Were WW1 officers and generals really so willing to let their soldiers die like they were nothing?

Were WW1 officers and generals really so willing to let their soldiers die like they were nothing?

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Jews gave orders to the officers

It was all a ploy to kill European gentiles

>During the course of the war, 78 British and Dominion officers of the rank of Brigadier-General and above were killed or died during active service, while another 146 were wounded, gassed, or captured.
>In August 1914, there were 28,060 officers in the British Army, of which 12,738 were regular officers, the rest were in the reserves. The number of officers in the army had increased to 164,255 by November 1918. These were survivors among the 247,061 officers who had been granted a commission during the war.

I can't speak for the Germans or the French but it was more dangerous to be an officer in the British Army than an enlisted man during the war.

Disproportionate officer deaths among the British were a direct result of late-Victorian idealism among the British aristocracy. They were there to play at war and lead their men triumphantly across the battlefield like Richard the Lionheart at the front of his army.

A fair number of them got taken out by snipers and machinegun fire as they tried to jump out of the trenches.

Not really. It was an issue of old doctrines and new technologies. People hadn't adapted to the idea of the machine-gun in an age of mass-industrial warfare. There's just not much you can do without refined infiltration tactics or widespread use of armor, both of which were developed late in the war for good reason.

In the early stages of the war, after the trenches were dug, Arthur Currie's bite & hold maneuvers were about the best you could do.

I imagine artillery was probably the biggest killer offficers as it doesn't discriminate between ranks (if anything, officers would probably be more at risk because the Germans would be aiming their guns at command centers) was the single largest cause of casualties in WWI (well apart from disease).

>aim guns at command centers
I don't think you understand the trench system. The command centers are in back, safe from almost all of the guns. You'd have to recon buildings that far back with planes if you wanted to hit them, and the Entente definitely had decent air support in the West, so I doubt that happened much.

The British officers definitely died because they did their job. Often stupidly. Loyally and forthrightly, but stupidly. This is what broke the fighting spirit in the UK; the Brits didn't have the lost generation casualty excuse the French did for not wanting to fight WW2. That is, until you realize it's the upper class who runs the country and they suffered losses at least as bad as the general French population if not worse.

The limits of the technological and doctrinal system they faced meant that a stalemate in the conditions of the Western Front after 1914 was inevitable. They developed better doctrines eventually, but it takes time to figure out how to evolve and adopt to the huge changes that WW1 held as compared to previous wars. Officers were sometimes blind and didn't understand things, but generally they were doing the best they could in an environment of rapidly changing technology where nobody really knew what would happen in the new war.

>There's just not much you can do without refined infiltration tactics or widespread use of armor

Thats simply not true. The brits just had immense difficulties to adapt to the new kind of warfare, probably because their aristocracy had much more presence in the war and actively inhibited any innovations with their swollen egos. The germans learned pretty fast, probably because frontline slodiers and even low ranking officers were just commoners trying to live through another day. While the brits usually had some cunt trying to build a portfolio leading a bunch of poor sods who all knew they would bite the grass in the next reckless assault.

I know the soviets officers in WW2. didn't give a shit. They literally threw a bunch of enlisted men towards the Germans until they ran out of ammo

Why did it happen Veeky Forums?
So much devastation and death
For what?

youtu.be/K0chmjfDLsw

The Protocols were fake news. They gave the aristocracy an excuse to steal Jewish settlements.

This. Meme. Again.

> For what?
Telegraph and railways meant continent-wide diplomacy. Leaders could communicate with each other and form alliances. But no leader wanted to be seen as untrustworthy in this new world stage. That's how a simple assassination became a European slugfest.

Most high commands thought the war would be over in months. They had no idea of the stalemate the war would become, or that it would turn into a war of attrition.

WW1 was a joke for officers. Czechoslovak army corps lost just 37,1% of men during the battleo f Dukla, but 93% of officers.

It was easier to have a war than to not have a war.

>implying only ww1 generals were willing to let their soldiers die in history
try every general every
the common soldier is just a pawn to them

> some people actually believe this

It's war. People are bound to die. That's why you have the concept of acceptable losses. It may sound callous to you, but there really is no way around it. That doesn't mean that officers don't care about their men. But losses are something that is inevitable, and fulfilling strategic objectives comes first because the high command is trying to either win or fight out a favourable peace treaty.

Protip: all officers and generals are willing to let their soldiers die like they are nothing.

youtube.com/watch?v=rblfKREj50o

Why did they think marching across mud and barbed wire into enemy machine gun fire was a good tactic?

Because
1) There really is no way around it. The front is heavily fortified with trenches. What were they supposed to do?
2) The impact of artillery barrages was often successful in subduing enemy positions. Rolling barrages were semi-successful, but they seemed like a very good idea at the time.
3) They didn't "march across mud and barbed wire". No man's land usually had a lot of cover due to previously mentioned shelling. It's not like they marched straight across a plain into machine-gun fire. They would have slowly advanced from one crater to another while supported by artillery. While that advance was usually costly, it wasn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be.
4) Retreating troops usually took heavy damage, so a successful attack could make up for one's losses by inflicting similar heavy losses on the enemy.
The biggest problem wasn't capturing enemy positions. It was holding those positions against a fresh wave of enemy troops after capturing them. Communication was much more difficult before radios, and reinforcements took time to arrive. That meant that the assaulting troops, who had already taken losses and were worn-out from battle, had to continue fighting without much time for fortification (the trenches they took were usually seriously damaged from shelling, and repairing them and creating machine-gun emplacements took time) against an enemy attack. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't.

Among the French, about 1 in 3 officers died, and 1 in 4 soldiers. That's for the infantry of course.

>*snap fingers*
>*get new men to fill the gaps in the ranks*
Gee, I don't know.

>That doesn't mean that officers don't care about their men.

No. It's a meme.
Most officers went over the top with their men.

I just realised the German in your image is standing in an entente trench

Also nice digits

>I hate Austrians who want to kill me, but I hate Italians even more

Luig "Leave the Italians to me" Cadorna was based though