>>717052646
>People who never fought in one romanticized it.
That's not necessarily true. Look at the Teutonic Knights, for example. People back then thought of war differently primarily because of the natural brutality of life even outside of war, but also because war itself was different. WW1 was such a turning point because of that. Read any books from around that era, there was droves of people signing up to fight when the war first began because war was seen as a way for boys to become men, a way to secure higher social status, etc etc. It wasn't seen as a meatgrinder yet despite horrific shit like Napoleon's failed Russian campaign being in the close past and a widely known failure. Even with that said, there's accounts of even WW1 vets that overtly disagree with the idea there's a lack of merit in warfare.
War and the public view of it is as awful as it is for multiple reasons, but it can pretty much all be traced back to the overwhelming advancement of technology and the death of patriotism. It's very telling that nowadays a regular individual can sniff out how awful war is with little to no exposure. We aren't having viewing parties for battles anymore for a reason.