Well any man who can quibble about five-foot-five being significantly different to "just under two yards" didn't have the same arithmetic education that I did! :-)

Tell you what Steve you've got some brass neck!! Coming out with that crap then fully expect someone else to mildly accept that the First World War could be summed up by what occurred on one tiny part of a front that extended for hundreds of miles from the North Sea to the Swiss border on a single day in July in 1916.

But that is what I have expressly not done. Dunno how many times I have to say that I not appealing to historical tracts, just showing that unqualified assertions that the men were expertly led through the whole war are just bilge. It's perfectly possible to use that single day as an outstanding example of why that just wasn't so.

The Somme Offensive of 1916 did not start and end on the 1st July 1916 - Fact - So if you are going to introduce it you discuss the whole Battle of the Somme - not just the bits you want to chat about.

You chat about what you want and I'll chat about what I want, OK, Mr Control Freak? If you don't want to chat about what I'm chatting about, don't chat about it. Simple!

If you "have no comment on the leadership over the whole four years of the war." then butt out of the discussion because that is indeed what is being debated.

What is being debated is what people say together with what other people respond with. The thread title is "WW1", not "Aspects of WW1 that Teribus would like to pontificate about".