Glorious War VS War is Hell

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

There is no glory in war. The notion is just romanticized ideas created and perpetrated by people that never even dirtied their clothes in a battlefield. The idea of a glorious war is so much an oxymoron that works of fiction that are based on them could as well be using armies of busty women in metal lingerie for all the care they give to realistic depictions.

I confess without shame that I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers... It is only those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrills and groans of the wounded and lacerated (friend or foe) that cry aloud for more blood and more vengeance, more desolation and so help me God as a man and soldier I will not strike a foe who stands unarmed and submissive before me but will say ?Go sin no more.?

Now there was a man who knew exactly what kind of dumpster fire war was, and never hesitated to loudly and persistently try to explain it to people. When everyone else was calling for conflict and saying it was just going to be a quick, civilized affair, Sherman was desperately sending letters to every friend he had, on figurative hand and knee begging them to not let this happen because it was going to be the biggest shit show humanity had ever been on the receiving end off (At the time, anyway). And when everyone else was years into the war and struggling to find a way to make it not so shitty, he was marching with the perfectly understandable conclusion that war is shit, it's always going to be shit, and nothing anyone could do could make it less shit, so you might as well tear the proverbial band-aid off in one quick pull and get it over with.

There have been many people who have written on the horrors of warfare, particularly modern war, but I don't think anyone has ever understood it quite as well, and portrayed the truth of it quite so clearly, as Sherman.

 

[cleric of the order]

In his case, yes, he'd been brought up with it since he was a teen, he knew little else.

That could be his motivation but I'm not certain, the Hellenistic ideal was to great men all rounders. He was educated by the best minds at the time, including Aristotle.

I meant that people following his example could have other reasons for doing so.

Certainly but at least with his direct successors (and i admit I could be romanticizing it) there was a culture of hero worship and that was the general ideal. I figure a lot of it is a product of their cultural obsessions with virtues and heroes.

War has always been about logistics, and many rulers would avoid fighting.

. Logistics in that sense is a personal idiom, so uh sorry about not choosing a better term. I meant that with the creation of the new model army war lost it's human element. One did not have to take to the field to issue commands, battle lines became massive to the point that it would be beyond ineffective to have a leader take to the field.

[quotw]
Caesar himself did on occasion, though also would participate directly when required. IIRC, at the Siege of Alessia, he only took part in the final battle because if he lost he'd be doomed either way.[/quote]
Jesus there was a battle I could do with forgetting, mostly due to the leaving the women and children to rot between alessia and his palisade.
Man fuck that Jullii when i think about it, the brutui were best Romans.

Having said that, yes, for warlords it's quite usual, I was thinking more of rulers known for things other than wars such as Darius or Xerxes.

I think for them it's a matter of court for the Persians, they were subjugating a great deal of land and unlike Alexander who never consolidated it they had to deal with numerous issues of insurrection and court intrigue. Those intrigues were more their war than the field so I think you have a point there. That being said I don't think it's unusual for rulers who have security to lead from the field, if not from the lines. Then again my mind is filled with Germanic kings(and one celtic queen [Madb]) that fought in the field, between charles martal to his sons to the english kings who died almost always, kings of the church, caliphs,etc

No reason why being a good kind, being a good general and being a good combatant should happen to the same person, thought this happened.

I think that's the ideal that comes of the barbaric peoples until they hit such a high level of urbanization/civilization that going to war becomes detrimental for statecraft and one's life.
Which is why likely you see people from city states doing it most often come to think of it.

 

[Adamantium93]

War has always been hell. The "Honor and Glory" angle was perpetuated by the people who needed soldiers. They would lure in peasantry with those sorts of promises and, inevitably, most would die horrible deaths far from home or be unable to adapt back to civilian life. If you were on the battlefield, you likely lost most of your friends in combat. You were always hungry, often cold, and unbearably dirty with mud, blood, and insects. You were sick, in pain, and tired. Your clothes were always torn in one place or another and every day could be your last. Hell, more soldiers died in war from illness, the elements, hunger, or exhaustion than from an enemy blade.

If you were "lucky" enough to see battle, chances are you and your untrained comrades would be fodder for the enemy. Your job would be to serve as a distraction, break their front line, or absorb the brunt of their first charge/volley. Keep your formation, hold your ground, and you'll die. Break and run, and you'll die. Try to charge your enemy, be a hero, and you die. Even if, by the grace of whatever higher power you prayed to, you survived, you got to loot the dead and begin marching again for the next battle. If, by a mixture of luck and resilience you survived the war, you would carry physical and mental scars with you for the rest of your life that could kill you just as easily as a battle could.

And that doesn't even begin to cover what happened to civilians/noncombatants.

The reason why "War is Hell" is more prevalent nowadays is because of three reasons.

1. A cultural backlash against the glorification of war. Because "Honor and Glory" was the prevailing mood for the longest time, its only natural that we would begin to explore its opposite, to subvert the expected tropes and cliches.

2. We don't fight for beliefs as much anymore. You know who peddles the "Honor and Glory" myth nowadays? ISIS. When we go to war now, it is seldom about our religion or the fate of our nation. We fight for politics, or against nebulous foes. It is hard to see the honor and value in that sort of conflict.

3. Media. This was a major cause of change, actually. As photo journalism became viable, the images of War could be carried back to the common people. In the US, this happened around the Civil War, and the cultural baggage from that change has never truly left us. Without media as it is now, it would be harder to dispel the "Honor and Glory" myth. See Vietnam for just how powerful those images can be.

 

[conmag9]

I honestly can't think of a single good thing about war. Absolute best case scenario, it'll be used to stop some terrible injustice...but the only things bad enough to maybe justify a war are themselves either other wars or mass crimes of similar scope.

Pain, death, dehumanization, starvation, rape, mass destruction of property and economies (which leads to even more death and suffering long after the bullets stop flying), ideal conditions for disease...Any thought that war is glorious is almost certainly instilled through manipulation of troops by their superiors for morale and recruitment purposes. Or else it's the opinion of someone who isn't being put in the line of fire.

War SUCKS. And the more we do it, the better we get at it (especially with rapid weapon advancement) and the worse it's going to suck for all involved.

 

[Borty The Bort]

My view of war? ALL ABOARD THE NOPE TRAIN,HEADING TO NOPEVILLE!

EDIT: I mean,sure my avatar picture is Bastion,who is a war-bot with a mini-gun inside him,but does that make me want to tape a gun to my back and charge into a battle-field filled with other people doing basically the same thing for my country? HELL NO! I see absolutely no glory in warfare. Apart from when the Venetians deny me my supply of Crab in Civilisation...then things get turned up to 11