Quote Originally Posted by CountArach
War was also extremely glorified, in fact war was glorified until the end of World War 1.
For many volunteers in WWI, it seems as though they may have expected something more like a cricket match. In an age lacking the mass media we take for granted, just how many really understood, before it was too late, the real nature of what they were getting into? Certainly propaganda and nationalistic fervour played their part, as did the prospects of booty, regular meals and "adventure". Also, I'm sure everybody expected they'd be on the winning side.

Besides the blatant jingoistic retruitment drives, there were also rather devious ones. I don't know how it might have operated in other countries, but Britain certainly had press-gangs for the navy, who could (and did) just grab people off the street, or out of the pub. For the army there was the "King's Shilling" - a small fortune at the time, I'm sure, for the average working/non-working man. Normally paid out conventionally upon signing up, it was also used deviously by slipping it into a man's drink unawares - if he then drank that drink he was deemed to have accepted the King's Shilling, and was an enlisted man. Due to this practice, glass-bottomed tankards became popular!