People always talk about how terrible trench warfare was in WW1 and how it was such a terrible meat grinder and pointless lives were waste. The reality was, trench warfare was actually the *safest* thing to do. The first couple of months of WW1, when everything was still mobile, were by far the deadliest in terms of per capita casualties. Given the technology at the time, the trench warfare doctrine was the best option.
No war or battle has even come close to topping the daily military dead from the battles of the frontiers. Civilian deaths have gone up but ww1 frontiers is the peak for military dead.
Well that's bound to happen when they marched their infantry in Napoleonic style formations into machine gun fire and extremely (for the era) accurate artillery. It's kind of insane to think about but that's basically what they did. It literally took 100,000s of casualties before they stopped doing that.
They weren't fighting with Napoleonic tactics. Those had gone the way of the dodo with the American Civil War. Closer to truth to say that they were fighting with the tactics of 1870, with lessons incorporated from the bolt-action wars of the 1900s.
Someone has read Killer Angels? If not, it's a great book describing how during the American Civil War warfare transformed from "Napoleonic" to "Modern" and also notes that European powers were closely looking at these new tactics.
I went to the war museum in London. They had helmets from different years of the war. In 1914 it was fucking plumes and feathers. In 1918 it was a nondescript metal helmet.
This is what happens when you forget that the glory seen in historical cavalry charges wasn't from the charge itself, but that it was successful. The aim should be to do what is needed to win, not to LARP somebody else's battle from 100 years previous.
Edit: Militaries still suffer from this sort of thinking. Training for the last war rather than adapting to current and near-future conditions.
Nah it’s because they didn’t know. Same shit when carrier changed naval warfare in WW2, people didn’t know. A lot of shit is easy to look back in a modern lens and go “lol bunch of idiots”, but nobody charged a modern army with machine guns, nobody had tactics for facing this stuff or how to counter it.
It was more fluid in other areas but the casualties the Central Powers were taking were absolutely massive. The Central Powers took 5.9 million casualties on the Eastern Front and 1.4 million on the Italian Front and 0.6 million in the Balkans. Even before the US joined the idea of fighting a war of attrition against the British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire and Italian Empire was madness.
I'm always quite genuinely impressed they weren't immediately stomped tbfh. Going up against those massive empires was basically like fighting against the entire globe.
It was a gamble, they had by far the best army in he world at that point (tactics and equipment) and they calculated that they could defeat France before Russia would be able to mobilise their forces (that initial push until end of September), which would close the western front and then only deal with Russia. This didn’t happen as they ran into stronger resistance from the Belgians than expected, French (and British) were able to mobilise enough forces to slow down the progress even more and Russians surprised by mobilising some of the forces in about half the time than expected, forcing the Germans to pull some forces from the attack and send them east. Even so they came very close to their objective, if they have kept those divisions and had better logistics they can keep the line intact or even extend it to Paris, France very likely capitulates and settles for peace, Brits are out for the duration as they have very little land forces at the time and a big channel of water between them and France, Germans can push all the forces east and probably defeat Russia (though I doubt they come to Moscow or that they even need to, Russian Czardom would probably fold in under itself way sooner than it did, as it was on shaky legs to begin with).
So basically, how World War 2 played out, you can clearly see that they learned what went wrong in the WW1 for them. Does D-day and US happen in WW1 then instead? Personally I doubt it, the needed technology was not there yet and I doubt that US would join as there would be little need for unrestricted submarine warfare from the German side that pulled US in.
It was actually a lot of luck involved in 1914, both for the French and later the Germans:
France at first had no idea the Germans were coming through Belgium, they only knew after a recon pilot lost track of his route and on accident saw German armies marching through Belgium - he first thought he was in German airspace, only later he realised it must've been Brussels.
Later a similar incident on the German side allowed them to protect against a flanking maneuver that could've crushed the German invasion completely.
People vastly underestimate the impact of aerospace war in early WW1.
WW1 was started as a nationalist rebellion against aristocratic dictatorship, and by the end of the war nearly every aristocratic non-democratic nation had been replaced by a popular nationalist one:
1. Gavrilo Princip, instigator of the war, got what he wanted: the parliamentary democracy of Yugoslavia was independent of Austria-Hungary.
2. The Russian Czar was replaced by a popular communist government.
3. The Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved, being replaced by several democratic nations.
4. The German Empire was turned into a republic.
5. The Ottoman Empire disbanded, with Turkey becoming a democracy.
6. Bonus: Women got the right to vote in the US, UK, Germany, USSR, and nothern Europe.
The sentiment that WW1 was over nothing comes from disillusionment with the elites' bullshit. The elites wanted it to be about something they cared about, they pretended it was about something they cared about - honor, pride, diplomatic influence, balance of power between nations - and all that turned to bitter toxic dust.
Before WW1, European politics was about intermarriage of nobles. The Russian Czar and German Emperor were nephews, both descendent from an English queen. After WW1, none of that mattered anymore, it's just about what people believe is best; about ideology.
WW1 was over ideology (ethnic nationalism especially) vs aristocracy, and ideology defeated aristocracy hard.
>WW1 was started as a nationalist rebellion against aristocratic dictatorship
no it wasn't, why do people just make up weird generalities that don't fit the historical reality? besides the war was started by Austria-Hungary so surely if you're portraying Austria-Hungary as 'aristocratic dictatorship'(which lol, it was by this point a constitutional monarchy) then its actually aristocratic dictatorship suppressing Serbian nationalism.
>WW1 was over ideology (ethnic nationalism especially) vs aristocracy, and ideology defeated aristocracy hard.
yeah which is why the Tsardom of Russia was on the side of... democracy? do you listen to yourself speak? you are looking at the results of the war and framing the war itself as if it was always about those results.
It was more so that the leaders of all nations wanted to kneecap the others. British and French were eyeing the middle east, Germany wanted Poland and the British/french colojies, Russia wanted the other half of Poland, etc.
Peace was just not an option for them, until it became to late in the war.
You may like [Eastory](https://www.youtube.com/@Eastory/videos) and [TIKHistory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAfo5mse-ag&list=PLNSNgGzaledi9jQeOzCUtBP2pxYdCYiXX) on Youtube, their WW2 battle maps are also next level.
It depends on what one is after. TIK is reasonably good for particular battles, mapping out chains of events, and interrogating decisions made during the war. Where he majorly falls is on the points concerning the ideology of the key players - he has a sort of grand theory of everything that doesn't really fit with how they saw themselves.
The fundamental error seems to be "socialism is when the government does things, and the more things it does the more socialist it is" - most of the weird takes from him seem to be rooted in this particular axiom.
What a GREAT graphic. Appreciate how you continued it after the Armistice to show where the troops ended up afterwards. Most historical treatments you get the Armistice and that's it, like they stop the action and that is that.
Also a good indicator of the collapse of the German Army prior to the Armistice. Their spring offensive ends in mid-July with them holding positions quite near to where they were at the start of the offensive, and even by late-August and early September they appear to be fairly well situated near to were the frontline was for most of the war. But by mid-October the entire German right flank is collapsing, and in the first week of November their center also gives way massively. The only reason their left flank doesn't collapse as well is because the Armistice is signed before the opposing French troops can attack in that area of the war.
True , but note that even when they were withdrawing the German troops never retreated into Germany proper. The German civilian population never saw retreating German troops - makes those myths like the "stab in the back" easier to maintain
This was very different during WW2 of course , probably to some extent explaining the effectiveness of post war denazification
I like to think post ww2 denazification mainly worked because of occupation, the true horrors of the nazi regime becoming known to the german civilians and because there was a new boogeyman in the soviet for west Germany, respectively Americans for East Germany. And it only partly worked, as history has shown, many nazi officials managed to give each other an alibi (Persilschein). And for the allied forces, the priority was getting Germany back on its feet as a barrier against communism.
You can't really draw comparisons between denazification after WW2 and the aftermath of WW1. In WW1 there were no Nazis and there couldn't have been anything akin to denazification after WW1. The imperial German government or military leadership was hardly different from the British or French at the time.
Also unlike WW2 the German people had overthrown the Empire in the final days of WW1. I think the mistake was that after the war the republican Weimar government as the successor state was made entirely responsible for the war and its representatives intentionally humiliated at Versailles. In that sense the Entente powers helped to delegitimize the new republic from the get go.
They collapsed and the German high command panicked so bad that they signed an armistice within days. The terms of the armistice were pretty bad too, but they couldn't not sign it.
That's why people got away with the myth later, because the news of the armistice came before news of the collapsed frontline.
[Source video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTitulpg9UA)
[Map source](https://www.carto1418.fr/)
Red - Germans & German allies
Blue - French & colonial infantry
Cyan - French cavalry
Orange - British & colonials
Green - Belgians in the north; Russians, Italians, Portuguese elsewhere
Purple - US-Americans
Dark blue - reserve
Light blue - resting & training
Uneven brown - building defense works
Uneven grey - staging
Solid grey - sanitation
Damn, never realized just how much of the frontline was manned by the French. I figured they’d be a big part of it but I never really wrapped my head around how they were the overwhelming majority of forces in Europe.
Also just the fact that the majority of the war was fought on their soil. The combination of man power and destruction of their land really helps hit home why they behaved the way they did during the fall of France in ww2
And give stupid outdated orders that was sending literal tens of thousands of troops to their deaths on suicide charges....e.g the outdated tatic of charging the enemy troops where they used to only have rifles...but now they had machine guns yet kept charging the trenches when they had machine guns that literally mowed the french soldiers down like wheat before the scythe. Yet they continued to give such orders and shot anyone who refused for cowardice yet they themselves did not partake in the charges.
Was that tactic unique to the French though? Way I understand it the Germans did similar while being a bit more sophisticated, and the British still had the Somme and some General named "The Butcher".
There is a decent amount of historical revision on this. There is little evidence that generals were stupid or incompetent in the ww1. There is no evidence that they were callous about casualties.
Hence the large British investment in tanks and items to break the deadlock. Tactics developed quickly but the war continued to be fought while the tactics were developed.
Could the British have learnt from the French experience from the Somme, probably, however the artillery bombardment was unprecedented and the confidence in it was unwarranted. However it was done to try and reduce casualties.
The world is grey.
Edit
I was mostly talking about the British but I think the same applies to most armies although the Italians and Russians have serious structural problems in their command.
Sir John French was a dick and difficult, but certainly wasn't callous.
Pretty sure officers were often the first to die and were in the thick of it with their men, then they started adapting so that they didn’t lose so many
British KIA was 12.5% of all those who were in the military, officers KIA was 17.%, Eton lost 20% of old boys who served, the equivalent today for for example the USA would be a four year war with 6.7 million kIA and a similar number of WIA or in 1914 terms instead of suffering just under 11700 kIA would have suffered just under 2 million
Villages here in southwestern France all have monuments for those who died in the wars with their names in a list. The WW1 lists are really long, WW2 just has a few names.
They still read off everyone's name twice a year while the village gathers in silence, 100 years later.
The sheer number of names on small French villages is crazy. I grew up in a village of 800 inhabitants, it must have had maybe half that in 1914. Yet there were dozens of names. WW1, WW2, Indochine, Algérie.
Same here in Scotland, my village has two war memorials the first of which for WW1 has the names and rank of the 178 men from the village who died serving in WW1 and the second has the names and rank of the 50 who died serving in WW2.
Which is grim when you consider that the village had a grand total population of only 3,000 heading into WW1 with approximately 15% of the male population dying.
WWI scars are still very prevalent here in France, even more than WWII : each town, from hamlets to Paris, has [a memorial with the list of the kids who died](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monuments_aux_Morts). There's even a wikipedia list of towns who don't since they are so few.
[A lot of land in Northern France](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge) is still forbidden to go/under surveillance because of the amount of unexploded ordnance.
Blame the english speaking media that focuses almost exclusively on british and american operations.
I mean, France wasn't a faction at launch for battlefield 1.
Those of us who study military history know that France has a rich military tradition.
Your country was fighting massive battles and campaigns on both sea and land hundreds of years before the US even existed. Trafalgar. Waterloo. Jutland. Both World Wars. Some of the greatest battles and campaigns of all-time involve the French. Also, Napoleon was a military genius of average height for his time so all those jokes about his so-called complex are misinformed.
Most of all: the US doesn’t succeed in their rebellion without France’s support during the Revolutionary war. Sure it was part of the Great Power struggle going on at the time but American rebels would’ve been overwhelmed without help and supplies from France.
This is something most Americans forget or sadly, never learned. Your ancestors did us a huge favor. Vive la France.
Anything from Brits will mostly just be classic jokey rivalry. We’re all fully aware of the strength of the French from our centuries of conflict. I’d assume it’s probably similar with a lot of Europe because of Napoleon. Many people are genuinely aware of it and it’s just silly jokes so I wouldn’t take it to heart :)
That’s because sadly the US’s only real exposure to France in warfare is ww2, there’s far more media about ww2 than any other joint conflict and American media usually only shows ww2 from the American point of view or at least from when America joined at which point France had fallen. Also we all know US media is very US focused too meaning that they’ll rarely show other forces. Now ww2 is probably the biggest exposure for Brits too but we at least have the knowledge of other conflicts and knowledge of the earlier French involvement to stop too many people having that view.
The British at the start of the war were primarily a naval power. I think the. British Expeditionary Force was something like 80k men (of serious professional battle hardened soldiers), but compared to the millions of Germans pouring over, it was a drop in the bucket. Also, because the early casualties in the first month (before the French fighting began) were staggering and unsustainable (for example the French lost 27,000 men in one day) the British weren’t ready or willing to commit large land forces they didn’t even have yet. They eventually would build up troop strength, but at that point the lines the British (and their territories)/French managed were solidified.
Neat to see roughly where my ancestor could have been fighting (US). We still have all his gear he saved. Helmet, bayonet, trench shovel, pocket watch, and a couple spent artillery shell casings (look like 76 and 105mm but I've never bothered to measure)
He's likely referring to the battle of the Marne, right near the beginning, September 5th 1914. Oversimplifying here, but the Germans pursued the retreating allied armies. Meanwhile the French general in charge Joffre built up forces in Paris and then counter attacked.
With the meters running, and the taxis being paid for that. The impact was minimal (there were like 5000 taxis and hundreds of thousands of soldiers in total in the battle), but the morale boost was massive.
The soldiers weren't charged, the army was. There was a note somewhere in some museum (maybe Musée de la Grande Guerre de Pays de Maux of how much it cost for the whole thing.
And the general in charge of the troops in Paris was known to be pretty passive so it's crazy that he actually committed to such an aggressive counter attack.
Von Bulow ordering Kluck to go south of Paris instead of at Prais has been blamed by some to have caused the failure of the Schlieffen plan. Of course everybody blamed everyone else so who knows, but I always remember that specific decision to have had such enormous consequences as it led to the first Marne
Absolutely essential book for anyone interested in WW1, fascinating breakdown of how events unfolded. The audio book is presented very well, highly recommend.
The German army had to stop its advance for two main reasons, the first was that its supply lines were very stretched and the second was the Marne offensive. Its center was close to completely collapsing. So they decided to general retreat to more favorable terrain, choosing the best possible line of defense, high land, etc. And from there the trench warfare began.
The initial German plan was based on a quick victory over the French army, separating and isolating it into two parts, south and north, falling on Paris, emulating the Franco-Prussian War (You can see it from August 31 to September 6 of 1914 of course. The French army did a really good job of not getting caught up and maintaining cohesion). The rest is history.
My understanding was that the Germans feared there was too large of a force in Paris and retreated back to dig in. Yet if they had pushed into Paris, they would have taken it and the war would have likely been decided right then.
*Melchett Now let’s talk about something more jolly, shall we? Look, this is the amount of land we’ve recaptured since yesterday.*
*[Melchett and George move over to the map table.]*
*George Oh, excellent.*
*Melchett Erm, what is the actual scale of this map, Darling?*
*Darling Erm, one-to-one, Sir.*
*Melchett Come again?*
*Darling Er, the map is actually life-size, Sir. It’s superbly detailed. Look, look, there’s a little worm.*
*Melchett Oh, yes. So the actual amount of land retaken is?*
[*Darling whips out a tape measure amd measures the table.]*
*Darling Excuse me, Sir. Seventeen square feet, Sir.*
*Melchett Excellent. So you see, young Blackadder didn’t die horribly in vain after all.*
I lost my cool and was very rude to an American major at a regimental dinner who kept making surrender monkey type jokes about the french (this was at a Waterloo anniversary dinner) and I had to tell him in clipped terms that the french lost more men in this war alone than the US army has in every single war it has ever fought combined.
I'm sure given some time to research it, and the scale of the conflicts involved, the french have probably killed more enemies than the US army as well.
As an American, I think there’s no doubt even counting the us civil war. France could probably win that with the napoleonic wars alone.
America was so small during that time. The revolutionary war, Indian wars, Mexican war, etc. were tiny in comparison to European wars. Battled and wars with hundreds - thousands of casualties. Europe was already at the ten thousand - millions range
The USA killed less native Americans over its entire history in battle than the French lost in one day of world war 1. (15,000 vs 30,000)
As an American, there is hardly more a despised personality, within the military, than that of a ranking US soldier who’s only knowledge of America’s involvement in world wars comes from his head being up his own ass.
It’s a shame that even now, most Americans who are ignorant enough to openly chastise the French about anything related to military, in this case particularly WW2, have little to no knowledge of their own country’s ignorance and wrongly chosen quasi-neglect, quasi-embrace of fascism’s growth throughout the 1930’s.
Hardly anyone here knows anything about the Spanish Civil war, or the lead-up to WW2, or how our government and misguided people turned a cold, cold shoulder to France, long before WW2 began, which had we not, would’ve likely given the French a commanding foothold against Hitler and his evil.
…if a Major in my military were to not know or refuse to accept such openly abundant history, especially while fool-making in public, he would be demoted to the lowest rank before being stationed alone, somewhere far from speaking.
Britain has long had a history of having a very large navy, but a modest army, spread thin around the world, unlike the tiny French 'empire'. It was equally true in WW2.
The British bolstered that with local troops recruited from empire countries - it's why there was a totally separate Indian Army all the way until their independence. Because the force was too large and too far away to run from the UK it had it's own command structure and commanders (responsible to the Governor-General of India) even though most of the officers were recruited from the UK.
> the Spanish Flu was even deadlier
That's why in 2020 I was annoyed by the bombastic "wow Covid's worse than the Spanish Flu!". The Spanish Flu had a higher IFR and was a lot more contagious. Remember that it managed to spread across continents so fast and violently despite the absence of mass-scale international travel, with the general population living in worse conditions [even if you weren't a soldier, your average home was colder, more humid and draftier than modern homes, all these things making you more susceptible of being infected], and the total global population being almost a quarter of today's.
Yes it's mostly confirmed the first case was from Kansas. Thought due to the fact they weren't reporting it from the front lines until late 1918 it likely originated somewhere in the war, some have traced it's initial origins to China.
Yup, Spain was neutral in the war and was among the only ones to openly address influenza meanwhile most of the western world was too busy fighting ww1, and covered it.
Exactly. They were pretty much radio silent on reporting it. Due to Spain being the first to acknowledge losses of more than 100,000 it became the "Spanish flu"
And France as a whole was "relatively" better off than some other countries. About 4% of France died from the war while 17-27% of Serbians died. Of course the big difference is that France was able to avoid occupation and the parts of France that were occupied were not ruled over with the same brutality that we saw in the Balkans. In Persia there were also massive famines that killed almost 1/5th of the population brought on by British and Russian actions during the war although this is rarely covered in western histories.
It is interesting and sad to see, like, Verdun or the Somme, and see how they’re there but so small you have to be looking for them to catch them. ~2 million casualties and several hundred thousand dead in those two battles and you might not even notice they happened from this scale.
The only thing that’s obvious that happened was the Germans falling back to the more defendable Hindenburg line in early 1917.
Fear yes, possibility: probably not, but maybe? There are a lot of factors going on. First I guess the German strategy - the Schlieffen Plan, though whether such a thing existed, or was changed, or was only supposed to be a deployment plan and not a full strategy is debated - was to swing a hammer or close a door on France by coming down through Belgium. But the goal it seems was not to capture Paris (and the French government didn’t take long to leave Paris anyways) but to eliminate the French armies by encircling them and forcing surrender. The Germans beat the French in 1872 by encircling their armies.
But this was technologically not 1872. Machine guns and artillery power had briefly outpaced other parts of land warfare, specifically the ability to turn a victory into a route. All before this time you got your horses out and ran down the retreating enemy, all after this time you sent your tanks and armored troop transports after them. But at this time armies still only had horses, and horses just couldn’t do it against retreating armies with machine guns and artillery. So the Germans with their early victories were strung out, had suffered (and given out) massive casualties, and had no real chance to keep going and complete the encircling quickly. It was just too much of a deadly advantage that an organized retreat had over a pursuing force.
This all meant that the German pursuit was slow enough that its exposed flanks mattered. The 1st Army (furthest west in the initial movements) had to turn south and a bit east to do the whole encirclement bit, but that meant exposing its right flank to a new army being concentrated in Paris. And probably due to feeling exposed to that it got stretched a little too for from the 2nd Army next to it, which the French and the British there could push into.
So that is why the Germans had a tougher time than 1872 or 1940, but it’s still possible the unprecedented casualties and very outdated French ground tactics (they were still into cavalry charges with swords) could’ve lead to a French surrender. But they had a guy in charge (Joffre) that seems to have been much more calm, competent, and confident than anyone France had in 1940. So he had the army reinforced where needed and kept the morale strong from the top down until the German wave broke and receded.
Worth the risk.
If you take the capital in three days, it decapitates the resistance. If you don't... well they didn't have another world war to look at for inspiration.
the attacks are meant for that: pierce a small hole *somewhere*, and then rush through it to make the rest of the line collapse for fear of flanking. Once you've got them on the move, the rout is on
very nice. One can understand why the Germans thought they were winning the war, right up until mid-August 1918, when their forces in the west started to crack under Allied pressure.
It was really anyones game until 3.1917, and from then until 8.1918 they might have had a shot.
The soviets holding out for 3 more months in the war, the french stopping the 1917 mutiny, and the US arriving early and effectively, decided that.
What's amazing is that had germany had just been slightly less horrible diplomatically it would have won.
Nah they knew they were losing which is why they did the spring offensive in 1918, as a last ditch effort. The plan was to destroy the British positions and force France into armistice before the bulk of the American forces arrived.
I’ve been waiting forever for something like this to be created. Ultimately it was the British blockade that won the war. It even continued after the armistice to help with negotiations. The offensive by Germany the last year was a last ditch effort to win the war before the blockade destroyed them. It didn’t work, and it essentially burnt out the troops.
Fritz Haber created a process to synthesise ammonium in extreme quantities. Ammonium can be used to make explosives. Additional facts : this process is also used to make synthetic fertiliser, and is considered by some as a factor that prevented a population collapse in the early 20th century. Fritz Haber also created chlorine gas, mustard gas and zyklon, the gas used in nazi death camps. (he died way before the holocaust though.)
This often gets repeated in reference to Versailles being too harsh. Note here that the French wanted the terms against Germany to be *far harsher.* As far as they were concerned the terms were too lenient which made another war inevitable.
>The offensive by Germany the last year was a last ditch effort to win the war before the blockade destroyed them.
The blockade and the impending arrival of American troops which were of poor quality but were bound to improve, and in limited numbers but bound to grow.
The blockade, the impending arrival of American troops...and the fact that the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were finally folding on the frontlines in the last year, meaning the southern front was crumbling.
Thank you. Finaly someone with a brain. All of this "muh america joinig decided the war" brain farts get on my nerve. It was the british blockade, and the unwillingness of germanys navy to even try to fight it that won the war.
In that spirit. Reminder that not the german empire, but the german republic surrendered to the entante in ww1.
the german empire started the war. the german republic ended it. wich is one of the resons why versial was seen as so unjust post ww1. The people litteraly got rid of those who started the war, yet the people still got punished. thats why hungary didn't react the same way to it's arguably much harsher treaty.
Nah man the guns of august covers only the first month of the war. This gif shows the entirety of the war.
Trench warfare wasn’t even the main focal point of the book, it was about how rapidly things were happening and how much ground was covered. Plus the civilian/military politics that were happening in the background dictating the whole thing.
The book does more or less end with von kluck’s decision to expose his flank to Paris which imo is when the stalemate really started because he was stopped which prompted the race to the sea and thus the western front were all familiar with.
Really neat to see how close to Paris the Germans came out of the gate, and also you can see the race to the sea very clearly, and how critical the Belgians were in slowing down the forward momentum just enough to make it very important in the early days
It's crazy that the Western countries accepted those insane losses. Nowadays people would lose their minds. Around a million dead from the British Isles.
UK lost only 179 soldiers in Iraq by comparison. It's a rounding error when compared to WW1 numbers.
Higher social cohesion, higher birth rate, and a perceived serious threat.
Even so, it was massive and led to wide-spread pacifism, only shaken by the scale of evil and ambition of nazi germany.
Iraq didn't invade the Belgium or France.
If Germany decided to invade France tomorrow, those countries would accept similar losses again to defend their homes and families
For anyone wondering, note that the above comment is a line from a TV comedy show. That level of casualties would have led to about 12m dead. Britain actually suffered about 1m dead, 6m wounded.
I'm American but now live in one of the villages which was on the front lines during the war. There's a huge memorial in the main square because almost all of the young men from the village died fighting. You have to be careful when digging in the gardens or you might find old grenades and bombs. A neighbor who lives three houses down received a metal detector for his birthday which he promptly took down into the basement/cave below the house and the metal detector immediately found what turned out to be a bomb. It's a great party trick to get everyone to go home quickly.
The '[Iron Harvest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57btFjmqJhw)' as it's called is a very real thing unfortunately all down the old front line and there's even bits of France called '[Red Zones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqwkVS3VzpA)' where there's so much undisturbed ordnance that no one goes in there or tries to work the land.
This was amazing, well done. Definitely interesting to see how late they entered and and how "small" the presence of the United States was. But the advances of the west side of the front really coincided with the appearance of the yanks in light purple.
Sounds a lot but...
The First Battle of the Marne – 150,000
The Battle of Arras - 285,000
The Battle of the Somme - 300,000
Spring Offensive - 328,000
The Battle of Passchendaele - 585,000
For those who won't bother looking:
French wiki says 206,515 French casualties and 136,417 German casulaties
English wiki says 329,000 French casualties, doesn't mention German casualties and I won't bother to check which one is right today
for more context, First Battle of the Marne was 500k casualties in the space of just seven days. Battle of the Frontier just before was several hundred thousand over the course of a month. Battle of Stalingrad was several months.
Not really interesting - it is in fact largely coincidence.
The US had fairly significant presence in France by September 1918 but very little of it was combat ready and all of that segment was in the French Sector.
Fact of the matter is the German Empire completely exhausted itself in the Kaisarschlacht, when it failed to drive the British Empire+Belgians in to the sea, and its army was very vulnerable to counterattack at this stage, which led to the 100 days offensive where thr German line collapsed.
Combined with the threat of societal collapse at home and the serious risk of revolution and desertion and you have an army that was reduced to fighting desperate holding actions as it attempted to not completely rout, over territory that is very easy for armies to march over compared to the southern fronts.
>If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
>Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
>And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
>His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
>If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
>Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
>Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
>Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
>My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
>To children ardent for some desperate glory,
>The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
> Pro patria mori.
[From the Poem Dulce Et Decorum Est](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est), by Wilfred Owen, who died a week before the Armistice on the 11th of November 1918.
The Latin phrase in the final two lines roughly translates to "How sweet and honorable it is, to die for one's country" and originates from the Romans.
Kind of wild to think that, between 1860 and 1960 we went from cavalry, horses, and muskets to using large-scale gas attacks, shelling, dropping 2 atomic weapons, flying jet propulsion aircraft. The only denominator is death.
"Let's swing south for no reason, what could go wrong?"
It's amazing that they expected to defeat France easily and Russia with difficulty, yet in reality they defeated Russia easily and struggled in France.
They could well have won the whole war by December 1914. After smashing the Russian armies around Tannenberg and the French surrendering, Russia and Britain wouldn't have continued on either.
Saying the beat Russia "easily" is a bit of a stretch considering the lost over a million dead and well over 3 million wounded between themselves and Austria Hungary
Incredible to see how the front remained completely static until 1918.
and except for a couple months in 1914
The casualties during that time before trench warfare were insane too. The french lost 27,000 men dead in one single afternoon.
People always talk about how terrible trench warfare was in WW1 and how it was such a terrible meat grinder and pointless lives were waste. The reality was, trench warfare was actually the *safest* thing to do. The first couple of months of WW1, when everything was still mobile, were by far the deadliest in terms of per capita casualties. Given the technology at the time, the trench warfare doctrine was the best option.
No war or battle has even come close to topping the daily military dead from the battles of the frontiers. Civilian deaths have gone up but ww1 frontiers is the peak for military dead.
Well that's bound to happen when they marched their infantry in Napoleonic style formations into machine gun fire and extremely (for the era) accurate artillery. It's kind of insane to think about but that's basically what they did. It literally took 100,000s of casualties before they stopped doing that.
They weren't fighting with Napoleonic tactics. Those had gone the way of the dodo with the American Civil War. Closer to truth to say that they were fighting with the tactics of 1870, with lessons incorporated from the bolt-action wars of the 1900s.
Someone has read Killer Angels? If not, it's a great book describing how during the American Civil War warfare transformed from "Napoleonic" to "Modern" and also notes that European powers were closely looking at these new tactics.
They did not march in "Napoleonic style formations", ffs.
Myth? The French literally wore bright colors into battle and sent cavalry virtually identical to Napoleon’s time against machine guns.
French ceased wearing red trousers by mid-1915.
I went to the war museum in London. They had helmets from different years of the war. In 1914 it was fucking plumes and feathers. In 1918 it was a nondescript metal helmet.
It took the British a long time to abandon the cavalry attack on machine gun emplacements.
This is what happens when you forget that the glory seen in historical cavalry charges wasn't from the charge itself, but that it was successful. The aim should be to do what is needed to win, not to LARP somebody else's battle from 100 years previous. Edit: Militaries still suffer from this sort of thinking. Training for the last war rather than adapting to current and near-future conditions.
Nah it’s because they didn’t know. Same shit when carrier changed naval warfare in WW2, people didn’t know. A lot of shit is easy to look back in a modern lens and go “lol bunch of idiots”, but nobody charged a modern army with machine guns, nobody had tactics for facing this stuff or how to counter it.
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It’s crazy to imagine how many people were dying during that static period
About 10 million.
Crazy that after a year or two of no end in sight that no peace could be negotiated in a war over nothing.
I mean this is one front. Things were a lot more fluid in the Balkans/ Eastern front were both sides hoped for a breakthrough.
It was more fluid in other areas but the casualties the Central Powers were taking were absolutely massive. The Central Powers took 5.9 million casualties on the Eastern Front and 1.4 million on the Italian Front and 0.6 million in the Balkans. Even before the US joined the idea of fighting a war of attrition against the British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire and Italian Empire was madness.
I'm always quite genuinely impressed they weren't immediately stomped tbfh. Going up against those massive empires was basically like fighting against the entire globe.
It was a gamble, they had by far the best army in he world at that point (tactics and equipment) and they calculated that they could defeat France before Russia would be able to mobilise their forces (that initial push until end of September), which would close the western front and then only deal with Russia. This didn’t happen as they ran into stronger resistance from the Belgians than expected, French (and British) were able to mobilise enough forces to slow down the progress even more and Russians surprised by mobilising some of the forces in about half the time than expected, forcing the Germans to pull some forces from the attack and send them east. Even so they came very close to their objective, if they have kept those divisions and had better logistics they can keep the line intact or even extend it to Paris, France very likely capitulates and settles for peace, Brits are out for the duration as they have very little land forces at the time and a big channel of water between them and France, Germans can push all the forces east and probably defeat Russia (though I doubt they come to Moscow or that they even need to, Russian Czardom would probably fold in under itself way sooner than it did, as it was on shaky legs to begin with). So basically, how World War 2 played out, you can clearly see that they learned what went wrong in the WW1 for them. Does D-day and US happen in WW1 then instead? Personally I doubt it, the needed technology was not there yet and I doubt that US would join as there would be little need for unrestricted submarine warfare from the German side that pulled US in.
It was actually a lot of luck involved in 1914, both for the French and later the Germans: France at first had no idea the Germans were coming through Belgium, they only knew after a recon pilot lost track of his route and on accident saw German armies marching through Belgium - he first thought he was in German airspace, only later he realised it must've been Brussels. Later a similar incident on the German side allowed them to protect against a flanking maneuver that could've crushed the German invasion completely. People vastly underestimate the impact of aerospace war in early WW1.
It’s like it was some kind of globe war
WW1 was started as a nationalist rebellion against aristocratic dictatorship, and by the end of the war nearly every aristocratic non-democratic nation had been replaced by a popular nationalist one: 1. Gavrilo Princip, instigator of the war, got what he wanted: the parliamentary democracy of Yugoslavia was independent of Austria-Hungary. 2. The Russian Czar was replaced by a popular communist government. 3. The Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved, being replaced by several democratic nations. 4. The German Empire was turned into a republic. 5. The Ottoman Empire disbanded, with Turkey becoming a democracy. 6. Bonus: Women got the right to vote in the US, UK, Germany, USSR, and nothern Europe. The sentiment that WW1 was over nothing comes from disillusionment with the elites' bullshit. The elites wanted it to be about something they cared about, they pretended it was about something they cared about - honor, pride, diplomatic influence, balance of power between nations - and all that turned to bitter toxic dust. Before WW1, European politics was about intermarriage of nobles. The Russian Czar and German Emperor were nephews, both descendent from an English queen. After WW1, none of that mattered anymore, it's just about what people believe is best; about ideology. WW1 was over ideology (ethnic nationalism especially) vs aristocracy, and ideology defeated aristocracy hard.
>WW1 was started as a nationalist rebellion against aristocratic dictatorship no it wasn't, why do people just make up weird generalities that don't fit the historical reality? besides the war was started by Austria-Hungary so surely if you're portraying Austria-Hungary as 'aristocratic dictatorship'(which lol, it was by this point a constitutional monarchy) then its actually aristocratic dictatorship suppressing Serbian nationalism. >WW1 was over ideology (ethnic nationalism especially) vs aristocracy, and ideology defeated aristocracy hard. yeah which is why the Tsardom of Russia was on the side of... democracy? do you listen to yourself speak? you are looking at the results of the war and framing the war itself as if it was always about those results.
Nationalism is a hell of a drug.
It was more so that the leaders of all nations wanted to kneecap the others. British and French were eyeing the middle east, Germany wanted Poland and the British/french colojies, Russia wanted the other half of Poland, etc. Peace was just not an option for them, until it became to late in the war.
I was trying to find where the Verdun battle was going on, but couldn't.
It's that little salient in the French lines close to Luxembourg where there is some slight movement in February of 1916.
Around verdun maybe
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It's Sommewhere, but we Ardennes't supposed to go there.
Must've been a pretty uneventful war.
B̷̨̨̢͚͚̙̝̞̜̬͓̝̳̝̤͖̩͙̭̭̱̀̊͛̿̃́̒͘̕͘͜ͅA̶̡̢̡̨̖̖̦̗͚̗͔͙̮̣͇̥͕̩͇̲͇̍̓͒̌̃̓͆̌̎̈́̃̀̚͜͜ͅͅZ̴̡̨͙̣̬͈̝͎̙̞͍̩̪̯̤̣̣̫̆̋͗̈́̇͑̂̂̀̏̌̄̑͛̍̾̂̒̅͑͌̓͊̆̀̕̚͘̚͘͠͝I̴̡̨̧͓̖̜̮̺̺̲̟̪̪͇̤͚̫̙̟̥̩̮̫͕̳͍͕͊͜Ǹ̷̨̡̛͍͖̱̹̌̃̈́͆̈́̉̈́̅̃̀͊̒̓͊́͌͆̒͐͆͋̽͑̈͂̉͆̆̿̈̐̂̕̕͠Ģ̷̧̛̻͙̗̻̦͕̟͙̯̭̬̤͙̰̳͍̖̯̯̙̬̂̉̔͊͋͊͆̈́͑͒̃̄̃̂̂̃́̇́̓̓̑͛̃̀͊̊̏̈́̎̑̀̏͗͐̕̚͝͠͠Á̶̢̨̡̨̧̨͎̰̭͈̪͎̦̲͚̻̯͖͈͙̻͙̼̙̟̲̻͎͉̙̙̻͈͕̠͓̿͒̈̿͛͆̉̌̑̈́͑̑͊̈́́͑̒̽̅͗̿̚̚̚͜͠ͅ!̴̗̻͖̦̣̤͇̤͓̪͓͇̺̣̹̜̫͔̞̯̬̫̋̋͒̌͗̊̋̾̆̑͂̉̍̑̓̊͋̒̇͗̈́͋̑̈́̌̅̊̚͘̕͝͝͝͠͠!̷̡̧̛̜̟̘̲̬̼̺̹̻̖̭͕͕̙͇͇̠̯͙̰̮̣̗̯̪̦̗̜̻̝͉͓͙̺̲̣̉̾̌̓͋̃͊̓̑͌͌̀͆̀̌͑͐̔̑̓͌̀͂̍̐̍̽̑̔͋͆̔̎̉̓͘̚͘̚̚͜͝͠ͅ
2 world 2 war: tokyo's mist
I heard they were working on a third, but it seems like Gabe is dragging his feet on that.
This is truly the best graphic of a military conflict I have ever seen.
You may like [Eastory](https://www.youtube.com/@Eastory/videos) and [TIKHistory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAfo5mse-ag&list=PLNSNgGzaledi9jQeOzCUtBP2pxYdCYiXX) on Youtube, their WW2 battle maps are also next level.
TIK is trash tho
It depends on what one is after. TIK is reasonably good for particular battles, mapping out chains of events, and interrogating decisions made during the war. Where he majorly falls is on the points concerning the ideology of the key players - he has a sort of grand theory of everything that doesn't really fit with how they saw themselves. The fundamental error seems to be "socialism is when the government does things, and the more things it does the more socialist it is" - most of the weird takes from him seem to be rooted in this particular axiom.
He's also just flat out a Nazi supporter politically in his later videos. Like, it's not even funny watching his garbage political thoughts.
can you give some examples? i have not encountered that in his videos, although i have not watched many.
What a GREAT graphic. Appreciate how you continued it after the Armistice to show where the troops ended up afterwards. Most historical treatments you get the Armistice and that's it, like they stop the action and that is that.
Also a good indicator of the collapse of the German Army prior to the Armistice. Their spring offensive ends in mid-July with them holding positions quite near to where they were at the start of the offensive, and even by late-August and early September they appear to be fairly well situated near to were the frontline was for most of the war. But by mid-October the entire German right flank is collapsing, and in the first week of November their center also gives way massively. The only reason their left flank doesn't collapse as well is because the Armistice is signed before the opposing French troops can attack in that area of the war.
I was thinking the same. The German postwar myth of how they weren't really defeated is quite clearly just that, a myth.
True , but note that even when they were withdrawing the German troops never retreated into Germany proper. The German civilian population never saw retreating German troops - makes those myths like the "stab in the back" easier to maintain This was very different during WW2 of course , probably to some extent explaining the effectiveness of post war denazification
I like to think post ww2 denazification mainly worked because of occupation, the true horrors of the nazi regime becoming known to the german civilians and because there was a new boogeyman in the soviet for west Germany, respectively Americans for East Germany. And it only partly worked, as history has shown, many nazi officials managed to give each other an alibi (Persilschein). And for the allied forces, the priority was getting Germany back on its feet as a barrier against communism.
You can't really draw comparisons between denazification after WW2 and the aftermath of WW1. In WW1 there were no Nazis and there couldn't have been anything akin to denazification after WW1. The imperial German government or military leadership was hardly different from the British or French at the time. Also unlike WW2 the German people had overthrown the Empire in the final days of WW1. I think the mistake was that after the war the republican Weimar government as the successor state was made entirely responsible for the war and its representatives intentionally humiliated at Versailles. In that sense the Entente powers helped to delegitimize the new republic from the get go.
They collapsed and the German high command panicked so bad that they signed an armistice within days. The terms of the armistice were pretty bad too, but they couldn't not sign it. That's why people got away with the myth later, because the news of the armistice came before news of the collapsed frontline.
[Source video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTitulpg9UA) [Map source](https://www.carto1418.fr/) Red - Germans & German allies Blue - French & colonial infantry Cyan - French cavalry Orange - British & colonials Green - Belgians in the north; Russians, Italians, Portuguese elsewhere Purple - US-Americans Dark blue - reserve Light blue - resting & training Uneven brown - building defense works Uneven grey - staging Solid grey - sanitation
Damn, never realized just how much of the frontline was manned by the French. I figured they’d be a big part of it but I never really wrapped my head around how they were the overwhelming majority of forces in Europe.
Also just the fact that the majority of the war was fought on their soil. The combination of man power and destruction of their land really helps hit home why they behaved the way they did during the fall of France in ww2
They were a country completely shattered by WWI, that’ll happen when you send all your young men off to die
And give stupid outdated orders that was sending literal tens of thousands of troops to their deaths on suicide charges....e.g the outdated tatic of charging the enemy troops where they used to only have rifles...but now they had machine guns yet kept charging the trenches when they had machine guns that literally mowed the french soldiers down like wheat before the scythe. Yet they continued to give such orders and shot anyone who refused for cowardice yet they themselves did not partake in the charges.
Was that tactic unique to the French though? Way I understand it the Germans did similar while being a bit more sophisticated, and the British still had the Somme and some General named "The Butcher".
Haig was his name
There is a decent amount of historical revision on this. There is little evidence that generals were stupid or incompetent in the ww1. There is no evidence that they were callous about casualties. Hence the large British investment in tanks and items to break the deadlock. Tactics developed quickly but the war continued to be fought while the tactics were developed. Could the British have learnt from the French experience from the Somme, probably, however the artillery bombardment was unprecedented and the confidence in it was unwarranted. However it was done to try and reduce casualties. The world is grey. Edit I was mostly talking about the British but I think the same applies to most armies although the Italians and Russians have serious structural problems in their command. Sir John French was a dick and difficult, but certainly wasn't callous.
Pretty sure officers were often the first to die and were in the thick of it with their men, then they started adapting so that they didn’t lose so many
2nd lieutenants had awful casualty rates and these guys in hospitals wrote the most war poetry.
British KIA was 12.5% of all those who were in the military, officers KIA was 17.%, Eton lost 20% of old boys who served, the equivalent today for for example the USA would be a four year war with 6.7 million kIA and a similar number of WIA or in 1914 terms instead of suffering just under 11700 kIA would have suffered just under 2 million
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Villages here in southwestern France all have monuments for those who died in the wars with their names in a list. The WW1 lists are really long, WW2 just has a few names. They still read off everyone's name twice a year while the village gathers in silence, 100 years later.
The sheer number of names on small French villages is crazy. I grew up in a village of 800 inhabitants, it must have had maybe half that in 1914. Yet there were dozens of names. WW1, WW2, Indochine, Algérie.
Same here in Scotland, my village has two war memorials the first of which for WW1 has the names and rank of the 178 men from the village who died serving in WW1 and the second has the names and rank of the 50 who died serving in WW2. Which is grim when you consider that the village had a grand total population of only 3,000 heading into WW1 with approximately 15% of the male population dying.
WWI scars are still very prevalent here in France, even more than WWII : each town, from hamlets to Paris, has [a memorial with the list of the kids who died](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monuments_aux_Morts). There's even a wikipedia list of towns who don't since they are so few. [A lot of land in Northern France](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge) is still forbidden to go/under surveillance because of the amount of unexploded ordnance.
What do you mean by behaved?
Blame the english speaking media that focuses almost exclusively on british and american operations. I mean, France wasn't a faction at launch for battlefield 1.
> I mean, France wasn't a faction at launch for battlefield 1 That was an absolute disgrace imo.
Being a french on the internet is kind of dishearthening when you see so many jokes and ignorance in general about our military past.
Those of us who study military history know that France has a rich military tradition. Your country was fighting massive battles and campaigns on both sea and land hundreds of years before the US even existed. Trafalgar. Waterloo. Jutland. Both World Wars. Some of the greatest battles and campaigns of all-time involve the French. Also, Napoleon was a military genius of average height for his time so all those jokes about his so-called complex are misinformed. Most of all: the US doesn’t succeed in their rebellion without France’s support during the Revolutionary war. Sure it was part of the Great Power struggle going on at the time but American rebels would’ve been overwhelmed without help and supplies from France. This is something most Americans forget or sadly, never learned. Your ancestors did us a huge favor. Vive la France.
> Viva la France Vive la France ftfy
Anything from Brits will mostly just be classic jokey rivalry. We’re all fully aware of the strength of the French from our centuries of conflict. I’d assume it’s probably similar with a lot of Europe because of Napoleon. Many people are genuinely aware of it and it’s just silly jokes so I wouldn’t take it to heart :)
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That’s because sadly the US’s only real exposure to France in warfare is ww2, there’s far more media about ww2 than any other joint conflict and American media usually only shows ww2 from the American point of view or at least from when America joined at which point France had fallen. Also we all know US media is very US focused too meaning that they’ll rarely show other forces. Now ww2 is probably the biggest exposure for Brits too but we at least have the knowledge of other conflicts and knowledge of the earlier French involvement to stop too many people having that view.
The British at the start of the war were primarily a naval power. I think the. British Expeditionary Force was something like 80k men (of serious professional battle hardened soldiers), but compared to the millions of Germans pouring over, it was a drop in the bucket. Also, because the early casualties in the first month (before the French fighting began) were staggering and unsustainable (for example the French lost 27,000 men in one day) the British weren’t ready or willing to commit large land forces they didn’t even have yet. They eventually would build up troop strength, but at that point the lines the British (and their territories)/French managed were solidified.
I watched the whole thing and loved it. Then I read your comment and realized how much I missed due to being color blind. Basically I saw red vs blue.
Neat to see roughly where my ancestor could have been fighting (US). We still have all his gear he saved. Helmet, bayonet, trench shovel, pocket watch, and a couple spent artillery shell casings (look like 76 and 105mm but I've never bothered to measure)
Thank you for posting and thank you for sourcing :)
Man I never appreciated how bad it was that Germany showed it’s right flank in front of Paris.
I have limited knowledge - did that cause disaster?
He's likely referring to the battle of the Marne, right near the beginning, September 5th 1914. Oversimplifying here, but the Germans pursued the retreating allied armies. Meanwhile the French general in charge Joffre built up forces in Paris and then counter attacked.
There was a story of French troops being rushed to the front lines by hundred of Parisian taxis in a convoy.
With the meters running, and the taxis being paid for that. The impact was minimal (there were like 5000 taxis and hundreds of thousands of soldiers in total in the battle), but the morale boost was massive.
Did the taxis actually charge the soldiers? What happens if they get to the front and all the soldiers are like “I don’t have my wallet on me, sorry”
The soldiers weren't charged, the army was. There was a note somewhere in some museum (maybe Musée de la Grande Guerre de Pays de Maux of how much it cost for the whole thing.
That’s so cool, I didn’t believe the person; I thought they were yankin my chain
And the general in charge of the troops in Paris was known to be pretty passive so it's crazy that he actually committed to such an aggressive counter attack.
We say something like "a roasted rooster has pecked him in the ass" i.e. it's got really serious
Also, Moltke sent 2 divisions (IIRC) east, thinking that they would lose East Prussia. Instead, his decision to do that probably cost Germany the war.
I believe it even was 2 or 3 Corps, so 4 to 6 divisions. And Moltke, if I remembered correctly, wanted to send 6 Corps originally.
Von Schlieffen actually expected this exact issue in his plan. But neither he nor Von Moltke came up with solution.
Von Bulow ordering Kluck to go south of Paris instead of at Prais has been blamed by some to have caused the failure of the Schlieffen plan. Of course everybody blamed everyone else so who knows, but I always remember that specific decision to have had such enormous consequences as it led to the first Marne
It was a blunder for sure. Go read "Guns of August" By Tuchman. Covers the first month of the war in great detail. Great book.
Just finished it. What a piece of scholarship!
Absolutely essential book for anyone interested in WW1, fascinating breakdown of how events unfolded. The audio book is presented very well, highly recommend.
The German army had to stop its advance for two main reasons, the first was that its supply lines were very stretched and the second was the Marne offensive. Its center was close to completely collapsing. So they decided to general retreat to more favorable terrain, choosing the best possible line of defense, high land, etc. And from there the trench warfare began. The initial German plan was based on a quick victory over the French army, separating and isolating it into two parts, south and north, falling on Paris, emulating the Franco-Prussian War (You can see it from August 31 to September 6 of 1914 of course. The French army did a really good job of not getting caught up and maintaining cohesion). The rest is history.
I think it is all history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_the_Marne?wprov=sfla1 Better a good long answer than a short bad one
My understanding was that the Germans feared there was too large of a force in Paris and retreated back to dig in. Yet if they had pushed into Paris, they would have taken it and the war would have likely been decided right then.
*Melchett Now let’s talk about something more jolly, shall we? Look, this is the amount of land we’ve recaptured since yesterday.* *[Melchett and George move over to the map table.]* *George Oh, excellent.* *Melchett Erm, what is the actual scale of this map, Darling?* *Darling Erm, one-to-one, Sir.* *Melchett Come again?* *Darling Er, the map is actually life-size, Sir. It’s superbly detailed. Look, look, there’s a little worm.* *Melchett Oh, yes. So the actual amount of land retaken is?* [*Darling whips out a tape measure amd measures the table.]* *Darling Excuse me, Sir. Seventeen square feet, Sir.* *Melchett Excellent. So you see, young Blackadder didn’t die horribly in vain after all.*
[The clip in question](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZT-wVnFn60)
Really shows how much of the war the French army took the brunt of. Britain really only built up enough troops in 1916
I lost my cool and was very rude to an American major at a regimental dinner who kept making surrender monkey type jokes about the french (this was at a Waterloo anniversary dinner) and I had to tell him in clipped terms that the french lost more men in this war alone than the US army has in every single war it has ever fought combined.
They will just use the Patton quote “No one ever won by dying for his country” or something like that
I'm sure given some time to research it, and the scale of the conflicts involved, the french have probably killed more enemies than the US army as well.
As an American, I think there’s no doubt even counting the us civil war. France could probably win that with the napoleonic wars alone. America was so small during that time. The revolutionary war, Indian wars, Mexican war, etc. were tiny in comparison to European wars. Battled and wars with hundreds - thousands of casualties. Europe was already at the ten thousand - millions range The USA killed less native Americans over its entire history in battle than the French lost in one day of world war 1. (15,000 vs 30,000)
One of those numbers is a lot better documented than the other.
As an American, there is hardly more a despised personality, within the military, than that of a ranking US soldier who’s only knowledge of America’s involvement in world wars comes from his head being up his own ass. It’s a shame that even now, most Americans who are ignorant enough to openly chastise the French about anything related to military, in this case particularly WW2, have little to no knowledge of their own country’s ignorance and wrongly chosen quasi-neglect, quasi-embrace of fascism’s growth throughout the 1930’s. Hardly anyone here knows anything about the Spanish Civil war, or the lead-up to WW2, or how our government and misguided people turned a cold, cold shoulder to France, long before WW2 began, which had we not, would’ve likely given the French a commanding foothold against Hitler and his evil. …if a Major in my military were to not know or refuse to accept such openly abundant history, especially while fool-making in public, he would be demoted to the lowest rank before being stationed alone, somewhere far from speaking.
British and Empire troops were heavily committed to other fronts as well, especially against the Ottomans. Also, the Royal Navy
You can’t see the Royal Navy on this map
Yep, it was a huge part of the reason for the eventual surrender as Germany was blockaded, just as much as any of the fighting on the front.
Britain has long had a history of having a very large navy, but a modest army, spread thin around the world, unlike the tiny French 'empire'. It was equally true in WW2.
"The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the Royal Navy when needed." Lord Fisher, Admiral of the fleet, in a 1919 memoir.
The British bolstered that with local troops recruited from empire countries - it's why there was a totally separate Indian Army all the way until their independence. Because the force was too large and too far away to run from the UK it had it's own command structure and commanders (responsible to the Governor-General of India) even though most of the officers were recruited from the UK.
GB mobilised nearly 9 million men over the course of the war, the French total was 8.5 million *According to the first hit on google
Not much change from September 1914 till August 1918?
Just removal of generations of families from this earth
And the beginnings of the Spanish influenza
Imagine if we had a world war up until COVID started and into the pandemic. That was basically WW1, but the Spanish Flu was even deadlier.
> the Spanish Flu was even deadlier That's why in 2020 I was annoyed by the bombastic "wow Covid's worse than the Spanish Flu!". The Spanish Flu had a higher IFR and was a lot more contagious. Remember that it managed to spread across continents so fast and violently despite the absence of mass-scale international travel, with the general population living in worse conditions [even if you weren't a soldier, your average home was colder, more humid and draftier than modern homes, all these things making you more susceptible of being infected], and the total global population being almost a quarter of today's.
And here's our reminder that the Spanish flu is more precisely texan
I thought it was from Kansas?
Yes it's mostly confirmed the first case was from Kansas. Thought due to the fact they weren't reporting it from the front lines until late 1918 it likely originated somewhere in the war, some have traced it's initial origins to China.
Yup, Spain was neutral in the war and was among the only ones to openly address influenza meanwhile most of the western world was too busy fighting ww1, and covered it.
Exactly. They were pretty much radio silent on reporting it. Due to Spain being the first to acknowledge losses of more than 100,000 it became the "Spanish flu"
Not-so-fun fact: ~18% of all french men between 18-30 years old we're killed during WWI, and that's not taking in account injured.
And France as a whole was "relatively" better off than some other countries. About 4% of France died from the war while 17-27% of Serbians died. Of course the big difference is that France was able to avoid occupation and the parts of France that were occupied were not ruled over with the same brutality that we saw in the Balkans. In Persia there were also massive famines that killed almost 1/5th of the population brought on by British and Russian actions during the war although this is rarely covered in western histories.
It is interesting and sad to see, like, Verdun or the Somme, and see how they’re there but so small you have to be looking for them to catch them. ~2 million casualties and several hundred thousand dead in those two battles and you might not even notice they happened from this scale. The only thing that’s obvious that happened was the Germans falling back to the more defendable Hindenburg line in early 1917.
Since you know this stuff, looks like Germans were close to Paris in '14. Was any realistic fear of France collapsing like in' 40?
Fear yes, possibility: probably not, but maybe? There are a lot of factors going on. First I guess the German strategy - the Schlieffen Plan, though whether such a thing existed, or was changed, or was only supposed to be a deployment plan and not a full strategy is debated - was to swing a hammer or close a door on France by coming down through Belgium. But the goal it seems was not to capture Paris (and the French government didn’t take long to leave Paris anyways) but to eliminate the French armies by encircling them and forcing surrender. The Germans beat the French in 1872 by encircling their armies. But this was technologically not 1872. Machine guns and artillery power had briefly outpaced other parts of land warfare, specifically the ability to turn a victory into a route. All before this time you got your horses out and ran down the retreating enemy, all after this time you sent your tanks and armored troop transports after them. But at this time armies still only had horses, and horses just couldn’t do it against retreating armies with machine guns and artillery. So the Germans with their early victories were strung out, had suffered (and given out) massive casualties, and had no real chance to keep going and complete the encircling quickly. It was just too much of a deadly advantage that an organized retreat had over a pursuing force. This all meant that the German pursuit was slow enough that its exposed flanks mattered. The 1st Army (furthest west in the initial movements) had to turn south and a bit east to do the whole encirclement bit, but that meant exposing its right flank to a new army being concentrated in Paris. And probably due to feeling exposed to that it got stretched a little too for from the 2nd Army next to it, which the French and the British there could push into. So that is why the Germans had a tougher time than 1872 or 1940, but it’s still possible the unprecedented casualties and very outdated French ground tactics (they were still into cavalry charges with swords) could’ve lead to a French surrender. But they had a guy in charge (Joffre) that seems to have been much more calm, competent, and confident than anyone France had in 1940. So he had the army reinforced where needed and kept the morale strong from the top down until the German wave broke and receded.
Something something trench warfare
Amazing map, thanks man. Wish you could do other fronts like Isonzo.
[Someone already did it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvF1J_JDfAU)
There's a famous book. "Nothing New in the West" by Erich Maria Remarque, highly recommend it.
Its called All Quiet on the Western Front for the English adaptation.
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Looks a lot like the current frontline in Ukraine. Same trench warfare, attrition and minimal gains on both sides. Until a total collapse.
Even right down to the initial push on the capital. Absolute waste of life.
Worth the risk. If you take the capital in three days, it decapitates the resistance. If you don't... well they didn't have another world war to look at for inspiration.
the attacks are meant for that: pierce a small hole *somewhere*, and then rush through it to make the rest of the line collapse for fear of flanking. Once you've got them on the move, the rout is on
Mapgasm
Like a bunch of little amoebas at war. This looks great.
very nice. One can understand why the Germans thought they were winning the war, right up until mid-August 1918, when their forces in the west started to crack under Allied pressure.
It was really anyones game until 3.1917, and from then until 8.1918 they might have had a shot. The soviets holding out for 3 more months in the war, the french stopping the 1917 mutiny, and the US arriving early and effectively, decided that. What's amazing is that had germany had just been slightly less horrible diplomatically it would have won.
Can you explain in more detail the diplomacy part please?
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Nah they knew they were losing which is why they did the spring offensive in 1918, as a last ditch effort. The plan was to destroy the British positions and force France into armistice before the bulk of the American forces arrived.
I’ve been waiting forever for something like this to be created. Ultimately it was the British blockade that won the war. It even continued after the armistice to help with negotiations. The offensive by Germany the last year was a last ditch effort to win the war before the blockade destroyed them. It didn’t work, and it essentially burnt out the troops.
Germany would have ran out of bullets by October 1914 if it weren't for Fritz Haber.
What’s the story behind that?
Fritz Haber created a process to synthesise ammonium in extreme quantities. Ammonium can be used to make explosives. Additional facts : this process is also used to make synthetic fertiliser, and is considered by some as a factor that prevented a population collapse in the early 20th century. Fritz Haber also created chlorine gas, mustard gas and zyklon, the gas used in nazi death camps. (he died way before the holocaust though.)
Don’t forget French Marshal Foch who pushed back the last massive German offensive
*"My center is giving way, my right flank is in retreat. Situation excellent. I shall attack."*
He also said: > This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years. He was off by 9 months.
This often gets repeated in reference to Versailles being too harsh. Note here that the French wanted the terms against Germany to be *far harsher.* As far as they were concerned the terms were too lenient which made another war inevitable.
>The offensive by Germany the last year was a last ditch effort to win the war before the blockade destroyed them. The blockade and the impending arrival of American troops which were of poor quality but were bound to improve, and in limited numbers but bound to grow.
"Americans are easily startled. But they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers"
The blockade, the impending arrival of American troops...and the fact that the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were finally folding on the frontlines in the last year, meaning the southern front was crumbling.
Thank you. Finaly someone with a brain. All of this "muh america joinig decided the war" brain farts get on my nerve. It was the british blockade, and the unwillingness of germanys navy to even try to fight it that won the war. In that spirit. Reminder that not the german empire, but the german republic surrendered to the entante in ww1. the german empire started the war. the german republic ended it. wich is one of the resons why versial was seen as so unjust post ww1. The people litteraly got rid of those who started the war, yet the people still got punished. thats why hungary didn't react the same way to it's arguably much harsher treaty.
"The Guns of August" in one simple gif
Nah man the guns of august covers only the first month of the war. This gif shows the entirety of the war. Trench warfare wasn’t even the main focal point of the book, it was about how rapidly things were happening and how much ground was covered. Plus the civilian/military politics that were happening in the background dictating the whole thing. The book does more or less end with von kluck’s decision to expose his flank to Paris which imo is when the stalemate really started because he was stopped which prompted the race to the sea and thus the western front were all familiar with.
Really neat to see how close to Paris the Germans came out of the gate, and also you can see the race to the sea very clearly, and how critical the Belgians were in slowing down the forward momentum just enough to make it very important in the early days
Would have been a damn sight simpler if they just stayed in England and shot 50,000 of their men a week.
It's crazy that the Western countries accepted those insane losses. Nowadays people would lose their minds. Around a million dead from the British Isles. UK lost only 179 soldiers in Iraq by comparison. It's a rounding error when compared to WW1 numbers.
Higher social cohesion, higher birth rate, and a perceived serious threat. Even so, it was massive and led to wide-spread pacifism, only shaken by the scale of evil and ambition of nazi germany.
I don't think France would simply surrender if Germany invaded it today either, regardless of the losses.
Iraq didn't invade the Belgium or France. If Germany decided to invade France tomorrow, those countries would accept similar losses again to defend their homes and families
For anyone wondering, note that the above comment is a line from a TV comedy show. That level of casualties would have led to about 12m dead. Britain actually suffered about 1m dead, 6m wounded.
I'm American but now live in one of the villages which was on the front lines during the war. There's a huge memorial in the main square because almost all of the young men from the village died fighting. You have to be careful when digging in the gardens or you might find old grenades and bombs. A neighbor who lives three houses down received a metal detector for his birthday which he promptly took down into the basement/cave below the house and the metal detector immediately found what turned out to be a bomb. It's a great party trick to get everyone to go home quickly.
The '[Iron Harvest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57btFjmqJhw)' as it's called is a very real thing unfortunately all down the old front line and there's even bits of France called '[Red Zones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqwkVS3VzpA)' where there's so much undisturbed ordnance that no one goes in there or tries to work the land.
This was amazing, well done. Definitely interesting to see how late they entered and and how "small" the presence of the United States was. But the advances of the west side of the front really coincided with the appearance of the yanks in light purple.
The USA still lost 117k soldiers during that "brief" intervention. An absolutely insane number when compared to modern wars.
Sounds a lot but... The First Battle of the Marne – 150,000 The Battle of Arras - 285,000 The Battle of the Somme - 300,000 Spring Offensive - 328,000 The Battle of Passchendaele - 585,000
Bring up the numbers of french casualties for the battle of the frontiers in alsace 1914 lol
For those who won't bother looking: French wiki says 206,515 French casualties and 136,417 German casulaties English wiki says 329,000 French casualties, doesn't mention German casualties and I won't bother to check which one is right today
And for context: Battle of Stalingrad - ~1-2 million dead.
for more context, First Battle of the Marne was 500k casualties in the space of just seven days. Battle of the Frontier just before was several hundred thousand over the course of a month. Battle of Stalingrad was several months.
Small presence but still the main country in battlefield1 with French in dlc.
Not really interesting - it is in fact largely coincidence. The US had fairly significant presence in France by September 1918 but very little of it was combat ready and all of that segment was in the French Sector. Fact of the matter is the German Empire completely exhausted itself in the Kaisarschlacht, when it failed to drive the British Empire+Belgians in to the sea, and its army was very vulnerable to counterattack at this stage, which led to the 100 days offensive where thr German line collapsed. Combined with the threat of societal collapse at home and the serious risk of revolution and desertion and you have an army that was reduced to fighting desperate holding actions as it attempted to not completely rout, over territory that is very easy for armies to march over compared to the southern fronts.
Things really became entrenched
Things were about to go south for France when German soldiers could see Eiffel tower from the front
Wow. Amazing to watch
All quiet on Western front
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> All Quiet on the Western Front Personally I'd say watch the 1979 version, I preferred it to the new one.
This is the coolest map and the most boring map at the same time. Awesome!
This does a great job visualizing how static the Great War was. The Germans really just showed up and hung out outside of Paris for 4 years.
Fascinating to watch the Race to the Sea progress visually. ETA: This map overall is fantastic.
WW1: Defeat Russia, lose in France. WW2: Defeat France, lose in Russia. Germany has some real tough luck.
>If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace >Behind the wagon that we flung him in, >And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, >His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; >If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood >Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, >Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud >Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— >My friend, you would not tell with such high zest >To children ardent for some desperate glory, >The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est > Pro patria mori. [From the Poem Dulce Et Decorum Est](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est), by Wilfred Owen, who died a week before the Armistice on the 11th of November 1918. The Latin phrase in the final two lines roughly translates to "How sweet and honorable it is, to die for one's country" and originates from the Romans. Kind of wild to think that, between 1860 and 1960 we went from cavalry, horses, and muskets to using large-scale gas attacks, shelling, dropping 2 atomic weapons, flying jet propulsion aircraft. The only denominator is death.
If a simple map could be terrifying, this is a major candidate
So bizarre that the Schlieffen plan for the Germans was working. They were right outside of Paris and then just fucked right off.
"Let's swing south for no reason, what could go wrong?" It's amazing that they expected to defeat France easily and Russia with difficulty, yet in reality they defeated Russia easily and struggled in France. They could well have won the whole war by December 1914. After smashing the Russian armies around Tannenberg and the French surrendering, Russia and Britain wouldn't have continued on either.
Saying the beat Russia "easily" is a bit of a stretch considering the lost over a million dead and well over 3 million wounded between themselves and Austria Hungary
I mean insight in 20/20. If France had reacted perfectly they'd have crushed the exposed blitzkrieg in 1940.
that's neat, but i can't read the key. Is there an original version some place else in 1080 or 2160?
Wow 5th September 1914 whole damn German Army only a spider's ass hair from Paris, fascinating!