(Also if you happen to pick up one of those Manta Sleep Masks, if you do so via the youtube shopping tab I get an extra 15% on top of the usual sponsorship fee, so I'd appreciate your doing so there!)
Hey Brandon, could you do a video about what it would be like to fight on the Western front after fighting in the east? I would be interested to know if anyone actually did that, or what the occupation of the eastern front looked like?
interestingly some German/Prussian military men prior to WW1 (Moltke might have been the name of one, but I could be misremembering) did think of holding a defensive line on one front in the event of a two-front war, focusing on winning one front while the defenses held on the other front.
The Wu-Flu example was actually pretty on. I am an expert on that specific pathogen, and have been since before 2020. The reason for studying an obscure pathogen(at the time) is a whole different story. The reason the example fits, is because 99.99999% of what was told to the public was a bold faced intentional lie, just like the governments of WW1 talking to their citizens/subjects. Inevitably when I mention being a credentialed expert on this subject, the question comes up "why didn't you warn people that they were being lied to?" The short answer is that we tried, but were censored on all fronts, often fired, and many of us just left(like me) because we didn't work our butts off and sacrifice to become this intelligent just so we could comply with the slowest kids in the room or the loudest propagandist. Those in the science and medical community that were dumb enough, or weak enough, or money hungry enough to go along with what they were told to push, were the ones who became "spokes people" or the "talking heads". It's no different than what you do Brandon. Farbs get the most hollywierd screen time, and a lot of people believe the farb stuff to be true, or they believe their "feelings", like the comments that spawned this video. A select few can see through the BS of the farbs and feelings, some are willing to learn the truth, some refuse to let go of "bite, pour, spit, tap, shoot" no matter what evidence is presented. It was/is the same for those of us who were/are legitimate experts in this subject.
Since it was brought up, it is worth noting that some historians think that the rationale for Verdun being to 'bleed france white' may have been a post hoc excuse by Falkenhayn after the offensive there ground to a halt.
It seems to have always been the main goal. But initial German conceptions of the operation had them taking Verdun and breaking the entente counterattacks, which is where the attrition was supposed to come from. But that failed and the casualties weren’t as lopsided as hoped.
Per Professor Mosier, the idea was to take a French citythat couldn’t be hidden from the French public by French propaganda and encourage frenzied French army frontal attacks which would break the French Army. However General Petain would not play that game.
Well that’s just not true. You don’t occupy territory by defending, that’s all, but if your enemy loses enough resources and soldiers trying and failing to invade you, it’ll either lead to offers of white peace, or, if you provoke them into attacking you further, they’ll lose support on the homefront and be forced to give you peace or be overthrown. Of course you’re unlikely to really gain anything, even reparations, from a purely defensive war, but if you hold out for long enough and pester the invading force with subversive operations or bombing runs or a cheeky touch of terrorism, you might very well gain something, too. The Taliban hardly managed to push back NATO forces and focused mostly on defending and pestering logistics, and they went from being an unlanded terrorist organisation to a country, effectively winning their war against the biggest military alliance in history.
@@NaN-noCZ The Taliban were in no way only defensive. They weren't sitting in their caves waiting the their enemy to leave, they were actively attacking when possible. Also, I would argue referring to what happened as them winning when it comes to the western forces. Nothing the Taliban did caused the west to leave, it was purely down to changing political situation in the western countries meaning there was no longer support to keep going. The west left because they chose to leave, not because the Taliban forced them to. After the west left the Taliban did not sit and wait for the Afgan government to give up, they actively moving in and took over in an offensive move. So no, your example is not a case of winning by being defensive.
@NaN-noCZ you don't win wars by only defending, you win wars by removing the enemy's will to continue. So you can defend 95% of the time with occasional raids but those raids are still offensive. The Taliban did plenty of offensive actions, that's why the coalition forces disliked the spring. Winter in Kandahar was bad, but the warmer spring mean the coalition would be under attack. Hooligans of Kandahar: Not All Wars Are Heroic by Joseph Kassabian is a great book and I reccomend checking it out.
The answer is simple. "Get off OUR Lawn". The Germans had captured large swaths of France & Belgium. The whole point of the War was to get those areas back. For the Germans sitting on their Backsides would have been fine. For the French, they wanted their land back. For Belgium, they wanted their country back. The British had at the end of the Napoleonic Wars promised to defend Belgium. To achieve their war aims they HAD to attack.
Germans chilling would definitely not be fine. Their whole mode of warfare is based on rapid attacking victories due to Germany's lack of essential resources, which it relies on through imports.
14 днів тому
You can wait for the Germans to exhaust themselves, and then attack. An offensive posture on the strategic level doesn't necessarily translate to an offensive on the operational or tactical level.
@@TheZod00 I strongly disagree. You are forgetting the eastern front exists. The less pressure on the western front, the more pressure and manpower for the eastern front. This means faster victory on the eastern front. Whilst this is way too far into the alt-history to be able to say whether it ultimately changes the outcome of the war (Like hypothetically gaining access to Ukrainian foodstuffs as the Germans and Austrians intended too historically), it definitely isn't good for the allies and arguably worse than what the Allies did historically.
@@chico9805 I look forward to teaching the history of the 2020s in 2077, because I will never retire in this economy, and they haven't found a way to automate education yet
Actually the people I would call "stupid" are the ones here today re-attempting the exact failures from history believing "It will work this time around!"
@@John-qv5ux you haven't seen those "online training" classes yet? Granted I think it is worse for education but the policy and decision makers won't care about that. You are still correct about the "retirement" part though.
Ultimately: The Defender has the advantage of being able to prepare as well as they can for an offense and shore up their defenses, better cover, supply lines, replenishment. However the attacker has the SOLE advantage of being able to CHOOSE where and WHEN to attack. They can CONCENTRATE their forces. Concentration of force allows a numerically inferior enemy to achieve a defeat of the enemy in detail, as they dont take on the majority of the enemy's superior numbers all at once, but basicly go about it piecemeal. Naturally the nature of Warfare on the western front made it THAT much harder to apply this approach on a strategic level. Just like a piece of armor has it's weakspots, so do defensive lines. For every job there is a tool. The application of said tool, frequency, intensity and vehemence of it can make a difference. Sure I can probably break down a brick wall using just a shizzle or a screwdriver, but it works better with a sledgehammer or even better: an explosive charge if I dont care about breaking the rest. It's basicly that the defender has to make their defensive line like a chain, as strong as possible to prevent breakthroughs. The attacker meanwhile only has to find the weakest link, break the chain, crush the defensive line and push through. It usually gets easier to roll up the enemy defenses once you managed to breach them at one or several spots. It's also usually 'easier' or rather faster to organize a new offense than it is to redraw a new defensive line reaching from the Channel to the Alps. An enemy that is reeling under your offenses and has their hands full organizing a defense of their own, cant prepare an offense at the same time.
Also, a succesful offensive action doesn't necessarily translate to immediate casualties. If you take a high ground your artillery can gain advantage in the following months over the enemy; a defensible position taken means your enemy has to take more losses in his own assault; then there are supply lines , morale boosting landmarks etc etc. Soldiers must have something to do and look for as otherwise their morale suffers. Finally, by attacking you get invaluable experience in future attacks, you can accurately measure the strength of your enemy, without the experiences of 1914-1916 entente could never have such a success in 1918.
Apologies addressing just one point, but I'm not sure that preparing a new offensive is actually easier, especially in this era. Huge preparations needed, basing off formations that could be unrecognisable due to casualties in the last offensive. And, you'd be struggling uphill politically to compete with alternative axes due to not having made as much of a breakthrough as you promised last time.
"Concentration of force allows a numerically inferior attacker to achieve defeat of the enemy in detail": While theoretically true, in WWI, achieving this was exceptionally difficult due to the static nature of trench warfare, massive defensive preparations (e.g., barbed wire, machine guns), and the challenges of coordinating large-scale assaults. Many offensives (e.g., the Battle of the Somme) failed to exploit concentrated attacks effectively because defenders could quickly reinforce weak points using railways and interior lines. "It's usually easier to organise a new offence than to redraw a defensive line": This is context-dependent. In WWI, mounting a new offence required massive resources, planning, and coordination (e.g., artillery barrages, troop movements), which could take months. Defensive realignment, while difficult, could sometimes be achieved more quickly due to shorter distances and pre-existing plans.
For instance, the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, south of the main road that divided the British in twain, that worked out fantastically for the French and British Empire, completing first day objectives with minimal losses, with excellent use of artillery, reconnaissance, and coordination of attack. The north half of the British lines though, oof...
As someone who likes history and video games this is why I hate people like this. They “assume” that real life is like their game of choice and leads to them having asinine ideas about how they should have won X war/battle. Like it completely blows past these people that video games are, by nature, unrealistic and simplifies real life to digestible mechanics that can be enjoyable. Just like in real life you don’t “tap X to reload” , you don’t omniscient over the status of armies and logistics nor the control over the state as a whole
@The_Faceless_No_Name_Stranger a lot of people forget that pdx games are simplistic abstractions of real time periods but they're still fun. and the actual historical events they cover are largely accurate. but the mechanics are just that. game mechanics
I feel like people forget that the offensives in the Great War weren’t the attackers getting massacred while the other takes no casualties. More often than not the casualties were very similar. It was a massacre of both sides.
I think that perception was largely from lack of access to German sources for major battles like Verdun and the Somme. Those records were thought destroyed after Berlin fell in 1945. Turns out all of that documentation sat in Russian filing cabinets for 50 years and was only released in the 90s. That's why the last 20 or so years of WWI scholarship has been heavily revisionist from the usual narratives: whereas before there was a prevailing belief that both sides were roughly as bad off as the other, it turns out that Germany really was right on the verge of capsizing entirely while the Allies were more than capable of continuing the fight.
@@enterprise9001Germany failing is somehow new history? Where have you been the last 100years? Its always been the accepted story, thats the entire reason we call "the stab in the back" a theory/myth.
A great book I read on this subject is On Artillery by Bruce I Gudmundsson. I was obsessed with that book! He describes well how infantry waves and artillery barrages were used against defending positions, and essentially the infantry is being used to draw out targets for the artillery to hit. It creates a dilemma for the defender that they must choose how much manpower and material to invest against enemy infantry pushes, and how to manage their state of readiness, all within shelling range. If I remember right, at first the normal tactic would be to very straightforwardly 'soften up' the defenders with a heavy barrage, then send a wave of infantry who hopefully capture the position. The problem they found is that the defenders would already be hunkering down against shelling by default, not only surviving the barrage but also recognising it as a sure sign that an infantry attack is on the way, taking up positions as soon as the explosions stopped and easily holding the push. In response to this, the attackers started firing off one big barrage with no infantry push, stopping for a couple minutes, then doing another big barrage which got a lot more damage done. The mind games got more and more involved from there, with timetables specially developed to condition enemy troops over a period of weeks or even months to do exactly the wrong thing at certain key timings. There was no dominant strategy and a lot of maths to do to find half decent ones. I'm not describing it very well, but that's a rough idea of what the book gets into and it's well worth a proper read through.
Overall, the best way to use artillery is to be unpredictable. Fire before the charge, fire during the charge, fire and fire again. The most important thing is to all fire at once.
If you're so confident in your plan, then you should lead the charge like the kings of old. My bet is you are confident because you know that you can throw 1 million men at a battle and still have a brandy before bedtime, because the enemy lost 1.5 million. Things change when your job is to "win wars" rather than "fight battles".
"The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory" -Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig The Allies had to learn this the hard way in 1939-1940, after misreading many of the lessons of the First World War
it wasn't so much that in 1939 the allied intent wasn't just to sit on their hands all wart and wait for the Germans to come at them, but rather to let the Germans make the first punch, absorb it and then punch back, ie force your enemy out of position or in a disadvantageous position a,d let him tire himself to better strike later also the French army wasn't ready for an offensive in 1939 or 1940, as offensives are by nature a matter of force mobility, and May-June showed how immobile the French army could be (strong in a frontal attack but slow and ultimately unable to react effectively if outmanoeuvred) alos, contrary to popular history, the French were not, not expecting the Germans to show up in the Ardennes, but rather they weren't expecting them to show up en force, the whole of the Ardennes is rather difficult terrain, heavily wooded hills with numerous rivers and narrow roads, far from ideal as an avenue of attack, a force was there to defend the sector, but a mix of errors, both strategic (the redeployment oi the 7th army, originally held reserve to the left flank of the allied line), but also tactical (the 1st army late reorganisation of it's positions led it's divisions to not be fully entrenched) and intelligence (not heeding the warning of a large German force in the Ardennes) had the French been able to hold off the initial german crossings (by example if the 7th army was in position to reinforce the battered 1st army), the initial german assault would have lost a lot of it's bite quite fast
Quoting the donkey Haig doesn't carry the authority you imagine it does. 1939-1940 is irrelevant. Rommel didn't reach the French coast using infantry walking on foot and dragging artillery and supplies forward over a moonscape of shellholes with horses. The failure of the Ludendorf offensives showed the limits of logistics in 1918 and that's that.
@@gandydancer9710 "Quoting one of the principal architects of victory doesn't carry the weight you think it does" is certainly an ambitious statement. Good luck making it. It's directly relevant to 1939-1940, when the Allies decided to depend on static defences and a thoroughly pedestrian defensive scheme in the Dyle Plan - in the process surrendering the initiative and losing the war. As CIGS Edmund Ironside said after the Allied defeat in France: "The saying that we were never again to have 'the bloody massacres of the Somme' has deluded the people. Nobody has been educated to the horrors of modern war" The German Spring Offensive failed because, amongst other things, an army that'd had its best officers and NCOs killed in the attritional battles of 1916-1917 launched an operationally crude, highly ambitious series of offensives against a more sophisticated enemy who handled their reserves better.
I think another thing is the common myth that WW1 was just walking slowly towards the enemy until everyone was k illed and this was the plan in 1914 and the plan in 1918. However, new technologies introduced, new tactics etc. meaning there were many reasons to launch your own offensive. For example the Rolling barrage, a great way to reduce casualties. But only if you use it, you think maybe the enemy will think of it and do it to you. Sure you could try it on a small scale but then they have seen it and may find a counter. No it needs to be a large scale action to suprise them, we can add in that new fangled Rhomboid shaped tractor etc.
A lot of people think nobody dug trenches after WWI. In the wars since then, the moment you stop advancing against a enemy army you dig in to avoid being wiped out by artillery and/or a counter attack. WWII had more trenches dug than WWI, even with more fluid front lines.
The difference is that in WW2 technology and doctrine were up to cracking trenches reliably and trenches were indeed temporary, while in WW1 it basically took them the whole war to work out how to get out of trench warfare and back into warfare of movement. Also in WW2 communications and transportation were mostly up to the job of exploiting a break through while the typical break through in WW1 could not be really exploited on a higher level. Looking towards Ukraine, it seems that defense has caught up again.
If you look at any pictures of the Ukrainian/Russia war today you'll also see huge entrenchments placed all along the front lines. The war has more resembled WWI than WW2 because drones and hand held missiles make tank breakthroughs difficult if not impossible. Everything right now is field by field...town by town. The casualties of that war once they get out to the public space will be horrifying. Artillery is playing a huge role but production of shells is one of the biggest limiting factors for both sides.
@@lipscomb3632regarding casualties, not really (well, for Russia, for Ukraine there are already over 550k death reports you can find on the internet). Another important distinction this war has (and likely other drone wars in near future will) is the fact that because you can't concentrate large forces in one spot, near all fighting is done by small squads. It's pretty common to see a group of like 10 people take a village, because it's mostly defended by presence of drones rather than concentration of manpower. The exception to this are attempts are maneuver warfare (which didn't end well for Ukraine) and "crawling offensive" where although forces used are small, they get constant replenishment and won't stop coming until the enemy is exhausted.
This Hyper-defensive war is part of the initial premise of a game called Iron Storm. There was never any break through and the war continues on until the 1960s. While that's probably an exaggerated timeline of what would've happened in the realworld, I shudder to think of a war taking over the better part of a century.
I think interwar planes and tanks would have been able to break the stalemate. Defensive positions are a lot worse when your enemy can drop just as much ordinance as they want with even the level of accuracy achievable by dive bombers. Then it becomes a WWII style struggle for air superiority, with one side or the other eventually winning by producing more planes and tanks and bombs than the other.
@@derekeastman7771 We have some of the both largest and most precise indirect fire weapons in all of human history, including the largest artillery arm to ever be assembled, and Ukraine still turned into a trench war even against an inferior enemy. Those weapons are expensive and you'll never have enough, not even artillery shells, but digging trenches are free once you already have the soldiers.
@@ASDeckard the main issue in Ukraine is that neither side is able to decisively control the air, Ukraine lacks sufficient anti air to effectively shut down the Russian air force, but still have enough that the Russians can't venture out too close to the front lines else they lose valuable planes and pilots in modern wars, without air you are vulnerable, and neither side being able to make decisive advances, then you dig in, and it becomes an artillery match that is costly in ammunition
Or it would have gone more like Crimea: fighting between superpowers localised to a few specific locations until they call quits and move on. WWI and II were desctrucrive precisely because the violence quickly because cross and inter continental, like say the 7 Years War or The Wars of Religion
falkenhiem only claimed verdun was planned to “bleed france white” after their initial offensive failed. there is no evidence to suggest falkenhiem had that plan the whole time, so your point about verudn does not stand
@4:36 The attrition argument came after the Battle of Verdun itself had started: it really was originally meant to clear the way for an invasion, just, there was also an understanding that this (much like the Schlieffen plan,) was more ideal than reality, as the thought was that _somebody_ would sell out their allies for peace if Germany did well enough _somewhere,_ and that would enable victory. Ironically, the logic was sound, since Hitler managed to accomplish exactly that with barely a shot fired; then again, he was also relying on his enemies being hopelessly incompetent, which wasn't a small risk in and of itself.
As a fellow historian myself, i do agree with you on most points, but i have to point out a few things... first is that the schliiffen plan would have actually worked if Britain didn't join the war, the plan didn't account for Britain participating and thus fewer enemy divisions were expected...it had actually worked before in the franco Prussian war in 1870 because Britain didn't get involved. Had Belgium not fought as hard and capitulated quicker, it would have succeeded either way, whether Britain joined or not... Second, the central powers literally only lost at the end, and even that was solely because the United States entered the war on the side of the entente. That's the only reason the spring offensive failed, because too many Americans had already arrived; much more than anticipated... also, the British blockade had a major impact... but since the central powers were never actually invaded or occupied they, technically speaking, didn't lose the war, they just gave up because of the civilians losing war support, that had nothing at all to do with the entente... Thirdly, speaking of the blockade. That counts as occupation and innocent civilians from the central powers were killed in just the same way as a direct occupation...occupation is necessary in war when you attack, the usa in ww2 occupied axis territory the same way and did just as bad of things, you can't say "occupation is legal if we do it to you but not if you do it to us" which is what you implied in this video, you said Germany was automatically the bad guys just because they occupied but when usa occupied in ww2 thats ok they're not the bad guys even though both occupations were the exact same... going on offensive, and OCCUPATION is how you win wars. You can't have 1 without the other... Fourth, Germany had actually the ability to compete with the non usa entente for long term enough to win a battle of attrition because you CANT count the colonial empires of France and Britain because they didn't support the war, Ireland even rebelled right in the middle of the war as did many colonial holdings from the entente side... meanwhile the German economy was actually better than France and Britain combined at the start of the war and they also had more population, they could have at the very least forced a draw if the usa hadn't intervened, the latter only did so because they knew if they didn't that Germany was actually going to win, since their private companies had invested in the entente they had to ensure they didn't lose profits by central powers gaining the victory and nullify the loans owed... Fifth, no matter how you look at it or use hindsight, any REAL historian will admit that the central powers were in fact the good guys in ww1, theres a skewed agenda that the central powers were bad because they lost, and because America is always seen as the good guys no matter what, and since they fought for the entente then the latter must be the good ones... this is not true...the central powers fought because Serbia had illegally taken out the heir of the Austro-Hungarian empire and so the war was justified from their part...any other country would have done that...and so was the ultimatum they gave Serbia, i read it and it was completely fair and square especially considering the usa would have done the exact same thing (in fact they did, see the reaction to a certain date in September)... if the central powers were not justified, then neither was the September 2001 war in the middle east and neither was the American Revolution a justified war either...people also say that the central powers were bad just because thir loss directly led to ww2, this is also not true, actions taken by the allies were just as guilty of provoking war as axis actions were and both sides including the usa commited war crimes and "illegal or wrongful occupation" equally in both wars... the 1st world war should have been fought between the Austro-Hungarian empire and Serbia only but Russia came in illegally to defend Serbia as a political agenda and called in their allies in the entente to help, the entente was completely unjustified in the war (except Britain who fought to protect Belgium, who would have not been attacked if they allowed Germany passage through like they did in 1870) and only fought because a bias and hatred for Germany who was now the new #1 great power of Europe... always remember that history is written by the winner and the winner is always right and always the good guys regardless of the truth, also remember that truth is relative, if enough people believe a lie it becomes the truth even if it isn't true... no offense, but the fact that you have sponsors and didn't fund this video independently/directly means that the sponsors bribed you into promoting the negative and false agenda... you are not telling REAL history, only an opinion about it and a bias one at that...
I'm glad you've dealt with this, to paraphrase waht I said in my comment the other week "He who only defends INSIDE his own borders has effectively set himself new, smaller borders." It's also much easier (and desirable) to dig in when you're on the higher ground than the low.
In a way it really does feel like a Real-Time Strategy game. You might feel good when you are building up, being unbothered by your opponent. But then 15 minutes later your opponent *does* show up and crushes you. Because the pace of force growth can diverge. In this way, real war is similar. You *want* that friction, force the opposing side to make mistake, respond to imperfect situations. To me World War 1 feels like a failure of the political forces of Europe and it's great powers, throwing up their hands and just saying to their militaries: "You guys figure this out." And yes the miltaries weren't perfect. Innovations were bought through sacrifice, but they are innovations still relevant today, obvious now, thanks to hindsight. The French are probably the poster child of having to modernize and almost collapsing in the process. The English ultimately bet on a winning strategy, by developing the tank, worked out, but of course you could argue that by focussing on the most efficient use of artillery and adaption of revolutionary infantery tactics, in the vein of the German Stormtroopers, they would have been able to force an end to the war earlier. The way it played out the Germans were slightly superior on the tactical level it seems, but ultimately were materially so disadvantaged, through blockades, exhaustion, manpower losses and the arrival of American troops, and thus the war ended in 1918. And I think it's okay to come to this conclusion, without endorsing post-war myths. Realizing that there is a grain of truth in things like the "Dolchstoßlegende" (Stab in the back, the German Army being undefeated in the field) which allowed these stories to gain traction and remain in the consciousness of the people.
The simple answer is no one won a war by only playing defense. Also, you could capture and hold ground in the Great War, attacking wasn't as futile as it's made out to be.
This reminded me of the ending of Storm of Steel and the idea of moral. when it described the spring offensive, he talked about how it felt all order broke down, as the soldiers were fervently attacking simply as more of a horde then an army. How even after when they were clearly losing it was describing the new recruits as excited and boastful about how great they were going to do, and how they would be the ones to end the war. That offensive victory would cost lives, but could greatly increase morale. To be told your going to sit in a trench for as long as it takes to win would be horrible and dreadful, but that hope that yes im risking my life but this could be the attack to win the war had to have some positive effect on moral. You win you go home and have a better life, that’s a hope you lack sitting in a trench under fire for years
Brett Devereaux has a nice little two-parter about this very topic on his blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, and I recommend them heartily. "Why not just defend?" is a solution to the imaginary war, not the real one. It strikes me that maybe the Great War was the inversion of the American Civil War: in the 1860s, you wanted to be on the defensive tactically but on the offensive strategically; whereas in WWI you wanted to be on the offensive tactically, but the defensive operationally. What a devilish trap to set...
I hope everyone who contacts Brandon for a sponsorship knows just how honored they should feel to have him create his little ad segments for them. It is a privilege of any company to be sponsored by Brandon
There is a serious shell shortage. The armies can hoard shells for a good part of a year as they plan them out. Communications are severely lacking. In '18 they are proto-WW II combined arms armies with advanced small unit tactics. But all of it is held together by field telephones, runners, doves, flags and time tables.
All wars have an attritional aspect to them. What made WWI different was the attrition was basically continuous as it would be in a siege. In fact, Verdun could be understood as a sally against the siege by the Germans. In previous wars there were sieges but the armies generally weren't involved in daily heavy fighting; there were lulls in the fighting and in some campaigns there were only a couple of battles and some skirmishing.
Brandon, my guy. I stumbled upon your channel less than a week ago, and yet your videos have somehow become my go to already. Love the work you put in man. Although I’m going to need to ask for you to tone down the quality of your content just a smidge as I’m starting to cut into my formerly, “productive,” working hours. Lol Jk man, thanks for the content. It’s awesome!
If you only defend, than attacer could attack when they have a great adventage, when they can't they will just wait, and wait. And then you have suspended War, without any pace treaty.
Would a suspended war, at least until one side or the other can put together enough tanks for a successful offensive, really have been worse than what happened? The outcome was the same, stagnant front lines, but the human cost was significantly higher to accomplish the same.
@@derekeastman7771The losses would still be massive. But a bigger issue is that you had your enemy the initiative. One successful offensive could end the war. If you sit back waiting, you give your enemy the chance to to deliver that offensive when and where and how they want. In addition, we have to remember that the war was more than the western front. Keeping as many Germans as possible tied down on the Western front and early from Russia was a major strategic consideration. The Germans would have been ecstatic if they could have sent a million more men East. With hindsight, the Allies digging in and reducing the scale of offensives until 1917 or 1918 would have been a good call. But with the knowledge available in 1915 or 1916 that would be very hard to justify.
@@derekeastman7771 Remember that defender will not live in vacum. Slow gathering of forces without initiative will be known by attacker. They can do mamy things to spoil defender plans, and they will try. Defender forces will be less experienced on assalut, so wainting to great strike without any od that could lead to massacre. Tanks will not be any magic weapon, at begginig they was badly used.
I drove from the English Channel to Switzerland along the Western Front and from what I saw it seemed what's left of the German trenches were mostly on the high ground and in better position. I've also been to Gallipoli and the Turks held all the high ground
Wow 50 seconds early no? i wonder how officers felt about sending waves of infantry all the while trying to NOT get thousands of men killed in a single wave
What people really mean by "win wars by only defending" has nothing to do with defense, but it's about taking only fights that are amazing and good, where the conditions and circumstance favour you. It's simply naive, in reality, you win wars, or conflict, by fighting well in every circumstance and taking what you can when you can from the enemy, and clambering over the bodies of your fellows.
I'm gonna soul read this video: Trench warfare requires you to take the initiative and break the enemy's line. Just like any other type of warfare. You don't win wars by sitting like a dunce, you win it by gaining ground. Its expensive and casualty making, but its either that or get harassed by the enemy and lose your trench because you let them build up a massive force to punch through
You also win wars by breaking the opposing forces will to fight. That's historically how most battles were won and in WW1 that's how it finally ended. You don't break the enemy by only defending because the enemy can just regroup, resupply and wait until they regain the advantage.
19:13 this is an often overlooked aspect. Wars are ruinously expensive because they consume stuff, infrastructure is destroyed and people die, but perhaps even more importantly, because you take millions of people out of the civilian workforce to basically participate in the greatest economic wasting exercise mankind has ever invented. Every bullet fired represents a farmer who is now a frontline soldier firing a gun instead of farming, a truck driver who drove the bullets to the front line instead of doing vital logistics in the normal economy, a factory worker somewhere making bullets instead of nails and screws, etc... not to mention the guy on the other side who gets hit by the bullet and gets killed or invalided, and will never work again. Even major industrialized economies can only sustain high intensity warfare for a few years before they utterly collapse. As both the Russian and German economy indeed did, and the only reason the UK and French economies survived (by the skin of their teeth) was their colonial empires and the USA bankrolling them.
Defense means counter-attacking. The crazy fact of WW1 was, that most attacks were successfull. Only, the counter-attack by the enemy was also successfull.
The French Army mutinied early in the war and refused to carryout any attacks, just to defend their positions. The fanatics (British & much later the Americans) insisted on continuing to attack at great expense in troops. The strategic reasons for continuing to attack was two fold: 1) POLITICAL - Early in the war the Germans captured a lot of French and Belgian territory and were holding it. If this had been left in their hands till a peace agreement was negotiated it would have been practically a victory for Germany, because it would be starting with a great advantage in things to trade for peace. 2) ECONOMIC - It was actually the economic warfare which eventually won the war for the entente powers. By continuing to attack the allies put pressure on the Central Powers' strangulated economies to attempt to hasten their economic and political collapse. The war ended eventually because of the economic and political collapse of Germany on 8th November 1918, when the Germany disintegrated into internal chaos and disintegrated into a situation partly of civil war. This whole subject is of great current relevance with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war, as this conflict shows more parallels to WW1 than it does to WW2 and many of the strategic considerations which were central in WW1 are again central to this conflict. The differences in this light are also greatly informative.
Just a small correction: The german offensive on Verdun was intended to capture the heights surrounding the city and possibly Verdun itself, it would alleviate pressure on the city of Metz by making a buffer zone in the hilly region. There was probably also a political reason which crown prince Wilhelm was involved in the operation, giving propaganda reason and raising the morale. It's thought that the pragmatic reason of grinding the french troops on the region was the following objective after the operation grinded to a halt.
Brandon! I just wanna say I’m a legit fan of the Mantis sleep mask. I’ve gone through 5 different ones but coughed up the money (Mantis is more expensive than most) and have been using it for years. It’s legit amazing if you’re in need of a sleep mask. (I swear I’m not sponsored or a bot I’m just a nerd and passionate about my sleep mask). 10:03
What is omitted is that acting purely defensively would likely fail in defence. The problem is that if your opponent knows you will never attack, they can freely concentrate their entire force unhindered wherever they wish, without needing to keep the bulk of their forces in defensive positions to shield against your counterattacks. If, say, you have 500,000 men and you need to concentrate for an attack you might be able to strip, say, 100,000 of them from their defensive positions to join the attack without leaving the rest of your front too weak to defend if your opponent should happen to get the jump on you and attack first. If you know your opponent never attacks at all you can risk putting 300,000 or 400,000 troops into the attack and only leaving, say, 1-200,000 as a token force everywhere else to deter the enemy. With such a large concentration of men in one attack, suddenly even in WW1 conditions a major breakthrough becomes much more possible and clever clogs armchair general with his "why don't you just defend" just lost the war.
THAT is the only sensible answer here. You never know where the enemy will concentrate, so your line will be 10:1 outnumbered when they do. By keeping pressure on them, it means they cannot form up and dominate the initiative.
It wasn't the casualties at the front or wastage in general that caused the collapse of the central powers. It was the food and material shortages caused by supporting the armies and the blockade cutting off imports. As for Russia, the February revolution was caused not by food shortages, there was enough food, but the railroads being overworked, supporting the armies, causing supply chain issues in getting food to the cities. The result was the Weimar Govt. began a program of autarky to counter the threat of a blockade in a future war and the Nazis determined that the occupied countries would go hungry before the German people would.
Also, one thing most people doesn't realize is that THE CULT OF THE OFFENSIVE WAS ACTUALLY RIGHT. Most of the time concentrated attacks of artillery and endless waves of infantry destroyed the first lines of defense, the problem with this was there were more lines and those lines could counter-attack and push back the offensive force, but the idea of the only form of defense being a counterattack was actually right, being only on the defensive wasn't really a possibility in WW1.
Ok i didn't watch the video yet...but i think that we cant win a war by just defending. Unless you **really** want an attrition war but i think most massive attacks were to break that.
I think you may have leap frogged some of the more basic factors that probably ought to have been addressed in order for the convoluted state of affairs required to pose a question that your response answers. Namely, that to defend, you need an attacker. If you only defend, are the enemy going to attack? Do they need to? In germany's case, no. The Schlieffen plan is defensive in nature in that attack is the best form of defence. They need to attack france because they cannot defend against both a fully mobilised russia and france simultaneously, if neither plans to attack and only defend, germany doesn't need to defend those borders and can devote itself fully to its ally's goal, attacking serbia. How would russia or france help serbia without attacking, either on land or by sea to reach it? Its a classic case of moral courage, if the enemy knows you aren't going to attack, they can redeploy for local superiority, as happened with grant in racing to petersburg or lee at chancellorsville. Hooker lost his bottle, lee and jackson realised that they could send jackson's corps on a long adventure to outflank the federal defences because the federals weren't going to launch a serious attack in the meantime. If france commits itself completely to the defence and the germans realise that, then they will break through because they will be able to strip more and more troops from the defence to land a far heavier blow at the point of attack while france would have to defend everywhere sufficiently or perfectly match german troop buildup with their own defensive buildup where the germans move. Defeat in detail.
Imagine how much simpler the logistics would be if your enemy never counter assaulted you. If they want to sit on their cannon and machine guns and let us consolidate our baggage, command and freight, let them.
The war is very mobile in one way, rails. There is an artillery range where rail lines must end, but behind the lines are large rail networks and other infrastructure allowing troops and supplies to be shuttled up and down. The troops necessary for a counterattack can move from reserve pretty fast. Sometimes attacks take place to tease out these reserves and make them commit prematurely.
This is why I don't like the "Lions led by donkeys" argument. There were definitely a lot of bad/inexperienced generals on all sides, but it ignores the basic constraints the sides were operating under to attempt to win. They DID try many different ways, but there just wasn't an easy answer to the issue of mass infantry assaults, attrition, machineguns, artillery, trenches, and the worst one of of all...that armies couldn't move faster, attack faster, and communicate faster than the other guy could dig in. Or put another way - it happened the way it did because it was going to happen that way, more or less. The only way it could have been avoided is one or more of the major powers had just said "not today!" in 1914.
As a counter-question... Who likes a permanently stagnant and costly war with zero gains from either side and no real perspective for a decisive victory?
Another thing is popular support. The public demand advances and success in return for their collective sacrifice towards the war effort. If they open a newspaper each morning and see the same frontline for 3 years while the casualty list beside it gets longer and longer, they lose faith and energy You have to show the public that youre trying, you have to give them heroes and dramatic stories, you have to show them that the shells they spend 12hrs a day making in a rat-infested factory are actually being put to use. Otherwise they fall out with you and march on the palace, which is what happened to Germany
Also, people undervalue the importance of an effective counterattack. Not pushing against your enemy when they're tired, disorganized, and have depleted their supplies relative to you would be a wasted opportunity. Even though combat sports are not very comparable to WW1 combat, the same is true when it comes to counter-striking. It's much easier to land a knockout blow or match winning takedown when your opponent is overextended, out of position, and off-balance. In a war of attrition like WW1, you need to take initiative with any advantages you get, whether it be using gas when the wind is in your favor or by pushing against your enemy while they're trying to lick their wounds after a failed assault.
So I don't know a lot about war. But know a bit more about economics (and not just the money side of economics). No country can have a continious full scale,war against än fairly equal enemy forever. The cost of war in terms of manpower, raw materials, defense industry output wreck any society in the long run. And the longer the war goes on, the harder it's going to be to get back to a mainly civil society. Because for each month, each year you put your whole country towards that one goal - defeat the enemy - the more work it will take to change production.
I would imagine that a purely defensive war and letting the artillery pound your boys into jelly and not try to give back to them would be even more unpopular than the normal war as was had been..
An army's ability to absorb casualties is much higher than people think. The logistics axiom of "tooth to tail" being about 20 individuals supporting one full-time combatant means that even when a military is "scraping the bottom of the barrel", they can amost always find soldiers from the logistics chain itself to bring to the front in dire emergencies. The loss of a front-line soldier is in some ways a loss of less than 5% of "one soldier's worth"
@louisazraels7072 -- I'm mostly talking about the people in uniform who wind up spending all or nearly all of their time doing non-combat jobs -- recruiters, training staff, administrators, assistants, labour battalions, logistics companies, soldiers standing sentry miles or even continents away from an active war-zone, the sick and wounted, and so on. Even street gangs need people to organize the sales force, purchase, transport and maintain stockpiles of illicit goods, provide security and make collections, provide leadership and arbitrate internal disputes, calculate payroll and expenses, and keep records. "20-to-1" is a very loose estimate but it's a surprisingly decent one.
Depends on time period though. In ancient times that chain was much smaller. Rome lost 20% of its male population in 3 campaigning seasons. In that sense, to replace those losses and even expand the legions, they enlisted people jailed due to debt and slaves. By 209 BC multiple city states within the republic could no longer meet the quota for soldiers. I agree with overall but there have been ancient and modern cases of armies being exhausted of manpower. Not of men completely at all, but no longer able to replace casualties without widening the pool of recruits in terms of age, sickness, etc. We see that with Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine has a mobilization restriction on men aged 18-25 and Russia is trying to delay their next mobilization as much as possible. The average age of the UAF is 45 and the average age of the RAF is close to 50.
@@vibechecktsundere4912-- I agree with what you are saying. I never made any claims as to the relative *quality* of the replacements. I'm only bringing up "tooth-to-tail" in relation to the fact that *even when* a nation loses 10% of its total population (~20% of men) it *will* still have the logistics base to put together and mobilize 5% of the remaining (albeit smaller) population if it has the time, resources, leadership, and social cohesion to do so. In the most dire of situations, that number would obviously be an ever-downward spiral and the army would be facing countless other resource and cohesion problems. On the other hand, that slow spiral toward extinction is exactly the kind of devil's bargain total war *is*.
As a Frenchman I find indeed the sheer stupidity of comments about “butchery and what not” appalling. You correctly state the French army had to attack because… French territory had been invaded. End of the story. The problem is the general view on WW1 has changed a lot since the last veterans have died. I am old enough to have known people who lived through that war and fought. The vision they conveyed had nothing to do with what is now ingrained in people’s minds.
@ - the people I am evoking, who had fought in the war, who had lived through it as non-combatants, or even who had been born right after the war and raised in the very strong recollection of it, conveyed a balanced view encompassing the whole spectrum of the events. The actual complexity of the war in its various phases still was a rather vivid memory and anyone clamouring some half-truth about what had taken place could be corrected by someone who knew better swiftly, an elder generally (“no, it wasn’t all static trench warfare from 14 to 18; no, they weren’t walking through no man’s land in machine gun fire but were taking as much cover as they could; etc”). Also, when I was young it was pretty frequent to find books with firsthand accounts of the WW1 fighting in one’s parents or grandparents library (or attic) - the kind of books that had been published in droves in the years following the end of the war. Literary quality was not always present, but they were a source of direct details on the actual life and experience of infantrymen, gunners, cavalrymen or airmen. By end of the 80’s, most of the veterans were dead and those who weren’t tended to fade into some kind of senility or the other. And, of course, their vanishing numbers implied they had lost the memory competition against the younger generation of WW2. WW1 became the thing of historians and, to a certain extent, journalists, mentioned once in a blue moon. In both cases the contemporary zeitgeist took precedence over first or second hand experience. Notably when it came to presenting WW1 to the general public, in which case complexity had to leave way for simple images more likely to strike minds and have an impact. The zeitgeist I mention did not include glory or gung-ho spirit but a strong dose of victimisation to the contrary. As a result, the men who were heroes when I was young became victims and the sole aspect that was retained was the sheer misery. In other words, one could get the impression that it was always trenches - and wet and cold ones, to that - and that any action couldn’t be anything but a complete and bloody disaster with no possibility of success or victory whatsoever. The French government went as far as presenting some kind of national apology to the men who had been shot following the mutinies in 1917 (again with a botched view since French firing squads killed a lot more men in the opening stages of 1914, when France seemed to be heading towards the same beating as in 1870, than in 1917).
@JohnSmith-ct5jd - désolé, je parle couramment le français, l'allemand et l'anglais, un peu le russe et l'italien, mais je ne maîtrise absolument pas le moronic.
Basically, attackers often caused more casualties than they took on the first trench. They just couldn't break through after capturing the first trench because they were far from their own base and artillery, while the enemy reserves were well supported when retaking their first trench.
This title is a complete paradox as you defend from an attack. If they were all defending, who would be the one on the offensive? Yeah, it's like that 'what came first, the chicken or the egg' kinda situation...
Thanks Brandon, for covering WW1. I find it is oft misunderstood given how well recorded it was in our history. There’s still decades worth of research needed to uncover the full picture even on one front.
I think my critique of the video is that it also doesn't address the eastern front enough for how relevant it is, though of course you aren't going to have a comprehensive video covering everything in WWI fit in a 25 minute video so sacrifices must be made. To talk a bit though about the relevance of the eastern front, obviously inserting a "Armies are only defending on the western front" revision (which whilst not what the video is titled, the western front is what it primarily focuses on) to history is too large a change to say what the long term effects of such would be, I believe we can fairly confidently say the less manpower and material lost on the western front would only be positive for Germany's efforts for the eastern front. Obviously one couldn't just have *all* the soldiers and material leave the western front and seriously expect the allies to have not then simply advanced and freely won the war, but a solider who was no longer killed on the western front is a body that is now available elsewhere. If we can then agree that a quieter western front benifets the eastern front, then we can ask if that would have positively impacted how quickly the Germans won the Eastern front. Obviously this is delving into alternate history (So entirely speculation), but there is a possibility that if you can make the Russians capitulate sooner, then things such as access to Ukrainian foodstuffs might have been able to play a factor in the war. We know the Germans in history were planning on utilizing specifically the Ukrainian food production, so it was something they were considering and were aware of. There are also things such as the Germans discussions with several influential Poles over offering to give up Polish territory and create a new Polish state in exchange for Poles then joining the central powers that could have been more feasibly implemented (With the caveat that only one book of mine includes this specific topic so my source material may not be the best), as well as a whole slew of other things unmentioned that also would have been positive for Germany. Also not needed explanation is how an easier and potentially more quickly won eastern front assists Austria Hungary and the Ottomans and also allow more resources for combat in the Balkans and Middle East as well. Then diplomatically there is a question if without there being the fighting (And therefore the casualties) on the western front there would exist the desperation in regards to many of the major diplomatic actions. You obviously can't change thing such as Wilson being 100% for the US joining the war, but it does bring question if the Entente would feel the negotiations to get Italy to join the war to be as important therefore less likely to agree to concessions for Italy (Though contrarily one can also argue that light casualties on the western front could make it appear the war would not be that difficult or expensive, therefore making Italy more likely to join. Such is with the butterfly affect and alternate history). Likewise would the easier eastern front and it potentially being concluded sooner be enough to sooth German desperation as to prevent things such as their submarine policy and the Zimmerman Telegram that help persuade the US's public in joining the war. Overall these things I believe further emphasize the downsides of the Entente remaining on the defensive in the Western front in WWI. I do though admit I have absolutely no clue nor enough knowledge to say anything if the subsequent German offensives on the Western front were intelligent to have done, other than a vague "It probably made sense with their knowledge at the time".
Not exactly WW1, but another conflict from the 1930s shows why armies couldn't stay only defending, namely the Spanish Civil War. The Republican loyalist forces were at a disadvantage when it came to offensive operations (for the most pard, with glaring exceptions), but at the same time they couldn't just try to defend their territory, since that meant losing bit by bit. General Vicente Rojo (one of the most underrated military theorists, and the Chief of Staff for the Republican loyalists) had to come up with various moves even when the Nationalists were attacking, so that their forces could have a chance. Things like attacking Brunete to try and lower the pressure from the Northern Front, or attempting a counteroffensive in 1938 that would allow some respite and a plausible globalisation of the conflict (with the Republican loyalists in the Allies and the Nationalists in the Axis) were attempted, for instance. Though there are several differences on the tactical level to the situation in WW1, going from the terrain (far more mountainous in Spain), to the use of armoured vehicles in larger proportions than in WW1 (as well as airpower) to the fact that a big chunk of the equipment used by both sides wasn't locally produced (due to lack of factories).
The other issue is, if you dont atttack, the enemy doesnt need to spread their defenders as thinly and can mass troops and materiel to smash through your defences.
1)Because Germany wanted to take ground 2)Because the allies wanted to regain ground 3)Because only defending doesn't do to well to break enemy morale. Defend and then counter. 4)Because, by attacking, you can concentrate your forces on a weak point in the enemy defenses. 5)Because just sitting there waiting to get blown up drains morale.
Sun tzu gave the basic idea of why defending is flawed. If you strengthen the front the back is weak, if you strengthen one side the other side is weak, if you strengthen everything, everything is weak. You have limmited forces and you spread them out. The engaging side can choose where to attack so he can concentrate forces in advance. The defending side is hoping to find out in advance or hold out for long enough to renforce the attacked area. If they fail, the enemy can break a part of the front changing the nature of the battle. Furthermore, investing in defense is investing in immobile structures that at best defend, at worst are ignored as the enemy goes somewhere else. Tanks can move about but bunkers and machinegun nests stay in place.
A more interesting question is whether Germany and Austria -Hungary would have done better fighting a defensive war. If their strategy was to wait for Russia and France to attack them and fight a defensive war. That would have avoided Germany blackening its name in Belgium. It is less likely that Britain or the US would ave joined Russia and France in a war of aggression. If Germany had managed to keep them out f the war, they would have had access to the sea and international trade, The pro-war faction, in the British cabinet did not have the votes to enter the war until Germany invaded Belgium. Germany screwed itself by bringing in too many powers against it. It's military strategy to mobilize the fastest and strike the first blow destroyed its chance to keep Britain neutral. The Kaiser would have had a better chance of talking the Tsar down if he had the option to let Russia strike the first blow. Russia probably would have done this but we don't know for sure because Germany beat them to it. The tragedy was that the Kaiser did not realize how dangerous the crisis was before Russia began to mobilize. His Generals only gave him a short window of time to talk the Tsar into stopping mobilization. If Germany had a defensive strategy, they would have had a bit more time for diplomacy. In the event that Russia and France attacked would the British public want to go to war on the side of French and Russian aggressors and Serbian terrorists? If Germany could have kept Britain and the US neutral, that would have more than made up for any problem from letting France and Russia strike first. Of course, factions in Germany who favored war with Russia, intended to take away the Kaiser's option for diplomacy. It seems that he had a deep state problem too.
Germany WAS in fact attacked by Russia. Germany was on the offensive only in the West. Apart from that England NEVER would have remained outside of the war. Since 1871 Germany had a semi-hegemonic position in Europe which automatically means Britain is your enemy, and besides that the German economy was a big annoyance for the English, which is why they would have joined the war anyway.
@@AlasdairMorrison-z8mI can't tell if you're being sarcastic. The Russians declared on the Germans and invaded East Prussia at the start of the war. While the initial justification for the French Russian alliance was in case of attack, it was changed to be offensive before the war.
Simple. You can't win a war by defending. The French lost a lot of troops in the first THREE WEEKS of the war attacking into Alsaise Lorraine. At Verdun, the French generally did stand on the defense. The tank and strom trooper tactics broke trench warfare.
I think a very important consideration you overlook is concentration of forces. A successful attack sees the attacker stealthily building up superior numbers of artillery, shells, and men. If this is successful and not spoiled by enemy reconnaissance (ie, airplanes), then just having more men and shells than the enemy is going to offset to a degree the defender's advantage. Of course, this means that in a battle where the number of troop losses is the same on either side, the amount of ordnance expended could be very, very different.
Sometimes the german command act like the defensive war to hold territory in Belgium, France etc is also temporary. An eventual collapse of Russia, Austria or something will free up resources and troops.
My perception was always that they did do that once they figured it out, but hindsight is 20/20. They spent 1915 and the first half of 1916 trying to push through but after the failed in 1916 switched to a more defensive posture until American forces entered the war and gave the entente enough of an advantage to start pushing again.
The whole point of the war was to defend serbia, so they needed to keep the pressure on germany and austria, because then they would have just rolled over serbia.
War is diplomacy by other means. While in practice, it may look like a pointless exercise of inflicting as much casualties as possible, neither side is cynically trying to bleed out the other, they both want to win the war as completely and then as quickly as they can.
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By not attacking, the allies would have given the other side the initiative in the war. Not only did the generals on both sides have to plan their attacks carefully, they had to anticipate being attacked and there was a constant back and forth as each side would try and outsmart the other. If one side does not attack, that means the other can strip troops from the front, find a weak spot in the enermy line and exploit it. If the iother side are not attacking, you don't have to worry about a counter attack as by the time they start to mobilise the troops, you will have broken through
Before watching the video: it's artillery doing the killing. Attacking lets you take out artillery, find new locations to place artillery. If you have a localised artillery disadvantage, you will be worse off being on the defense locally. From modern war it is obvious that there is an initiative advantage to attacking first, because you can surprise the defenders and overwhelm them initially.
WW1 is essentially the problem about how to cross No Man's Land with enough troops surviving to fight off the invitable counterattacks. After 1915, neither side just attacked without thinking they had some tactical advantage. For Verdun the Germans thought their massive amount of artillery would chew up French infantry, which in fact it did in 1914. For the Somme the British thought a loooong artillery bombardment would destroy all the defenses. In the 1917 Nieville Offensive the French thought since they chased the Germans out of Verdun they had figured out combined arms tactics - only they forgot that terrain and German countermeasures would negate French tactics. In 1918's Germany's offensive the Germans thought Stormtrooper tactics would give them the means to punch through Allied lines. It did, but men can only march so many miles a day, and the Allies plugged all the holes. It took 1940s tanks to punch through defensive lines and then travel so far so fast that the enemy could not respond quickly enough. The British thought the secret was just capturing the front lines and stopping - since German doctrine was to hold the first lines with few men and then counterattack asap. But as Foch said, you cannot capture a few hundred yards at a time all the way to Berlin - it would take decades. I find WW1 not so interesting for the history of battles, but the development of tactics to cross No Man's Land.
Another point to consider is: what's the logical conclusion of the defence only idea? Assume one side decides that, because the war in so heavily favours the defender and is attritional in nature, they will lean into this aspect and halt all offensive actions. Instead they adobt a purely defendant will the goal of allowing the enemy to wear itself down against them. What happens when your opponent reaches the same conclusion? Put simply, someone has to initiate the confrontation. The 'just defend' argument ignores the simple fact that the enemy gets a vote.
(Also if you happen to pick up one of those Manta Sleep Masks, if you do so via the youtube shopping tab I get an extra 15% on top of the usual sponsorship fee, so I'd appreciate your doing so there!)
Brandon can you do a video about the earlier jacobite rebellions like the pre 1745 jacobite rebellion?
Hey Brandon, could you do a video about what it would be like to fight on the Western front after fighting in the east? I would be interested to know if anyone actually did that, or what the occupation of the eastern front looked like?
interestingly some German/Prussian military men prior to WW1 (Moltke might have been the name of one, but I could be misremembering) did think of holding a defensive line on one front in the event of a two-front war, focusing on winning one front while the defenses held on the other front.
I sent you a message by email so I am hoping you got it and it isn't in your spam filter or something like that.
The Wu-Flu example was actually pretty on. I am an expert on that specific pathogen, and have been since before 2020. The reason for studying an obscure pathogen(at the time) is a whole different story. The reason the example fits, is because 99.99999% of what was told to the public was a bold faced intentional lie, just like the governments of WW1 talking to their citizens/subjects. Inevitably when I mention being a credentialed expert on this subject, the question comes up "why didn't you warn people that they were being lied to?" The short answer is that we tried, but were censored on all fronts, often fired, and many of us just left(like me) because we didn't work our butts off and sacrifice to become this intelligent just so we could comply with the slowest kids in the room or the loudest propagandist. Those in the science and medical community that were dumb enough, or weak enough, or money hungry enough to go along with what they were told to push, were the ones who became "spokes people" or the "talking heads". It's no different than what you do Brandon. Farbs get the most hollywierd screen time, and a lot of people believe the farb stuff to be true, or they believe their "feelings", like the comments that spawned this video. A select few can see through the BS of the farbs and feelings, some are willing to learn the truth, some refuse to let go of "bite, pour, spit, tap, shoot" no matter what evidence is presented. It was/is the same for those of us who were/are legitimate experts in this subject.
99% of frontal assaults quit right before the enemy breaks
99% of your brain cells quit right before you produce something coherent
For second I thought I was on wall street bets
I am imagining that mining meme but with tunnel diggers
This is one of the assertions of all time
lmao 😄
I hate to quote Sun Tzu like some cringey teenager, but...
"No nation has ever benefitted from prolonged warfare."
US in Afghanistan enters chat*
@@deadheadwsp705the USA didn’t mobilise that much. If they really tried they could have won, but that would be an enormous price to pay
@@lordbeetrot you can't kill an idea
@@lordbeetrot my point was the prolonged warfare part. Pretty much bankrupted our country
@@deadheadwsp705not even close to true. Afghan war was less than 1% of govt spending.
Since it was brought up, it is worth noting that some historians think that the rationale for Verdun being to 'bleed france white' may have been a post hoc excuse by Falkenhayn after the offensive there ground to a halt.
It seems to have always been the main goal. But initial German conceptions of the operation had them taking Verdun and breaking the entente counterattacks, which is where the attrition was supposed to come from. But that failed and the casualties weren’t as lopsided as hoped.
So, essentially, 'We meant to do that.'
Verdun was also a french morale Victory. Its literaly a national Mythos Till today.
Per Professor Mosier, the idea was to take a French citythat couldn’t be hidden from the French public by French propaganda and encourage frenzied French army frontal attacks which would break the French Army. However General Petain would not play that game.
Still the French had more losses in Verdun despite having more men and defending.
Incredibly simplistic answer: you don't win wars by only defending.
Well that’s just not true. You don’t occupy territory by defending, that’s all, but if your enemy loses enough resources and soldiers trying and failing to invade you, it’ll either lead to offers of white peace, or, if you provoke them into attacking you further, they’ll lose support on the homefront and be forced to give you peace or be overthrown. Of course you’re unlikely to really gain anything, even reparations, from a purely defensive war, but if you hold out for long enough and pester the invading force with subversive operations or bombing runs or a cheeky touch of terrorism, you might very well gain something, too. The Taliban hardly managed to push back NATO forces and focused mostly on defending and pestering logistics, and they went from being an unlanded terrorist organisation to a country, effectively winning their war against the biggest military alliance in history.
@@NaN-noCZ The Taliban fought an insurgency, not a war. The US-led coalition effectively ended large scale combat operations in under 6 weeks.
@@NaN-noCZ The Taliban were in no way only defensive. They weren't sitting in their caves waiting the their enemy to leave, they were actively attacking when possible.
Also, I would argue referring to what happened as them winning when it comes to the western forces.
Nothing the Taliban did caused the west to leave, it was purely down to changing political situation in the western countries meaning there was no longer support to keep going. The west left because they chose to leave, not because the Taliban forced them to.
After the west left the Taliban did not sit and wait for the Afgan government to give up, they actively moving in and took over in an offensive move.
So no, your example is not a case of winning by being defensive.
@NaN-noCZ you don't win wars by only defending, you win wars by removing the enemy's will to continue. So you can defend 95% of the time with occasional raids but those raids are still offensive.
The Taliban did plenty of offensive actions, that's why the coalition forces disliked the spring. Winter in Kandahar was bad, but the warmer spring mean the coalition would be under attack.
Hooligans of Kandahar: Not All Wars Are Heroic by Joseph Kassabian is a great book and I reccomend checking it out.
@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15tAmerica lost the war, simple as
The answer is simple. "Get off OUR Lawn". The Germans had captured large swaths of France & Belgium. The whole point of the War was to get those areas back. For the Germans sitting on their Backsides would have been fine. For the French, they wanted their land back. For Belgium, they wanted their country back. The British had at the end of the Napoleonic Wars promised to defend Belgium. To achieve their war aims they HAD to attack.
The germans would have starved before the french decided to stop
Germans chilling would definitely not be fine. Their whole mode of warfare is based on rapid attacking victories due to Germany's lack of essential resources, which it relies on through imports.
You can wait for the Germans to exhaust themselves, and then attack.
An offensive posture on the strategic level doesn't necessarily translate to an offensive on the operational or tactical level.
Doesn't explain why Germany sent attacks after the frontlines had set in, i.e Verdun
@@TheZod00 I strongly disagree. You are forgetting the eastern front exists. The less pressure on the western front, the more pressure and manpower for the eastern front. This means faster victory on the eastern front. Whilst this is way too far into the alt-history to be able to say whether it ultimately changes the outcome of the war (Like hypothetically gaining access to Ukrainian foodstuffs as the Germans and Austrians intended too historically), it definitely isn't good for the allies and arguably worse than what the Allies did historically.
If your hot take on a historical event involves some version of "people back then were stupid," you don't know what you're talking about.
Exact.And if your answer consists of using tech that wasn't available or ready for prime time,like radio,that also applies.
If there's any period to which that take applies, it's now.
@@chico9805 I look forward to teaching the history of the 2020s in 2077, because I will never retire in this economy, and they haven't found a way to automate education yet
Actually the people I would call "stupid" are the ones here today re-attempting the exact failures from history believing "It will work this time around!"
@@John-qv5ux you haven't seen those "online training" classes yet?
Granted I think it is worse for education but the policy and decision makers won't care about that.
You are still correct about the "retirement" part though.
Ultimately: The Defender has the advantage of being able to prepare as well as they can for an offense and shore up their defenses, better cover, supply lines, replenishment.
However the attacker has the SOLE advantage of being able to CHOOSE where and WHEN to attack. They can CONCENTRATE their forces. Concentration of force allows a numerically inferior enemy to achieve a defeat of the enemy in detail, as they dont take on the majority of the enemy's superior numbers all at once, but basicly go about it piecemeal.
Naturally the nature of Warfare on the western front made it THAT much harder to apply this approach on a strategic level.
Just like a piece of armor has it's weakspots, so do defensive lines. For every job there is a tool. The application of said tool, frequency, intensity and vehemence of it can make a difference. Sure I can probably break down a brick wall using just a shizzle or a screwdriver, but it works better with a sledgehammer or even better: an explosive charge if I dont care about breaking the rest.
It's basicly that the defender has to make their defensive line like a chain, as strong as possible to prevent breakthroughs.
The attacker meanwhile only has to find the weakest link, break the chain, crush the defensive line and push through.
It usually gets easier to roll up the enemy defenses once you managed to breach them at one or several spots.
It's also usually 'easier' or rather faster to organize a new offense than it is to redraw a new defensive line reaching from the Channel to the Alps.
An enemy that is reeling under your offenses and has their hands full organizing a defense of their own, cant prepare an offense at the same time.
Also, a succesful offensive action doesn't necessarily translate to immediate casualties. If you take a high ground your artillery can gain advantage in the following months over the enemy; a defensible position taken means your enemy has to take more losses in his own assault; then there are supply lines , morale boosting landmarks etc etc. Soldiers must have something to do and look for as otherwise their morale suffers. Finally, by attacking you get invaluable experience in future attacks, you can accurately measure the strength of your enemy, without the experiences of 1914-1916 entente could never have such a success in 1918.
Apologies addressing just one point, but I'm not sure that preparing a new offensive is actually easier, especially in this era. Huge preparations needed, basing off formations that could be unrecognisable due to casualties in the last offensive. And, you'd be struggling uphill politically to compete with alternative axes due to not having made as much of a breakthrough as you promised last time.
"Concentration of force allows a numerically inferior attacker to achieve defeat of the enemy in detail":
While theoretically true, in WWI, achieving this was exceptionally difficult due to the static nature of trench warfare, massive defensive preparations (e.g., barbed wire, machine guns), and the challenges of coordinating large-scale assaults.
Many offensives (e.g., the Battle of the Somme) failed to exploit concentrated attacks effectively because defenders could quickly reinforce weak points using railways and interior lines.
"It's usually easier to organise a new offence than to redraw a defensive line":
This is context-dependent. In WWI, mounting a new offence required massive resources, planning, and coordination (e.g., artillery barrages, troop movements), which could take months. Defensive realignment, while difficult, could sometimes be achieved more quickly due to shorter distances and pre-existing plans.
For instance, the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, south of the main road that divided the British in twain, that worked out fantastically for the French and British Empire, completing first day objectives with minimal losses, with excellent use of artillery, reconnaissance, and coordination of attack. The north half of the British lines though, oof...
Based
“Initiative” that’s the word.
This is such a hoi4 gaming moment
low fi historical videos to build civs to
@ 💀
As someone who likes history and video games this is why I hate people like this. They “assume” that real life is like their game of choice and leads to them having asinine ideas about how they should have won X war/battle. Like it completely blows past these people that video games are, by nature, unrealistic and simplifies real life to digestible mechanics that can be enjoyable. Just like in real life you don’t “tap X to reload” , you don’t omniscient over the status of armies and logistics nor the control over the state as a whole
@The_Faceless_No_Name_Stranger a lot of people forget that pdx games are simplistic abstractions of real time periods but they're still fun. and the actual historical events they cover are largely accurate. but the mechanics are just that. game mechanics
@@The_Faceless_No_Name_Stranger no one’s saying that if I play hoi4 I get better at war
I feel like people forget that the offensives in the Great War weren’t the attackers getting massacred while the other takes no casualties. More often than not the casualties were very similar. It was a massacre of both sides.
I think that perception was largely from lack of access to German sources for major battles like Verdun and the Somme. Those records were thought destroyed after Berlin fell in 1945. Turns out all of that documentation sat in Russian filing cabinets for 50 years and was only released in the 90s. That's why the last 20 or so years of WWI scholarship has been heavily revisionist from the usual narratives: whereas before there was a prevailing belief that both sides were roughly as bad off as the other, it turns out that Germany really was right on the verge of capsizing entirely while the Allies were more than capable of continuing the fight.
@ interesting
@@enterprise9001Germany failing is somehow new history? Where have you been the last 100years? Its always been the accepted story, thats the entire reason we call "the stab in the back" a theory/myth.
I'm pretty sure that it was because of defenders trying to retake lost trenches. I.e. static defense instead of mobile one
@@jimmcneal5292 presumably there would be high casualties in couter-attacks
A great book I read on this subject is On Artillery by Bruce I Gudmundsson. I was obsessed with that book! He describes well how infantry waves and artillery barrages were used against defending positions, and essentially the infantry is being used to draw out targets for the artillery to hit. It creates a dilemma for the defender that they must choose how much manpower and material to invest against enemy infantry pushes, and how to manage their state of readiness, all within shelling range.
If I remember right, at first the normal tactic would be to very straightforwardly 'soften up' the defenders with a heavy barrage, then send a wave of infantry who hopefully capture the position. The problem they found is that the defenders would already be hunkering down against shelling by default, not only surviving the barrage but also recognising it as a sure sign that an infantry attack is on the way, taking up positions as soon as the explosions stopped and easily holding the push. In response to this, the attackers started firing off one big barrage with no infantry push, stopping for a couple minutes, then doing another big barrage which got a lot more damage done. The mind games got more and more involved from there, with timetables specially developed to condition enemy troops over a period of weeks or even months to do exactly the wrong thing at certain key timings. There was no dominant strategy and a lot of maths to do to find half decent ones.
I'm not describing it very well, but that's a rough idea of what the book gets into and it's well worth a proper read through.
Overall, the best way to use artillery is to be unpredictable. Fire before the charge, fire during the charge, fire and fire again. The most important thing is to all fire at once.
Overly simplified version: "Are the Germans still in France and Belgium? Yes? Does doing nothing somehow remove them? No? Then we are attacking."
Hilarious how stark the parallels are with the people who think it’s evil to help Ukraine fight off the Russians…..
If you're so confident in your plan, then you should lead the charge like the kings of old.
My bet is you are confident because you know that you can throw 1 million men at a battle and still have a brandy before bedtime, because the enemy lost 1.5 million.
Things change when your job is to "win wars" rather than "fight battles".
@jackchurchill101 bro you’re talking to a guy on youtube not Douglas Haig himself. Go play armchair commander somewhere else
_Video Title:_
_French Soldiers in 1917:_ “hey that’s a pretty good idea!”
"Why don’t football teams win matches by pulling all players to close defense of their goal?"
most offensively-minded italian coach.
But they do. Offense wins matches. Defense wins titles.
@@Pepe_Silvia
Mate....
Because in football men don't die with an higher ratio when attacking compared to defending
@@matteocarsi5365
Name a war that was won without any offensive Action.
"The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory"
-Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig
The Allies had to learn this the hard way in 1939-1940, after misreading many of the lessons of the First World War
it wasn't so much that in 1939
the allied intent wasn't just to sit on their hands all wart and wait for the Germans to come at them, but rather to let the Germans make the first punch, absorb it and then punch back, ie force your enemy out of position or in a disadvantageous position a,d let him tire himself to better strike later
also the French army wasn't ready for an offensive in 1939 or 1940, as offensives are by nature a matter of force mobility, and May-June showed how immobile the French army could be (strong in a frontal attack but slow and ultimately unable to react effectively if outmanoeuvred)
alos, contrary to popular history, the French were not, not expecting the Germans to show up in the Ardennes, but rather they weren't expecting them to show up en force, the whole of the Ardennes is rather difficult terrain, heavily wooded hills with numerous rivers and narrow roads, far from ideal as an avenue of attack, a force was there to defend the sector, but a mix of errors, both strategic (the redeployment oi the 7th army, originally held reserve to the left flank of the allied line), but also tactical (the 1st army late reorganisation of it's positions led it's divisions to not be fully entrenched) and intelligence (not heeding the warning of a large German force in the Ardennes)
had the French been able to hold off the initial german crossings (by example if the 7th army was in position to reinforce the battered 1st army), the initial german assault would have lost a lot of it's bite quite fast
Quoting the donkey Haig doesn't carry the authority you imagine it does.
1939-1940 is irrelevant. Rommel didn't reach the French coast using infantry walking on foot and dragging artillery and supplies forward over a moonscape of shellholes with horses. The failure of the Ludendorf offensives showed the limits of logistics in 1918 and that's that.
Im not sure Haig is the good posterboy for effective offences or rationalising your casualities
@@gandydancer9710 "Quoting one of the principal architects of victory doesn't carry the weight you think it does" is certainly an ambitious statement. Good luck making it.
It's directly relevant to 1939-1940, when the Allies decided to depend on static defences and a thoroughly pedestrian defensive scheme in the Dyle Plan - in the process surrendering the initiative and losing the war. As CIGS Edmund Ironside said after the Allied defeat in France: "The saying that we were never again to have 'the bloody massacres of the Somme' has deluded the people. Nobody has been educated to the horrors of modern war"
The German Spring Offensive failed because, amongst other things, an army that'd had its best officers and NCOs killed in the attritional battles of 1916-1917 launched an operationally crude, highly ambitious series of offensives against a more sophisticated enemy who handled their reserves better.
@@Rynewulf Why? Haig led the largest army the British Empire ever fielded in the most crushingly successful offensive ever launched under British Arms
I think another thing is the common myth that WW1 was just walking slowly towards the enemy until everyone was k illed and this was the plan in 1914 and the plan in 1918. However, new technologies introduced, new tactics etc. meaning there were many reasons to launch your own offensive. For example the Rolling barrage, a great way to reduce casualties. But only if you use it, you think maybe the enemy will think of it and do it to you. Sure you could try it on a small scale but then they have seen it and may find a counter. No it needs to be a large scale action to suprise them, we can add in that new fangled Rhomboid shaped tractor etc.
Modern warfare was Made in WW1.
Shuuuuut up! That thing is a mobile water tank for supplying troops in the deserts of Arabia, and that's what we tell anybody that asks!
A lot of people think nobody dug trenches after WWI. In the wars since then, the moment you stop advancing against a enemy army you dig in to avoid being wiped out by artillery and/or a counter attack. WWII had more trenches dug than WWI, even with more fluid front lines.
Just look at Kursk, and thereafter, the enormous counteroffensive by the Soviets that expelled the Axis from the eastern half of Ukraine within weeks.
Absolutely, read about Grant's attack at Coldharbor in 1864.
The difference is that in WW2 technology and doctrine were up to cracking trenches reliably and trenches were indeed temporary, while in WW1 it basically took them the whole war to work out how to get out of trench warfare and back into warfare of movement. Also in WW2 communications and transportation were mostly up to the job of exploiting a break through while the typical break through in WW1 could not be really exploited on a higher level.
Looking towards Ukraine, it seems that defense has caught up again.
If you look at any pictures of the Ukrainian/Russia war today you'll also see huge entrenchments placed all along the front lines. The war has more resembled WWI than WW2 because drones and hand held missiles make tank breakthroughs difficult if not impossible. Everything right now is field by field...town by town. The casualties of that war once they get out to the public space will be horrifying. Artillery is playing a huge role but production of shells is one of the biggest limiting factors for both sides.
@@lipscomb3632regarding casualties, not really (well, for Russia, for Ukraine there are already over 550k death reports you can find on the internet). Another important distinction this war has (and likely other drone wars in near future will) is the fact that because you can't concentrate large forces in one spot, near all fighting is done by small squads. It's pretty common to see a group of like 10 people take a village, because it's mostly defended by presence of drones rather than concentration of manpower. The exception to this are attempts are maneuver warfare (which didn't end well for Ukraine) and "crawling offensive" where although forces used are small, they get constant replenishment and won't stop coming until the enemy is exhausted.
This Hyper-defensive war is part of the initial premise of a game called Iron Storm. There was never any break through and the war continues on until the 1960s. While that's probably an exaggerated timeline of what would've happened in the realworld, I shudder to think of a war taking over the better part of a century.
Might I point you to the 100 year war? I’m kidding since that war was not exactly a constant conflict but I thought I would make that joke
I think interwar planes and tanks would have been able to break the stalemate. Defensive positions are a lot worse when your enemy can drop just as much ordinance as they want with even the level of accuracy achievable by dive bombers. Then it becomes a WWII style struggle for air superiority, with one side or the other eventually winning by producing more planes and tanks and bombs than the other.
@@derekeastman7771 We have some of the both largest and most precise indirect fire weapons in all of human history, including the largest artillery arm to ever be assembled, and Ukraine still turned into a trench war even against an inferior enemy. Those weapons are expensive and you'll never have enough, not even artillery shells, but digging trenches are free once you already have the soldiers.
@@ASDeckard the main issue in Ukraine is that neither side is able to decisively control the air, Ukraine lacks sufficient anti air to effectively shut down the Russian air force, but still have enough that the Russians can't venture out too close to the front lines else they lose valuable planes and pilots
in modern wars, without air you are vulnerable, and neither side being able to make decisive advances, then you dig in, and it becomes an artillery match that is costly in ammunition
Or it would have gone more like Crimea: fighting between superpowers localised to a few specific locations until they call quits and move on.
WWI and II were desctrucrive precisely because the violence quickly because cross and inter continental, like say the 7 Years War or The Wars of Religion
falkenhiem only claimed verdun was planned to “bleed france white” after their initial offensive failed. there is no evidence to suggest falkenhiem had that plan the whole time, so your point about verudn does not stand
@4:36 The attrition argument came after the Battle of Verdun itself had started: it really was originally meant to clear the way for an invasion, just, there was also an understanding that this (much like the Schlieffen plan,) was more ideal than reality, as the thought was that _somebody_ would sell out their allies for peace if Germany did well enough _somewhere,_ and that would enable victory.
Ironically, the logic was sound, since Hitler managed to accomplish exactly that with barely a shot fired; then again, he was also relying on his enemies being hopelessly incompetent, which wasn't a small risk in and of itself.
As a fellow historian myself, i do agree with you on most points, but i have to point out a few things...
first is that the schliiffen plan would have actually worked if Britain didn't join the war, the plan didn't account for Britain participating and thus fewer enemy divisions were expected...it had actually worked before in the franco Prussian war in 1870 because Britain didn't get involved. Had Belgium not fought as hard and capitulated quicker, it would have succeeded either way, whether Britain joined or not...
Second, the central powers literally only lost at the end, and even that was solely because the United States entered the war on the side of the entente. That's the only reason the spring offensive failed, because too many Americans had already arrived; much more than anticipated... also, the British blockade had a major impact... but since the central powers were never actually invaded or occupied they, technically speaking, didn't lose the war, they just gave up because of the civilians losing war support, that had nothing at all to do with the entente...
Thirdly, speaking of the blockade. That counts as occupation and innocent civilians from the central powers were killed in just the same way as a direct occupation...occupation is necessary in war when you attack, the usa in ww2 occupied axis territory the same way and did just as bad of things, you can't say "occupation is legal if we do it to you but not if you do it to us" which is what you implied in this video, you said Germany was automatically the bad guys just because they occupied but when usa occupied in ww2 thats ok they're not the bad guys even though both occupations were the exact same... going on offensive, and OCCUPATION is how you win wars. You can't have 1 without the other...
Fourth, Germany had actually the ability to compete with the non usa entente for long term enough to win a battle of attrition because you CANT count the colonial empires of France and Britain because they didn't support the war, Ireland even rebelled right in the middle of the war as did many colonial holdings from the entente side... meanwhile the German economy was actually better than France and Britain combined at the start of the war and they also had more population, they could have at the very least forced a draw if the usa hadn't intervened, the latter only did so because they knew if they didn't that Germany was actually going to win, since their private companies had invested in the entente they had to ensure they didn't lose profits by central powers gaining the victory and nullify the loans owed...
Fifth, no matter how you look at it or use hindsight, any REAL historian will admit that the central powers were in fact the good guys in ww1, theres a skewed agenda that the central powers were bad because they lost, and because America is always seen as the good guys no matter what, and since they fought for the entente then the latter must be the good ones... this is not true...the central powers fought because Serbia had illegally taken out the heir of the Austro-Hungarian empire and so the war was justified from their part...any other country would have done that...and so was the ultimatum they gave Serbia, i read it and it was completely fair and square especially considering the usa would have done the exact same thing (in fact they did, see the reaction to a certain date in September)... if the central powers were not justified, then neither was the September 2001 war in the middle east and neither was the American Revolution a justified war either...people also say that the central powers were bad just because thir loss directly led to ww2, this is also not true, actions taken by the allies were just as guilty of provoking war as axis actions were and both sides including the usa commited war crimes and "illegal or wrongful occupation" equally in both wars...
the 1st world war should have been fought between the Austro-Hungarian empire and Serbia only but Russia came in illegally to defend Serbia as a political agenda and called in their allies in the entente to help, the entente was completely unjustified in the war (except Britain who fought to protect Belgium, who would have not been attacked if they allowed Germany passage through like they did in 1870) and only fought because a bias and hatred for Germany who was now the new #1 great power of Europe...
always remember that history is written by the winner and the winner is always right and always the good guys regardless of the truth, also remember that truth is relative, if enough people believe a lie it becomes the truth even if it isn't true... no offense, but the fact that you have sponsors and didn't fund this video independently/directly means that the sponsors bribed you into promoting the negative and false agenda... you are not telling REAL history, only an opinion about it and a bias one at that...
I'm glad you've dealt with this, to paraphrase waht I said in my comment the other week "He who only defends INSIDE his own borders has effectively set himself new, smaller borders."
It's also much easier (and desirable) to dig in when you're on the higher ground than the low.
In a way it really does feel like a Real-Time Strategy game. You might feel good when you are building up, being unbothered by your opponent. But then 15 minutes later your opponent *does* show up and crushes you. Because the pace of force growth can diverge. In this way, real war is similar. You *want* that friction, force the opposing side to make mistake, respond to imperfect situations. To me World War 1 feels like a failure of the political forces of Europe and it's great powers, throwing up their hands and just saying to their militaries: "You guys figure this out."
And yes the miltaries weren't perfect. Innovations were bought through sacrifice, but they are innovations still relevant today, obvious now, thanks to hindsight. The French are probably the poster child of having to modernize and almost collapsing in the process. The English ultimately bet on a winning strategy, by developing the tank, worked out, but of course you could argue that by focussing on the most efficient use of artillery and adaption of revolutionary infantery tactics, in the vein of the German Stormtroopers, they would have been able to force an end to the war earlier. The way it played out the Germans were slightly superior on the tactical level it seems, but ultimately were materially so disadvantaged, through blockades, exhaustion, manpower losses and the arrival of American troops, and thus the war ended in 1918.
And I think it's okay to come to this conclusion, without endorsing post-war myths. Realizing that there is a grain of truth in things like the "Dolchstoßlegende" (Stab in the back, the German Army being undefeated in the field) which allowed these stories to gain traction and remain in the consciousness of the people.
The simple answer is no one won a war by only playing defense. Also, you could capture and hold ground in the Great War, attacking wasn't as futile as it's made out to be.
Kargil War, India never attacked Pakistan yet won.
@@Abdullah-mn6sw India won because they took offensive actions attacking their enemy and driving them back. They did not only play defence.
But a lot of countries won or managed to hold out by staying defensive first, bleeding the enemy out and attacking after enemy is exhausted
One important reason that you can't just defend is it gives your enemy pause to start reinforcement
This reminded me of the ending of Storm of Steel and the idea of moral. when it described the spring offensive, he talked about how it felt all order broke down, as the soldiers were fervently attacking simply as more of a horde then an army. How even after when they were clearly losing it was describing the new recruits as excited and boastful about how great they were going to do, and how they would be the ones to end the war. That offensive victory would cost lives, but could greatly increase morale. To be told your going to sit in a trench for as long as it takes to win would be horrible and dreadful, but that hope that yes im risking my life but this could be the attack to win the war had to have some positive effect on moral. You win you go home and have a better life, that’s a hope you lack sitting in a trench under fire for years
Brett Devereaux has a nice little two-parter about this very topic on his blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, and I recommend them heartily. "Why not just defend?" is a solution to the imaginary war, not the real one. It strikes me that maybe the Great War was the inversion of the American Civil War: in the 1860s, you wanted to be on the defensive tactically but on the offensive strategically; whereas in WWI you wanted to be on the offensive tactically, but the defensive operationally. What a devilish trap to set...
Your last sentence was the most diplomatic way of saying "Stop asking stupid questions." that I heard so far.
Well said, good Sir.
if he was a heartless warhawk then he wouldnt blur out the names of the viewers that made those comments
I hope everyone who contacts Brandon for a sponsorship knows just how honored they should feel to have him create his little ad segments for them. It is a privilege of any company to be sponsored by Brandon
There is a serious shell shortage. The armies can hoard shells for a good part of a year as they plan them out.
Communications are severely lacking. In '18 they are proto-WW II combined arms armies with advanced small unit tactics.
But all of it is held together by field telephones, runners, doves, flags and time tables.
All wars have an attritional aspect to them. What made WWI different was the attrition was basically continuous as it would be in a siege. In fact, Verdun could be understood as a sally against the siege by the Germans. In previous wars there were sieges but the armies generally weren't involved in daily heavy fighting; there were lulls in the fighting and in some campaigns there were only a couple of battles and some skirmishing.
Brandon, my guy. I stumbled upon your channel less than a week ago, and yet your videos have somehow become my go to already. Love the work you put in man.
Although I’m going to need to ask for you to tone down the quality of your content just a smidge as I’m starting to cut into my formerly, “productive,” working hours. Lol
Jk man, thanks for the content. It’s awesome!
If you only defend, than attacer could attack when they have a great adventage, when they can't they will just wait, and wait. And then you have suspended War, without any pace treaty.
Would a suspended war, at least until one side or the other can put together enough tanks for a successful offensive, really have been worse than what happened? The outcome was the same, stagnant front lines, but the human cost was significantly higher to accomplish the same.
@@derekeastman7771The losses would still be massive. But a bigger issue is that you had your enemy the initiative.
One successful offensive could end the war. If you sit back waiting, you give your enemy the chance to to deliver that offensive when and where and how they want.
In addition, we have to remember that the war was more than the western front.
Keeping as many Germans as possible tied down on the Western front and early from Russia was a major strategic consideration. The Germans would have been ecstatic if they could have sent a million more men East.
With hindsight, the Allies digging in and reducing the scale of offensives until 1917 or 1918 would have been a good call. But with the knowledge available in 1915 or 1916 that would be very hard to justify.
@@derekeastman7771 Remember that defender will not live in vacum. Slow gathering of forces without initiative will be known by attacker. They can do mamy things to spoil defender plans, and they will try.
Defender forces will be less experienced on assalut, so wainting to great strike without any od that could lead to massacre.
Tanks will not be any magic weapon, at begginig they was badly used.
What about the naval blockade?
@username-jw7kp WHO cares just pointless, USA cant eaven dent UE trading if even comitted
I drove from the English Channel to Switzerland along the Western Front and from what I saw it seemed what's left of the German trenches were mostly on the high ground and in better position. I've also been to Gallipoli and the Turks held all the high ground
It looks like Obi Wan was right, afterall!
Wow 50 seconds early no? i wonder how officers felt about sending waves of infantry all the while trying to NOT get thousands of men killed in a single wave
What people really mean by "win wars by only defending" has nothing to do with defense, but it's about taking only fights that are amazing and good, where the conditions and circumstance favour you. It's simply naive, in reality, you win wars, or conflict, by fighting well in every circumstance and taking what you can when you can from the enemy, and clambering over the bodies of your fellows.
I'm gonna soul read this video:
Trench warfare requires you to take the initiative and break the enemy's line. Just like any other type of warfare. You don't win wars by sitting like a dunce, you win it by gaining ground.
Its expensive and casualty making, but its either that or get harassed by the enemy and lose your trench because you let them build up a massive force to punch through
You also win wars by breaking the opposing forces will to fight. That's historically how most battles were won and in WW1 that's how it finally ended. You don't break the enemy by only defending because the enemy can just regroup, resupply and wait until they regain the advantage.
Truth. The usual simplistic view of incredibly complex events. Well covered!
19:13 this is an often overlooked aspect. Wars are ruinously expensive because they consume stuff, infrastructure is destroyed and people die, but perhaps even more importantly, because you take millions of people out of the civilian workforce to basically participate in the greatest economic wasting exercise mankind has ever invented. Every bullet fired represents a farmer who is now a frontline soldier firing a gun instead of farming, a truck driver who drove the bullets to the front line instead of doing vital logistics in the normal economy, a factory worker somewhere making bullets instead of nails and screws, etc... not to mention the guy on the other side who gets hit by the bullet and gets killed or invalided, and will never work again. Even major industrialized economies can only sustain high intensity warfare for a few years before they utterly collapse. As both the Russian and German economy indeed did, and the only reason the UK and French economies survived (by the skin of their teeth) was their colonial empires and the USA bankrolling them.
Defense means counter-attacking. The crazy fact of WW1 was, that most attacks were successfull. Only, the counter-attack by the enemy was also successfull.
The French Army mutinied early in the war and refused to carryout any attacks, just to defend their positions. The fanatics (British & much later the Americans) insisted on continuing to attack at great expense in troops. The strategic reasons for continuing to attack was two fold: 1) POLITICAL - Early in the war the Germans captured a lot of French and Belgian territory and were holding it. If this had been left in their hands till a peace agreement was negotiated it would have been practically a victory for Germany, because it would be starting with a great advantage in things to trade for peace. 2) ECONOMIC - It was actually the economic warfare which eventually won the war for the entente powers. By continuing to attack the allies put pressure on the Central Powers' strangulated economies to attempt to hasten their economic and political collapse. The war ended eventually because of the economic and political collapse of Germany on 8th November 1918, when the Germany disintegrated into internal chaos and disintegrated into a situation partly of civil war. This whole subject is of great current relevance with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war, as this conflict shows more parallels to WW1 than it does to WW2 and many of the strategic considerations which were central in WW1 are again central to this conflict. The differences in this light are also greatly informative.
The idea that the goal of Verdun was just to bleed France white is disputed. Some say von Falkenhayn stated that only after the initial plan failed
Just a small correction: The german offensive on Verdun was intended to capture the heights surrounding the city and possibly Verdun itself, it would alleviate pressure on the city of Metz by making a buffer zone in the hilly region. There was probably also a political reason which crown prince Wilhelm was involved in the operation, giving propaganda reason and raising the morale. It's thought that the pragmatic reason of grinding the french troops on the region was the following objective after the operation grinded to a halt.
Brandon! I just wanna say I’m a legit fan of the Mantis sleep mask. I’ve gone through 5 different ones but coughed up the money (Mantis is more expensive than most) and have been using it for years. It’s legit amazing if you’re in need of a sleep mask. (I swear I’m not sponsored or a bot I’m just a nerd and passionate about my sleep mask). 10:03
i always loved the 'defensive fortifications 101 rule' - 'If they cant get in, you can't get out'.
What is omitted is that acting purely defensively would likely fail in defence. The problem is that if your opponent knows you will never attack, they can freely concentrate their entire force unhindered wherever they wish, without needing to keep the bulk of their forces in defensive positions to shield against your counterattacks. If, say, you have 500,000 men and you need to concentrate for an attack you might be able to strip, say, 100,000 of them from their defensive positions to join the attack without leaving the rest of your front too weak to defend if your opponent should happen to get the jump on you and attack first. If you know your opponent never attacks at all you can risk putting 300,000 or 400,000 troops into the attack and only leaving, say, 1-200,000 as a token force everywhere else to deter the enemy. With such a large concentration of men in one attack, suddenly even in WW1 conditions a major breakthrough becomes much more possible and clever clogs armchair general with his "why don't you just defend" just lost the war.
THAT is the only sensible answer here.
You never know where the enemy will concentrate, so your line will be 10:1 outnumbered when they do.
By keeping pressure on them, it means they cannot form up and dominate the initiative.
It wasn't the casualties at the front or wastage in general that caused the collapse of the central powers. It was the food and material shortages caused by supporting the armies and the blockade cutting off imports. As for Russia, the February revolution was caused not by food shortages, there was enough food, but the railroads being overworked, supporting the armies, causing supply chain issues in getting food to the cities. The result was the Weimar Govt. began a program of autarky to counter the threat of a blockade in a future war and the Nazis determined that the occupied countries would go hungry before the German people would.
Also, one thing most people doesn't realize is that THE CULT OF THE OFFENSIVE WAS ACTUALLY RIGHT. Most of the time concentrated attacks of artillery and endless waves of infantry destroyed the first lines of defense, the problem with this was there were more lines and those lines could counter-attack and push back the offensive force, but the idea of the only form of defense being a counterattack was actually right, being only on the defensive wasn't really a possibility in WW1.
Ok i didn't watch the video yet...but i think that we cant win a war by just defending. Unless you **really** want an attrition war but i think most massive attacks were to break that.
"Evil Elitist Warhawk"
"Yes, by the by."
Unfathomably Amazing.
First question: when will this be available on a t-shirt?
I think you may have leap frogged some of the more basic factors that probably ought to have been addressed in order for the convoluted state of affairs required to pose a question that your response answers.
Namely, that to defend, you need an attacker.
If you only defend, are the enemy going to attack? Do they need to?
In germany's case, no.
The Schlieffen plan is defensive in nature in that attack is the best form of defence. They need to attack france because they cannot defend against both a fully mobilised russia and france simultaneously, if neither plans to attack and only defend, germany doesn't need to defend those borders and can devote itself fully to its ally's goal, attacking serbia.
How would russia or france help serbia without attacking, either on land or by sea to reach it?
Its a classic case of moral courage, if the enemy knows you aren't going to attack, they can redeploy for local superiority, as happened with grant in racing to petersburg or lee at chancellorsville. Hooker lost his bottle, lee and jackson realised that they could send jackson's corps on a long adventure to outflank the federal defences because the federals weren't going to launch a serious attack in the meantime.
If france commits itself completely to the defence and the germans realise that, then they will break through because they will be able to strip more and more troops from the defence to land a far heavier blow at the point of attack while france would have to defend everywhere sufficiently or perfectly match german troop buildup with their own defensive buildup where the germans move.
Defeat in detail.
"If your neighbour tore down your side of the fence. Just build another fence" ahhh thinking
Analogy is not an argument
Imagine how much simpler the logistics would be if your enemy never counter assaulted you.
If they want to sit on their cannon and machine guns and let us consolidate our baggage, command and freight, let them.
The war is very mobile in one way, rails. There is an artillery range where rail lines must end, but behind the lines are large rail networks and other infrastructure allowing troops and supplies to be shuttled up and down. The troops necessary for a counterattack can move from reserve pretty fast. Sometimes attacks take place to tease out these reserves and make them commit prematurely.
This is why I don't like the "Lions led by donkeys" argument. There were definitely a lot of bad/inexperienced generals on all sides, but it ignores the basic constraints the sides were operating under to attempt to win. They DID try many different ways, but there just wasn't an easy answer to the issue of mass infantry assaults, attrition, machineguns, artillery, trenches, and the worst one of of all...that armies couldn't move faster, attack faster, and communicate faster than the other guy could dig in.
Or put another way - it happened the way it did because it was going to happen that way, more or less. The only way it could have been avoided is one or more of the major powers had just said "not today!" in 1914.
As a counter-question... Who likes a permanently stagnant and costly war with zero gains from either side and no real perspective for a decisive victory?
People who don't like getting annexed
Naval blockade. It was starving the Germans
Another thing is popular support. The public demand advances and success in return for their collective sacrifice towards the war effort. If they open a newspaper each morning and see the same frontline for 3 years while the casualty list beside it gets longer and longer, they lose faith and energy
You have to show the public that youre trying, you have to give them heroes and dramatic stories, you have to show them that the shells they spend 12hrs a day making in a rat-infested factory are actually being put to use. Otherwise they fall out with you and march on the palace, which is what happened to Germany
Also, people undervalue the importance of an effective counterattack. Not pushing against your enemy when they're tired, disorganized, and have depleted their supplies relative to you would be a wasted opportunity. Even though combat sports are not very comparable to WW1 combat, the same is true when it comes to counter-striking. It's much easier to land a knockout blow or match winning takedown when your opponent is overextended, out of position, and off-balance. In a war of attrition like WW1, you need to take initiative with any advantages you get, whether it be using gas when the wind is in your favor or by pushing against your enemy while they're trying to lick their wounds after a failed assault.
So I don't know a lot about war. But know a bit more about economics (and not just the money side of economics). No country can have a continious full scale,war against än fairly equal enemy forever. The cost of war in terms of manpower, raw materials, defense industry output wreck any society in the long run. And the longer the war goes on, the harder it's going to be to get back to a mainly civil society. Because for each month, each year you put your whole country towards that one goal - defeat the enemy - the more work it will take to change production.
Wow!! First time on your Channel, and I'm impressed. Very good video.
unrelated, but your videos like these are really helping with my worldbuilding (which im just doing for fun) so thanks!
Loving this mad minute of WW1 docs, keep it up please!
I would imagine that a purely defensive war and letting the artillery pound your boys into jelly and not try to give back to them would be even more unpopular than the normal war as was had been..
An army's ability to absorb casualties is much higher than people think. The logistics axiom of "tooth to tail" being about 20 individuals supporting one full-time combatant means that even when a military is "scraping the bottom of the barrel", they can amost always find soldiers from the logistics chain itself to bring to the front in dire emergencies.
The loss of a front-line soldier is in some ways a loss of less than 5% of "one soldier's worth"
it certainly wasn't 20 to 1 in WW1 though
@louisazraels7072 -- I'm mostly talking about the people in uniform who wind up spending all or nearly all of their time doing non-combat jobs -- recruiters, training staff, administrators, assistants, labour battalions, logistics companies, soldiers standing sentry miles or even continents away from an active war-zone, the sick and wounted, and so on.
Even street gangs need people to organize the sales force, purchase, transport and maintain stockpiles of illicit goods, provide security and make collections, provide leadership and arbitrate internal disputes, calculate payroll and expenses, and keep records.
"20-to-1" is a very loose estimate but it's a surprisingly decent one.
Depends on time period though. In ancient times that chain was much smaller. Rome lost 20% of its male population in 3 campaigning seasons. In that sense, to replace those losses and even expand the legions, they enlisted people jailed due to debt and slaves. By 209 BC multiple city states within the republic could no longer meet the quota for soldiers.
I agree with overall but there have been ancient and modern cases of armies being exhausted of manpower. Not of men completely at all, but no longer able to replace casualties without widening the pool of recruits in terms of age, sickness, etc. We see that with Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine has a mobilization restriction on men aged 18-25 and Russia is trying to delay their next mobilization as much as possible. The average age of the UAF is 45 and the average age of the RAF is close to 50.
@@vibechecktsundere4912-- I agree with what you are saying. I never made any claims as to the relative *quality* of the replacements.
I'm only bringing up "tooth-to-tail" in relation to the fact that *even when* a nation loses 10% of its total population (~20% of men) it *will* still have the logistics base to put together and mobilize 5% of the remaining (albeit smaller) population if it has the time, resources, leadership, and social cohesion to do so.
In the most dire of situations, that number would obviously be an ever-downward spiral and the army would be facing countless other resource and cohesion problems.
On the other hand, that slow spiral toward extinction is exactly the kind of devil's bargain total war *is*.
@ I see. I get what you mean now, thanks for clarifying
The german (prussian) doctrine of war was "always" movement. "Bewegungskrieg".
This is something iv always wondered thanks
As a Frenchman I find indeed the sheer stupidity of comments about “butchery and what not” appalling. You correctly state the French army had to attack because… French territory had been invaded. End of the story.
The problem is the general view on WW1 has changed a lot since the last veterans have died. I am old enough to have known people who lived through that war and fought. The vision they conveyed had nothing to do with what is now ingrained in people’s minds.
Can you offer examples? I am greatly interested in how the perspective shifted.
@ - the people I am evoking, who had fought in the war, who had lived through it as non-combatants, or even who had been born right after the war and raised in the very strong recollection of it, conveyed a balanced view encompassing the whole spectrum of the events. The actual complexity of the war in its various phases still was a rather vivid memory and anyone clamouring some half-truth about what had taken place could be corrected by someone who knew better swiftly, an elder generally (“no, it wasn’t all static trench warfare from 14 to 18; no, they weren’t walking through no man’s land in machine gun fire but were taking as much cover as they could; etc”).
Also, when I was young it was pretty frequent to find books with firsthand accounts of the WW1 fighting in one’s parents or grandparents library (or attic) - the kind of books that had been published in droves in the years following the end of the war. Literary quality was not always present, but they were a source of direct details on the actual life and experience of infantrymen, gunners, cavalrymen or airmen.
By end of the 80’s, most of the veterans were dead and those who weren’t tended to fade into some kind of senility or the other. And, of course, their vanishing numbers implied they had lost the memory competition against the younger generation of WW2.
WW1 became the thing of historians and, to a certain extent, journalists, mentioned once in a blue moon. In both cases the contemporary zeitgeist took precedence over first or second hand experience. Notably when it came to presenting WW1 to the general public, in which case complexity had to leave way for simple images more likely to strike minds and have an impact.
The zeitgeist I mention did not include glory or gung-ho spirit but a strong dose of victimisation to the contrary. As a result, the men who were heroes when I was young became victims and the sole aspect that was retained was the sheer misery. In other words, one could get the impression that it was always trenches - and wet and cold ones, to that - and that any action couldn’t be anything but a complete and bloody disaster with no possibility of success or victory whatsoever.
The French government went as far as presenting some kind of national apology to the men who had been shot following the mutinies in 1917 (again with a botched view since French firing squads killed a lot more men in the opening stages of 1914, when France seemed to be heading towards the same beating as in 1870, than in 1917).
Yeah, real smart strategy. Not.
@JohnSmith-ct5jd - désolé, je parle couramment le français, l'allemand et l'anglais, un peu le russe et l'italien, mais je ne maîtrise absolument pas le moronic.
Basically, attackers often caused more casualties than they took on the first trench. They just couldn't break through after capturing the first trench because they were far from their own base and artillery, while the enemy reserves were well supported when retaking their first trench.
This title is a complete paradox as you defend from an attack. If they were all defending, who would be the one on the offensive? Yeah, it's like that 'what came first, the chicken or the egg' kinda situation...
Thanks Brandon, for covering WW1. I find it is oft misunderstood given how well recorded it was in our history. There’s still decades worth of research needed to uncover the full picture even on one front.
Great video as always.
I think my critique of the video is that it also doesn't address the eastern front enough for how relevant it is, though of course you aren't going to have a comprehensive video covering everything in WWI fit in a 25 minute video so sacrifices must be made.
To talk a bit though about the relevance of the eastern front, obviously inserting a "Armies are only defending on the western front" revision (which whilst not what the video is titled, the western front is what it primarily focuses on) to history is too large a change to say what the long term effects of such would be, I believe we can fairly confidently say the less manpower and material lost on the western front would only be positive for Germany's efforts for the eastern front. Obviously one couldn't just have *all* the soldiers and material leave the western front and seriously expect the allies to have not then simply advanced and freely won the war, but a solider who was no longer killed on the western front is a body that is now available elsewhere.
If we can then agree that a quieter western front benifets the eastern front, then we can ask if that would have positively impacted how quickly the Germans won the Eastern front. Obviously this is delving into alternate history (So entirely speculation), but there is a possibility that if you can make the Russians capitulate sooner, then things such as access to Ukrainian foodstuffs might have been able to play a factor in the war. We know the Germans in history were planning on utilizing specifically the Ukrainian food production, so it was something they were considering and were aware of. There are also things such as the Germans discussions with several influential Poles over offering to give up Polish territory and create a new Polish state in exchange for Poles then joining the central powers that could have been more feasibly implemented (With the caveat that only one book of mine includes this specific topic so my source material may not be the best), as well as a whole slew of other things unmentioned that also would have been positive for Germany. Also not needed explanation is how an easier and potentially more quickly won eastern front assists Austria Hungary and the Ottomans and also allow more resources for combat in the Balkans and Middle East as well.
Then diplomatically there is a question if without there being the fighting (And therefore the casualties) on the western front there would exist the desperation in regards to many of the major diplomatic actions. You obviously can't change thing such as Wilson being 100% for the US joining the war, but it does bring question if the Entente would feel the negotiations to get Italy to join the war to be as important therefore less likely to agree to concessions for Italy (Though contrarily one can also argue that light casualties on the western front could make it appear the war would not be that difficult or expensive, therefore making Italy more likely to join. Such is with the butterfly affect and alternate history). Likewise would the easier eastern front and it potentially being concluded sooner be enough to sooth German desperation as to prevent things such as their submarine policy and the Zimmerman Telegram that help persuade the US's public in joining the war.
Overall these things I believe further emphasize the downsides of the Entente remaining on the defensive in the Western front in WWI. I do though admit I have absolutely no clue nor enough knowledge to say anything if the subsequent German offensives on the Western front were intelligent to have done, other than a vague "It probably made sense with their knowledge at the time".
I love this arc, please keep it up.
The really big problem is that so much of war has no satisfying explanation.
The "Yes to all of that" was a thing of beauty.
This time we're so early it's before Christmas.
That’s a first am I right?
Not exactly WW1, but another conflict from the 1930s shows why armies couldn't stay only defending, namely the Spanish Civil War. The Republican loyalist forces were at a disadvantage when it came to offensive operations (for the most pard, with glaring exceptions), but at the same time they couldn't just try to defend their territory, since that meant losing bit by bit. General Vicente Rojo (one of the most underrated military theorists, and the Chief of Staff for the Republican loyalists) had to come up with various moves even when the Nationalists were attacking, so that their forces could have a chance. Things like attacking Brunete to try and lower the pressure from the Northern Front, or attempting a counteroffensive in 1938 that would allow some respite and a plausible globalisation of the conflict (with the Republican loyalists in the Allies and the Nationalists in the Axis) were attempted, for instance. Though there are several differences on the tactical level to the situation in WW1, going from the terrain (far more mountainous in Spain), to the use of armoured vehicles in larger proportions than in WW1 (as well as airpower) to the fact that a big chunk of the equipment used by both sides wasn't locally produced (due to lack of factories).
The other issue is, if you dont atttack, the enemy doesnt need to spread their defenders as thinly and can mass troops and materiel to smash through your defences.
1)Because Germany wanted to take ground
2)Because the allies wanted to regain ground
3)Because only defending doesn't do to well to break enemy morale. Defend and then counter.
4)Because, by attacking, you can concentrate your forces on a weak point in the enemy defenses.
5)Because just sitting there waiting to get blown up drains morale.
Sun tzu gave the basic idea of why defending is flawed. If you strengthen the front the back is weak, if you strengthen one side the other side is weak, if you strengthen everything, everything is weak.
You have limmited forces and you spread them out. The engaging side can choose where to attack so he can concentrate forces in advance. The defending side is hoping to find out in advance or hold out for long enough to renforce the attacked area. If they fail, the enemy can break a part of the front changing the nature of the battle.
Furthermore, investing in defense is investing in immobile structures that at best defend, at worst are ignored as the enemy goes somewhere else. Tanks can move about but bunkers and machinegun nests stay in place.
Because while britain and france could have survived the war just sitting there, russia couldnt
This was actually one of my Google searches about a month ago! Nice!
The attacker has one huge advantage, they chose where they fight. The defender has to fight where they are attacked.
Great question
A more interesting question is whether Germany and Austria -Hungary would have done better fighting a defensive war. If their strategy was to wait for Russia and France to attack them and fight a defensive war. That would have avoided Germany blackening its name in Belgium. It is less likely that Britain or the US would ave joined Russia and France in a war of aggression. If Germany had managed to keep them out f the war, they would have had access to the sea and international trade, The pro-war faction, in the British cabinet did not have the votes to enter the war until Germany invaded Belgium. Germany screwed itself by bringing in too many powers against it.
It's military strategy to mobilize the fastest and strike the first blow destroyed its chance to keep Britain neutral. The Kaiser would have had a better chance of talking the Tsar down if he had the option to let Russia strike the first blow. Russia probably would have done this but we don't know for sure because Germany beat them to it. The tragedy was that the Kaiser did not realize how dangerous the crisis was before Russia began to mobilize. His Generals only gave him a short window of time to talk the Tsar into stopping mobilization.
If Germany had a defensive strategy, they would have had a bit more time for diplomacy. In the event that Russia and France attacked would the British public want to go to war on the side of French and Russian aggressors and Serbian terrorists? If Germany could have kept Britain and the US neutral, that would have more than made up for any problem from letting France and Russia strike first. Of course, factions in Germany who favored war with Russia, intended to take away the Kaiser's option for diplomacy. It seems that he had a deep state problem too.
Germany WAS in fact attacked by Russia. Germany was on the offensive only in the West. Apart from that England NEVER would have remained outside of the war. Since 1871 Germany had a semi-hegemonic position in Europe which automatically means Britain is your enemy, and besides that the German economy was a big annoyance for the English, which is why they would have joined the war anyway.
THey would have had a very long wait, Russia and France would not have engaged in a war of aggression.
@@AlasdairMorrison-z8mI can't tell if you're being sarcastic. The Russians declared on the Germans and invaded East Prussia at the start of the war. While the initial justification for the French Russian alliance was in case of attack, it was changed to be offensive before the war.
Simple. You can't win a war by defending. The French lost a lot of troops in the first THREE WEEKS of the war attacking into Alsaise Lorraine. At Verdun, the French generally did stand on the defense. The tank and strom trooper tactics broke trench warfare.
I think a very important consideration you overlook is concentration of forces. A successful attack sees the attacker stealthily building up superior numbers of artillery, shells, and men. If this is successful and not spoiled by enemy reconnaissance (ie, airplanes), then just having more men and shells than the enemy is going to offset to a degree the defender's advantage. Of course, this means that in a battle where the number of troop losses is the same on either side, the amount of ordnance expended could be very, very different.
Sometimes the german command act like the defensive war to hold territory in Belgium, France etc is also temporary. An eventual collapse of Russia, Austria or something will free up resources and troops.
My perception was always that they did do that once they figured it out, but hindsight is 20/20. They spent 1915 and the first half of 1916 trying to push through but after the failed in 1916 switched to a more defensive posture until American forces entered the war and gave the entente enough of an advantage to start pushing again.
Do a video about all the army mutiny and why they refused to attack during world war 1
The whole point of the war was to defend serbia, so they needed to keep the pressure on germany and austria, because then they would have just rolled over serbia.
War is diplomacy by other means. While in practice, it may look like a pointless exercise of inflicting as much casualties as possible, neither side is cynically trying to bleed out the other, they both want to win the war as completely and then as quickly as they can.
These videos very much helped me see as I wanted see the bigger picture and about the sate of things in the Great War.
Great video! But I do just want to add that the Manta Sleep masks are awesome. I’ve had mine for three or so years. It’s amazing if you need light blocked out or if you’re traveling. Just in case anybody was wondering if they’re legit!
By not attacking, the allies would have given the other side the initiative in the war. Not only did the generals on both sides have to plan their attacks carefully, they had to anticipate being attacked and there was a constant back and forth as each side would try and outsmart the other. If one side does not attack, that means the other can strip troops from the front, find a weak spot in the enermy line and exploit it. If the iother side are not attacking, you don't have to worry about a counter attack as by the time they start to mobilise the troops, you will have broken through
I don't think people who say the allies should have been more defensive mean they shouldn't have attacked at all.
Brandon is the only person alive who is able to sound british while talking in an american accent.
Before watching the video: it's artillery doing the killing. Attacking lets you take out artillery, find new locations to place artillery. If you have a localised artillery disadvantage, you will be worse off being on the defense locally.
From modern war it is obvious that there is an initiative advantage to attacking first, because you can surprise the defenders and overwhelm them initially.
WW1 is essentially the problem about how to cross No Man's Land with enough troops surviving to fight off the invitable counterattacks. After 1915, neither side just attacked without thinking they had some tactical advantage. For Verdun the Germans thought their massive amount of artillery would chew up French infantry, which in fact it did in 1914. For the Somme the British thought a loooong artillery bombardment would destroy all the defenses. In the 1917 Nieville Offensive the French thought since they chased the Germans out of Verdun they had figured out combined arms tactics - only they forgot that terrain and German countermeasures would negate French tactics. In 1918's Germany's offensive the Germans thought Stormtrooper tactics would give them the means to punch through Allied lines. It did, but men can only march so many miles a day, and the Allies plugged all the holes. It took 1940s tanks to punch through defensive lines and then travel so far so fast that the enemy could not respond quickly enough. The British thought the secret was just capturing the front lines and stopping - since German doctrine was to hold the first lines with few men and then counterattack asap. But as Foch said, you cannot capture a few hundred yards at a time all the way to Berlin - it would take decades. I find WW1 not so interesting for the history of battles, but the development of tactics to cross No Man's Land.
Another point to consider is: what's the logical conclusion of the defence only idea?
Assume one side decides that, because the war in so heavily favours the defender and is attritional in nature, they will lean into this aspect and halt all offensive actions. Instead they adobt a purely defendant will the goal of allowing the enemy to wear itself down against them.
What happens when your opponent reaches the same conclusion?
Put simply, someone has to initiate the confrontation. The 'just defend' argument ignores the simple fact that the enemy gets a vote.
Asking the question is basically asking why the people at the time aren’t able to foresee the future.