How many men sent over the top, knowing they would be running into gun positions?

Have you ever read how governments allowed themselves to get Europe into this situation?

Any idea how many assurances idiotic military leaders gave politicians on all sides over their solution to diplomatic problems?

Any idea how much this was about empires in the interest of those who then led their men to slaughter?

Your "we won so we must have been well led" is as laughable as it is ludicrous. A bit like saying "God is on our side, we therefore won.". A quote by the way from the then Lord Renshaw in 1919.