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[–]Chipit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

their two most vital roles for the nation: soldiers and mothers.

Conscription was created in 1798 and abolished in 1975. That's a mere 177 years. Try again.

[–]TheBeefBenson 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Surely you acknowledge there were civilisations that existed before the US? And that is still conscription for the majority of the US history as a formal nation. Conscription of men to fight has existed for ever...it was just conscription with a lower case c, It didn't exist in a legal framework because there was no legal framework for serfs.

[–]Chipit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Nope, conscription was introduced in 1795 in France. Before that, nations could not mobilize their entire male populations. They just had armies of 10-20,000 or so and that was it. But with conscription, France had a much more powerful army and almost unified Europe 200 years before the EU Maastrict treaty.

If you mean peasant levies, those were scraped up from the nearest villages and were of negligible military worth. They changed the result of no battle ever, and if you know of one I'm intensely curious to investigate.

[–]TheBeefBenson 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I was indeed referring to any kind of situation whereby men were enlisted to fight against their will. But I don't see how the military worth of peasant levies is relevant to the discussion at all.