In WWI, Russia played a more important role in the defeat of the Central Powers than France.

Funny how pro accuses me of being rude and then immediately proceeds on being the bigger dick in the debate.... 1) The Battle of Marne"Second of all, anybody who ever spent an hour studying WWI would know that the first battle of the Marne halted the German advance into France so there is no reason to restate a well known fact."Hate to break it to you Pro, but not everyone devotes an hour to learning about WWI, its the job of the debaters to bring up all relevant information to a debate and not just assume that the voters know all of this already. "But I would like to remind you that the first battle of the Marne was only one of Germany's many defeats and in no shape or form was it the most catastrophic defeat for the Central Powers."I never claimed that it was though.... All I said was that the battle plunged both factions into a prolonged stalemate along the Western Front that lasted for four years, and quickly ended Germany's plans for a quick overrun of France, and THAT is what ultimately caused the defeat of the Central Powers. It was this battle that caused the Central Powers to fall into a two front war, which ultimately is the reason they were defeated since they had to divide their forces into two, and this makes the French a huge player in the defeat of the Central Powers because if they didnt cause WWI to be a two front war, then Central Powers would have kicked Russia's a** even harder and could have won the war. "Except for the fact that Britain made up a huge portions of the forces on the Western Front. "Only later in the war did Britain field huge forces in the battlefields of Europe.... Early on in the war in the first few battles the French made up the bulk of the forces on the western front fighting the central powers, and they still played a heavy role in the middle and last parts of the war as well. 2) Russia left the War"In WWII, Britain fought for about 6 years while the USSR only fought for 4 years. However it is easy to prove that Britain was not as important as the USSR was. Thus, this is a horrible and unsupported argument"Thats an utterly idiotic counter to the claim that Russia leaving WWI is irrelevant and somehow supports the claim that they did more to help the allies than France..... The simple truth is that Russia got its a** kicked non stop for 2 years along the Eastern Front, then managed to finally win a few battles and halt the advancement, only to then leave the war when its government and economy caved in on itself.... All those forces on the Eastern front were then released onto the Western front in one final offensive that was ultimately repealed by a French-led combination of forces.....Russia's chickening out from the war almost caused the Central Powers to win, yet France and its allies managed to resist against the influx of forces and then really scale back the battle lines to the point where Germany finally surrendered. "There were only 50 divisions to move to France because of the staggering amount of forces Germany lost on the eastern front"They only lost 800,000 men in Russia. The main fighting on the western front happened between the Russians and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where both sides lost upwards of 6 million people (Though Russia lost close to 8 million)http://en.wikipedia.org...(World_War_I)"B) Germany was not the only country fighting the allies. Clearly Con is not aware that Austria helped Germany hugely"I am aware that the Austro-hungarians helped Germany hugely, they were the ones kicking Russia's a** later on in the war after Germany kicked Russia's a** early on in the war. "Although Tannesberg was a Russian defeat, it doomed the Schlieffen Plan."The battle of Tannesberg was fought by the Germans with 166,000 men whereas the battle of Marne was fought by the Germans with a whopping 1.5 MILLION men, they didnt drain that many men from the eastern front. To claim that it severely affected how the Battle of Marne played out is completely unsupported by facts.3) Russian battles they actually won"It (the Brusilov Offensive) also broke the back of the Austro-Hungarian army, which suffered the majority of the casualties.""And it only took Russia two years to finally win an important battle....."At the battle of the Marne, Germany suffered: 220,000... During the Brusilov Offensive, Germany and Austria suffered: around 1,325,000... Now this is like comparing Stalingrad with El Alamein"Youre overlooking the fact that the reason the number of casualties in the Battle of Marne is lower is because the Battle of Marne resulted in both sides adopting trench warfare all along the western front, which deadlocked he advance from the Central Powers.In fact in the battle of Marne, both sides used 1 to 1.5 million men whereas in the Brusilov Offensive both sides had round 580,000 men, about 1/2 to 1/3rd the size of the forces involved in the Battle of Marne. http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...Now Marne is starting to look like the Stalingrad while Brusilov looks like El-Alamein eh? Youre battle of Galicia also used less troops then those involved in the Battle of the Marne too. "After the Schlieffen Plan failed, Germany's plan became to hold back the numerically superior British and French with lines of trenches and send their main forces east to crush the Russians. "And thats exactly what happened since the Russians got hammered to the point where their government and their economy collapsed, causing them to basically surrender. Extend all dropped arguments about how the French and its allies repelled the Germans after the Russians surrendered, about how the Russians lost battle after battle in the first two years of the war when the French actually fought well, about how Russias surrender almost would have let the central powers win the war had France and its allies fallen under the bigger forces, etc etc