How were soldiers motivated to go to war?

In WW1 it was "Duty"
In WW2 it was "Morality vs Ideology"
In WW3 no one will fight

Just by the very fact of trying to characterize conflicts by '2 politicians don't like each other' you've irrevocably revealed yourself to be profoundly ignorant.

If more people thought like you the only thing that would be different is there would be more idiots bloviating about things they had no clue about.

the value of a life depends on what they do with it. ask yourself how much would your life be worth without the internet.

Not everyone is a coward and shirker like you

i was told in my public canadian school that nationalism brainwashed people into zombies that hated everything other than themselves

The overwhelming amount of people who go to war get out completely fine.

youtube.com/watch?v=SS1dO0JC2EE

dont get shot...?

Having met and talked with literally hundreds of vets, from WWI to Korea, the prime motivator in battle seems to be "I don't want to let my buddies down". Unit cohesion, in other words trumps any political or ideological factors.

"IF PEOPLE WERE ALL LIKE ME THE WORLD WOULD BE PERFECT AND I WOULDN'T BE SO LONELY NOT MY FAULT THOUGH IT EVERYONE ELSE WHO'S WRONG"

Yea the overwhelming majority of soldiers don't get shot or blown up.

>the only enemy I would ever fight is nazis

Antifa troll please go

>le war is good xD

Both of you are retarded

I hope you're 13 because otherwise you really ought to consider look at the world realistically.

>le war is good xD
I wonder how could you possibly infer that sentiment from my post.

This.

>>Were people really executed AFTER a war for treason? That just sounds too barbaric to be true. Definitely not after WW2.

My Polish great-grandfather was forcibly drafted to fight in the Russian Japanese war, which ended when he was half-way in the trip there. If he had returned to Poland he would have been shot as a deserter despite not even arriving to the battlefield.

THIS you cuckolded nancy

The need to prove your bravery in front of others is the mark of a true coward. You're the type of guy who gets into a fight with a guy at a bar who makes a passing comment because you're afraid of looking like a pussy.

...

>all the lads in town enlisted but he didn't

>all the lads got killed and are now being cucked from beyond the grave by Lord Morningwood's sons who avoided the war due to their wealth and influence

>he doen't wanna kill niggas and attain glory

>yfw the upper class actually took disproportionately high casualties during the Great War because most of Europe was still warrior aristocracies

These

We live in the internet age, and our perspective is very different because of this. We see everything that other countries do, we see all the bullshit going on, so the idea of actually DYING for a country seems pretty crazy. But back then, all of their information came from the media and what they were told...Information was much more controlled.

Roman emperors motivated legionnaires by promising them free anime.

I would argue it's because back then having borders wasn't a taboo and being a citizen actually meant something.

>How were soldiers motivated to go to war?

Bits of metal and scraps of ribbon.

--Napoleon

>leave everything you know to fight for something you don't understand/doesn't effect you/don't care for and possibly die over because you'd be a coward
this level of dedication is called delusion

>being this deluded

nationalism was a mistake.

cowards like you don't deserve to live

>something you don't understand/doesn't effect you/don't care for
sure is a lot of projection going on here.

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>...and rich people get even richer?

Stopped reading there

Not sure if German propaganda, or Soviet army recruitment.

...

Ignorance and desperation mostly

During european wars, why did no army attempt to kill the monarchs? That would seriously fuck up the stability of their opponent and lead to the collapse of their country.

sets a bad precedent

Watch "The Four Feathers" if you want to get a sense of how people in the late 19th century felt towards men who would not fight.

Nobody particularly cares about being seen as a coward now, but it was a big fucking deal back then when culture was still more focused on class and honor.

You get shot by your officers if you run away.

Polish anti-russian propaganda

>muh evil gnazis
>muh poor innocent jews

In my time of service I helped (by providing security) with creation of 6 co-ed schools, repaired a dam which thousands relied on for water control and electricity, and thwarted dozens of terrorist attacks and killed plenty who would kill innocence for an irrelevant book. We also helped bring peace to the region which increased its economy which will help bring more people out of poverty.

That's a part of war you probably don't think about because you're a child.

What's YOUR life worth, faggot?

Dropping 50,000 tons of democracy daily :)
ISIS was all part of the plan :)
Fuck off Americuck, you're just a little chicken cheep cheep cheep.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wars are hell
Millions of men brainwashed into hating and killing each other so (((they))) can profit from the war by selling weapons and other materials used for conflict

Lefties are fucking disgusting

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

If monarchs are free game then the whole system goes to shit

>How were soldiers motivated to go to war?
From the late middle ages up to the modern period soldiers were usually motivated with money. If you participated in a lengthy campaign successfully you had enough money saved to start your own business, repay debts etc. The warfare part was essentially a gamble involving your life and well-being.
From the modern period onwards, nationalism came up, so people went to war as part of a civic duty to their nation.

We should have ended the war before it came to Berlin. We had no buisness destroying what they had.
Today we like to muddy the whole affair up by demonizing the enemy that's no longer around to defend themselves.

There's a lot more to war than idle morality.

>We should have ended the war before it came to Berlin. We had no buisness destroying what they had.
So the Germans could start round 3 after a couple of years?

Fuck you.

Hell no, we could still have demanded their demilitarization, but we should have let them remain Germans.

War is a part of man's nature, and most things we do are preparation for war. Children love to fight and wrestle with their fathers, and the olympics were originally preparations for war. Men would race in full armour, and compete in javelin throwing, wrestling (which was a semi-religious ritual), and tests of strength. Man is partly selfish and partly charitable, he longs for peace but also clamors for war, he's cowardly and deceitful to a degree but can also show immense displays of courage and dignity. Ironic leftists iit who can only deconstruct things, and scoff at things like "family", "comradeship", "duty", etc. will find themselves longing for these things in their life. And leftist governments are always disappointed when they assume power, since they realise that their "ideal man" who is born good and manipulated by elites, is in fact a delusion.

These things, honor, duty, sacrifice, etc. give people meaning in their lives. You could sit in front of a television eating junk food, an say "nothing matters, thank God I don't have to exert myself in the slightest. I can sit here, and drink my beer, and watch pornography, and I don't have to think or aspire to anything great in my life. My life is just one single meaningless moment in an eternity of nothingness." And you can rot in mind, body, and soul. But that is your own weakness, and you can stay in the herd with your petty little ego.

...

I'd gladly go fight ISIS, but my government has their thumbs of their asses.

Why do people think posting images of socially awkward teenagers trying to look edgy is ever a valid argument? Say "he wears le hat and owns le Japanese sword" is never an argument against Atheism, Morality, Christianity, et cetera.

You posted a picture of Greek pottery,of le ebin knights templar eastern orthodox based crusading monks so you shouldn't think too much into it. Because he romanticizes the aesthetics of this phenomenon (The "Catholicism in the Medieval period was basically WH40k" aesthetic) any aesthetics that disagree with this phenomenon are bad and you are bad for not agreeing with his taste.

not of*

I'm sorry but what are you saying?

>Do you want let the same thing to happen with your women and girls?

>Resist against Bolshevism with full forces

if people thought like you testosterone wouldnt exist

>yfw they simply killed themselves and exported their wealth to new aristocracy in America

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

You were drafted. You were told that your country was in need, and that it was your patriotic duty to kill the enemy. If you refused, you would be jailed for cowardice. And if you tried to run away after that, you'd be hung for desertion. Pacifists who objected to the war on moral grounds would be publicly humiliated, called traitors, cowards, and worse. Besides that, many young men joined voluntarily because their friend had been drafted and they want to fight alongside their friend, even if it meant dying with them. And on top of all that, you'd be fed a nice steady stream of propaganda to convince you that the people you're fighting are the absolute scum of the earth, inhuman savages worthy of neither mercy nor pity.

This doesn't really speak of the futility of war, but rather of how shitty the front lines were.

Not to mention that Owen was biased since he was a soldier himself and showed no signs of seeing the bigger picture.

What I wanna know is what drives men to do blatantly suicidal shit with no spiritual motivation. Like a mercenary being the first on a ladder up to a wall with a dozen axes waiting just for you to poke your head up and smash it instantly if you even make it that far

Is this supposed to be moving?

>he was a soldier himself and showed no signs of seeing the bigger picture
>An old schoolmaster lectures him about strategy and advancing to Paris while insisting that Paul and his friends know only their "own little sector" of the war but nothing of the big picture.
Straight from the fucking plot summary. You're a walking caricature, you fucking idiot.

>dude war is cool fuck yeah lmao I play call of duty and watch gore videos so violence doesn't affect me xD
Neck yourself.

>We should have ended the war before it came to Berlin
The Americans sat waiting on the Elbe for a month with journalists taking joy rides in army jeeps unopposed into Berlin's suburbs. They had ample opportunity to surrender.

See, the thing, the man who wrote that had actually been to war, instead of just sitting in front of a computer jerking himself off to muh superior intellect

plenty of reasons all described earlier in the thread, and they vary from culture to culture.

commons reasons include:

the pay/benefits are great compared to what one might have with their level of credentials. this was especially so for medieval serfs/peasants who couldn't even dream of having money/clothing as nice in the military as they would working in a field or textile plant.

Society and social standards value military service as something to be honored and one would be looked down on for refusing to serve, and to not let your peers down by living up to that standard. Social pressure to join is one of the bigger factors.

the want/need to protect your home/family/friends by defending your nation when under attack.

a chance to raise one's personal status or obtain a chance at glory, with more influence in higher circles because of military service, especially as a professional career choice.

personal sense of adventure and daring, people do enjoy risking their lives for something that is larger than themselves like their nation, religion, or ideology.

and far more dishonorable reasons such as loot one can steal, women they can fuck/rape, or in rarer cases, just plain bloodlust and hatred for the enemy party.

Watch this.
youtube.com/watch?v=m0m573MxXXw

You didn't help anybody and the country you helped is worse off than it was before. Probably.

The ignorant glorify it, lowbrow entertainment promotes it, and simpletons consume it.

Warriors got booty and the chance to fuck far more women than in their shitty provincial town.

They got to spread their genes with a far higher frequency than the average person, if they survived.

So you have a frequency of genes that promote tribal collaboration and war spreading all around. War wouldn't exist if it didn't provide some means of perpetuating itself in phenotypical behaviors and inclinations aka if it didn't spread itself via genes coding for said behaviors and inclinations.

War and peace provide different payoffs to different agents in society.

War is a hellish experience, and if you really fought in one you wouldn't think it was so manly and noble anymore. I watched my friends die. I watched children run over like it's nothing.

If you would wish my fate on other men, you deserve a fucking beating. I wouldn't wish war on my worst enemy.

t. veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan and actually knows what he's talking about

Danku 4 ur servicce :DDdD

You didn't enjoy killing muslims?
That's why you went after all.

Because they all thought they're going to win and survive

Pure ideology.

It is a hellish experience and paradoxically, intensified by the almost disconnected nature of it in modern society.

You go somewhere and follow some shitty bureaucracy for a war that is neither done for the ancient ideals of glory and booty nor for purely defense reasons. You go to war under rationalizations that seem insane but which merely means the government gives out more of the public purse to cronies.

Then you go back to society and there's a vast inability of people to really understand how stupid and hard military life can be.

Ancedote: I went to a VA event in LA. They passed out rocks with the words "Peace" emblazoned on them and a little sticker that said "Made in China" on the back.

And people wonder why veterans have higher rates of PTSD nowadays. It's not only the intense situations, it's the meaningless of being under the thumb of a bureaucracy and the complete tone deafness of civilians.

>How were soldiers motivated to go to war?
Enfranchisement in the political structure, money, nationalism, loyalty to a cause (typically tied into enfranchisement of some sort) or all of the above.