Deserters

>>2975870
I'd Imagine that both sides in WW2 had a pretty broad idea what they were fighting for, to restore honour taken from them or deposing a pair of unapeasable despots, incomparison to the alliance webs of world war 1

>>2975870

In WW2, for a Russian soldier to desert, they'd know that they would be putting themselves and their families in danger. There was no never any question that they were fighting not just for the "nation" which is an abstract concept at the end of the day, but rather so that their own friends and family aren't lined up in a field and machine gunned in the name of lebensraum. People are less likely to run away when they feel like they have a personal stake in the war.

>>2975897
I believe soldiers were much more indoctrinated in WW2 since it was an all-out ideological war. WW1 was probably the last old-school clash of the empires just for the sake of it.

>>2975870
Russia had a revolution, for one.

Also, where were the allies or axis going to desert to? The allies were constantly in enemy territory, North Africa, or (if you include the Russkies) have a knife to their back. The best the axis could hope for is to breakout to surrender westward. And Japan? Where would anyone on an island desert to?

>>2975931

Pretty much this. In WW1, soldiers pretty much knew that they were ultimately fighting for lines on maps.

>>2975870
Because WW2 didn't have the same sorts of dumb decisions like "run headlong into a belt of machine guns and artillery to get 45 inches of fucked up dirt, pip pip lads"

There were huge desertions in the German army towards the end of the war. Many soldiers simply fled to try and get home or to the west. Half the role of the Gestapo and SS in '44 and '45 was hanging behind the front lines rounding up and hanging/shooting deserters.

>>2975870
>great grandfather is Polish farmer in easternmost part of Silesia
>drafted to German Army with brother
>sent to Verdun
>very soon 70% of unit dead, including his brother
>unit withdrawn
>great grandfather got shot in arm
>received some first aid
>"ok your unit is dissolved, you can go home"
>receive no pay
>have to go back 1200 kilometers back to home village on foot
>army issue boots fall apart halfway through the journey
>arm got some complications and had to be amputated

Seriously, fuck WWI.

>>2975870
>since it was much greater and bloodier?
It wasn't.

>>2976187
(except from the American perspective but that's mostly since they didn't do much proper fighting in WW1)

By the time WWII came around they had actually sorta figured out modern military tactics. In WWI, even in the later stages, entire divisions were being blatantly sent to their death in pointless wave attacks. Especially on the French side, they felt like they were giving their ultimate sacrifice to be useless in a useless war.

>>2976187
Casualties beg to differ

>>2975870
>Why wasn't a thing in WW2

a sizable chunk people in it were pretty hype to be there on pretty much every side

>>2975870
petrol engine lad, at the start of ww1 there were hardly any being used. by ww2 everyone is zooming around whilst they still had steel and fuel.

>>2976316
>Casualities
>Believing "muh 20 gazillion dead Soviets"

Do you realize that some 13 milion men died/were seriously wounded or went MIA in western France only? Do you realize how small region that is, compared to for example Western theatre in world war 2?

ww2 was more politicaly motivated war, therefore soldiers fought harder, because ww2 and all it's smaller sub-wars were basicly wars of anihilation. If you desert you give up and betray your mates, your family, cour fellow countryman to an enemy whos main goal is to destroy your kind, or turn you into slaves. It's not fighting for some abstract king or something like that.

Also rear troops with machine guns and Military Police units, who can't wait to do some extrajudicial punishments.

>>2976410
No, WW2 was definitely bloodier than WW1 in both military and civilian losses, even if you count japan's invasion of china separately. Literally any source you can check that's actually based on something more than ideology will tell you so.

>20 gazillion
You're not about to start telling us about how the Holocaust is a hoax are you?

>>2975897
This

and often time much further away from home