What did the common soldiers in World War I fight for?

Yet soldiers spent a great deal of time waiting around, and in some quiet sectors there was little real fighting and a kind of informal truce could develop between ... of the front, battle was rarely continuous and boredom was common among troops, with little of the heroism and excitement many had imagined before the war. read more

Bill’s answer is true, as he points out, for all wars, but there is still the question of how the common soldiers got involved in the war so as to have each other to fight for. As for WWI in particular, frequently people say WWI was “meaningless” but obviously the men who volunteered for WWI did not do it because they had nothing better to do that day. read more

Some 60 million soldiers from all over the world served in the First World War, fighting in locations varying from France to Iraq, Greece to China, the North Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and experiencing a huge range of types of combat. read more