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> forces more than men were dictating things > one general smashed his telephone so that it could not be rescinded Seems like your "forces more than men" are

• gustavus 3y ago
  To an extant yes, but another example where it seemed forces more than men moved things was Verdun. Halfway through the battle both the Germans and the French generals commanding the armies wanted to pull out because it was so horrible, but the Germans were so close to a victory they couldn't pull out after all the blood that had been spilt being so close to victory, meanwhile the French couldn't give a single inch of ground for doing so would mean the loss of Verdun, which was a monument of national pride, and so for three hundred and three days below the sun the battle carried, father and son fell one by one. The war is replete with similar examples, and sure we can call it mythos or ideology or something like that, but it is clear there were times in the war that even had the generals and the populace wanted things to be different it was near impossible to change and men continued thrown into the meat grinder.