Thing is, the cause of the strategic stalemate on the Western Front wasn't necessarily that tactical innovations like machine guns, barbed wire, and quickfiring artillery made casualties for attacking forces unacceptably high. Machine guns and artillery can be used on the attack as well as the defense, after all, and indeed, most assaults could successfully break into the enemy position. However, they could never break through, because the enemy army could always mass superior forces and counterattack before the assaulting force could be reinforced with artillery and infantry. The counter-attack would land like a ton of bricks, and restore the front.

Essentially, it had become faster of a defender to shift reserves by rail to an area under attack than it was to grind through the defenses. While the defender would take heavy losses in the attack, the problems of offensive tactical mobility made it hard for the attacker to turn those casualties into advances and long range offensive maneuver.