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One of the interesting things about WWI was the extent to which the military establishments of the European powers had failed to learn lessons from the American Civil War.  The ACW demonstrated how the advent of rifles (with their much-longer range than muskets) expanded the killing zone out in front of defending infantry.  This--combined with defenders improving their positions with trenches and/or abatis made it much more difficult for frontal attacks to succeed.  No longer could smooth-bore artillery move close enough to defending infantry to use their anti-personnel ammunition, Napoleon-style--the horses drawing the guns were too easy for rifle-armed defenders to hit.

And rifles themselves improved.  The standard ones were essentially rebarrelled muskets, with reduced bore.  They were muzzle-loaders, just like Napoleonic-era muskets, with paper cartridges that soldiers had to tear open with their teeth, pour the powder down the bore, then push the patch and the Minie ball down with a ramrod.  By the end of the war there were many units equipped with breech-loading rifles and carbines, and even some repeating, metallic-cartridge rifles.

So defending armies went to ground, entrenched, and put up barricades, and attacking armies usually lost.  Cavalry moved to the margins of the battlefield, being used for reconnaissance and security missions, and occasionally in economy-of-force roles, such as Buford's division on Day 1 of Gettysburg, but virtually never in frontal charges except against other cavalry (Custer's fight against elements of Stuart's command east of Union lines at Gettysburg on Day 3 is a good example) or disorganized, scattered, or retreating infantry.

The bayonet became less important.  There was some prevalent humor that the only bayonet wounds delivered were in the backs of soldiers who were already breaking.  Bayonets didn't become useless, but because the killing zone of defensive positions had so increased in depth, bayonet charges seldom reached their objectives.

All of this was there for the European armies to learn, but they mostly didn't.  They wrote off the lessons of the ACW as the product of mass, poorly trained armies fighting under the command of amateur generals.  They had to experience the horrible offensives of 1915 before they learned the truth.

That is truly amazing.  In retrospect, the battles toward the end of the ACW very much resembled the trench warfare of WWI.  On top of that, most of the European powers had military observers operating near the ACW battles so they *SHOULD* have learned those lessons and they *SHOULD* have seen trench warfare coming.  
I think the thing that blinded the Europeans to this was that there were two European wars fought after the ACW where trenches were not an issue:

• The Austro-Prussian war was fought in 1866 and only lasted barely over a month.  Prussia absolutely routed Austria and annexed most of what would become Germany.  
• The Franco-Prussian war was fought in 1870-71 and only lasted half a year.  The Prussians absolutely routed the French and united most German-speaking people to form the German Empire and the furthest extent of German territorial control (other than temporary wartime control during WWI and WWII).  

Neither of these two wars lasted long enough for trenches and attrition-based warfare to become terribly relevant.  

And then along game the machine gun. If the repeating and rifled rifle transformed the battlefield, the machine gun overwhelmed it.

And to think that 60 years after the charge of the light brigade, the cavalry began the Great War still riding horses.
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And as to Tolstoy, I'm currently on 1121 of 1453 pages. It's too late to stop now. I nearly did between the Napoleonic wars as his focus on the characters' personal lives and constant discussion of their feelings was intensely boring. I generally agree with you: I don't care much about the characters. I'm mostly interested in Tolstoy's characterization of the French invasion. From time to time I'm interested in his individualist/existential philosophy. I've seen that War and Peace has many times been called "one of the greatest novels ever written." That is absurd, although I do have a friend/neighbor who swears it is his favorite. 

I like reading Russian history, but have stayed far away from War & Peace, no thanks.    The history of the Kremlin was remarkably good (Red Fortress) as was the history of Siberia, the exhile part (The House of the Dead, Siberian Exile Under the Tsars).   Still a grind at times.

My problem with classic Russian literature is that it punishes the reader with the same fatalism it espouses. Read this because you are supposed to, and suffer the same mind-numbing drudgery the novelist attempts to elicit as the cause and result of so much of [classic] Russian society's ills. 

I'm reading War and Peace largely because I was complaining to my neighbor about what a slog Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment was (the Tell Tale Heart, just a lot longer and made as boring as possible--and ok, with sort of a tale of redemption at the end). His reaction was to agree, then to suggest War and Peace as the antidote (it is his favorite novel!).

And thus the punishment continues. I've had several people tell me I should really read Anna Karenina for good Tolstoy and the Brothers Karamazov for good Dostoyevsky, but I'm thinking fool me once...

And, regarding your *sort of review,* it strikes that the view of war as necessity is fatalist, too [edit, I realize you are exploring that view and to some degree taking issue with it]: there are plenty of examples of problems solved without the kind of large scale violence Heinlein and others nod to. Also, that kind of view is often used to excuse mass bloodshed as a necessity. I suppose Tolstoy would argue the Great War (WWI) was a necessity to free Europe of its prior bonds, which, presumably leads to the Second World War to deal with the problems the Treaty of Versailles caused. Was it really necessary to kill, what, 90 million(?) people because the old monarchs couldn't check their egos? If so, yikes.

But it does remind me of a conversation I had with someone recently that is obliquely relevant to the end of the Russian monarchy. Some people (and often libertarians) like to say, "the market will solve the problem." That is essentially a universal truth if what you mean by market is kind of a social Darwinism. The problem is the market's solution is usually disruptive. For the taxi drivers of the world, it's ridesharing and you nod your head and think, ok, so that's a dirsruption for the cab driver, but good for me. Hooray for the market solution.

But for the aristocracy, absolute reliance on the "market solution" led to the guillotine and the Bolsheviks, neither of which is particularly attractive. "The Glorious Revolution" wasn't so glorious for the English monarchy. The lure of traditional liberal democracy is the idea that through the consent and participation of the governed, we can solve problems without resorting to large-scale bloodshed. Since the Civil War, the U.S. largely has solved domestic issues that way. India provides a pretty good example of even national rule changing as a result of liberal democratic values and process.

This is not to suggest that change in liberal democracy is easy or painless, only that you don't have to kill millions of people to get it. However, it only works if the people consent and participate, which requires that they have some ownership in it and believe it is to their advantage to do so. One of the more interesting facets to that is how property rights factor in. Things to keep you up at night.

On a interstate level, the proliferation of interstate trade, which can give countries a real stake in the stability of other countries, has some potential to pacify international relations. Indeed, the world has been a safer place since WW2 as "western" countries were united by trade. Again, the flow and distribution of capital are critical--and things to keep you up at night.

I suppose I'm trending way too far into politics here, but whatever.  :-)

Speaking of long book, I started Pillars of the Earth a few days ago.  I'm enjoying it, though still working to find good reading spots in the new house.  I realized we have a distinct lack of lamps.

And, regarding your *sort of review,* 

To be honest, upon re-reading it I'm not entirely even sure where my head was at that point... I know I was delving deeply into currency issues during that period, I think we were kinda into (and then out of) the Arab Spring, and I'm not entirely sure what else was going on. 
I still do think that the the world is changing at a rate that society is simply not ready for due to the internet. I'm not sure if something is going to "break" in such a fatalistic sense as I might have said then, but I'm also not sure it's not going to happen. I still feel that we're on the precipice of something, and we haven't quite figured out how to deal with it.