Great read. Don't think you fully tease it out, but I'm sure you were thinking it: the Izyum and other places astride highways and other lines of communication. Very easy for elites to label a small village "strategically vital" even before the offensive.
CDR, you said, "It will not be a short war. It will not be an easy war,..." True, but it will be <sold> as a short war. Or using the words of David Weber's Honor Harrington novel "A Short Victorious War." Putin thought his Ukraine War would be over in a month.
Field Marshall Haig threw battalion after battalion at the First Battle of the Somme for four and a half months. Over that period, the British lost over 14,000 casualties per month. Haig and Lord Kitchener beat the “regimental traditions” drum over and over, where any truly competent military authority would have been questioning their equipment, tactics, or decisions. Charging uphill, while enfiladed by entrenched machine gun positions, in an artillery barrage? Or was it simple hubris by upper levels of the British command structure? I recommend “Men of 18 in 1918: Memories of the Western Front in World War One”, by a veteran of later fighting in that area, Frederick Hodges.
Great read. Don't think you fully tease it out, but I'm sure you were thinking it: the Izyum and other places astride highways and other lines of communication. Very easy for elites to label a small village "strategically vital" even before the offensive.
CDR, you said, "It will not be a short war. It will not be an easy war,..." True, but it will be <sold> as a short war. Or using the words of David Weber's Honor Harrington novel "A Short Victorious War." Putin thought his Ukraine War would be over in a month.
Field Marshall Haig threw battalion after battalion at the First Battle of the Somme for four and a half months. Over that period, the British lost over 14,000 casualties per month. Haig and Lord Kitchener beat the “regimental traditions” drum over and over, where any truly competent military authority would have been questioning their equipment, tactics, or decisions. Charging uphill, while enfiladed by entrenched machine gun positions, in an artillery barrage? Or was it simple hubris by upper levels of the British command structure? I recommend “Men of 18 in 1918: Memories of the Western Front in World War One”, by a veteran of later fighting in that area, Frederick Hodges.