How does it happen that for centuries the wealthy

have always been able to use the poor and the serfs to fight the poor and the serfs of other countries who are commanded to fight by their own wealthy elite? I know that as late as the 17th century kings often took the field too but that has not been the case for a long time. I wonder how this hideous inequality manages to perpetuate itself.

What battle?

No battle then!

On both sides too.

Pretty much the way they've always done it. Wrap an economic agenda up in patriotic lies and get poor kids with few or no prospects to sign up for it. The military itself is very hierarchal. You are team in a sense but every soldier outranks or is outranked by another soldier. That's how individuals in the service can usually be kept from banding together and refusing to fight. I say usually because I does happen sometimes. But most often the typical soldier is operating under patriotism, militarism, machismo, and the desire to be rewarded with rank. Medals, ribbons, and awards are a cheap but incredibly effective incentive as well.

That's all I can tell you as a former Navy person.

It must take a lot of disgust and outrage to hurl the medals back in opposition to a war!

One thing that I never understood was- as you mentioned- why did the serfs fight and die to protect a society that exploited them in every way imaginable. I never understood it until about 4 years ago. Same thing still happens.

It's a combination of fearmongering and poverty, basically.

Perhaps being kept ignorant as serfs were aided the upper classes too.

their families would have been evicted in a heartbeat if the men had not joined up..they were probably promised freedom and some land when the fight was over.. talk is cheap.

re: the French revolution.

Knights did, landowners. Unless they were paid archers, as was the custom, later.

Unless it was an insurrection against the king or landed class, peasants rarely went to war.

on heavily. Otherwise where would you get the Poor Bloody Infantry? There were bans and levies laid down where the shire had to provide men for the king's service. Not everyone had a horse. That was a characteristic of the superior classes. Another factor I forgot to mention was that of rapine and loot which obviously attracted otherwise have-nots!

Where the looting and pillaging comes in. Armies have been supplying their forces by sacking towns and cities since time out of mind.