Why do wars sometimes end with the winning side “settling” for a peace treaty or money instead of simply capturing the opposing country?
An example of this could be the The Treaty of Versailles
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Wars take a huge toll on both sides. WW 1 has an estimated 8 million losses on one side (Central Powers) and 9 million on the other, for example.
Armies get weaker, both numerically and psychologically, logistics becomes more complicated and expensive, economies suffer a lot from all the expenses (and, often, supply decreases), civilians protest, maybe even politicians start to back down. At some point a peace treaty is the only way out.
Or maybe the winning party doesn’t want to burn the country to the ground, but the opposing force fights so hard that the winning army tries to get an armistice to get out of this in reasonable terms.
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