>But I really do wonder if "the winning side" was _actually_ the winning side.
It is well beyond winning and losing sides in such wars. There is a foreign invader and the local population fighting against the invader tooth and nail with the invader losing it despite better/bigger weapons, economy, army. In many such wars one could make an argument that giving in to the foreign invader may have been a better option, at least in the long run, yet the deep guttural tribal drive to defend the Motherland takes over any of the rationality. I mean for example the Russian peasants, being by all the parameters slaves of Russian nobility, were fighting French in 1812 only to return to the same slavery like position after the war.
It is well beyond winning and losing sides in such wars. There is a foreign invader and the local population fighting against the invader tooth and nail with the invader losing it despite better/bigger weapons, economy, army. In many such wars one could make an argument that giving in to the foreign invader may have been a better option, at least in the long run, yet the deep guttural tribal drive to defend the Motherland takes over any of the rationality. I mean for example the Russian peasants, being by all the parameters slaves of Russian nobility, were fighting French in 1812 only to return to the same slavery like position after the war.