Between attrition (lost in battle), needing to leave troops behind to control conquered territory, and longer supply lines, shouldn’t the armies have gotten significantly thinner and weaker.
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This isn’t *always* the case but there are some instances of it.
For this to make sense, you would need to understand the geopolitical situation in a specific conflict. I’ll use ukraine as a contemporary example.
In the donbas region of ukraine that borders russia, there is a sizeable ethnic russian population, and in the years prior to the war, russia was actively spreading it’s own propaganda and influence in this region.
When they invaded, many people in this region collaborated with russian forces, and offered little resistance to their advance. After the initial invasion russia was able to start recruiting people from this region to fill it’s ranks. Sometimes this was voluntary, sometimes it wasn’t. Now, in the grand scheme of things, it was still probably a net loss, but i’m only using this as an example to show one way that it can potentially happen.
It’s important to note that most wars, are wars of conquest, not wars of anihilation. The goal is not to simply kill everyone, instead a conquerer wants to force the civilian population to submit to their authority. Once that happens they can leverage that population to fill their ranks and support their war effort economically. Put simply, it’s not just the land that invading armies are interested in, but also the people that come with it.
Another reason this can happen is because of an active resistance against an occupation. For example, occupied france during WWII. The germans took and held france for most of the war, but french nationalists maintained an active resistance. The german occupation of france was more or less “accepted” by the french, but it was hardly “welcome”. So, when allied forces invaded france, they found many new allies among the resistance, and were welcomed with open arms as liberators by the french people.
It is also important to note the role of nationalism in modern conflicts. The idea of having loyalty to a set of ideals and a system of governance, instead of loyalty to an individual or a ruling class is a fairly new thing. The historical norm for most of history is that most people had limited loyalty to the ruling class, and generally didn’t care who was in charge as long as it didn’t interfere with their daily lives. Nationalism has largely changed this in more modern conflicts, by giving common people a set of ideals to rally behind that is beyond their own prosperity and self interest.
I should point out that this is distinctly different from religion. Religion does create loyalty to a set of ideals, but generally advocates for loyalty to a higher power instead of a ruling body or a system of governance. There are some exceptions though, such as the catholic church.
The last thing i want to touch on is geography, strategy, and logistics. Sometimes an army can get stronger simply because the front line has gotten smaller. A big part of strategic warfare is manuvering troops around, and armies grow or shrink depending on where commanders want to put their troops. Taking a strategically valuble location can create a choke point where you can concentrate a large number of troops. It is also quite common for an invading army to establish bases and supply lines in newly captured territory just behind the front lines. These bases allow you to house and sustain additional troops that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to deploy for logistical reasons. This is especially true with modern military equipment such as aircraft, tanks, and artillery.
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