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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   3954 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It's idiotic because it's wrong. An armistice is a cessation of hostilities, that's all. The Armistice was not a permanent peace - it was initially only for a month and was extended multiple times when peace negotiations took too long. But then Sam Kriss was never one to let facts get in the way of a good story.

I think the point is that it was an obvious prelude to peace, and further fighting forseeably ended up accomplishing no military objectives whatsoever, which strongly implies pointless deaths that could've been easily averted.

Would that have been obvious to the men on the ground?

Attrition of the enemy was then, a valuable military objective, just as it is today in Ukraine. Would the Ukrainians really miss an opportunity to reduce the number of enemies?

From what I vaguely know and from skimming the wikipedia article, I'd guess that it was obvious to men on the ground, but not certain. So some fighting did happen because they wanted to push forward in case the war restarted, but it was obvious that wasn't the most likely outcome. Even granting that point, one can still blame the leaders, who had the option to pause earlier but chose not to. And it's not just my position that this wasn't necessary:

After the war, there was a deep shame that so many soldiers died on the final day of the war, especially in the hours after the treaty had been signed but had not yet taken effect. In the United States, Congress opened an investigation to find out why and if blame should be placed on the leaders of the American Expeditionary Forces, including John Pershing.[41] In France, many graves of French soldiers who died on 11 November were backdated to 10 November.[38]

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