passingbuzzards: Elf with sunglasses, smiling. (maerryl sunglasses)
trell ([personal profile] passingbuzzards) wrote in [personal profile] osprey_archer 2021-10-28 10:29 pm (UTC)

Arguably it wasn't WWI itself that killed that ideal so much as the aftermath, though! Adrian Gregory’s The Last Great War has some excellent chapters concerning the central place of sacrifice in contemporary (British) rhetoric and thinking about the war, as well as about the prevalence of volunteerism and widespread demand for more stringent measures to deal with people who were perceived to be shirking their duty. It’s a great read if you're interested in social history of the British home front, the focus on contemporary sources rather than memoir/oral histories is really good, much more indicative of the moment than works that rely heavily on retrospective

(That aside, surely it would be more fair to blame not the absence of classical infantry tactics but the overall absence of mobile warfare* + the existence of the stalemate condition in WWI? Which had so much to do with WWI being the only period in history where military commanders didn't have some degree of direct vocal communication with their troops! Prior to WWI commanders could still expect to be out on the field giving orders by voice, and afterward there was portable radio, whereas in WWI you had the nightmarish situation of the front being connected to high command only by telephone lines (which had to be lain out on open ground during an offensive advance and were inevitably broken by artillery etc.) or runners (who tended to get killed), resulting organization constantly breaking down to the range a junior officer could shout . . . Even notwithstanding the stalemate, it’s probably difficult to maintain that ideal in a context where higher-up officers can’t do anything to influence the battle and advancing troops regularly risk getting blown to bits by their own artillery.)

* with some exceptions ofc

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