Why did soldiers keep on fighting during the Great War?
(Discuss with references to one or more countries) Before 1914, politicians and populations considered war as a cyclical and almost ineluctable phenomenon that periodically recurs with its attendant tragedies. Nevertheless, in 1914, no State deliberately wished a confrontation. The armed conflict ensues from diverse tensions and political mechanisms. First, it is necessary to note that the term « soldier » is very important for our subject: the only acceptation that could possibly be delimited enough, is as a warrior, not only the one on the front line, but also before and after periods in the trenches or during attack. This soldier could of course end up with a limp, be wounded, valid or on leave ; this soldier, and it is very important, could have asides in his daily life, the furloughs that were frequent enough to allow a generalisation. On the other hand, which does not concern the totality of the life of a warrior, even the men who were called up, belonged, for me, to what were behind the lines, to the war of civilians. Because the war emphasized the growing difference between the military man and the soldier, we have to differentiate these two notions: you only become a soldier when you face the sacrifice of your life.
In this essay, I will see why and how the soldiers, and especially Belgian ones, kept on fighting during the First World War.
Facing the horror of the war, the soldier’s seeked refuges, consolations and evasions. But it is also through patriotism and through the love of their homeland that they found the courage to hold and to fight again and again. Religion.
Belgian society was very catholic at the beginning of the century. Therefore, we can affirm that, in this particular context, religion played an important part during the war. In order to face the torment and the fear of death, soldiers were looking for ways to bear their conditions more easily. Many fighters found a