At what point was dying on the battlefield outsourced from nobility to the unwashed masses?
>>18127640French revolution
>>18127640I think it was after the French Revolution, when France suddenly found itself at war with all its neighboring countries and had to resort to mass conscription to survive.
>>18127640it was always unwashed masses. Nobles were commanders, mid ans high ranks, rarerly small units of elite shock cavalery.Even in the middle od dark ages, it was mostly peasent levies that were doing dying.
>>18127640Always? Medieval armies were not full of knights and samurai. Almost all of the soldiers were peasants.
>>18127657>>18127662>>18127671>>18127754The bulk of the infantry were always lower class peasants, yes, but you're missing the fact that officers (who were usually upper-class) actually made up the highest proportion of casualty figures in 19th and early 20th century wars, especially WW1. This is because they were expected to lead literally from the front, and as such were the logical first target for enemy marksmen. WW1 was INSANELY devastating on the British aristocracy specifically because of this, since almost all of them sent their young men to be officers and they all got wiped out in the war.
>>18127762Eh that really only happened in the first year or two. After that they wised up and now the survivors just stayed as generals safe behind the lines.
>>18127793Generals are only a tiny percentage of the officer-class. The majority of captains and majors were upper-class for the war.
>>18127640Officers really only started to be commoners after WW1.
>>181276401722
