eli5 Why is it so important to „capture“ the capital city in a war?

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Does it really change the outcome of the war? Does a country fall when the capital city is captured?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s mostly symbolic, but then much of war is symbolism.

A country is a country pretty much as long as enough people are willing to form an army and fight and die for it to be. If for some reason they don’t want to anymore, they can all just quit and go home and the country dissolves. If for some reason they really really want to, they can keep it going against crazy impossible odds.

If an invader obviously and visibly intends brutal subjugation and genocide for your people, that’s pretty good motivation to stick with it no matter what. On the other hand, if an invader just wants to rule from a different city with slightly different rules and process, well maybe it’s not that big a deal and not really worth fighting that hard against.

If it looks more like the latter and the capital city gets captured, that’s a pretty strong sign that the party’s over and it’s time to give up and get used to the new guys. Or if they can’t manage to capture the capital city, that’s a good sign that the new guys aren’t all that and the current leaders actually are worth putting your life on the line for.

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