Every war is different.
“Consequently, the idea that ‘war builds character’ is a lot easier to sustain if the sort of warfare a society (or in this case, a class within a society) engages in produces relatively low casualty rates over time. Now, I want to be clear that the word ‘relatively’ is carrying a lot of water in that sentence: these wars, while relatively lower casualty affairs are by no means bloodless, even for the aristocrats, armored on their equine-escape-pods. But the experience is radically different from WWI – which I keep returning to because it shapes our current discourse on the effects of war so strongly – where France saw 16% of its total deployed manpower killed (and another c. 50% wounded) in a four year period.”