I would extend that one to the whole world. I don't think we have become wiser. We just have been a little more careful.
The tank was invented by the Navy - the largest heavy engineering organisation in the Empire. The diesel powered ocean submarine was perfected by 1914 - about 15 years of effort from nothing. Machine gun armed aircraft were being developed in 1913. The military were capable of learning, see the article above.Honestly though, the military doesn't learn this way. Without WWI, the UK doesn't develop tanks and all countries would continue to use aircraft in their "intended" recon role. We normally learn from our mistakes/experiences on the battlefield and rarely using forethought.
Refferred to as the War to end all Wars, the tremendous bloodletting was on a scale unheard of in human history. From incomtent generals who wantonly sacrificed men to their deaths from Bloody Butcher Haig to the Blowhard Joffre. Was there any way tactics could have been developed to minimize the massive casualty levels without experimenting with beating one's head against a wall for 4 years hoping for a different result? Maybe not mass one's troops so tightly in theatres where an Offensive was obvious? Maybe limit one's objectives instead of all these grand plans that would deal a deathstroke on their opponents? Maybe a more numerous and better trained Red Cross? Maybe both sides could wait it out until the blockade starves either side into surrender or a game changing weapon could be developed and manufactured in enough numbers to tip the scales?
Not so sure if we’re even more careful. it’s what the cost is in dollars not in the personnel that’s the driving force, in the west at least.
The butchers are still out there, war is still killing human beings in their thousands. They’re just not ‘our boys’.
Machine gun armed aircraft were being developed in 1913
The problem was not that European military theorists would have been unable to understand that war had changed.So frankly the Generals should have been working out solutions for these already known problems for a full generation at least. But the unfortunate tendency for an Army to resist change is very evident here.
Add in two noticeable changes in this war the rate of fire as a result of the large number of machine guns / the perfection of bolt action rifles and the airplane.
The problem was that starting at the end of the ACW and getting worse in each war thier after we sea most maneuvering coming when one side or the other surprises the other side and hits them in an unexpected location. Or with huge numbers. But if the two relatively equal sized army’s hit head on the results are not so good. But of course the aircraft and the ability to move troops (mostly via trains but trucks and cars start to add to this) means it is very hard to virtually impossible to truly surprise the other side. The best you get is one side seeing what is going on but not understanding what they are looking at.
June 7, 1912, Col. Lewis demonstrates his new MG from a Wright Model B![]()
The Army wasn't too interested in the gun, or arming aircraft, for that matter
Remember reading an article in a Canadian newspaper years ago, when complaints were high concerning deaths of troops in Afghanistan concluded, that statistically young men were safer in a combat zone that in ‘safe’ urban homeland areas. Statistics can be manipulated.For a baseline comparison with crime versus war.
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Not sure but it seems laying smoke screens was not a thing in WWI. You would think that could be useful going over the top.
Prior to the attack, the artillery spent two weeks conducting "conditioning firing" in the sector, firing gas and smoke shells at the same time every day before dawn, while strict operational security procedures were implemented.
The Bangalore Torpedo was invented in 1912.Also earlier mine-clearing line charge (also effective against barb wire).
Battle of Hamel in July 1918.
In the actual attack, only smoke was used so the Germans thought it was gas and had their masks on, impacting their situational awareness.
As a side note, John Monash, the General who planned Hamel would have replaced Haig in 1919 (Lloyd George said Haig's replacement was to be a Dominion officer (Currie or Monash) but later said Monash (Currie was 'tainted') . Not bad for a Dominion Reservist from the artillery, Jewish and of German descent.
The Bangalore Torpedo was invented in 1912.
I don't disagree. We went to the moon before we thought it was a good idea to put wheels on luggage.Bangalores were short and time consuming to deploy. Line charges were just a string of bombs propelled by a rocket and wire could be cleared a hundred yards at a time.
Again it was naval forces that were using smoke screens far in advance of the military.You would think something this simple would be implemented a lot earlier than the tank.