I think it's reasonable to say that in popular consciousness, the two World Wars are contrasted, with the first generally being seen as an attritional grind leading to the eventual exhaustion of the Central Powers, and the second generally being seen as a war of movement in which the Germans initially outfoxed the Allies, but were eventually bested at their own game.
I've been thinking about this recently, and starting to wonder if this does a disservice to the history - firstly, by underplaying successful offensives in WW1 like Mackensen's operations in the Balkans, or the Hundred Days. Second, it ignores the massive element of attrition in winning WW2 - some of the most famous parts of the war in Western memory, like the Battle of the Atlantic, or the Battle of Britain, were in essence extremely attritional. There was no winning stroke in these battles - they were basically governed by statistical considerations. Was the disruption to Allied shipping worth the brutal loss in U-Boats? Which side could replace aircraft more quickly? Likewise with the Allied strategic bombing campaigns.
Even, when it comes to land conflict, it seems that the very concept of a "battle" has allowed a degree of cherry-picking. We think of Overlord, Stalingrad, Case Yellow - operations which achieved stunning gains of territory and decisive blows to enemy fighting strength. But the definition of a battle is basically an arbitrarily defined period of intensified fighting, often plucked out of relentless fighting of a lower intensity, most of which achieved few territorial gains. On the Eastern Front, the majority of the front was often static, and it took prepared offensives to create breakthroughs. Even some major efforts, like Mars, failed to make any real impact in terms of territory. Italy was hardly a war of movement, either.
It seems to me that both conflicts were ultimately decided by economic and logistical staying power. Both sides in both wars showed great operational competence as well as committing enormous blunders, and were also happy to stomach huge losses if they calculated it to be strategically profitable. Germany was eventually exhausted in both wars - the difference being that in 1918 Germany wisely threw-in the towel when the Allies started landing some big punches and they knew the tide was turned inevitably against them. In 1944-45 the leadership refused to admit defeat and forced the Allies to essentially pummel them to death, when the result was already well decided.
Is it right to tar WW1 with the dirty word of attrition, if we aren't going to acknowledge it's foundational importance or inevitability in any modern total war?
I've been thinking about this recently, and starting to wonder if this does a disservice to the history - firstly, by underplaying successful offensives in WW1 like Mackensen's operations in the Balkans, or the Hundred Days. Second, it ignores the massive element of attrition in winning WW2 - some of the most famous parts of the war in Western memory, like the Battle of the Atlantic, or the Battle of Britain, were in essence extremely attritional. There was no winning stroke in these battles - they were basically governed by statistical considerations. Was the disruption to Allied shipping worth the brutal loss in U-Boats? Which side could replace aircraft more quickly? Likewise with the Allied strategic bombing campaigns.
Even, when it comes to land conflict, it seems that the very concept of a "battle" has allowed a degree of cherry-picking. We think of Overlord, Stalingrad, Case Yellow - operations which achieved stunning gains of territory and decisive blows to enemy fighting strength. But the definition of a battle is basically an arbitrarily defined period of intensified fighting, often plucked out of relentless fighting of a lower intensity, most of which achieved few territorial gains. On the Eastern Front, the majority of the front was often static, and it took prepared offensives to create breakthroughs. Even some major efforts, like Mars, failed to make any real impact in terms of territory. Italy was hardly a war of movement, either.
It seems to me that both conflicts were ultimately decided by economic and logistical staying power. Both sides in both wars showed great operational competence as well as committing enormous blunders, and were also happy to stomach huge losses if they calculated it to be strategically profitable. Germany was eventually exhausted in both wars - the difference being that in 1918 Germany wisely threw-in the towel when the Allies started landing some big punches and they knew the tide was turned inevitably against them. In 1944-45 the leadership refused to admit defeat and forced the Allies to essentially pummel them to death, when the result was already well decided.
Is it right to tar WW1 with the dirty word of attrition, if we aren't going to acknowledge it's foundational importance or inevitability in any modern total war?
