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A couple quick shots:
No winner in WW 1? Nonsense. The US won big. It went from being a second rate military and economic power to a major world power in a matter of months with relatively light casualties while, at the same time, the world's former great powers had by and large annhilated themselves.
Germany the "belligerent" in WW 1? No moreso than any of the Allies. Germany had a mutual defense treaty with Austria. Russia mobilized against Austria and Germany was obliged to respond or see its credibility destroyed in both diplomatic and military circles. The same was true for the French who then mobilized based upon their own treaty with the Russians. Likewise the English coming to the defense of Belgium based upon a British guarantee. If ANY of these countries had failed to respond as they did, the war would have been much briefer, more localized, with far fewer casualties while, at the same time it would have run the risk of significantly reducing the credibility of the nation(s) which did not honor their obligations. Whether that would have further destabilized Europe or not is anyone's guess. What we do know is WW 2 was a direct result of countries refusing to enforce their treaty rights and authority or to stand by their international obligations.
The EU will destroy Britain if Britain joins, but will render Britain irrelevant if it doesn't. Does an Englishman really want a Belgian telling him, by law, how much breading must be on his fish or what type of oil his chips must be cooked in? Or a Scotsman how much virgin wool must be in his kilt? (I admit I'm a diehard Secessionist, I still stand for Dixie and didn't go see the movie "Gettysburg" because my side always loses. The bigger/more populous the country and the more powerful the central government, the fewer rights and less control are held by the individual.)
The Generals weren't "criminals" or butchers or any of that other nonsense. They were men trained in relatively mobile, low rate of fire warfare who were suddenly thrust into a fixed position war in which the rates and volumns of fire made possible by technological and logistical advances and by the industrial revolution were unlike anything previously known to man. They did the best they could without the luxury of hindsight.
Barrett, I've heard of a high level NATO briefing in which a USAF General was dismissing the tremendous numerical superiority of the Soviet AF as merely constituting a "target rich environment". An RAF Air Marshal in attendance responded that that same thought had probably occured to Gen. Custer as he rode on the Little Bighorn.
Finally, the German Air Service was tactically innovative, much moreso than any of the Allies. The Boelcke Dicta are still standard training sources, though sometimes by different names, for fighter pilots throughout the world. To suggest that the Allied program of constant air offensive was the "right" strategy has little to recommend it. The German emphasis was on local air superiority, just as it MUST be for an outnumbered AF. To do otherwise would be to play directly to your opponent's strongest point with the result that you would bleed yourself white. Instead the Germans were able to nearly bleed the Allies white despite having only a fraction of the total available air assets of the Allies. BOTH sides played to their respective strong points admirably.
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