In WW1, there were several countries that basically only got involved in the conflict because they were promised land.
Italy was maybe the largest country like this. While France, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, German, and Russia were all at war with each other, there were several countries that remained neutral. To turn the tide of the war, many of these countries knew they would need the help of other countries to be able to effectively do that.
The Ottoman Empire, though a shell of what it had formerly been, joined the Germans and Austria-Hungarians, and helped sway the direction toward the Central powers. In 1915, Italy joined the allies. They signed a pact that said they got a bunch of territory at the end of the war.
When I look back at these great conflicts, it seems like they must have had deep evil vs good dramas unfolding within them. But the more I find out about the history behind them, the more I realize that often wasn’t the case. Yes, there was evil that went on, and yes, some of them were started because of evil (for example, the entire WW1 conflict starting due to an assassination), but in general, much of it was fought simply for more land.
It’s one of those things where you feel like if they could have gotten all the world leaders in a room and the discussed it civilly they could have come to an agreement. This was of course talked about all throughout the war but each country was too prideful to make it happen.
By the time the countires were several years into the war, decisions became tough. All of the main countries in the conflict had lost at least a million men. At that point it’s hard to “make peace” because you then wonder what all the lives were lost for. But it’s equally hard to keep going because you wonder when the death will end and for what gain?
In the years before, you might join a war to gain some more land, but you didn’t lose the kind of numbers of people like they did in WW1. In this case, Italy, basically saying “we want more land, we’re willing to sacrifice lives to get it.” At what point in the conflict did each of the countries say “this wasn’t worth it.”
WW1 is well known for being a war in which it seems not much happened. There was so much trench warfare. No one gained any ground and battles lasted for literally up to 10 months in some cases like the battle of Verdun. Can you imagine having over a million casualties in a single battle lasting 10 months long and at the end of it realizing nothing has been accomplished.
How callous of men did there have to be to continue to allow years of fighting to accomplish nothing? Is there anyone who, looking back, would say the millions of lives lost in this Great War was worth it?
At the end of the day, how much land is a man’s life worth?