This has nothing to do with contemporary officers being incompetent or illogical (Although precisely this kind of officers seems to exist in each war. At least

This has nothing to do with contemporary officers being incompetent or illogical (Although precisely this kind of officers seems to exist in each war. At least at the beginning...) I think the main problem here is that new doctrines are hard to develop during wars. The German Stoßtrupp doctrine is a succesful example, btw. The various forms of artillery support are another. But these doctrines were developed around existing tools. If you look at the planes of 1917 or 1918, you find surprisingly sophisticated tactical and strategic bombers. A Schwerpunkt attack under local air superiority would have been very difficult, logistically and tactically, but the planes existed. Regarding the tanks, you just have to look at the FT17 - it came too late for the French but it was exactly the right tool and could have been built by the Germans as well. The relatively low speed doesn't really matter once the enemy's first line is breached, a few dozen of these tanks would effectively prevent any counter attack and could immediately pressure the second line. They would also draw a lot of artillery fire and massively reduce the value of the indirect artillery pieces that dominated the battlefield. At the same time, every army could have fielded motorized infantry with motorcycles (afaik only the US did). Such troops would obviously be useless in the first wave of the attack but they could push through a breakthrough and outflank counter attacks. The technology and equipment did exist, but here I think the contemporary doctrine would not allow for such relatively autonomous and expensive small units.