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Old 2012-04-25, 18:11   Link #255
lightsenshi
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Age: 52
When dealing with Chivalry, you're having a specific code of conduct which is ultimately designed to minimize the effects of warfare on the general populace. The degree depends on what century you're talking about, actually. The older versions are much more a warrior code and less flowery. The later versions are the ones that we're most familiar with because they've been so romanticized.

Even during the First World War, the effect on the populace in general is rather limited. If you look back, the effects on general populace tend to be limited to taxes and food shortages. As a general rule, those who did the fighting did the dying. There were, of course, exceptions (even Sherman's March was confined mostly to property damage rather than slaughter of citizenry) but every war fought until this century followed the same general pattern.

It's not until the Second World War that we see civilian casualties taking an abrupt rise. The concept of total war until that point extended to destruction of material goods rather than the wholesale slaughter of people. Dead people aren't productive.
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