Where does the military walk? Soldiers in a popular religious woodcuts and lithographs of the 19th century

Abstract

This article studies Catholic and Protestant expressions of the popular religious visual culture of the 19th century and its surprising and complete religious condemnation of the compulsory military service of its time. To do so, the parts where soldiers are identified in both works appear and then compared with information about the daily life of soldiers in those times. It is concluded that both works, although they correspond to very different religious and political settings, invite their readers to take a critical position on compulsory military service as incompatible with Christian faith of their days. Both works articulate the social and religious conviction of the more popular stratum of society, especially farmers and artisans of a pre-industrial society in an increasing urbanization.