"World War One was a war of attrition and the 'skill' of military leadership was based on how many young men each leader was prepared to send to their deaths."

Ah but Christmas one of your supporters came out with this:

GUEST,Raggytash - 14 Dec 14 - 05:47 PM

That article from "your" historian goes on say:

"Haig should have believed in attrition. {Inference here being that he didn't} That is the tragedy of the British in the First World War. Haig should have opted for attrition in the sense of wearing the enemy down gradually - step by step, stage by stage - and devising a means of doing this without getting his own forces worn down"

As for the tail end of your sentence:

"the 'skill' of military leadership was based on how many young men each leader was prepared to send to their deaths."

No it wasn't the skill of military leadership was demonstrated in how many of your enemies troops you could tempt him into getting killed for no gain.

The tactic Haig employed from 1916 onward were tactics of "Bite and Hold" and the Germans were forced to retreat. Once the Germans could release troops from the East with Russia out of the War the Germans once more tried to break through on the Western Front with their Spring Offensive in 1918 - their use of same old tactics and weakness in logistic support brought exactly the same results they had brought in 1914 i.e. failure. When Haig went onto the offensive in the summer of 1918 he got the breakthrough he aimed for and he had the equipment and men that enabled him to exploit it - all from lessons learned from August 1916 onward.

So the fact that in 1916 Great Britain had an Army of over 2.6 million men every single one of them a volunteer indicates a lack of support for the war?? Every other nation fighting in Europe at the time could only raise their armies, even in peacetime, by use of compulsory conscription for military service - i.e. their men had no choice, whereas ours volunteered to fight for their country.

"The jingoistic crap about the war being about opposing German tyranny has been dismissed by historians"

Really?? So the Germans were only joking when they stated that they would annex Belgium, retain French territory and take over Belgian and French overseas colonies and possessions should Germany prevail in the west? Got any proof of that?