Recommended: The Continued Relevance of World War I by Gregory Thiele

 

Look Familiar? 
A Camouflaged Ukrainian Artillery Position, October 2025 

At his excellent military history site  Lead Trace—Thoughts on Military History and Strategy, Greg Thiele has come up with an astute analysis on the continuing influence of the Great War in the 21st century. Here are the opening passages followed by a link to the full article.

World War I ended more than a century ago. For some, it may seem this is so long ago that the war has little relevance today. I hold an entirely different view. I once asserted that if I was forced to select only one war to study, it would be World War I. I still believe this. The First World War remains worthy of detailed examination by military professionals and those interested in military history.

What follows are a few areas where World War I can still illuminate current challenges.  

Attacks on fortified positions / positional warfare  

Trench warfare defined the Western Front throughout most of the war. Both sides struggled with little prospect of success to attack fortifications without suffering horrific casualties. To address the riddle of the trenches, the Allies selected a technical solution using ever-increasing firepower and tanks. The Germans changed their tactics to infiltrate between Allied units, attack in depth and collapse Allied strongpoints from behind. Both sides used firepower in different ways too. The Allies sought to obliterate German defenders so Allied infantry could occupy their objectives. This rarely worked and resulted in large expenditures of ammunition and heavy casualties. The Germans used supporting arms to suppress Allied troops so German units could maneuver effectively. This effect proved far easier to achieve.  More than one hundred years later, weapons have changed, but the nature of the problem has not. Leaders still confront the same basic problem posed on World War I’s Western Front—how to best employ supporting arms and how to effectively attack a fortified position.

Yep, Pretty Familiar
The Somme 1916 or '17

War of maneuver 

World War I’s Eastern Front has been largely forgotten in the west (although this has begun to change lately). In contrast to the trench warfare dominant on the Western Front, the Eastern Front was too vast for trenches to be more than a temporary defensive feature. The Eastern Front was a war of maneuver. The Germans developed infiltration tactics and artillery employment techniques in the east and exported them to the Western Front late in the war.  Those interested in maneuver will find a variety of examples such as the Tannenberg , where the Germans cut off and destroyed a Russian army invading East Prussia in 1914 or the 1915 Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign in which the Germans crippled the Russian armies they faced.

Continue reading the article HERE.

Thanks to Dana Lombardy for bringing this to our attention. MH