Something I don't get is, how did armies continue to fight with all the pain, screaming, blood and limbs everywhere?

> You're my property and if you don't fight in my army, I'll burn down the house I let you build on my land. I don't particularly care if you and your family are inside when that happens.

That's the motivation applied to earlier medieval armies.

Later on, bring able to make a big sack of cash by being in the army took over.

Not to mention, knowing that the other guy WILL kill you if you don't kill him first is a good motivator, wether you are particularly angry at him or not.

Oh you fought for that flag all right.

At Pydna:

> Paullus claimed later that the sight of the phalanx filled him with alarm and amazement. The Romans tried to beat down the enemy pikes or hack off their points, but with little success. Roman officers began to despair. One 'rent his garments' in impotent fury. Another seized his unit's standard and threw it among the enemy. His men made a desperate charge to recapture it, but were beaten back despite inflicting some casualties.

Also, given that human history is overflowing with blood and gore, can we give the "Can ppl really be so mean n cruel I don believe it ;_;" spiel a rest?

but people fight in similar conditions to this day boyo

the battlefield stuck of shit, piss, blood, human entrails, sweat, you name it

but you get used to it

You don't know depths men are capable of when pushed.

Or insanely passionate about something like patriotism n shiet.

>Having been tracked all the way along the coast by the British cavalry and chariots, the landing was opposed. To make matters worse, the Roman ships were too large to go close inshore and the troops had to disembark in deep water, all the while attacked by the enemy from the shallows. The troops were reluctant, but according to Caesar's account were led by the aquilifer (standard bearer) of the 10th legion who jumped in first as an example, shouting:
>"Leap, fellow soldiers, unless you wish to betray your eagle to the enemy. I, for my part, will perform my duty to the republic and to my general."[16]
M A D M A N

I don't think you realize just how much less the standard human knew back then.

Not that they were stupid, no not at all, but they were much simpler. God WAS real. There was 0 doubt of that in most if not all of the peoples' minds back then. The trees were there because He made it so. Mankind was around because He made it so.

This combination of a religious mindset alongside the simpler mind made it easy to inspire many to defend/attack because of that faith.
>le evil sons of Sarah (Saracen comes from that, btw) have come to defame Christ
>50,000 volunteer to fight on the first day.

Hatred was easy to instill in the simple minds. If hatred could not be brought out in the men, there are other motivators. Like says, "Not to mention, knowing that the other guy WILL kill you if you don't kill him first is a good motivator, whether you are particularly angry at him or not."

Another point I'd like to raise is just how those armies came to face each other anyway. It was not like kings actively told one another "hey, meet me on the playground after school"

The kings would either receive word of another army suddenly encroaching on his lands, or he would receive word that his lands are being raided by the neighbor.

It was easy then to rally people around the idea of "They are coming, either fight or be raped and ransacked" I bet that got at least 20% of every village's fighting-age males to respond.

You never gotten into a fight with the lads?

Fun as fuck like.

Puts to rest the "who'd want to be the guy stuck with the standard?" question, really.

How fucking naive must one be to ask this question? OP sounds like some kind of sheltered, shy librarian.

Sorry for not contributing anything more than my dismay.

Proper excitin exercise, that is.

Seriously though, it's exciting enough just by yourself, but with a group it's essentially Animal Planet: Human Week.

-"Majestic, simply majestic..."

If we're talking ancient/medieval, less than that. Try 2-5%.

Accounts of 20th century battlefields:

>All of us greatly feared those night patrols, for the hundreds of men killed months ago were still lying between the lines. Those corpses were decomposed to a pulp. So when a man went on nocturnal patrol duty and when he had to crawl in the utter darkness on hands and knees over all those bodies he would now and then land in the decomposed faces of the dead. If then a man happened to have a tiny wound in his hands his life was greatly endangered by the septic virus.

> I see Russians in front of me, maybe five metres away. I called out to them to surrender, and they did not do that, so I threw a hand grenade, and now you can imagine what it looked like in there. One of them came out and he had blood coming from his mouth, from his nose and from his ears. And he pulled his machine gun into the air and I say to myself: ‘Well, you ain’t gonna get me.’ And I aim my gun at him and all of a sudden I see little stars. I was shot and that was it. I saw little stars in front of my eyes. I looked to my right, and I ran my left hand over my face and a jet of blood comes out and my teeth flew out of my mouth...Now it’s all over, I thought. My colleague saw it and he went, ‘Ah, ah!’ He crushed the head of the Russian who had shot me. He crushed his head despite the steel helmet he was wearing, right into the middle of his face. That made such a cracking noise, I can still hear it today. Then I saw my second lieutenant, Hennes, he was maybe 20 or 30 metres away from me. I went to the second lieutenant, into his hole, and he bandaged me...and all of a sudden he said, ‘Careful, a Russian.’ He aimed his machine gun at him and then his steel helmet flies through the air. He got shot in his head and I saw how his head split. That’s the first time I saw a brain. On the left hand side and on the right hand side there were parts of the brain, and in the middle there was water. No blood, but water.

This is a valid point. Morale was something every general had to consider.

A desire not to let those around you down were probably the most important motivators, even today soldiers often answer that they fought for the soldiers around them. Propaganda, religion and pay (or loot) were important, soldiers needed a reason to be there, though I doubt they were opining on philosophy or their life goals when they witnessed something that put into perspective what they were getting into. I imagine they would glance at the men beside them and remember their training. There might have been a certain level of rationalization, that the best option is to hold the line or keep reloading and firing as they had been drilled to do.

Source?

China never disappoints when looking for weird peasant uprisings with absurdly massive death tolls

>20,000-30,000 civillians eaten
wut? They're only 10,000 soldiers whereas you, as civillians, easily outnumber them. If they start eating you, just kill them and let the enemy in, at least they're better than fucking cannibals.

>"b-but confucius told me that's bad"

What if they thought that the enemy would do even worse shit than their own soldiers?

I'm glad someone saved those.

Are you pretending to request advice on becoming a warrior, or are you just trying to make yourself feel better because you're "more evolved" than people of past eras?

Because we can't do the former, and the latter is self-evidently false.

Source please

It's probably a lot easier to justify killing someone who's 2 feet away and about to stab you than it is to justify shooting someone who's 200 yards away and can't even see you.

Is it fucked up to have a feeling of nostalgia for pre industrial warfare? As horrid as it all sounds, I think I could've found satisfaction in being a soldier back during those times. But then again, how much of it is simply romanticism?

It's perfectly normal for a white male who is under intense, justified scrutiny by a diverse and tolerant society to hide in the pages of history that have oppressed us PoC for so many years

It's incredibly cringeworthy, actually.