"I am not an historian and make no claims about history."
Yes you do - you claimed that you have made "a life-long study of World War One" - a claim that nobody here has made, yet, having claimed that the war was well led, you decline to comment on badly conducted campaigns that
Gallipoli casualties totalled 89,000
At Loos, the "good leadership amounted to:
By 28 September, the British retreated to their starting positions, having lost over 20,000 casualties, including three major-general
British casualties at Loos were about twice as high as German casualties.
8,000 casualties out of 10,000 men in four hours
British casualties in the main attack were 48,367 and they suffered 10,880 more in the subsidiary attack, a total of 59,247 losses of the 285,107 British casualties on the Western Front in 1915
On the first day of the Somme there were 57,470 British casualties, of whom 19,240 were killed - the highest by far of all the combating armies (Germany was a runner-up with between 10 and 12 thousand)
The leadership of the war was appalling (if anything, Blackadder payed it down!!) - sacrifice as many young many young lives as possible - that is not leadership simple butchery.
You claim to have made a lifelong study of the war - you have now admitted you lied - you know nothing of this war and you continue to excuse the death of many millions of young lives.
All historians do not back your claims - you have misquoted less than half a dozen of them and you have now scurried back behind historians who you have obviously not read, - not one single one of them
Your bullying blustering galleymate is exactly the same - now refusing to answer on the grounds that the questioner "knows nothing" (same as you, apparently.)
Your campaign to justify the bloodbath is about as well-conducted as was the bloodbath itself.
Your case becomes more and more idiotically dishonest.
Jim Carroll