Ask me literally any question about the first world war

Who was the best general?

Foch
He conduced the decisive offensive and made Germany surrender

Why didn't the Germans build tanks?

What was going on at Tahure? Two relatives of mine died there, both age 19.

"In Stahlgewittern" (Storm of Steel) by Ernst Jünger is an prime example.

Also "Infanterie greift an" (Infantry attacks) by Erwin Rommel is an good exampel as well.

Those were guys who were being shot at and killed others themselves. They saw the most disturbing and brutal shit you could imagine, and still they did not write anti war books.

Thank you very much. One more thing, what are your thoughts on Remarque? I found the way he presented the accounts of others to be interesting, even though it was in a narrative fashion.

Which nation had the best whores?

Why did it happen?

I never read his book because I dont like anti war books, never liked them at all.

I think Jüngers book is not really pro war but just him describing his emotions being enthusiastic about it.
His style of writing is like a journal, he just processes the stuff he experienced and felt. Same with Rommels book, I think they are much more neutral than Remarques book even though I did not read it.

Dude

Because Kaiser Wilhelm was an imperial lunatic who overestimated the might of the German army and wanted to see his flag planted all over Europe, Africa, and Asia

Assassination of Ferdinand is an excuse to invade Russia and establish eastern client states
If you invade Russia, you need to invade France too due to the alliance so Wilhelm authorizes the Schlieffen Plan
Britain then uses the excuse of the invasion of Belgium to join the war and defeat the last remaining threat to its empire

There's more to this obviously but its really not that hard to follow everything once you realize it was Germany's war

No he wasn't. Kaiser wilhem was weak and ineffectual. He had almost no real power and clung to delusions that his relatives in England would never go to war with him.

He basically served no purpose other than convenient propaganda for the British press, who pilloried him for nothing less than commenting on the genocide of the Boers.

Remarque to his credit remained very a-political but you could clearly discern he wanted to sway the country and others from falling into a future conflict on that scale. Beautifully written as well to say nothing else.

Nice Entente propaganda kool aid you are drinking there, is it sweet enough for you?

Well he is right about that but his book lead tot hat silly self harming anti militarism we have today, at least in Germany.

Like I said there's more to it.

The Kaiser's entire foreign policy was centered around a global empire which gave the military too much government influence. When the military has too much influence, you get wars. He was essentially a puppet by 1910.

I will give the Kaiser credit for stopping the invasion of the Netherlands which the generals also wanted.

> foreing policy was centered around a global empire
> talks not about England or France but Germany

uhhhm..

But wasn't rommel a officer or a jr. Officer or something?

Would the Central Powers have won if the US stayed out of the war?

Yes he was a lieutenant, but he fought at the front and killed people with his own hands, I read his book.

They were imperialists too, I never said they weren't. They were responsible for much of the tensions that isolated Germany and forced Wilhelm into his lunacy and increase his military's power.

Acting like WWI wasn't Germany's war is ludicrous however. Germany expanded it from AH's Slavic problem to Europe's problem. The generals even said they needed to invade Russia now or else they would lose in the future.

If WWI didn't happen in 1914, there likely would have been a scenario with France and Russia as the aggressors.

If Germany is responsible for WW1, Poland and England are responsible for WW2.

>saying the nation that declared war started a war is like saying nations that were invaded started a war

What?

Define "Won".

Given the performance of the Spring offensive, it's unlikely that even with Russia out, Germany could have dealt a decisive blow to France.

OTOH, it's pretty doubtful France and England could have regained the initiative without a ton of help (mostly in material and munitions and credit, not actual soldiers) from America. And even with the resources from the areas they acquired under the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the Entente can probably win a waiting game, but there's a non-trivial chance that they'd come to the peace table before terminal collapse of either side.

At that point, a lot is in flux, and you have to ask what constitutes winning WW1.

Germany supports its ally Austria that got attacked by Serbia and is threatened by Russia - > Germany is guilty

England supports its ally Poland that was attacked by Germany -> Germany is guilty

Can't have both

Why was Austria so fucking retarded?

Why we don't talk about the battles in African colonies ?

more like:
Serbian terrorists attack AH -> AH issues an ultimatum to capture terrorists -> Serbia agrees to all terms of the ultimatum except giving AH control of Serbia's justice system (which would have resulted in Serbia surrendering its sovereignty) -> AH threatens war -> Russia honors its alliance with Serbia -> AH asks Germany for support against Russia -> Germany gives AH the green light to invade Serbia -> AH invades Serbia -> Germany declares war on Russia and France

Italy had just as much of an obligation to defend AH but they didn't join the Central Powers because Germany and AH were conducting an offensive war

So how is this Germanys fault? Shouldnt the Germans have honoured their alliances so Austria stops being friends with Germany and Germany is isolated even more?
And Austria may be taken over by Russia so Germany has another direct threat at its borders?

Russia also mobilized as first nation, so they were ready to plunge Europe into a giant war just for little shitty Serbia.

Because there was no reason to invade Serbia in the first place. Serbia accepted all terms that preserved its sovereignty. AH got everything they wanted except a puppet state. Russia's mobilization was telling AH to fuck off in the Balkans. AH was about to stand down until they asked Germany for help and Germany gave them the green light to invade Serbia.

The Tsar was even sending the Kaiser telegrams telling the Kaiser to calm AH down and have AH and Serbia solve their differences at the Hague conference. Wilhelm responded that AH was going to invade Serbia and Russia had best stand down. Notice Russia wanted to solve the issue diplomatically and Germany wanted a war

How many of Tolkiens close friends were lost in The Battle of Somme?

>but his book lead tot hat silly self harming anti militarism we have today, at least in Germany

Good joke bro
Germany's second chimpout and the utter submission to the enemy that followed is responsible for that
Remember that Germany is still militarily occupied as we speak (and Hitler thought Versailles was harsh...lmao, imagine if he had witnessed post-WW2 peace)

They started the design process too late. German tank production didn't begin until the entente had successfully released tried and tested tanks. Thus only their first prototype hit the battlefield and was an absolute disaster because it required a crew of 18 men inside a 7x3x3m box to operate effectively.

Other tanks were being designed but Germany never reached the production phase of the process

Yes and No, of course the result of WW2 was worse but the book of Remarque fits the WW2 guilt narrative or German guilt anti militarism narrative perfeclty as well.

I would rebut the "chimpout" but I dont want to turn this into /pol/

The difference here is that the Czar had actual political power, unlike the Kaiser. Besides, Russia had been funneling weapons and money into the balkans against the Austrians for decades. The assassination wasn't the shot heard round the world, it was more like the straw that broke the camel's back. It's hilarious that they are doing the exact same thing now in Ukraine.

>Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine

I'm done here

Who by chance annexed Crimea? I mean I totally get that they only lost Crimea in the first place due to Stalin no, but it's hard to deny that it actually happened.

Starting shit in the rest of the Ukraine makes perfect sense anyway. If I were Czar I would do the same. Get a peace deal to stop the war in the mainland, meanwhile you still have Crimea which is what you really wanted in the first place. Best case scenario you gain both.

Russia has no formal alliance with Serbia my man, they just chimped out because "muh Pan-Slavism" and because they felt like the would become a secondary power if they didn't reassert influence in the Balkans

Russia only annexed Crimea because the US and EU fermented a coup to install a pro EU government in Ukraine, effectively stealing Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence. The Prime Minister of Ukraine was unelected for two years. I'm willing to accept the viewpoint that Russia is the aggressor in this conflict because you could argue the coup was the will of the people and Russia should accept Ukraine's destiny, but you have to admit the new government is not treating Russian speaking citizens well.

Budapest Convention of 1877. Serbia and Montenegro were declared neutral territory that could not be interfered with by the two powers

Is it safe to say the cause of the First World War was due to Colonialism eating itself to death?

>A secret agreement
>Signed four decades prior
>By a completely different tsar
>Specifically dealing with the Russo-Ottoman war of that year
>Relevant in the context of the July Crisis

If you stretch a bit further, you should be able to grab those pesky straws

>fermented
fomented

Besides, there's no indication that the EU was willing to accept another debtor nation into the fold, they just wanted trade rights. Russia was the only party that offered any form of bailout, which the Ukrainian govt could be expected to accept after the controversy died down.

Now the national Ukrainian government will be unable to make such a deal with Russia for a decade at the least. Russia might gain the Ukrainian eastern rust belt, and of course what else does Russia need but another rust belt?

Tell me more about this idea. Don't know about it nor could I find anything on it.

For Britain yes. Britain felt threatened by Germany's new naval and colonial ambitions so Britain made peace with France and Russia and pivoted towards an anti German strategy.

The issues on the continent that physically started the war was Pan Slavic nationalism interfering with an outdated empire, France's desire to reclaim Alsace Lorraine, and the German fear of encirclement due to the Franco Russian alliance none of which had anything to do with colonialism.

Britain was so afraid of the mothballed kriegsmarine that they mined neutral shipping lanes, killing the crews of countless neutral vessels. At least they didn't blockade the entire fucking continent again. Every other country in europe lost at least one war to get their rightful comeuppance, Britain is the luckiest country ever to have totally avoided any punishment for their actions.

It doesn't matter what the EU wanted, they financially backed a rebellion to overthrow the democratically elected pro Russian government and installed a pro European government which received 7% of the vote in the previous election. This pro European government is now treating ethnic Russians as second class citizens.

Shouldn't this warrant a Russian response?

Agreed. It seems they're now up to their usual antics and want to fuck Europe yet again

So are you saying that there basically would've been a armistice, and then a peace agreenment

Regardless of what you say the EU's intentions do matter, because realpolitik is played by people with intentions, not lobotomy patients with occasional imperialistic tendencies.

There was no chance of the EU intervening in Ukraine, the same way there was no chance of NATO intervening in Czechoslovakia. Putin would not have done shit if it was otherwise. Poker isn't played with showdowns, mostly one side will fold.

Putin needed a nationalistic narrative to prevent contagion and remain politically stable. If you are saying that Ukraine needed to be invaded because the Ukrainian bandits were acting up, then my god, why wait until now?

>Why were anti-war novels typically wroten by soldiers who never had frontline service
Barthas was front soldier for quite large part of the war. Same goes for Tito(although very few read about what he did during WW1).
In fact even Remarque who are you referencing right now has seen frontline service, although for relatively short time - but still, he was in Flanders so the "hot" part of the front and got shot during Battle of Passchendaele

Then you have plastic artists - like Otto Dix - who said they weren't pacifists and if you gave them a time machine he would volunteer again but at the same time their work wasn't about showing how awesome the war was.

You've got memed by /pol/ user.

>If Germany is responsible for WW1, Poland and England are responsible for WW2.
>declaring war on Belgium and France, encouraging Austria to attack Serbia and starting military action on French territory a day before the war broke out is equal to being attacked and honouring independence guarantee.

>Austria that got attacked by Serbia
psssst kid... it was the other way round.

Great Britain encouraged Poland to be unforgiving in the German/Polish Border situation, handing out a blanco check to Poland for a case of German aggression, Great Britain is guilty of starting WW2.

Poland would be unforgiving either way out of fear of being Czechoslovakia V2.
>1939
>trusting hitler

inb4
>YES MAN YOU SHOULD TRUST HITLER, HE JUST BROKE VERSALLIES TREATY, SAID IT WAS THE ONLY THING HE'LL DO, THEN HE ANNEXED AUSTRIA, SAYING HE WON'T GO ANY FURTHER, THEN HE GOT SUDETENLAND, SAYING IT'S HIS LAST DEMAND, THEN HE PARTITIONED CZECHOSLOVAKIA, SAYING IT'S HIS LAST DEMAND, THEN HE DEMANDED MEMEL...

>IF THEY GAVE HIM DANZIG AND CORRIDOR THERE WOULDN'T BE A WAR

Poland was happy about Czechoslovakia happening because they got a piece of the cake as welll.

I see you really like the allied kool aid.

And where's the connection between grabbing part of Czechoslovakia and not trusting Hitler's promises?

I can assure you that right after Danzig was given to Germans, few months later they would demand Polish part of Silesia and whole region around Posen

As if Britain wouldn't have declared war on belgium had they granted access.

As if French entry into the war wasn't already decided and the actual declaration a moot point.

Besides, according to many historians, had Austria declared war the day of the assassination, while they still basked in worldwide sympathy, it might have been politically impossible for any country to intervene. The Austrian leadership was pathologically incompetent.

How can you assure? Are you a wizard or just blindly hating Germany?

Germany takes parts of Czecheslovakia - > bad, not sticking to treaties!

Poland does the same -> lalalala what? Nothing happening over here

Germany marches into Poland -> bad! evil nazi Germans!

Soviet Russia marches into Poland -> lalalala what? Is anyhting going on here? No, thats what I thought.

>As if Britain wouldn't have declared war on belgium had they granted access.
I hope you do realise why they didn't otherwise you're an idiot.
>As if French entry into the war wasn't already decided and the actual declaration a moot point.
Doesn't change the fact that the first skirmish of WW1 involved German scouting party attacking French and it was BEFORE the declaration of war.
>had Austria declared war the day of the assassination, while they still basked in worldwide sympathy,
Lolz nigger, you have no idea what are you talking about. International opinion about this was "where is that Sarajevo? Balkans? Wew lad, nothing unusual". The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was a filler material for newspapers, just like today the articles about craze around some meme in tabloids. He wasn't the first that got assassinated there and certainly not the last.

>As if French entry into the war wasn't already decided
Seeing as the anti-war socialist government actively hindered mobilization, literally urged Russia not to step things up and stir shit with Germany, and withdrew troops from the border, then no, I do not think French entry into the war was 'aready decided'.

How do those events disprove the absolute unreliability of German diplomatic overtures during the thirties, Satan?

>Germany takes parts of Czecheslovakia - > bad, not sticking to treaties!
Nah.
Germany promises not to take part of C-S, takes it. Germany promises to not annex/partition the rest of it, it does, Germany promises not to take anything else, they take Memel, Germany promises they only want Danzig and corridor and you're trying to tell me that you can trust them to not break that promise? Are you fucking idiot?

except they were pissed that the Soviets entered Poland and were planning on intervening in the Winter War and would have intervened had they not been at war with Germany

I will team up with other guys and invade your house, blame you for it and take parts of your house and family away from you so that you can barely sustain yourself while I mistreat your family in the parts of the house that now belong to me.

HOW DARE YOU TO NOT TO ACCEPT THIS YOU NAZI

I really can't understand the German thinking at this time. Yes, Poland is your closest and easiest expansion, but why the fuck would you want a border with the Soviet Union? Poland's existence in the first place is a masterpiece of German statecraft, placing a buffer against Russia.

Also for WWI, if Germany had granted easy terms to Russia, would it have been possible to obtain interior lines of supply and wait out and bring the western Entente to the negotiating table? Or is anything east of Germany too fucked up at this point to be of any material or economic value? Could they have at least placed the Entente in an awkward situation, by casting their division of spoils in a hypocritical light? Would it not give credence to the claim that they were fighting a war for honor and not profit?

What was the legal rationale? Weren't they technically obligated by treaty to fight both aggressors? And how did they justify turning a blind eye to the Soviet crushing of the Polish Home Army during the latter phases of the war?

Nigga, it's about realpolitics. Poland could grab part of Czechoslovakia so they did so. However, they would likely turn into Czechoslovakia V2 if they'd accept German demands and they knew it.
>but why the fuck would you want a border with the Soviet Union?
Because Soviet Union was the closest Germany had to ally ever since treaty of Versailles(especially after Ligorno). It's very simple user.
>Poland's existence in the first place is a masterpiece of German statecraft, placing a buffer against Russia.
Haha, no.
The reason Poland as a thing existed back then was that Woodrow Wilson wanted it so they've tipped a hat towards him and after Russia went down in Civil War, French still wanted reliable counterweight to - now weakened - Germany, so they needed something in its place. And they've got Poland. Obviously they've never guaranteed it's western border for the reason being - they knew that any "rebirth" of German militarism will target Poland first which will lock them again in two front war.

Nice double standards there, look you can just admit that you hate Germany, just dont pretend you were neutral about this.

Yes, not fighting the Soviet Union over Poland is breaking international law. They only got away with it because they were the ones enforcing it.

They didn't turn a blind eye to the PHA. You're forgetting about the whole Cold War where the west dedicated over 50 years of foreign and domestic policy to fucking the Soviet Union every chance they got. You can't just fight a larger military power with better supply lines coming out of the most destructive war in human history. Britain was forced to ration well into the 1950s.

>And how did they justify turning a blind eye to the Soviet crushing of the Polish Home Army during the latter phases of the war?
By throwing the "elite" part of Polish exile army - 1st Para Brigade - to the battle that was already lost and blaming them for failure. This lowered the prestige of the exile government and thus - its legitimacy. Then they've assumed the "Lublin government"(communists) was the legit Polish government and didn't care about anything coming from the exiles. It's important to note that apart from Carton de Wiart, hardly any British military leader liked Poles, which influenced those decisions.
No double standards.
Germany was opportunist just like Poland. Which doesn't mean Poland should trust Germany. Mr. butthurt germanboo.

I am not butthurt I am just tired of Poland being portrayed as the poor victim while itself was trying to invade its neighbors from 1919 to 1930*s

I don't portray them as poor. I'm saying that from the perspective of Poland, trusting Germans was pretty stupid thing to do.

From a German perspective; would you have trusted Poland?

Trusted them to do what?

Why do you avoid the question?

Not mistreat ethnic Germans within their land, not forging a two fronts alliance with france against you to take Berlin, not to do partisan attacks like the fight at Annaberg. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_Uprisings

and to give Danzig back? Poland did infiltrate Danzig politcally and made it de facto dependant on Poland.

Unreliable in comparison to whom?

>Not mistreat ethnic Germans within their land
Didn't happen, literally all sources about it are German. Germans had constitutionally guaranteed seat in Parliament back then.
> not forging a two fronts alliance with france against you to take Berlin
Don't start the war then.
>not to do partisan attacks like the fight at Annaberg
This was right after they've declared independence and the shape of western borders wasn't settled down yet.
>Poland did infiltrate Danzig politcally and made it de facto dependant on Poland.
They should be happy that Wilson bailed out from negotiations because there would be no "free city of Danzig" if it wasn't for it.

>mistreat ethnic Germans
This needs to die. The Poles have a long history of successfully administrating ethnically diverse lands with zero problems. There were no issues in Poland and I imagine there were no issues in the Sudetenland

How were the Germans even being mistreated in your version of Poland?

To anyone really, given their poor track record of keeping their word considering their actions with regard to the treaty, Austria, Czechoslovakia, then Czechoslovakia again, then Lithuania.

It seems to me you are pushing an agenda here. Siegfried Sassoon was decorated for bravery,anti-war; Robert Graves served in combat and again hardly wrote a flattering picture of the war, even your reading of Juenger lacks nuance, while he wrote of the thrill of combat, there are scenes of abject terror and horror.

Why were the great European powers so imperialistic in their own continent?

Weren't most squabbles over international territory?

I'm reading A German Soldier's War Experience. The war should have never happened, it was more useless than the Vietnam war.

Exactly how many potato-peelers were misplaced by Latvian midwives while searching through drawers for a wet rag during World War I?

>The war should have never happened, it was more useless than the Vietnam war.
What does that even mean? There were powerful factions within the leaderships of several involved countries who literally disagree with you - to an extent that they actively pursued and wanted war.

And it certainly was not useless for those who were dragged into it and defended their homeland. Is a war useless because one side did not get to achieve its aims? Like, what are you even saying? It's not like everyone woke up and suddenly found themselves puzzled to be at war.

>What does that even mean?

I should be asking you? What the hell are you even saying, do you not know of French mutiny, the Bolshevik revolution, Christmas truce, La Chanson de Craonne, Conscription Crisis of 1918 etc.

>There were powerful factions within the leaderships of several involved countries who literally disagree with you - to an extent that they actively pursued and wanted war.

Man, who in their right mind would say such a stupid thing? The war is needed because the King said so? Jesus Christ

>And it certainly was not useless for those who were dragged into it and defended their homeland

Start a war over a terrorist killing an Arch-Duke, great reason to drag your countrymen into the slaughter.

>Besides, according to many historians,
With this you mean John Keegan

Was 1st Marne really all that decisive or was continued German advance in the early stages soon unsustainable anyway?

It's laid out in pic related, although the book covers quite a bit more than Early WW1 naval maneuvers or lack thereof.

I'm skipping over a lot here, because he lays it out over like 20 pages, but a very tldr version goes:

1) The High Seas Fleet was actually a strategic liability, not an asset. It wasn't strong enough to actually secure victories vis a vis your main naval opponent, the British, but as long as it's in place, it frightens Albion enough that they'll always be in the arms of your enemies. If you want that 90 day war, you need to lose the fleet
2) As a corollary to that, the fleet alone was a negative utility. But spending a huge chunk on a fleet like that and then barely using it is unbelievably retarded.
3) At the outset of war, the German dreads are in Kiel. The British dreads are way further north. and cannot intercept the HSF if they make a dash to the channel.
4) Send EVERYTHING to the channel the second Britain enters the war.
5)Smash the few cruisers that are there, sink any transports you find, but most importantly, shell all the ports you come across, especially on the French side.
6)You'll have a good 36-72 hours before you see the Home Fleet, depending on how quickly the British react once they spot your armada.
7) Keep moving west, keep shelling, avoid contact with the Brits as long as possible, try to maximize damage.
8) Eventually though, the British will catch and sink your fleet. Oh well.
9) However, you should have caused enough damage to delay the British deployments to France by 4-8 weeks. (Lots of math and citations omitted in support of this)
10) You now have a battle of the Marne without some 1/5 of the Allied troops, which might be enough to secure victory in France, and is certainly the best you're likely to get out of the HSF

I would try to read it! I have read Storm of Steel but All Quiet on the Western Front is a true classic

all of them. Seriously to a man