For 1915 and 1916 in World War I, the lines between Allied forces and the Germans remained almost fixed, and yet approximately 3.1 million men were killed. Ignoring the drastic changes the machine gun brought to the trenches, generals continued to send troops endlessly forward in to fire, a bloody and fruitless tactic. Isaac Asimov, in Asimov's Chronology of the World, has said of this strategic blindness "It is impossible to imagine a war fought more stupidly."