World War One: Myths/Misconceptions

People always tend to portray the men who fought in this war as being really uniformed, both clothing and equipment, but the more I read the more I think this couldn't have been the case. Most of those guys were always scrambling for anything good that was going; boots, coats, binoculars, weapons, wine... And not just between rank/class but also between any other nations army within reach at any time.
I'll post a few examples to show you what I mean but I don't know, I'm starting to wonder if this idea is all just a result of that patriotic repertoire that followed or what?
What do you think Veeky Forums, am I missing something here?

Pic Related: Irish soldiers wearing German Lobster Armour with a captured Machine Gun.

Myth: Britain was the main Allied nation

Reality: France was

Most modern wars are portrayed as being more heroic than they actually are user.

Pic related is a must read btw , dispels a lot of myths about the Napoleonic era

Probably the most prevalent myth I see is that Western Front offensive actions were people slowly walking into no-man's-land to be effortlessly mown down by machine gun and artillery fire, endlessly directed by commanders who either didn't know how disastrous they all were or didn't give a shit that they were.

In reality, trench warfare was very much attack counterattack counter counter attack, etc. And quite a few of those assaults were at least temporarily successful. Getting over the top wasn't the only problem, holding wahtever you took against a counterattack that was sure to come when your unit was necessarily exhausted and at reduced strength and much further away from your own supporting guns than the enemy's artillery is what made holding gains near-impossible.

USA was

Poilu is a great one for this, theres a few instances but my favourites are when Barthas makes an officer jealous and spiteful when he finds and keeps a nicer pair of officers binoculars from a body. And much later officers steal a couple of British raincoats intended for those in the outposts at night.

Actually Portugal was.

It's sad this doesn't just go without saying.

Thanks, I'll check that out when I finish WW1.

Yeah I think I'm with you hear, soldiers always report that the sound of the cannon went on every single night.
Though the majority of the officers did seem either cruel or clueless when it comes to the day by day.

The British flight boots talked about in the early chapters of All Quiet On The Western Front.

> USA was meaningless

USA decided the war.

It doesn't just go without saying because the British army (along with its american auxiliaries)defeated germany by breaching the Hindenburg line in 1918 therefore making it the main allied nation

It was a war of attrition, troops were very much part of a whole lot of maths. All the of the allied forces involved were used in union of eachother, heck a french general even took charge of some of the British army. Americans were trained and equipped by the French. When a weak spot was found, the allies used the best readily available regiment to attack and along the front varying forces acted along with it.
Considering the vast stalemate and length of the front, summing up the victory with just a final blow is pretty insulting. Besides, thinking in that way means you'd have to accept Russia won WW2 when they took the Reichstag.

The USA entered the war in 1917 and didn't have an impact on actual combat until 1918. Even then, American soldiers in Europe were not very numerous compared to their French counter-parts.

I remember hearing about a british captain who stole and used a trenchgun

Best officer in the war reporting

>Before he died he handed over his pocket-book to me, and bequeathed me his boots--the same
that he once inherited from Kemmerich. I wear them, for they fit me quite well. After me Tjaden
will get them, I have promised them to him.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Pretty sure the main Allieed nation is the one that

-Stopped the German advance at the First Marne in 1914
-Held all of Verdun and half of the Somme during the peak of the Western Front in 1916
-Lead the decisive Hundred Days Offensive in 1918

Kemmerich has his watch stolen whilst in hospital but won't let anyone have his "fine English boots of soft leather which reach up beyond the knees" until he finds out his leg has been amputated and dies shortly after.

>Beligerents: Austria-Hungary
>nothing under troop strength or commanders
Has Germany ever had useful allies?

"Colt 1911 45 pistol serial number C 13336 made in November of 1914 and sent to the London Armoury Co, London England. It has the very early and small British proofs and was most likely a British Officer's private purchase sidearm for his use in The Great War, WW1."

they had heavy artilery stationed there, just several hundreds of troops, in 1918 they sent about 7000 if i remember right, A-H army was much better than Kraut one

Luigi Cadorna got rid of them

based king albert

LaughingRussians.jpg

>Stopped the German advance at the First Marne in 1914
Sorry to break it to you, but it was the BEF whose attack split communications between the german first and second armies, causing them to retreat (see map)

A-H Defeated Serbia+Montenegro, Romania and Russia. Krauts defeated Luxembough.

>AH defeated serbia
Didn't they get their asses absolutely handed to them the first two times they invaded?
>romania
With a large amount of german help
>russia
what the fuck are you smoking

A-H was basicaly the only competent member of the Central Powers, Ternal Kraut destroyed everything once again

go to bed conrad

US still sold weapons and supplies to the Entente.

>Albert of Belgium
>Took personal command of Belgium and held against superior german forces, fighting alongside his men while his wife the queen volunteered as a nurse.

>Albert Jacka
>Australian soldier who singlehandly captured a turkish trench after all of his men were killed or wounded and held it alone for a whole night.

>Albert Roche
>French soldier who singlehandly defended his trench against a enemy assault right after all of his company was killed by german artillery. Later he refused to abandon his lieutenant and they both were captured by germans, he then proceed to disarm the german interrogating him and brought back his wounded lieutenant on his back as well as 42 other french prisonners.

Why were the most badass men of WW1 all named Albert?

>Took personal command of Belgium's army

>Alberto Barbarosa
>Portugese african-american who volunteered with the german army in ww1

Don't go full retard Nigel
At the First Marne, 1.4 millions Germans faced 1.1 million French and 0.05 millions (50,000) Brits

>Myth: Britain was the main Allied nation
I've never seen this being said, isn't claiming to be the main Allied nation more of a WWII thing with Americans?

Are you high? The entire Russian front was a cycle of the Russians stomping the Austrians and then losing to the Germans. And Romania was holding until the collapse of Russia which made their position untenable, the Austro-Hungarians in no way defeated them.

>A-H Defeated Serbia+Montenegro
My friend, you seem to have mixed up your sentence. It should be 'Serbia+Montenegro Defeated A-H'.

Supplies but not really weapons, when US troops arrived in France they often had to be armed with French weapons and British equipment.

yes, and it was the BEF that crossed the river marne breaking communications between the german armies, your point?

they also put at risk Britain's oil supply by fucking over Mexico

>I've never seen this being said

So you didn't hear about that popular WW1 video game that came out in 2016?
You know, the one that had 4 out of 6 campaign stories revolve around Britbongs and had France and Russia be shitty DLC (with no story)

The Germans retreated because the French managed to field their army back in front of them with Taxis
Don't try to act more important than you were
Britain was irrelevant until mid 1916

Might it be that their biggest market would be Americans who could empathise better with Anglophones?

Just because brave french soldiers are driving around in taxi is not going to make the Germans retreat, the real reason was because they lost their lines of communication and could no longer co-ordinate

But what about the Canadians eh boys?

No French campaign was bullshit. On the lighter side, the BF1 campaign was bullshit so maybe they did France a favour.

we all know both world wars were the Brits throwing Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis and even Pajeets at their enemies

>no german campaign either
I recognize that the g*rmans were dickheads during ww1 but that shit happened almost a century ago, it should be fine to make a fucking short campaign where you play as them

Agreed, especially for ww1.
That bit in Poilu when the German soldier says to the French solder that they're comrades but the officers aren't.

>no French story
>no German story
>Four (4) British stories

This game gave me cancer

what do you expect of Swedes?

Oh come off it. Even at Gallipolli the majority were British.

British Australians and Irish

while belgium was a pretty much a meme during WWII, the belgian resistance to the german assault was critical during the early months of WWI

No, British.

That's an understatement. Belgium's firm resistance is what screwed Germany. They caused just enough of a delay to give France time to mobilize. If Belgium hadn't stepped up to the plate, the Schlieffen Plan would have worked without a hitch and the war would be ended much differently, with Imperial Germany emerging as the unequaled Great Power in Europe.

Would you say their role could be compared to Greece's during WW2?

The French mobilized before the Germans and attacked Germany.
They were decisively beaten in the battle of the frontiers and fell back in disorder towards Paris

The only army that stood in their was was the BEF (only corps size) This halded the encirclement of Paris by the german armies.

I'm no fan of BF1 and I think it's a shame that the French were left out of the main campaign (obviously to sell DLC) but by your dishonest /int/tard """reasoning""" those 4 campaigns might as well be French because of the Normans. Those 4 """Britbong""" campaigns break down as 1 Bedouin campaign, 1 ANZAC, 2 British. Also nobody is claiming the breakdown represents "relevance" except for /int/shitters like you that just want to resurrect the hot anger of that big crywank they had over a game that was released a year ago. "Relevance" is a meme that gets in the way of a good story anyway, if relevance was an objective the vast majority of the campaign would be some shit boring logistics minigame.

Well memed
You forgot to mention the part when Germany won WW1 and imposed the very harsh Versailles Treaty on France, causing them to go full nazi 20 years later

>implying being depicted or not in mainstream media on a historical event isn't what shape normies (90% of the pop) idea of who was relevant

>WW1 was worse than WW2
>Every battle was like the Somme/passchendaele
>Soldiers walked toward the enemy in lines and got mowed down

See this guy
He has been spooked by the "Brits = main Allied power" meme as he uses the Somme/Passchendaele as exemples of WW1 being bad instead of much more horrific Verdun

This. Belgium changed the face of the world in few days. For absolutely no reason... (this is one of the biggest mysterious turning point in history to me)

The USA's importance is in the war is misunderstood. Yes, they didn't fight much compared to the other allies, but the reason they were important was because they simply showed up. The idea of tens of thousands of fresh soldiers completely destroyed German morale. The war could've been a stalemate for a while if the USA hadn't shown up.

They believed Germany would lose anyway and thought France would treat them badly if they let the Germans pass

I'm presuming a bit here, but anglophones are probably taught about British battles over French battles.

>British battles

No such things
There were almost as many French at the Somme as there were Brits

Besides the grief wanks of Gallipoli and Passchendale we mostly leaned about Verdun and the Marne, and the Somme was a combined offensive
t. Australian

Wah wah british education focuses on battles fought by the English. The guy is likely a bong and Somme is a hallmark of all the stuff that went wrong in WW1 in the public eye.

That doesn't take away from the other powers, but for England, it is the one lodged in the public consciousness.

Verdun was bigger sure, but it was also French. How many regular people know about the Russian battles of WW2?

> i-if allies are there it isn't their battle!

What the fuck are you even trying to argue, you delusional half wit?

If there is a formation of troops from a nation participating in a battle then it is their battle. It's semantics to quibble over the fact lots of Frenchmen had a simulteanous offensive planned.

>How many regular people know about the Russian battles of WW2?

Stalingrad?
Everyone

We treated them badly anyway... French troops shot everything that moves crossing the border, German or Belgian, civilians include.
But yes, they probably had faith in victory. Their role is vastly underrated.

You're fucking retarded, the french had already mobilized and were engaging the germans in the frontier. It through a wrench in the german plans, sure, but it wasn't disastrous.

>the French Fifth Army which carried out the majority of the attack apparently does not exist

They sent four divisions in 1918, about 50,000 men. They were mostly chewed up by the Americans in their sector, taking 17,500 casualties. Memes aside these men were all veterans of the Eastern and Italian fronts and had to pass standard German training as well before being sent to the front, so they would actually be some of the better troops Germany had at their disposal, above the average conscripts at least.

>be general chief of staff of any nation's armed forces
>arm and clothe your soldiers once AND ONLY ONCE
>ehh whatever I don't need to think about it any more

Just like in my Japanese tactical role-playing video games....whoa. Sasuga, reality...

i am one trillion percent certain that the Eastern Front during WW1 is bigger than in WW2
Just by seeing the figures during the earliest days and the closing days of The Great Wars shows that the Western front was a tad bit smaller than the peak of the Eastern Front which might not even be the peak of deployment (somewhere in 1915)
I think we should unravel the mystery of how large the Eastern Front in WW1 is

Sure, but the Allied Powers losing millions of men in offensives, when it should have been obvious after the first year of war that defenders had huge advantages, is inexcusable. It's the Central Powers who had to do something or get starved by the blockade. The Allied Powers had no need to try to rush towards a victory. They just had to try to make sure Russia wouldn't collapse (and as we saw in the real timeline, they ended up winning even though Russia did collapse).

anyone have the tier chart on who was responsible?

Also how everyone had semi automatic or automatic guns too

>Sure, but the Allied Powers losing millions of men in offensives, when it should have been obvious after the first year of war that defenders had huge advantages, is inexcusable.
They don't though. It was extraordinarily rare for a successful defense to have casualties less than 80% of what the attacker suffered. The defenders did not have huge advantages; it was just that it was enormously difficult to attain any sort of tactical advantage, since the maneuvering and concentration of firepower that pretty much all previous tactical sets depended on was not feasible on the Western Front.

A side that consistently huddled in defense would very likely lose, and handing over that initiative would be very foolish. Even failed attacks were usually failures not because the attacks faltered on the trenches, but because they couldn't stop counterattacks.

>the Allied Powers had no need to try to rush towards a victory.
That is an economic prediction based on factors that were generally not known at the time. Furthermore, as long as the war is going on, it's costing a hell of a lot blood and treasure the longer it goes on, and the blockade did not win the war in and of itself, it simply weakened Germany to the point that collapse headed from that (and other) directions.

>A side that consistently huddled in defense would very likely lose
Why? Why would staying on the defense have caused the Allied Powers to lose?
>That is an economic prediction based on factors that were generally not known at the time.
But they could have been known with sufficiently good intelligence work and strategic thinking.
>Furthermore, as long as the war is going on, it's costing a hell of a lot blood and treasure the longer it goes on
It would have cost a lot less had the Allied Powers stayed on the defensive.
>the blockade did not win the war in and of itself, it simply weakened Germany to the point that collapse headed from that (and other) directions.
True, but I think that had Russia not collapsed, a combination of the Allied Powers successfully defending all fronts plus the blockade would have forced the Central Powers to ask for terms eventually. The Allied Powers would have gained, at the least, Germany's African colonies from such a conclusion. And likely more. I imagine that Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire stood good chances of dissolving one way or another.

The most mainstream myth is that the commanders were all retards leading brave men to their deaths. The commanders were not idiots as much as realists and trying to find tactics to an ever changing battlefield. Some were idiots, but many were good at adapting as the war went on.

Would it have been better or worse if Germany won?

The eastern front in WW2 was Baltic to Black Seas and all the way out to Moscow. WW1 was much smaller, area wise. Or are you talking land forces. I'm pretty sure Russia threw tens of millions at the Germans.

>hitler used teleporters to bring german army to stalingrad
>stalingrad defenders won, then used the teleporter to go to berlin
this pretty much sums the western depiction of eastern front

You were saying?

I know Germany really fucked up by not leaving sooner, lost a lot of resources, i also know Russia just got through having a violent Communist usurping, and was about to have another, so the men didnt have much

It was more the effective morale it gave the allies.

>20 years
> just got out