“In most cases, obviously, soldiers fought because a government drafted them and gave them a rifle. At every point too, we see the role of nationalistic sentiment, commercial rivalries, and simple greed. But can we ever separate out such motives from the religious? Was that not also true of the medieval crusades?” GovernmentReligiousSimpleRolesCasesGreedSoldierMotiveSentimentsMedievalRivalryRiflesCrusadesNationalistic Author:Philip Jenkins
“When the war started, religion and superstition (whatever the difference is) permeated the lives of ordinary soldiers, who lived in a thought world not too far removed from the seventeenth century.” WorldWarDifferencesCenturyOrdinarySoldierSuperstitions Author:Philip Jenkins
“The typical WW1 soldier was not an intellectual like Ernst Jünger or Wilfred Owen, but was a peasant draftee from Galicia or Bavaria or Sicily, with all the traditional religious ideas. The hothouse atmosphere of war brought everyone into a supernatural-oriented universe of ghosts and apparitions.” IdeasWarUniverseReligiousIntellectualSoldierGhostTraditionalAtmosphereTypicalPeasantsApparitions Author:Philip Jenkins
