How much slack can you reasonably give the WW1 generals for their

>>3369687
The first few months of the war were fought like a 19th century war. By the end of the war they were pretty good at trench warfare. I don't really get your point.

>>3369687

>>3369687
>it's as easy to predict near future as look back to history.

>>3369687
There were generals who were stupid and bull-headed on the tactical side (looking at you, Britain) but on the strategic level there was nothing else that could've been done.
The scope of mass society had (and still has) turned war into a sort of prisoner's dilemma. When powers were mobilising modern, professional armies in the millions or even tens of millions, on a national level, countries had to meet parity just to defend themselves and play the game at all. Bar an extreme lopsidedness in the quality of command it was impossible to force a quick, bloodless victory under these conditions. There were no mechanised units and the tank arrived late in the war and was too immature to prove of any serious use.
All powers at the time recognised this to a degree and that was why there was such an impetus towards finding some sort of technology that might break the deadlock. Air power might have proven a strong candidate, but the zeppelins proved militarily inconclusive and for the most part only served to turn public opinion in Britain against Germany. Chemical weapons had a similar effect. The whole situation in WWI was an unfortunate accident of time and logistics.

>>3369687

The only generals who really deserve hate are

1. the ones who refused to adapt in any way and blamed the grunts for their lack of success. (Cadorna, Nivelle)

2. The ones who refused to admit that they were ever beaten on the battlefield, paving the way for the 2nd World War. (Luedendorf)

3. The ones who started the fucking war in the first place. (Hotzendorf)

>start war of unprecedented size using flashy new weapons no one fully understands
>eventually descends into trench warfare which no one has seen before
>generals convinced this is temporary irregularity and with one big push it will return to Napoleonic warfare
>very slow on uptake of new technology
>many generals totally inflexible when it comes to new ideas

to a large extent they are to blame, especially for ordering large offensives that were obviously not going to succeed, but desu it would still have taken them ages to develop the tactics and equipment to break the deadlock on the western front so it was sort of a choice between doing what they did or doing nothing at all. also keep in mind most of these generals were promoted via nepotism.

On the Western front, the best you could probably have gotten was widespread adoption of Arthur Currie's "bite-and-hold" tactics and abandonment of sweeping offensives.

The issue of WW1's trench warfare isn't solvable on the level of strategy, or even the level of tactical command. Technology offers some possibilities for breakthrough in the form of armor and air power, but there's also the issue of doctrines. Honestly, if it weren't for the advent and rapid improvement of armor, I think that adoption and refinement of infiltration tactics would have been the deciding factor.