Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "General Luigi Cadorna: Italy's Controversial WW1 General" video.

  1. The Ottomans stupid winter offensive in Armenia destroyed their army at the start of the war. The Russians sent their men to attack German positions in an "enemy at the gates" style where there was not enough rifles for all men, so if a comrade died then you would pick up his gun and continue the fight. But Falkenhayn was an idiot who refused to realize that frontal attacks against a well defended position is doomed to fail, even if you repeat the same mistake 2000 times over. And the result was the German bloodbath at Verdun. Douglas Haig is often called the biggest idiot General ever. And sure, he is one of the biggest idiot commanders in history. But he was a military genius compared to Hötzendorf, Cadorna and the French Generals in 1914 that made mass attacks with bayonets against well dug in German troops behind barbed wire with lots of machine guns. The average age among the many hundreds of French Generals in 1914 was around 70 or 80 if I remember correctly what John Keegan said. So it is not surprising that those old men had no idea how modern warfare did work. They were stuck in the old ways of the 1800's, with colorful uniforms, cavalry, bayonet charges, and troops walking in line formation to military music. And when they time and time again saw their men get slaughtered, they refused to learn from their past mistakes and change tactics. One can only hold the military leadership in World war 1 in total contempt. The worst generation of commanders in history.
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  2. Difficult to compare. Hötzendorf only had to make nothing to win the war. Just set the autopilot on following the pre-war warplan agreed to with the Germans, and the war would have been won. But Hötzendorf lacked any self-control. He wanted to crush Serbia without waiting for Germany to win the war in the west. So instead of sending the Austrian army to the East to stop a Russian invasion of Germany he wanted to use those troops against Serbia. The Germans were horrified. The Russian army had an open goal to score, and they could now invade Germany without any resistance. So the offensive in France had to be stopped, even if the French army was at the brink of collapse and victory was at grasp. And Germany was now furious on Austria and their stupid Conrad. Germany had to send troops to Eastern Germany and solve the problem by themselves. Meanwhile did Conrad hesitate between sending his troops to Serbia or to the Russian front. And an entire army was stuck at the rails during this crucial time only because of this jackass. The invasion of Serbia failed and Austria got humilitated. The Austrian army was sent to the east to stop the Russian advance. But after 3 big battles, which were all lost had the Austrian army been wiped out. And the war had barely just begun. Millions of Austro-Hungrian troops had been lost in only a few first months of the war. And this was the best equipped high quality troops which had been lost. And now was all what was left of the Austrian army just a skeleton of badly trained militia troops, with lower morale. Conrad managed to singlehandedly destroy one of the largest empires in Europe in only a few months. A centuries old monarchy which had been at the centre of global politics was wiped out in the war he lost.
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  3. Thank God that this war happened a long time ago so one is allowed to laugh at this horrible stupidity that caused so much death 😂
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