I don't think this is discussed enough in either historical terms or military terms all that much.
World War 2 on the other hand, has had tons of material written on it, particularly how all major powers (except Germany and Japan) came into the war with old war school military thinking.
Meanwhile, not much is discussed in terms of WWI. Particularly it's context.
In the context of WWI Germany, Britain, USA and France (and perhaps Austria-Hungary) were considered major industrial powers while Italy, Austria-Hungary and France had beneficial geography.
- In that context the Western Front was brutal in its losses because, of the vast armies concentrated in a small area with new weapons of war with which neither army knew how to overcome and simply became an attrition based war.
- The Eastern Front on the other hand, had dynamically shifting fronts, in which vast flat terrain and widely spread armies could outmaneuver each other so the previous decade's doctrines were at least still somewhat compatible with.
- The Italian front of bashing their heads against mountains and draining their resources until Austria easily pushed back through Venice because of the somewhat flat/hilly terrain.
- The Dessert campaigns of the middle east of failed incompetent Turkish leadership in Egypt, Caucasus, Kuwait leading to breezy victories for the allies and minimal casualties until more suitable men came to command (Ataturk) and ever more overconfident figures thought they could kick down the rotten door structure of the Ottoman Empire (Winston Churchill).
- The Balkan offensives on Serbian Soil proving to be a challenge to overcome for the poor Austrian leadership until the revanchist Bulgarian army smashed through the East and how Greece in the late stages of the war allowed the Allies to invade into Bulgaria with their newly developed doctrines that Bulgaria had no response to.
So, what do I think needs to be changed from Vic2 coming into Vic3? Well, I think that Great Wars should be more dynamic (not in political sense and what countries join on what side). Some countries may have not caught up in terms of industry to support such a large scale war, some may have power hungry incompetent leadership who don't even know how to manage a large scale war, though some may still be able to put up a fight thanks in part to their advantageous geography. Though most importantly it's that most leaders went head strong first into this war with tools and weapons that simply didn't work the way they expected them to in the Fields of Flanders only to hear completely conflicting views from those in Suez or Battle of Konigsberg.
Sorry, to break it to you, but this is one of the oldest and most discussed questions in regards to WW1
. It has been talked about millions of times since 1918 (probably during the war as well), and personally I remember learning about the academic debate surrounding it and its impact on world events in high school. Regardless, it is a great question and I'm glad to talk about it on the forum.
To rephrase: Who is responsible for the carnage of WW1? inept generals, new industrial technologies, or the political leadership (option 3, you didn't mention this one).
In general the academic consensus has shifted away from blaming the generals over time. The simple facts of the matter is that they were forced into many wasteful offensives (especially on the western front) by the political leadership, and they lacked the tools to effectively maneuver. Machine guns, barbed wire, artillary, trenches did not directly cause the breakdown of offensive power in WW1. All of those things were quickly overcome with tools such as infiltration tactics, rolling barrages, and tanks as early as 1916. The stalemate continued because the armies did not have RADIOS with which to coordinate troops who were out of reach of a wire or a messenger on a horse. In effect, WW1 generals were completely blind. They couldn't deliver commands to their troops in the field or receive back information to make decisions. Headquarters didn't have a clue about the position or condition of their troops after the offense was launched. It might be days before you knew that you broke through enemy lines, so you couldn't reinforce or even supply successful offensives. No radios results in a stalemate on all fronts where on side doesn't have a massive advantage.
Of course, there is some nuance here. Blaming the generals wasn't just a move by the politicians to save face: idiots abounding in the officer corps of nearly every nation involved. They managed to bungle a lot of operations and lose a lot of men from 1914-1918. Although, I think that poor leadership generally leveled out due to the scale of the armies and campaigns. No one general could really mess up the entire war unless they had political power and could make the big geostrategic mistakes that decided the war (looking at you Germany, Russia).
There were plenty of fossils cluttering up the general staffs (looking at you, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and France) and certainly some who should never have held command at the level they did (looking at you, Sir John French), and a couple who looked at manpower -veteran manpower in particular - as something to be thrown away at will (Falkenhayn, Joffre). However, saying that the generals of WW1 were idiots simply isn't accurate.
WW1 was as bloody as it was because combined arms was in its infancy. You only really start seeing true combined arms offensives coming in the latter half of the war, such as the Allied Hundred Days Offensive. Without a combined arms effort, breaking interlocking fortress lines and achieving a decisive breakthrough simply wasn't possible; and the three tools that are most critical to combined arms warfare - the radio, the tank, and the airplane - were all in their infancy too.
You forgot Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, leader of AH military in the early war. He managed to get Austria's entire professional army wiped out in the first couple weeks of the war. This was primarily a communication failure. He forgot to verify that the Germans would also be attacking into Poland. The Germans had changed their mind about attacking and didn't tell him because they didn't know that he was attacking too.
