What do you think ?
What do you think ?
Soviets, by some distance. If you factor in other armed force then the other contenders starts to bear comparison, but their land forces weren't in the same league as the Soviets.
WWI? British. They were the ones that brought innovations to the field (like the tank).
Mmm... although I do not like French, but I must admit France was the best ally during World War I. They contributed most soldiers in Western Front, and suffered most. Britain is another great ally, since they pinned down Ottoman by themselves.
I don't believe they were Soviets at this time now were they. Every nation had it's own bonuses and weaknesses. The tank was a bit of a novelty towards the end of the war. Military historians still argue over it's effectiveness. Personally other than clearing thick, German barbed wire it was "Fear" of a metallic beast that was one of it's assets. The German concept of the "Storm trooper" working in tight knit groups to scout and then be the first wave of attack was a very powerful addition to the German war effort. The Germans also had deeper trenches than the allies.
Overall the armies of the Great War were all pretty bad. Why else did they have the need to throw soo many lives away?
None of the allied armies fought particularly well in ww1. The only allied country to come out of ww1 well was Japan. If there was a best allied army it was theirs.
I think he misunderstood and took it as who came out best for the losses, which would definitely be Japan, few soldiers lost, and got some land out of it and set up for their later imperialism.
I'd say Britain.
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Farnan, I think that was the whole point of his post.
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I would go with Britain as well. Although the Serbs held the austrians for a good while.
Italy it is not, that's for sure. Nor Russia.
France...well they did take most of the casualties.
Axtually, I don't see any reason why the Commonwealth army would have been better than that of France.
WW1 was definitively France, we counter all German attacks in our soil even if their had better weapon and France is the country which suffered the most of ww1 considering its population size, We had also some great generals like Clemenceau and Foch.
None of other allies known the horror of the trench war better than France.
in the second place I would said Britain who was our best allied and next American.
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Well you can't really blame the french after most of the war had been fought on their soil with seemingly incompetent leaders ordering them into suicide attacks time and again.
If I really wanted to choose "best", I'd have to go with the british, even if they didn't suffer as much as the french army. They certainly had the best professional army at the start of the war, though that bonus was quickly balanced out by the atrocious casualty rates.
The British. From 1916-1918 we held the entire western front while the French mutinied and were slaughtered at Verdun. We also took down the Ottoman Empire.
Best individual unit, the ANZACs. Gallipoli was probably the worst campaign in a horendous war
I'm very curious to know how the British army "held the entire western front" because the British army had 56 divisions in France and 53 of these divisions were at the Battle of Somme.
In comparison France had 70 divisions who participated at the Battle of Verdun and 6 divisions at the battle of Somme on the total of 112 divisions.
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The French treatment of their troops was fairly atrocious, keeping them in place with little rotation or R&R. This eventually led to mutiny, which was only put down by the "soldier's general" Petain, who drastically reformed the serving conditions of the French troops. Compare with the British, who were fastidious in ensuring their own troops got the best their system could give them. Imagine a WW2-America supply situation coupled with no shortage of troops, and a regular timetable of switching men in and out of the frontlines to reduce stress. Our generals probably used our troops no better than the French generals did theirs, but by golly they treated them better, and the troops responded, with consistently high morale despite massive losses.
If one is allowed to go for national contingents, I'd go for the Canadians or Australians, both feared by the Germans whenever their intelligence told them they were opposite. However, if only the major blocs are considered, then the British and Commonwealth gets my vote, for their dependability (thanks to their humane treatment of soldiers), and later, for their magnificent demonstration of combined arms warfare in the 100 days campaign. Which was, of course, spearheaded by the Australians and Canadians.If I really wanted to choose "best", I'd have to go with the british, even if they didn't suffer as much as the french army. They certainly had the best professional army at the start of the war, though that bonus was quickly balanced out by the atrocious casualty rates.
Britain definitely. their expeditionary force of only 100 000 - yet very highly trained - helped foil the Schlieffen plan and ultimately save the Frenchs' asses. However i do have to give a whole load of respect to the Belgians. their stoicism and efficency (trams and transport offline during german passage). in fact they held the German troops off for so long, France had time to remove their forces from the Franco-German border in time to meet the invading force.
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