>instead the armies would execute soldiers for cowardice //
Was it not a necessity (on the basis of "winning" the trench warfare)?
If you can go home to a nice feather bed and being looked after in a care home without even the appearance of an injury by presenting as having PTSD/shell-shock then the effect on moral and ability to force men to go over-the-top with the threat of capital punishment for desertion is going to be detrimental to the offensive capabilities. Here's me 6-inches deep in mud sitting on a firing step, thirsty and flea-bitten, nursing my shrapnel wound; there's Joe going home without a scratch on him??
Cowardice and PTSD/shell-shock probably present in similar ways on a battlefield too - I'm a huge coward, I'm not trying to suggest anyone had less honour than they did, just that I'd expect to be a gibbering wreck without any shell-shock.
With the tactics employed it looks like it was a numbers game, to play that game they couldn't afford compassion for the fighting men of either side.
Strangely it had no impact on the outcome. Marching millions of men 'over the top' to be mowed down by machine guns was pointless. Even though the tactic failed utterly, they kept doing it. Out of desperation? They executed a generation.
They didn't really understand what was happening. Keep in mind that 1914 was a different war -- there was maneuver and grand strategy elements there.
What had happened is that you had officers and political leaders fed on a steady diet of studying Napoleonic warfare. They earnestly believed that elan and offense would bring them to a decisive victory on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the British experience in the Boer War and other conflicts distracted from the hard lessons learned by the Americans from 1861-1865... rifles and railroads meant that victory didn't matter in modern war, only breaking down the enemy's ability to maintain the army.
The other thing was that while WW1 armies had many of the trappings of the modern era (machine guns, explosives, some vehicles, limited aircraft, railroads), they lacked good communications infrastructure. The order of battle was driven by a pre-defined, precisely timed plan. The guns fired at target X at time Y, and division Z needed to move as planned. If circumstances changed, they could not react. With shock tactics and other advances, armies were able to "win" territory at a tactical level -- but they couldn't exploit the victories in a meaningful way.
It is a war that should always be studied and talked about, because it aptly demonstrates the horror and futility of modern warfare without the overarching "Good vs. Evil" narrative in WW2 or the weird political calculus of other conflicts. Millions of lives were sacrificed for nothing.
I'm not sure we can say it had no impact. Two cousins playing who can get the most soldiers to die for their side, sickening stuff.
Perhaps there was some Gambler's fallacy involved - like wow, stopping shelling and blowing whistles before we attack somehow isn't fooling them, lets keep shelling whilst we walk on over no-man's land, it's got to work this time for sure; can't change it now, we've nearly won!??
Was it not a necessity (on the basis of "winning" the trench warfare)?
If you can go home to a nice feather bed and being looked after in a care home without even the appearance of an injury by presenting as having PTSD/shell-shock then the effect on moral and ability to force men to go over-the-top with the threat of capital punishment for desertion is going to be detrimental to the offensive capabilities. Here's me 6-inches deep in mud sitting on a firing step, thirsty and flea-bitten, nursing my shrapnel wound; there's Joe going home without a scratch on him??
Cowardice and PTSD/shell-shock probably present in similar ways on a battlefield too - I'm a huge coward, I'm not trying to suggest anyone had less honour than they did, just that I'd expect to be a gibbering wreck without any shell-shock.
With the tactics employed it looks like it was a numbers game, to play that game they couldn't afford compassion for the fighting men of either side.