Art (Quite Literally) Imitating Life (And Death)

Get this, folks. Not only is the Stanley Kubrick, Kirk Douglas classic, "Paths of Glory", one of the finest anti-war movies ever made, it's also one of the more accurate ones. According to numerous sources (historians, Jim Powell, Martin Gilbert, S.L.A. Marshall, and Johnny Mosier, just to name four) the German generals (during the first world war) were vastly superior and far less likely to squander the lives of their men than the French, British, and Russian generals were, the French, especially (frequently cited is a fellow named Joffre who literally served up tens of thousands of men a day in Champagne). Damn!..........................................................................................And if you think that it was no big deal if a soldier refused to offer himself up as machine-gun fodder, think again. Just like in the movie, French soldiers that refused these suicidal orders were routinely executed, without a trial and usually within 24 hours, courtesy of the French Ministry of War (and according to Gilbert, the Brits did likewise). Real humane, huh?....................................................................................That, and it wasn't as if these brutal measures ever resulted in any sort of strategic advantage. I mean, yeah, guys like Joffre would occasionally get a mile or two out of one of these onslaughts but for the most part it was bubkas and I still for the life of me can't understand why President Wilson was willing to put American soldiers into the middle of that grinder. Dementia maybe (I heard that the fellow was basically being fed by the end of his second term)?