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

"That, and the fact that the Russians werent very good. "Russian soldiers were very good. Russian commanders were a completely different story. "The Dutch only had about 38,000 troops in the war when France and England fielded close to 10 million each. "So Con admits that the French were not fighting alone. "The Battle of Merne was the battle that halted the German advance through Belgium and the Netherlands towards Paris and caused the western front to end up in a stalemate. .. "First of all, you misspelled "Marne" several times. Second of all, anybody who ever spent an hours 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. "The Battle of Merne was fought by 6 French armies, a single British army. .. "I agree, the French initially halted the German advance. 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. "This was the battle that canceled Germany's desire for a quick annexation of France that plunged Germany into a two front war along the East and West. "The Germans never intended to annex France. The Schlieffen Plan was about defeating France quickly. "The Russians did not have a key battle or a key victory that froze German advancement into Russia. "Clearly Con knows little about the history of WWII. Some of the largest defeats that the central powers suffered were in battles against the Russians. I will go deeper into this later. "There is no battle of Tannesberg that took place where advancing Russians caused Germany to send reinforcements to the Eastern Front. "If Con has never heard of Tannesberg, one of the most famous battles of WWI, then Con clearly does not know much about the events of WWI. "So to summarize at this point: The French armies actually fought and WON crucial battles to stop the advancing german armies, causing WWI to become a two front war, whereas the Russians did not win any key battles and essentially fell flat on their a** up until they quit, amking France a more key power to the allies than Russia did"Except for the fact that Britain made up a huge portions of the forces on the Western Front. Beginning with the year 1916, the British had more troops in France than France did. You can see this in the battle of the Somme. Britain also destroyed Germany's navy. . http://en.wikipedia.org... "Russia quit from WWI. .. "Yes, Russia did leave the war early. But this does not help your case on how France played a more important role than the USSR. 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. "The surrender of Russia. .. move 50 army divisions into the Western Front to bring its total up to 192. .. Germany was fielding 142 divisions in the Western Front. .. and just 50 in the Eastern Front against the Russians, which clearly implies that France had a bigger part in fighting WWI then Russia did"At this point, Con is just ranting. A) There were only 50 divisions to move to France because of the staggering amount of forces Germany lost on the eastern front. B) Germany was not the only country fighting the allies. Clearly Con is not aware that Austria helped Germany hugely. C) Many divisions were moved to Italy, not all were moved to France. Earlier Con said that the Germans did not send any men to the east to support Tannesburg. This is completely untrue. ". .. the Russian action had diverted the Germans from their attack on France which allowed the French to counter-attack at the Marne. " . http://www.bbc.co.uk... Although Tannesberg was a Russian defeat, it doomed the Schlieffen Plan. Con also earlier stated that "the Russians did not have a key battle or a key victory that froze German advancement into Russia. " If this is what Con believes then he has clearly never heard of the Brusilov offensive. "It (the Brusilov Offensive) also broke the back of the Austro-Hungarian army, which suffered the majority of the casualties. ". http://en.wikipedia.org...Now in order to further prove that Russia played a more important role, I will compare battles:At the battle of the Marne, Germany suffered: 220,000During the Brusilov Offensive, Germany and Austria suffered: around 1,325,000Now this is like comparing Stalingrad with El Alamein. In the previous round, Con only talked about the importance of the first battle of the Marne. I have named one of the multiple events on the eastern front that inflicted more damage on the Central powers than the Marne did. Even at the Battle of Galicia against the Russians in 1914, Austria suffered 324,000 casualties. . http://en.wikipedia.org...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. Conclusion: Con was very rude. He believes that the quantity of arguments is what will win this debate. I believe that the quality of arguments will do that. A considerable portion of the time, Con just rants about how France was fighting Germany. He tries to diminish the contribution of the British fighting alongside the French who, besides single-handedly destroying the German fleet, took over the main fighting in France by 1916. Also, France never fought Austria. Russia was also a large reason that Germany lost the war. Con tries to show how Russia entered the war late and did nothing while the French were holding the Germans at the Marne. This is completely incorrect since just days after the Germans declared war, the Russians were already invading both Germany and Austria.