WW1, how would you cut the death toll in half?

I wonder if the war would have ended quicker with the use of nukes. Just like it did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It might have even prevented furthur casualties.

I also believe that the treaty of Versailles was too harsh . The terms pissed Hitler off so much that it just burned up his anger quicker towards war. Who would want to take blame for a war that wasn't even their fault. You can't forget the land they gave up to Poland, France and especially the use of their coal mines for a period of time. If the terms were harsher WWII could have been avoided . This would Germany with more cash so that people won't be desperate enough to listen to Hitler at bars and speeches. It's all the treaty of Versailles fault that started the worst world war in history.
 
My plan, would be simple and effective.
Considering trench warfare is brutal to your army and almost ineffective on a completley mobilized war. I would start massive fires, smoke the germans out, and have at them with machine gunners. To solve the issue of out of control burns, i would suggest gas line fires, which use gases that ignite when in air. After this is accomplished. turn the gas lines off, and wait. Only thing is that this technology didn't happen until ww2. So that blows my idea out of the water. Not to mention setting up gas lines under enemy fire.

Still, fire, fire and fire.
 
yes we brits antagonised the germans for years before the outbreak of world war 1, we outdid them in everything and that pissed them off. we built more ships than them and more land than them yet we didnt realise just how good their armoury was, i mean come on you dont plan on invading the rest of europe with without armoury to match. so maybe a way to cut down the death toll would have been not to have underestimated the germans as much as we did
 
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houseofknowledge said:
Germans have more land than the brits.
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Well considering the time of events, the brits owned India, and owned other countries, which ultimatly meant they had more land.
 
houseofknowledge said:
Germans have more land than the brits.
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wah, dude at the time we owned more land than ANYONE in the world, even france and belguim owned more land than the germans for gods sake, that was one of the reasons for the war, THEY WANTED MORE LAND
 
No I think if you do some reasearch you will find that if we had used a Marshal type plan and help re-established a stable Germany, Hitle may never had the right mix of desperation and hopelesness that helped bring him to power?
 
A thoughtful topic.

One way to cut the death toll at least in half would have been to stop news censorship on both sides. An honestly reported war is usually an unpopular one. When young men decide that it isn't after all quite so fitting and proper to 'pro patria mori', and the average citizen determines that the hazy national interests are not worth the absurd sacrifices, then the 'war to end all wars' would have itself been forced to an earlier and less tragic conclusion. This scenario may well have ended in Germany's favour, but probably more along the lines of a biased truce than anything like an unconditional surrender on part of the Allies. And France would not have lost an entire generation of young men.

Floating a dirigible over the Kaiser one evening around dinner-time and dropping a big fat bomb would have hastened things along, too.
 
Interesting Debate so far. But the most important topic has been missed.

The Difference between Attrition and Manouvre warfare. Back in the "Good Old Days", War was still a gentlemans thing. A fair fight. The idea behind Attrition being you hit the enemies strong points with your strong points, essentially like a boxing match. I will admit that there were manouvrerest elements happening during WW1 but they were no where near the advancement of WW2.

My idea to cut the amount of casualties on both sides:

War is fluid and thus should be treated so. Allow commanders from the highest level, to the simple platoon commander to make decisions based on the Mission Directive principle. When giving your subordinates orders, give them a general idea of what is happening around them aswell, allow them to come up with their own plan and as long as it fits with the Bigger picture (usually two command levels up) then its all good. Give them the power to make tactical decisions based on the orders they have recieved which allows them more freedom of movement. One of the important factors of this would be to come up with Mission essential tasks (tasks that have to be done to acheive the mission) and Mission Implied tasks (tasks that aren't set by orders but are implied, which help achieve the mission). In an example, say a platoon commander was told to clear the enemy from a particular area. Right, mission essential - Clear the enemy, mission implied - conduct aggressive patrolling techniques through the area.

In WW1 they had, i believe its called, command directive, in other words what your boss says, goes. Sort of like micromanagement. This doesn't work because it doesn't allow fluidity of battle.

You can all argue that this couldn't be possible because of the training Officers recieved, however if the doctrine were in place before WW1, if the commanders of the early 1900's were able to see the evolution of war, then it would have been possible.

Unfortunately it didn't, and we are left here today with the memory of millions of soldiers who never returned.

Lest we forget
 
My apologies I am not exactly familiar with WW1 but thank God I took the class. I believe it was Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Ottoman empire (turkey, Bulgaria) Vs France, Britain, Russia, and Italy. Here's my brief war plan:

Germany was the most powerful nation at that time so I would have focused its might against France, hoping to win the war quickly and then immediately prepare for the British.

*Austria-Hungary and the Turks can handle the Russians as to avoid a two front war by the Germans. The preliminary battles against the British would be largely Naval as to keep them busy while Germany deals with the French. Germany should have invaded France directly and quickly "shock and awe style" The Von shlieffen plan was okay but involving neutrals only creates unnecessary problems and stretches the troops, it also gives time for the French to prepare and mount a very good defense.

*The most important and pivotal battle for the central powers was the French-German battle, it determines the entire direction of the rest of the war; Germany needs France as a leverage ground against Britain and Italy. All Germany had to do in the war was capture France and its Navy, use its Navy entirely against the British and then meet Italy from the North West while the Austrians meet them from the North East, creating a two front war for the Italians and ultimately defeating them.

*With Italy and France out the way the central powers can now focus on Russia, the key is remember here is to prevent the British from crossing the English channel by fortifying the seas with naval ships, that should keep them busy. The Turks should have done a good number on the Russians by now and with a little help the Russians are out of the picture, with the Russians out you can defeat the British by diplomacy.
 
thedevilsreject said:
yup just need to go back in time and invent those before the war started
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Well, if you've already gone back to take part in WWI, a little bit further back in time shouldn't be too much of a problem. :p
 
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