Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done.
That's a common misconception about WWI, but it's really not true. At the beginning of the war the Germans came very close to out maneuvering the French army and seizing Paris with barely a fight, ending the war instantly. And on the eastern front the Germans very successfully used maneuver warfare to destroy one of the main Russian armies right at the beginning, allowing the Austrians to shift their troops south to compensate for their sudden betrayal by the Italians.
In the trenches themselves the Germans did use fancy maneuvers very successfully (see the other comment about stormtroopers), but contrary to popular opinion the trenches were never the real problem. Both sides were able to break through a trench line when they were willing to devote enough resources throughout the war.
The real problem was that once the line was broken, what do you do next? There was no motorized transport on the offence, soldiers had to travel on foot carrying all their food and supplies and nobody can keep doing that quickly for long. And the advancing soldiers had no way of communicating with command, meaning that they couldn't adapt their attack to changing conditions. By contrast, the defenders trying to contain the breakthrough had railroads and telegraphs to let them move around and communicate. So while both's side can and did create breakthroughs, the only effect was to move the front back a few dozen kilometers.
But of course, those factors aren't obvious to the naked eye like the trenches are, so are often forgotten.
By the time world war II rolled around attacking forces had internal combustion engines and the radio that let them have the same maneuverability and communications as the defenders. But as the Japanese and Germans found, while superior maneuver might let you defeat stronger foes, if you fight someone who is so much bigger that they can absorb defeat after defeat and still come on strong sooner or later they'll up their game, figure out how to fight as well as you do, and crush you.
To be fair the German's lost the war to two separate things, neither of which was due to anything that happened on the battlefield directly.
Hitler's move to bomb cities in Britian cost them London. His decision to change his objectives half way through the Russian campaign cost them Moscow (although you could argue invading Russia at all was dumb, the German army was still poised to overcome this, amazingly.
Hitler may have been on the verge of breaking the RAF before switching to bombing cities, but a land invasion is quite another thing entirely, and can't be assumed to have succeeded.
That's a common misconception about WWI, but it's really not true. At the beginning of the war the Germans came very close to out maneuvering the French army and seizing Paris with barely a fight, ending the war instantly. And on the eastern front the Germans very successfully used maneuver warfare to destroy one of the main Russian armies right at the beginning, allowing the Austrians to shift their troops south to compensate for their sudden betrayal by the Italians.
In the trenches themselves the Germans did use fancy maneuvers very successfully (see the other comment about stormtroopers), but contrary to popular opinion the trenches were never the real problem. Both sides were able to break through a trench line when they were willing to devote enough resources throughout the war.
The real problem was that once the line was broken, what do you do next? There was no motorized transport on the offence, soldiers had to travel on foot carrying all their food and supplies and nobody can keep doing that quickly for long. And the advancing soldiers had no way of communicating with command, meaning that they couldn't adapt their attack to changing conditions. By contrast, the defenders trying to contain the breakthrough had railroads and telegraphs to let them move around and communicate. So while both's side can and did create breakthroughs, the only effect was to move the front back a few dozen kilometers.
But of course, those factors aren't obvious to the naked eye like the trenches are, so are often forgotten.
By the time world war II rolled around attacking forces had internal combustion engines and the radio that let them have the same maneuverability and communications as the defenders. But as the Japanese and Germans found, while superior maneuver might let you defeat stronger foes, if you fight someone who is so much bigger that they can absorb defeat after defeat and still come on strong sooner or later they'll up their game, figure out how to fight as well as you do, and crush you.