Absolutely. Tragic that this very often just doesn't happen. So much death and suffering comes from not being able to take the L.

I think this is particularly fascinating in the WWI context which seems like a high stakes game of chicken in which both sides had opportunities for negotiated off-wraps, nobody took them, and one side won in a totally thorough manner that nonetheless had, uhh, unforeseen consequences

Why didn’t the war end earlier than it did by negotiation is probably the most interesting question about the FWW.

My tl;dr answer to this btw is: democracy. Had it been an 18th century court war it would have been over by 1915. The tragedy was that this was now a Europe of peoples and war was no longer a game of kings which could be ended with a shrug, a marriage or two and an exchange of provinces.

Think there's a lot to that. The stakes were high enough it was just politically unthinkable to take an L. In a Clausewitzian sense, it was preferable to continue resisting, rather than accept the political fallout of a losing peace.

Even 19th century! I feel like Bismarck would’ve tried to wrap everything up after the Battle of the Frontiers and Tannenberg

Otto von B would have made damn sure the whole thing never began in the first place

Germany in the winter of 1916/17 ignoring their people in Washington telling them “hey guys, Wilson is really mad at the Brits, we might have negotiation opportunity here” and instead doing unrestricted sub warfare and the Zimmerman telegram is an “invasion of Pennsylvania” level own goal

Off ramps, dammit