The difference is in scale. English Armies in the 80 Years War rarely got above 10k, and even the largest armies of the Napoleonic Wars would be 200k, and the B

The difference is in scale. English Armies in the 80 Years War rarely got above 10k, and even the largest armies of the Napoleonic Wars would be 200k, and the British maxed out at roughly 100k. The BEF had an average strength of 2 million men, over 5.5 million were part of it at one point or another. Even though overall the British population increased by 4x (~8 million to ~32 million) they are deploying 20x more troops in WW1 than in the Wars of the Revolution. That's the difference between 'nasty to be there' and 'our civilization is a wreck.'