Compare 18th century to the 20th century wars

Wars have a nasty way of often being fought in ways they were not planned to be fought ie. 19th century generals had to unlearn Napoleanic tactics although thy were indoctrinated with Napaleanic tactics. Americans in the Civil War learned the hard way that new technology rendered Napoleanic tactics reckless and horrific. The French Army of Napolean and the French Revolution was successful - not just because of Napolean's leadership - but by the very nature of it being a large enthusiastic peoples' army.

A lot of military leaders of the WW1 era had put a great deal of thought into improving the science of war by making it far more organized and mobile ie. there was extensive IQ and aptitude testing for WW1 and great emphasis was put on mobility/rapid warfare - yet it bogged down into stalemate trench warfare on the Western Front and in Italy ... and was one of the stupidest wars ever fought and led to WW2 which was WW1 refought the 'right way' at least from the view of the 3rd Reich who nevertheless messed up and in the process of refighting WW1 the right way - became too mobile and too overstretched and too strategically out of touch with reality ... as they too discovered that new technologies instantly can render old tactics useless ... imperialpoetpurple · 6 years ago