A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, people have not been able to develop any war tactics past the infantry line

Would be good a point, but even during the imperial era everyone was still fighting like it's 1914.

You a retard.
>Haha I called him a retard. That probes I'm smart than him. Thank God I've proven my self to the anons on the internet.

Could you provide a point or add to the discussion? Not everyone can type perfect English. Some people in the world arnt from America. You ignorant twat. At the very least correct me so you have a base for shit talk and I could learn. (I doubt there is a base for your shit talk.)

...

It takes a smart person to say a smart thing? So I guess no one smart has gotten into development of war tactics? I mean I think most had has been with either small scum pirates/terrorist. Or Had to do with Jedi and Sith. And Sith are Hard to work with and Jedi are Jedi.

Meaning anyone that would actually be good at tactics would about because it isn't tactful to work with a sith, or the Jedi didn't let them because they weren't attune with the force?

What I just said was a lot of trying to make a point I hope it got across.

>Fighting like it's 1914.

So you have no idea about how people fought in 1914.

Mostly like they did in 1850 until they realize that it was hard to move past a mile tall mountain of corpses.

Stop spouting misconceptions and read a book.

By all means feel free to enlighten us on the truth then.

The two best books to read as an introduction to the Western Front in 1914 are Infantry Tactics by Erwin Rommel which discusses French and German small unit tactics and Fire and Movement by Peter Hart which covers the BEF.

In very, very large brush strokes, units would typically advance in conjunction with artillery and direct field gun/machine gun support in skirmish lines, going to ground upon receiving fire and engaging in fire superiority while trying to advance with the focus being on rapid movement and trying to flank an enemy position with cavalry being employed to help with an assault and to cut down retreating troops. Nothing like the ACW which was largely a misinterpretation of Napoleonic tactics where units would exchange fire in close ranks without closing. Close attention was paid to the ground and defilade was sought.

Absolutely nothing like what the Prequel Era Star Wars depicts. There were incidents when units were marching in close order and came into contact with the enemy unexpectedly, but that was not the norm and upon contact attempted to disperse into a much looser, ground hugging positions.

Where it more closely resembled earlier conflicts was the focus on platoon commands rather than individual section commands, in the French and German armies; the British focused on the section due to their experiences in the Boer War.

Where do we ever see anything like that?

There are no large actions in Episode IV, in Episode V the rebels are defending a fixed position, you still make entrenchments in such a situation today.

In episode VI the Imperials only march out in formation, they scatter into cover as soon as they realise they are being attacked.

Here's a good account of a number of German battalions in the early days of the First World War.

wargaming.org.nz/infantry fire fight 1914.html

>The tactical doctrine of the time generally seemed to involve several stages: advance in skirmish order to contact, deploy and engage in the fire fight, win the firefight and then advance to contact to defeat the enemy. This was not a fast process. Zuber's accounts for example talk of fire fights lasting hours rather than minutes.

I know admittedly less of mid-1800s warfare, but I was fairly sure that the artillery barrage had slowly become standard far before WW1. In fact I am fairly sure I recall Napoleon using that tactic during the early 1800s, tho he was noted as being innovative for it at the time.

You make entrenched positions for that today, but not a huge line with all your troops close together, and the empire has absolutely no excuse for full frontal assaults during that battle, and yet that's what they do, the empire also uses close line formations during Rogue One.

You're casting pearls before swine. It's not that they can't understand your explanations, it's that they do not want to understand your explanations. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Only idiots would attempt to rationalize or otherwise explain the ground and space "tactics" seen in the "Star Wars" movies. Those "tactics" exist and are used only because they look "kewl" to the children, both chronologically and mentally, the movies are aimed at.

>sci fi
>space fantasy
literally the same thing

Shut up nerd

Well their frontal assault worked excellently because their vehicles were immune to the rebel guns. Also we only see infantry deployed once the rebels have broken and are fleeing back into their base.

And when do the Empire do that in Rogue One? The only people I remember being bunched up were the people ambushed when they were coming out of that doorway.

Smug Obi Wan is a miracle of the universe and anything with him is okay in my book.
I'd kill for a RotS Smug Cut with all his cut banter back in.

That was very different; Napoleon's Grand Battery was massed field guns firing directly at units in line, focusing fire on visible formations to destroy cohesion before columns of infantry and cavalry smashed into them and even at the time, it was countered by moving into defilade or dispersing.

Command and control had improved significantly over the course the 19th century with a far greater focus put on small units with independent officers and NCOs; this is a very broad sweep of course but is true for the most parts. The military establishment of 1914 were not idiotic or ignorant; smokeless powder rifles had been around for thirty odd years and their power alone had been proved very effective; the skirmish lines of the Prussians had proven effective in 1864, 1866 and 1870. The focus was on fast movement, using the terrain to shield yourself from enemy fire and closing as quickly as possible after engaging the enemy with overwhelming firepower. The problem is that everyone was very good at doing this to the extent that you couldn't maneuver or bring up enough firepower without similar firepower being brought down on you.

It is soothing to know that there are other fine gentlemen of superior intelligence out there
*tips fedora*

>focusing on fast movement and firepower led to years of trench warfare
It's like pottery

It's literally what happened; both sides had too much firepower and men to really break through and they kept trying to flank each other again and again until they hit the Swiss border and the English Channel. Imagine a constant swirl of men, cavalry and bicycles constantly pushing and flanking each other until they ran out of room to do so.

It's not. Science Fiction is speculative, even in the softest cases. Star Wars, meanwhile, is intentionally built upon the basis of the original "fantasy" stories, the Monomyth. Everything about it is Fantasy with the serial numbers scratched off. There are giant Space Doomsday Weapons instead of dragons, the black knight is a cyborg, the evil sorcerer is a space emperor, and the heroic farmboy that takes up his father's sword knows how to fly a spaceship. There's even giant evil castles surrounded by fucking lava.

There's hardly anything science-y about anything in the story and there's even an actual supernatural narrative Force in-universe. Even the elements that do approach science are intentionally veered away from it because Star Wars isn't supposed to be science-y.

It's science fiction in the same way 1950s serials and pulp are sci-fi. It's basically adventure with a space theme.

>years of trench warfare
Only in the west where there were more men and guns than meters of the front so advance was made nearly impossible.

On the eastern front warfare was as mobile as it can be when using infantry.

Sounds like they should have been able to figure out that it would happen though?

How was that BTW? Which place had more dying and horror, the west or east fronts?

Star Wars gets away from it more because of how heavily it leans on Fantasy elements. The only science thing about it is that it takes place in space. If the aliens were called dwarves, elves, and orcs, everybody would say it's a fantasy setting with advanced technology. If it were 'steampunk' instead of 'space' it'd also be a fantasy setting.

Pulp Sci-fi and Space Opera are incredibly soft examples of sci-fi but they still take place in the future (or in an alternate timeline of our history). Specifically, they take place in our future and in our realm of existence, whereas Star Wars takes place so far in the past and so far away that it has nothing to do with us, which is a narrative element usually attributed to high fantasy.

Not really. It's one of those issues that seems very obvious from now but it was just all too much; the level of industrial power, the massive increases in firepower, the scale of the conflict involved, the political will to continue. 1914 also was bad in that both sides frquently ALMOST pushed through, they ALMOST essentially won the war repeatedly; if Mons or the Marne were sustained beyond what the armies int he field could manage, the road to Paris would be open; likewise offensives towards Strabourg.

A stalemate was theorised but seen as unlikely, and if it was reached, the logic amongst military theoriests was that at that point, once reached, shouldn't be continued. Once both sides were unable to move forward, there should have been a political solution; instead, all sides just began to double down and the military was left in the lurch trying to work out how to deal with this.

Had it been a smaller conflict, this is likely what would have happened; they would have come to a stalemate and lacking the resources to continue they'd have made peace and planned for the next war. However, this time, both sides doubled down. Remember, wars in Europe hadn't lasted more than a few years at most since the Napoleonic Era. If anything, it wasn't military technology or tactics that commanders failed to understand, but their states and nations and the willingness to transform into something completely different to continue persecuting the war; Britain changed fundamentally as a society and culture for example during the First World War with the State now controlling people's lives to the extent which would have caused armed uprising in the late 19th century.

Can shotgun kill jedi with ease?

>should
Yeah now I see what happened. That word should never be used in plans that encompass the lives of millions.
Every time someone tries to explain WWI to me it's like a giant train wreck perfectly set up to derail, with a lot of people somewhat aware of what not to do, and then they do it anyway.

Did anyone ever present the idea that the war was manufactured to create the societal changes that you mentioned? A crackpot theory of course but...

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Slugthrower

Just like WW2, the war was not "manufactured", but once it was going, people did take advantage of it.

>Implying that american can speak english.

>All battle is done by drones. The victor is the one with the most drones. Battles are largely fought in space at such extreme distances as to be visually boring.

>Slugthrowers, also referred to a.com/wiki/Slugthrowers firearms, were any projectile weapon that fired solid projectiles enveloped in energy
>solid projectiles enveloped in energy
That's pretty stupid.

>How was that BTW?

It was simply a matter of geography. At about 450 miles, the distance between the Swiss border and the North Sea, aka the "Western Front", was much shorter than the distances of the various fronts in Eastern Europe. The entire length was entrenched by early 1915 meaning there was no way to "go around" and the fortified lines only grew more powerful as time passed.

In the East, however, increased distances involved meant flanks still existed. Both sides could and did fortify cities and other location, but there weren't fortifications running the entire length of the Eastern front(s) as there were in the West. Armies could still maneuver after a fashion and fight "in the open".

>>Which place had more dying and horror, the west or east fronts?

The Eastern Front(s) saw many more deaths. Among those nations who only fought in the east, Russia lost ~1.7 million, Austria-Hungary ~1.4 million, the Ottomans ~750K, Serbia ~400K, Italy ~600K, along with several others like Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece losing 10s or 100s thousands.

As for which front was more horrific, that's like choosing which strain terminal flesh eating virus is more horrific. If forced to, I'd point to the Tyrolian Front between Italy and Austria-Hungary where the troops tunneled through ice and rock to fight atop mountains and glaciers.

Getting back to "Star Wars", only a child or a fool would label what is seen during the battle scenes as "tactics". I've seen snowball fights with better planning and execution.

>still fighting like it's 1914.

The events of SW likely take place far earlier than the 20th century.

Fairly sure the infantry is running right alongside the AT-ATs during Hoth. You see stormtroopers doing line formations when fighting in not-Jerusalem.

No you don't. You have soldiers walking alongside a transport vehicle and taking cover when attacked. Then you have guys surrounding some people they want to apprehend.

Most of the city does not even have space for people to advance in line, its a warren of small streets.

> I'd point to the Tyrolian Front between Italy and Austria-Hungary where the troops tunneled through ice and rock to fight atop mountains and glaciers.
Admittedly it was probably horrifying but when you put it like that it sounds fucking awesome

Also why did no one think of invading Switzerland? If nothing else then just to get around the trench lines?

They form lines in the middle of the street during the fight scene in the city, which is by far and large the most retarded place and battleground for a line formation ever.

You are going to have to point out exactly what scene you are talking about, none of the stormtroopers are forming anything close to a "line" in the ambush scene.

Everything that happened on the Western Front is perfectly logical if you don't use your hindsight. 1914 was a typical war of mobility, with the frontline moving hundreds of miles back and forth rapidly before stabilising into trench warfare. That lead to the 'cult of the offensive' in 1915 where the guys in charge thought the key to winning was to launch one massive overwhelming infantry attack which would break the enemy (leading to shit like the Somme). By the start of 1917 they'd worked out that throwing millions of men into a pitched battle for six months at a time wasn't going to work, so they switched their focus to what we see as the more modern concept of combined arms - the niche and novelty concept of an 'air force' or a 'tank division' became deciding factors in planning and executing battle tactics. The war changed again, now to one of taking ground and leapfrogging trenches, with a non-unified frontline and innovations like mobile radio stations allowing for decentralised command. It would have been all over for the Germans by Christmas 1917 if the Russians hadn't had their revolutions and made peace, allowing the Eastern Front veterans to be shifted to the West, extending the life of that theatre by another year and change.

It's not irrational or suspicious, everything that the leaders at the time tried is perfectly logical and congruous with contemporary military thought. With 100 years of hindsight, it's easy to see that massive infantry offensives weren't going to work, or that two equal forces vying for advantage in a war of mobility would eventually stalemate, but if you read the first-hand accounts, everyone was genuinely taken by surprise by every turn of events. It was the first modern war, those guys were making it up on the fly.

I downloaded the whole shitshow just 4 u user.

I've heard it before, but I don't think it was engineered. It was certainly taken advantage of however. The Fabian Society has a lot to answer for.

>It's not irrational or suspicious, everything that the leaders at the time tried is perfectly logical and congruous with contemporary military thought.

True, but politics weren't, how many peace treaties were rejected by both sides even after all the slaughter? How much earlier would the war have ended if one or the other had been willing to at least break even?

Switzerland is literally a bunch of mountains, nobody wants to cross mountains, especially not at the expense of getting YET another enemy, and especially an enemy such as Switzerland, that has always held a lot of power in Europe because it's the place where all political discussion between enemies would take place and where everyone puts their money on.

They are not "forming lines in the middle of the street". Those guys turned the corner and started advancing to pursue the enemy, they are only bunched up to get through that archway. You can already see at least one guy moving off to take cover as well.

I literally just watched the scene, they're not moving past the archway, they're standing there.

I just watched it as well, the stormtroopers are advancing while firing. A few pause to aim their shots better and a guy takes cover behind the archway but the rest keep moving.

You need to watch scenes more carefully if you are going to use them to make claims.

Speaking of ww1 here is a PhD thesis on the role of cavalry in ww1 from the british perspective.
dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1826/3032/D Kenyon Thesis corrected.pdf;jsessionid=BD4583EC954BD5DC4CAA1BDD2AC53FD9?sequence=1
Turns out they were used as mobile reserves and like mechanized breakthrough units instead of what people think they were used like.

>How much earlier would the war have ended if one or the other had been willing to at least break even?

What you don't understand is that neither side ever offered a "status quo ante" peace treaty.

No one wanted to break even and, as the cost of the war in blood and treasure continually increased, everyone wanted to gain something from fighting. As the peace feelers Germany extended after the summer of '18 showed, if one side had offered to break even, the other side would see it as a weakness and press all the harder.

Odd as it seems, none of the combatants went to war with anything but the most nebulous war goals. Germany, for example, never adopted any list of official war aims. What Germany wanted changed every time someone asked and depended on who in Germany you asked.

There was no will the break even, a white peace would still have destroyed many regimes considering how much was lost.

No, what I meant was like
>we keep mobile and go to ground only if necessary, the enemy does the same so this MAY turn out a stalemate, but this is so horrifying to think of that we just don't think about it
>it happens
>oh shit well we have no plan now.

except by the time the front had settled in there were far more massive losses than anyone had expected and the war was raging in the east. Hell the middle eastern theater post gallipoli was the anglos dismembering the ottoman empire.

Again this seems obvious to you with perfect hindsight and simplified explanations, you are being very unfair to the past.

It's not science fiction. The fact that it's set in space with starships and blasters is an aesthetic feature, not a focus. Space and laser pistols do not automatically make sci-fi - you'd be hard-pressed to call the Barsoom series sci-fi in this day and age, for example, despite it having both, and Flash Gordon is also certainly not sci-fi.

For it to be science fiction, speculative science or technology would have to be a major focus of the story, and the social or environmental changes that those sciences or technologies create. However, not once in the nine movies we've had so far (ten if you include the CGI Clone Wars one) has science or technology been a focus of the story. It's always a MacGuffin - there's a little bit of technobabble like "bring me the hydrospanner!" for flavoring, but we don't even get to see what a hydrospanner does or what it's used for, we just know that Han needs it, and nothing would change if he had just said "bring me the spanner!" instead.

Conversely, it fits fantasy to a T. Fantasy fiction is defined as "a genre of fiction set in a fictional universe, often, but not always, without any locations, events, or people referencing the real world."

It is, specifically, both Heroic Fantasy and Epic or High Fantasy:

>Heroic Fantasy: a subgenre of fantasy which chronicles the tales of heroes in fantasy settings.
>Epic/High Fantasy: fantasy set in an alternative, fictional ("secondary") world, rather than "the real", or "primary" world. The secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary ("our") world.

TL;DR - A space setting does not necessarily a sci-fi make.

The inverse is true, by the way - a thing can have a veneer of fantasy but also be science fiction. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood springs immediately to mind here.

>Star Wars isn't a Space Opera
What the fuck?

They're alongside the AT-ATs on Hoth because those are troop transports and running ahead of them into the Rebel fortification at that point would mean that the AT-ATs would be firing on them.

Trying to explain away plot bullshit rather than focusing on expanding upon the philosophy of the Jedi in a way that isn't completely blind to the original point is the reason the monetised fanfiction that is the Star Wars extended universe fucked up every product afterwards in one way or another. Not that the prequels had a lot going for them with the armchair director.

>No, what I meant was like

What you meant is gibberish. You're employing perfect hindsight and simplistic understanding of the fighting coupled with a grammar school history level of knowledge concerning the period.

What happened was beyond their experience and understanding making it impossible to predict. There had been hints in the US Civil War, the Russo-Japanese War, and a few others but no one put the pieces of the puzzle together. A banker in Russian Poland had written a book predicting a long war which would bankrupt and/or destroy nations. He's only remembered now because it turned out he was correct, but at the time he was just some rich kook publishing nonsense via a vanity press.

The actual rate of tactical adaption and technological progress during the war was mind boggling.

TL;DR - "Blackadder Goes Forth" is great comedy and piss poor history.

Every plothole from the movies was fixed by something in the EU and the EU itself is very airtight.

We've had twelve movies, only ten were theatrical though.

Actually, my point isn't entirely correct. It wasn't that they didn't expand upon the Jedi way, it's more that a dozen writers took it in different directions and weren't told to stop, and that all coalesced into the rampantly pungent shit stew that's infected the rest of the franchise up to recently. Though the newer movies have their own problems, they are at least not obsessed with paying attention to what some no-name fanboy wrote thirty years prior and instead are focusing on the actual movies people gave a shit about in the first place.

Yeah, Russians were probably the most retarded retards around
>country is in a brink of a civil war, military is falling apart, we have no ammunition
>Germans send really great peace offer that would allow us to send this war with honour
>FUCK THEM FULL ASSAULT, WHAT CAN GO WRONG

>the EU itself is very airtight
Once Dark Horse got the rights and the Thrawn Trilogy was written that is, Marvel Star Wars was a fucking mess probably worse than it is now.

That's absolute horse-shit. The EU is not air-tight, it had the Jedi fulfilling several different functions and never explained why they were fulfilling those functions instead of someone else doing it. The very early material following Jedi especially was very poorly managed and writers were given free reign to do what they wanted.

...hmm. Well, the Holiday Special isn't a movie, it's a variety show, so you can't be counting that...how many Ewok movies were there?

I was counting the holiday special, it's an hour and a half long or something ridiculous like that. It was that and the Ewoks movie.

>The New Jedi Order acted differently from the Old one that failed stupendously
What's wrong with that? Unless you're talking about Tales of the Jedi, in which case that's before Ruusan and even before the KOTOR period, of course the Jedi were radically different 5000-4000 years ago and have since reformed.

>>Germans send really great peace offer that would allow us to send this war with honour

You need to read some more history. Seriously.

Stripping away all the non-Russian territories is perfectly honorable, even if that includes the largest food-producing area of the Empire.

>>Stripping away all the non-Russian territories is perfectly honorable, even if that includes the largest food-producing area of the Empire.

Leaving aside the idiocy of that comment, shipping in Lenin aboard a sealed train from Switzerland while you're "negotiating" a peace treaty is not honorable.

Yes it is. It's the same as a bomb, it just goes off in waves.

It might not be the best pace offer, but seriously Russia couldn't really expect anything better.

Oh yeah? But what said was
>stalemate was theorized but seen as unlikely
>if it happened, politicians will solve it
What actually happened was
>it happened
>politicians didn't solve it, instead telling the military to push harder
>have no plan.
Now I know that it seemed unlikely and that you can't plan for every outcome. But it would not be the first time stalemates happened. To not even plan for the eventuality, instead preferring to not think about it, is unforgivable imo

>Plan for a form of warfare that has never been seen before and on a scale never even imagined because a few people think there's an outside chance
Did you even consider they had other shit to do?

>It was a fake war. The war was a political move.
Alex Jones here with an exclusive report. We've just gotten evidence that Sheev Palpatine is a Sith lord running both sides of the Clone Wars! Don't believe me? Have you ever seen him and Darth Sidious in the same room? I didn't think so. WAKE UP, SHEEPLE! The Battle of Naboo was a false flag meant to turn you against the free market so they can take away your freedom! They're destroying the Republic, people! You need to start stockpiling blasters and ration packs now before it's too late!

Also, buy my exclusive line of organic non-GMO midichlorian supplements. It's the secret to all-natural good health that the Jedi don't want you to know about! Force powers not guaranteed.

Also they turned the frigging Tauntauns gay.

>Oh yeah? But what said was
>>stalemate was theorized but seen as unlikely

What that user posted was wrong in a matter of degree but not kind. A stalemate was not theorized in even a general sense by those people being paid to theorize about those things; i.e. generals and politicians.

Basically one man, a banker in Russian Poland, "predicted" what would happen and he was laughed at. His thinking was so contrary to the other opinions around him that he had to pay to publish his book containing that prediction.

Everyone else thought the other side would break within months or, at most, a year or two. Many people actually predicted a short war because they believed the national economies would fail sooner than they actually did. No one predicted the level "resilience" the people and nations involved would exhibit.

>>To not even plan for the eventuality, instead preferring to not think about it, is unforgivable imo

Nothing but late 20th/early 21st Century hindsight and laughable hindsight at that. You've grown up in a era in which national militaries prepare and plan for nearly all eventualities including crazy "What If" shit like alien invasions. Because of that, you believe that such levels of planning are both "normal" and something which was done all the time. You couldn't be further from the truth.

The UK didn't even have a general staff let alone specific war plans until the first decade of the century. Germany's leaders, who had planned their land war down to the numbers of condoms needed by the occupation forces, was shocked to learn that their navy had no war plans other than "wait and see".

When you stop assuming that people a century ago lived and thought just like you do in the 21st Century much of what seems "stupid" and "mysterious" to you will come into focus.

Yes

>WWI Alex Jones
>had to self-publish
>was right
Why didn't I learn this in school

But:
>no one predicted the resilience of national economies
Didn't von Clausewitz write about that though?

Anyway, as I said, these plans would encompass the lives of millions. To not make them better and considering of more eventualities is unforgivable. "But everyone did it!" is true, but beside the point.

Also, why didn't anyone invade Switzerland? I mean not the bulk of it since mountains, but just to flank the trench lines?

>To not even plan for the eventuality, instead preferring to not think about it, is unforgivable imo
What said is really more than enough explanation, but just to add another facet to the cultural divide between early 20th century society and 21st century society: you're talking about a time when many of the countries involved in the war still did things because 'the king/emperor/sultan/tsar said so.' Even if strategic staff could have predicted the course of WW1 perfectly (and they didn't), it could have kept on raging because two dudes born into their position decide they want it to keep going.

Basically, as they say, the past is a foreign country. You need to drop a lot of your modern assumptions when you assess it. Your own country 100 years ago would be as alien and as strange to you now as visiting any foreign place.

BTW I don't think that these people were stupid. Just that they took bad care of their population.

>Also, why didn't anyone invade Switzerland? I mean not the bulk of it since mountains, but just to flank the trench lines?
It's funny, I just watched an old history channel special about Thermopylae, and one of the experts - a military college professor - said this: "The value of constricting a numerically superior force through the use of terrain cannot be understated. That's why no one has ever successfully invaded Switzerland - one guy with a rifle can hold up an entire division if the valley is narrow enough." So I guess yeah mountains and shit.

>I mean not the bulk of it since mountains, but just to flank the trench lines?
Are you suggesting to break through a small frontage containing large amounts of troops by flanking through a small front with a large amount of troops?

>Also, why didn't anyone invade Switzerland?
>Why did no one invade the most defensible country in Europe?
>Why did no one make an enemy of the bankers with long memories?
>Why did no one think they could pull off the Schlieffen through mountains instead of lowlands?
user stop implying these people were stupid, you're embarrassing yourself.

It sounds almost as stupid as "why not just land troops on the English Channel coast just behind the enemy trench lines", doesn't it?

But no, what I want to know is more like, how did it happen that the flanking movements stopped? What was at the end of the trench lines? Just a guy with a Swiss flag saying "you guys can't play here?" did the trenches partially extend into Switzerland? Did they stop before the border? Or exactly at it?

Something interesting I learned back during my BA in History: at no point during the war years did the number of males in the eligible age bracket (18-49) actively participating in the war of any country exceed 25% of all eligible males in that country. We think of WWI as a time when an entire generation was wiped out by the incompetence and cruelty of politicians, but the number of men fighting in the war was always the minority of all men who could have fought in the war. In the major players: Britain, Germany, the USA, these numbers were lower - rarely if ever exceeding 20%. In that context, I think it becomes more palatable, if not acceptable. This whole "we were betrayed by our cruel government who wasted the lives of all our boys" is a construction that sort of came out of the Vietnam movement, which was applied retroactively to WWI as the concept of 'a good war' became more prominent in light of the neverending horrors in a foreign jungle that no one could quite work out why Westerners were there. Someone mentioned Blackadder before, and while I love Blackadder, it's definitely a product of this 60s retroactive movement than an accurate portrayal of contemporary mood towards the governments and their actions during the war years.

Do you ever stop to read multiple lines of text before thinking that you can reply?

ITT: Manchildren argue about shit-tier setting that nobody cares about for decades, unless are part of the manchildren crowd

Get over it. SW ended in fucking late 80s. Most of you weren't even born back then. So do yourself a favour and just stop.

Well sure but Germany had mass starvation IIRC? And France had all these refugees from the area where the war was fought? And so on. No one stopped to think that that could happen?

>Just a guy with a Swiss flag saying "you guys can't play here?"
More like 200,000 guys with Swiss machine guns saying 'you guys can't play here' and in keeping in line with the original topic of the thread, they had the high ground. And when your opponent has the high ground, it's basically over.

We're mostly arguing about WWI to be honest.