The Mormon church has over $150 billion in assets, and people are very reluctant to call it a cult. But it fits almost all of the criteria.
I disagree. Look at the history of the Mormons - they spent many years getting run out of town because they were a weird cult, culminating with a state sanctioned armed attack and destruction of the principle Mormon settlement (Navoo) and the lynching (to them, martyrdom) of their founder, who was also an elected official and a surprisingly serious presidental candidate. Follow their Exodus to Utah, they very nearly declared themselves to be their own nation and we're engaged in low level fighting with the western US Army until the admission of Utah into the union - which only happened after the Mormons, effectively at gunpoint, declared the more blatant polygamists schismatics and sent them packing to Canada and Mexico.
I'm not a huge fan of the Latter Day Saints, but for a large and important chunk of their religion's existence, they were not only called a cult, but persecuted as one.
If there was a battle that the German high command was obsessed with, it was Austerlitz, where Napoleon showed how maneuver and control of his armies could decimate larger forces. That's, well, the reason the German general staff came into existence - analysis of Napoleon's victories and style of leadership showed that just amassing troops wasn't enough, here had to be a plan, and an operational art of war, beyond mere tactics.
Many studies, even the very first war games, were done by the German high command, using exquisitely drawn maps (again, one of the things they learned from the preceding wars, actually knowing what terrain you're on, and where you are kind of matters a great deal) looking at the battles of the Napoleonic wars, and the power of maneuver over fires.
The issue comes, not from machine guns, but from the absolutely devasting power of artillery, which turns nearly maneuvering blocks of infantry into, well, horrible casualties. Generals on both sides of the war looked for that one crushing engagement, that one sweep where they could break the enemy morale and carry the day. Of course they looked to Cannae, and spoke of victory to match it, it's one of the great battles and is taught for a reason. However, I think it's a mistake to look at the speeches and letters extolling a battle from 2000 years ago while ignoring entirely the world changing war that happened in their nation's recent memory, the one they literally wrote the book about.