kzt wrote:Yes they did. The Germans, the French, and the UK all sent high ranking influential officers. All of whom first hand observed the effects of machine guns, barbed wire, trenches and grenades in the assault on trenches. Then a decade later these same armies recreated the entire Russo-Japanese war at the First Battle of Ypres, and everyone was shocked and appalled at the horrific effects of machine guns, barbed wire, trenches and nobody had hand grenades.
Because everybody basic idea was that they SHOULDN'T do that.
The key to the japanese ineffective attacks against Port-Arthur was the lack of siege artillery. Their initial supply of 11-inch Krupp siege howitzers was lost, when the russian cruisers intercepted the steamer which carried them to the continent. That's why the Japanese were forced to use such ineffective tactics.
But as soon as Japanese obtained new batch of 11-inch howitzers, they just blast through the russian fortifications.
So the general answer, that European armies obtained was "the proper artillery would quickly pounch through any fortress". And if you recall German actions in Belgium - they clearly based their strategy on the experience of Russo-Japanese War, using the 16-inch "Big Bertha"'s mortars to quickly destroy the opponent's fortifications.
The flaw in this conception was, that - based on the results of Port-Arhtur defense - everybody still considered such defenses as a part of some kind of locak fortress, NOT as part of field fortifications.
So agan, the reality is completely opposite of what you are talking about. The european armies learn a lot from russo-japanese war. Not everything was right, of course.