Out of all your posts on this subject Jom your contribution of 25 Nov 15 - 08:33 AM has one little bit right at the end that actually sums up the reality of the First World War in a nutshell:

"It was simple carnage and all your bluster doesn't make it anything else."

And Jom neither Keith A, or Lighter, or a number of others (myself included) have ever tried to state that it was anything other than that.

Yes it was simple carnage it was a static war fought for the first time ever on a truly industrial scale, so just for once in your life look at the entirety of it.

Taking all of the main combatant powers who were there from the start in 1914, Britain, her Commonwealth and her Empire suffered fewer fatalities and casualties than any of the others. What do you put that down to Jom? As a percentage of everyone mobilised in the main combatant armies deployed on the western front casualties amongst the British & Empire forces, French forces and German forces were ~35%; ~75%; ~70% respectively fatalities in the British & Empire forces were the least by quite a margin.

In 1914 on the western Front between Germany, France and Great Britain, who had the smallest army? Can you explain how that army survived through 1914 to become one of the largest and most effective armies in the field by 1918?

In the spring of 1918 once the Germans had transferred the bulk of their armies who had been fighting the Russians, who was it they threw against? In 1914 it had been the major threat - the French. In 1918 the Germans saw the greatest threat to them as being the British. Now how did that come about Jom?

In 1918 the Germans from March onwards into Summer mounted five major offensive operations aimed primarily against the British in northern France. Yes they pushed the line back almost to their 1914 high water mark, but in August 1918 only 21 days after their last gasp attempt at victory in the west Haig went over to the offensive and 100 days later the war was over - Tell me Jom does that look like poor leadership? Certainly does not to me.