Why Eilif and Swisscheese were likely to join the war eventhough mother Courage was opposing?

During the first scene of the play, when Mother Courage, encounters herself with the recruiting officer, she makes every possible effort not to loose her children to war even though they want to become soldiers. “Eilif: And Swiss Cheese wants to be a soldier, too.” She acts as her children are not smart enough to know what is better for them, and tries as hard as she can to evade that situation. She is not going around dangerous territories because she wants to, she is doing it because is the only option that she has. More than motives of the war, the life of Mother Courage represents what the people had to do to survive during those war times. They were afraid that their children wanted to be soldiers for the wrong motives, and that they were to naïve to understand the war. That is the big problem of young people at that time and also one big problem of the play, it is not clear which are the motives of the war.

During the first scene of the play, when Mother Courage, encounters herself with the recruiting officer, she makes every possible effort not to loose her children to war even though they want to become soldiers. “Eilif: And Swiss Cheese wants to be a soldier, too.” She acts as her children are not smart enough to know what is better for them, and tries as hard as she can to evade that situation. Both are determined to join the war effort because of the propaganda and societal pressures. They have illusions of grandeur that Mother Courage knows are naive.