re: Hypothetical: If you were a General in WWI, how Would you have Fought?

The problem was communication. There was no way for high-level commanders to effectively communicate with their troops once they crossed no-man's land. Generals were blind and powerless once the attack started. There are multiple instances of attacks that carried the enemy trenches, and then stalled while they waited hours for the high command to receive their status reports and send back further instructions. By the time successful attacks could be followed up, the enemy had time to recover and launch attacks of their own to eliminate any gains made.

The initial response to this problem was to attempt to plan everything out in advance to the minute. Troops were supposed to advance behind creeping barrages which were carefully calibrated to move at the expected speed of the infantry attack. Of course, in the actual event, things never went as planned.

As I mentioned above, the Germans finally figured out that the only way to deal with a total lack of communication with forward troops was to simply accept it. Stosstruppen units were sent over the top with orders to bypass enemy strong points and simply penetrate as deeply as they could. Regular infantry would then follow up and deal with the remaining pockets of resistance. It was kind of like a slow-motion blitzkrieg in a way, but it was effective.