class experienced and wrote about. The ACW proves that alone.

I know that its "trendy" to say that WWI was "just another war", but one using casualty rates per year, etc. ignores that which made WWI unique- the 4 year stalemate on the western front. That, combined with uninspired generalship, newfangled killing machines and millions packed into a small area, ensured that whatever "horror" occurred, occurred in industrial numbers in a very small area with little to show from it. So, does it surprise anyone that WWI is portrayed in art (books, poetry, film, painting) as uniquely depressing? Nevermind that millions of people started to question exactly for who, and why, all the killing was happening.

It was horrible enough that 4 empires collapsed. The Germans and Russians came back in another form, but the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires broke into fragments that couldn't be put together again, like Humpty-Dumpty.

WWII may have come along and displayed even more horror, but WWI was the record breaker at the time, in terms of industrial slaughter and sheer number of dead. Don't forget widespread starvation, weakening the survivors for the flu of 1918.

And given that both WWII and the Cold War are direct spin-offs (like Joanie Loves Chachi and Mork & Mindy, but with a better ending) of The Great War, then yeah, there's plenty of horror there.

It wasn't the casualties, WWII had more casualties. It was the casualties vs the gains. For year after year there were huge casualties and gains measured in yards or at best a few miles. The weapons had advanced but the command and control of the weapons was stuck somewhere around the Franco Prussian (Napoleonic?) war. So the commanders were learning on-the-job which just multiplied the body counts.

By WWII the lessons had been learned and though there were larger casualties the armies were moving and battles could be won.

Don't forget the tech level jump. The speed and application of subs, aircraft and artillery that changed the landscape. Gas was inefficient but not in it's morale and post war effect. Everyone thought cas would be used in WWII.
Literature was rife with characters affected by the war afterwards.
The Influenza changed funeral customs after the war. You didn't wear black for a year-too many family members were lost in too short a time.

No wonder we didn't drink ourselves to death in the twenties.

The gap between weapons and tactics was building up since the Crimea War. The gap finally reached it's full width during WWI. Marching off into massed machine guns, horrible.

On the original rant – I can accept the point that war was often pretty terrible before – there are accounts from the 17th century and before that make very grim reading. The difference with the ACW, The Crimea, and especially WWI was the level of reporting and shared experience: it becomes impossible not to know that it's not all larks in the park with your friends in the PALS regiments.

However – where the rant loses me is the spurious use of data like "40% of the time they were on holiday behind the lines". Now, I've never been gassed, or been spattered with shrapnel from a trench mortar, or…you get my drift. But even without these experiences I can imagine that it would take considerable time to get over such things: and even the "donkeys" were aware of that (The French army mutiny of 1916 would have been a big hint).

The real reason it was so different was the technology jump. Yes machine guns existed before – but not in such numbers. The enormous rail guns – new. Aircraft. Gas. Acres and acres of barbed wire – again not new but in these amounts: quite different. Look at the early part of the war in 1914 – it was still a war of mobility, or people thought it might be. The grim reality was just that – very grim. And it's not just the western front, it's Italy and the Alps as well. It was a real changing point in the history of warfare – there had been hints of what could be done, but it had never really been done to the full potential.

WWI was a science fiction nightmare come to life with the introduction of aerial bombing, flamethrowers, tanks, poison gas, dreadnaughts, submarine warfare, artillery bombardments measured by the millions of shells fired. No one was prepared for what was unleashed.

My mother's father died in the 1930's due to the mustard gas at Belleau Wood.

MiniMo that is the most intelligent statement I have ever heard regarding WWI and the new, horrific technologies. Sorry about your grandfather.

Yea, the American Civil War, and Napoleonic battles seem to me to be pretty grim as well.

I'm really surprised they could convince men to march in shoulder to shoulder formation against other troops arrayed in similar fashion, and to fire their weapons at close quarters, and then have the "lucky" survivors follow that up with a bayonet charge.

My guess is WWI probably shocked people a bit more, since photographs and detailed descriptions of the carnage could be spread to the general public a bit more quickly and efficiently than ever before, through radio and newsprint.

…or, quite frankly, Mako;, the general public often experienced it, or elements thereof, themselves, if not from time to time, at least randomly. (Not that it didn't happen in previous wars, but this was different).

I agree, MiniMo penned a very intelligent statement.

> "40% of the time they were on holiday behind the lines"

I've never heard it referred to as a "Holiday" but it was not all day, every day, sitting in a front line trench. But even that could be a problem, often times knowing you HAD to go back could be worse then actually being there – at least a great many people from all wars have written it down that way.

WWI was especially horrible on two levels.

First was the divide between the expectations and the reality. Many volunteered for the "adventure" of war, what they got was a modern industrial killing machine with little scope for adventure and personal heroism.

Second was the fact that men were "at war" 24/7. In former wars men fought on one or two days of the year and then marched away from the horror of the battlefield. In WWI, (at least on the Western Front) they were forced to stay with the dead and the killing every day of the year.

It broke the glass Victorian mirror and gave birth to modern times.

I doubt WW1 was "uniquely horrible". Compare the Taiping War, for example. 40,000,000 – 70,000,000 dead, prisoners (including civilians in captured towns) regularly slaughtered. Ten plus years of famine. Widespread disease. But, it was only Chinese, so it was ok.

WW1 made a much greater psychological impact on the British middle class than any previous war. First, it was nearby. Second, it went on full-bore for much longer than anything since the Napoleonic Wars, which didn't have the same impact.

Jane Austen's novels were set (and written) during the Napoleonic conflict, yet there is little or no mention of it in them. For the middle class, the war was an annoyance, mostly due to higher taxation and higher prices. Their sons didn't serve – commissions went to the gentry, the rank and file came from the lower classes. Nobody dropped bombs on their factories, shops, and houses.

1915 brought the true meaning of war firmly home to the middle class, at exactly the time they were gaining in both political and cultural influence.

WWI … WWII … Korea … Vietnam … what is going on today, in Africa, the Mid East, Afghanistan …

All were/are pretty horrible. The only real difference IMO is the numbers …

I think one statement we can all agree … all war is horrible …

I don't think 10 guys blown to bits by long range arty was any more nasty then 10 guys made into minced meat by close range canister.

The diffrence was you where only in a battle 10ish hours, while some battles killed a stagering % of those involved, if you survive you where safe for a while ( atleast from Canon balls and musket balls. If not disease or starvation )

But getting shelled day in day out, thats a different horror.
Also the gas strikes a horror in me just reading about it, no other weapon ever does that.

It's the only war where the survivors named it "the war to end all wars" because they hoped nobody would be mad enough to do it again.

You are forgetting the fact that most of warfare throughout history consisted of sieges, which DID go on 24/7 for months (or even years) on end. Continuous battle for extended periods was nothing new.

It's the only war where the survivors named it "the war to end all wars"

No, the idiot politicians named it that to try to convince the voters that THEY wouldn't do it again.

There was no comparison between the warfare of WW1 and any war that preceded it in terms of concentrated, technology driven, industrial scale killing. The machine gun, rapid fire artillery and the high explosive artillery shell, all of which became ubiquitous on all fronts, literally drove the armies of WW1 underground. No army was able to remain in the field against such weapons without resorting to a comprehensive system of static field defenses.

A single preparatory artillery bombardment for a major offensive attack on the Western Front would probably have involved the firing of more shells than would have been consumed during an entire war of the black powder era.

I can think of no previous historical battle that even remotely approached the numbers, duration, ferocity, and casualty counts of Verdun, the Somme or Ypres.

B

No army was able to remain in the field against such weapons without resorting to a comprehensive system of static field defenses.

Well, somehow the Russians, Germans, and Austrians managed it on the Eastern Front. The Western Front was an anomaly, driven by the concentration of excessive forces in a small area and the tunnel vision of the French and British leadership. It was, in effect, one great siege. Even half of the forces deployed there would have produced significant results if deployed elsewhere.

Everyone entrenched their positions everywhere – Western Front, Eastern Front, Isonzo Front, Gallipoli, the Salonika Front, the Palestine Front. Defenses on the Western Front were indeed far more comprehensive in nature than elsewhere, due to the much higher concentration of forces versus frontage, especially in terms of heavy artillery.

B

And Vicksburg, Fredericksburg, Port Arthur, the heights that protected Istanbul during the Balkan Wars, and… and…

In fact the trenches in WW1 were a sign that there was insufficient artillery, particularly of the heavy variety, insufficient shells, and inadequate logistics. It took several years for these problems to be overcome to such an extent that trench systems became virtually obsolete. By 1917 the Germans were defending loosely connected shell holes interspersed with hardened shelters (MEBUs) and pillboxes. Trenches were lethal and were frequently battered to pieces in any case.

As for the proliferation in weapons systems, these did not significantly change the casualty rates. The numbers of MGs, for example, increased exponentially as the war progressed but the casualty rates stayed relatively static. This reflected increased dispersion of troops, the evolution of barrages, and counter-battery fire – to name but a few.

We would not be having this discussion if the Soviet Union had not borne the brunt of WW2 in Europe. Indeed we would be bemoaning the fact that WW2 casualties were not as 'good' as WW1 if Britain had taken on this role. Our Western perception of WW1 may seem 'uniquely' horrible but this can blinker our appreciation of what the Great Patriotic War meant to the former Soviet Union, for example.

Robert

In 1914 armies were moving significantly at first. Starting in late 1917 and into 1918 there were major movements on most fronts (generals learned there lessons). For 1915,1916 and most of 1917 there were huge efforts (and huge casualties) made with little or nothing to show. All of the other battles/wars that everyone has listed generally resulted in a winner even if there were large casualties. An example of the learning curve was the Battle of Verdun with over 900 thousand casualties and no winner.

By the way, the reason gas was not used in WW2 was that everyone had it and if anyone used it the other side would return the attack with interest. If Germany hit London with several hundred medium bombers with gas the British (and the Americans by late 1942) would have returned the attack with a thousand plus heavy bombers. Hitler knew this and since Germany would have gotten the worst of it he didn't use gas and the British (and Americans) would not be the ones to start using it.

The major movements on most fronts were the direct result of the losses sustained in the 1915, 1916, and 1917 battles. Similar to what happened in the ACW, there had to be an attritional process before the determined resistance of the Germans was undermined. It wouldn't have mattered if huge tracts of land had been captured in these periods – just think about what happened in WW2. The outcome was not determined by how much or how little land was captured but by the side able to hold out longest.

Robert

But, it was only Chinese, so it was ok.

You really think so? How callous.

Oh, of course. That was merely a poor attempt at fauxtrage. Try harder next time.

I beg to disagree; the relationship between static defenses and artillery in WW1 was decidedly dynamic in nature. Defensive tactics underwent a more or less continuous process of evolution in response to the growing power of artillery.

Early in the war, static defenses, including both fire and communication trenches and underground shelters and ultimately heavily reinforced concrete pillboxes and shelters were a response to the ever-increasing numbers and power of artillery. Without resort to such static defensive aids, no position within range of opposing artillery could be effectively maintained.

By 1917, when the Entente powers (a) had managed to field a sufficiently large and powerful artillery park and (b) had secured a sufficiency of ammunition supply, it was accepted by the Germans that the forward trench lines had become effectively untenable in the face of any serious offensive preparatory bombardment and were suitable only as a sparsely manned "trip-wire" outpost line.

B

I'd say that WW1 was unique in the troop density. 6600 troops per mile of front on the Western Front is shoulder-to-shoulder and three ranks deep for 500 miles of continuous line.

Only in the Pacific island-hopping campaign was that troop density approached or exceeded.

I don't disagree that defensive tactics evolved as you say. Static defensive systems became more extensive. More trench lines were created, along with underground shelters and then hardened shelters. As early as November 1914, however, it was apparent that sufficient heavy artillery could negate trenches as a obstacle. This was a foretaste of what came to pass. During the Battle of First Ypres, the Germans still had sufficient ammunition for the heavy and some super-heavy artillery to smash the trenches held by BEF and French defenders. The impact was so significant that the French took to withdrawing their men from frontline trenches when such bombardments took place then reoccupying the area, if possible, once the bombardments stopped.

It can be argued that the evolution of static defences negated this effect, given that the earliest trenches were quite rudimentary by comparison to later and that there were virtually no shell-proof shelters incorporated in 1914. My point is that this argument is only true to the extent that the lack of artillery and shells enabled static defences to develop as they did. Had there been unlimited heavy and super-heavy guns, along with unlimited ammunition, then more extensive static trench-based defences would not have evolved. Distributed defensive strongpoints would have quickly become the norm – similar to the redoubts that the BEF created in some sectors of Ypres, due to relative lack of numbers of men in those sectors.

By 1916 in the Battle of Somme, the German High Command was trying to stop men from sheltering in deep underground systems. These had become death traps in the face of the new barrages and the ever-growing numbers and types of artillery (not that the shells were causing direct casualties). We have already mentioned the further extension of this problem during the Battle of Third Ypres, as an example of 1917. The real breakthrough came, on both sides, with the introduction of the ability to move artillery and sufficient ammunition quickly to new points of attack. The Germans utilised this tactic during the 1918 Spring offensives but it was Foch who took it to the final level. Based on the fact that the Entente logistic system had become so efficient as to ensure adequate stocks of ammunition along the Western Front, Foch was able to constantly shift the point of attack. This created enormous pressure along the entire front, with German units being unable to rest out of the line for any length of time for example due to the relentless sequence of attacks. It was this Entente capability that forced the major losses of ground that took place in the last 100 days. Just to reiterate, my point is that, had these capabilities been in place at the outset, then defences would not have evolved based on the highly developed trench lines. Trenches would still have had a role to play in some circumstances but all sides would have had to devolve command more quickly and encourage a more distributed elastic defensive system based on points of control rather than linear defensive lines. In other words, the evolution of trench warfare reflected the relative lack of artillery, shells, and logistics.

Robert

Robert – I suspect that you and I are actually more or less in agreement here. Digging in is always the first response to any artillery threat. As the artillery threat grows, the digging first goes deeper. But when the artillery threat reaches a certain critical mass, any digging within its effective reach becomes futile and the entire defensive system must be re-oriented; hence the initial German embrace of reverse slope positions followed later by very deep zone defense systems featuring a thinly populated forward element and extending in depth beyond the reach of opposing artillery.

The point I seek to make is only that static defense measures, whether simple trench lines and dugouts or steel reinforced concrete pillboxes and underground shelters, were ubiquitous in WW1.

B

Understood and agreed.

Robert

I would suggest another breakthrough was the use of predicted fire and the realisation that you didn't need to totally destroy the enemy positions.

This meant that short, heavy, unexpected bombardments that would shock the enemy could be used, followed by rapid advances to capitalise on those moments before the enemy could get properly organised.

Combining his with limited objectives and the improved logistics allowing one attack to be launched after another had wound down is really what made the difference.