Hew Strachan - Training, Morale and Modern War

Sage Publications, Ltd.
Training, Morale and Modern War

Author(s): Hew Strachan
Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Apr., 2006), pp. 211-227
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
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c 2006 SAGEPublications,
London,ThousandOaks,CAand
of Contemporary
Journal
Copyright
History
New Delhi,Vol41(2),211-227. ISSN0022-0094.
DOI:10.1177/0022009406062054
Hew Strachan
Training, Morale and Modern War

Germany lost the two world wars, and yet its army continued fighting until the
very end of both. This is not to deny that there is evidence of increased desertion in 1918, nor is it to sustain the 'stab-in-the-back' legend. But most of the
disciplinary problems of that year were concentrated in the rear areas rather
than at the front.' Moreover, its performance in 1944-45 is truly astonishing
given the fact that the probable outcome of the second world war, unlike that
of the first, was clear at least twelve months before it ended. Allied planners
had confidently expected a breakdown in the army's inner cohesion in 1944.2
The only major European army with a comparable record is that of Britain.
But it was on the winning side in both wars and its experience of continental
warfare as a mass conscript force was much more limited, confined essentially
to the years 1916-18, 1940 and 1943-45. The French army, by contrast,
underwent a crisis in morale after the profound shocks of the battles of the
frontiers of 20-22 August 1914, was subject to widespread mutiny in the
summer of 1917, and folded entirely in May 1940. Both the Italian and
Russian armies confronted near-dissolution in 1917 and the Soviet army
fractured in 1941. The question as to why the morale of the German army
proved so resilient must therefore be answered, at least in part, in comparative
terms.
Since 1945 three generic explanations have been adduced to explain how
morale is sustained in the terrifying conditions of industrialized war. The first,
and dominant one, focuses on the primacy of the small group. Men, it is
argued, fight for their mates rather than for their country. This theory is now
almost dogma in the current practices of western armies and fits neatly with the
shift from conscription to voluntary enlistment. Small-group loyalties may be
the product of the necessities of war, the mutual reliance which combat, and
especially infantry combat, generates, but in the military mind long service with
like-minded professionals in periods of peace or low-intensity conflict (with the
1 Christoph Jahr, Gewdhnliche Soldaten. Desertion und Deserteure im deutschen und britischen Heer 1914-1918 (G6ttingen 1998); Wilhelm Deist, 'Der militarische Zusammenbruch des
Kaiserreichs: zur Realitit der "Dolchstosslegende"' in Ursula Bittner (ed.), Das Unrechtsregime.
Internationale Forschung iiber den Nationalsozialismus (Hamburg 1986), 1. The first version of
this article appeared as 'Ausbildung, Kampfgeist und die zwei Weltkriege' in Bruno Thoss and
Hans-Erich Volkmann (eds), Erster Weltkrieg/Zweiter Weltkrieg. Ein Vergleich (Paderborn
2002); this revised version, which says less about Germany and more about the United States since
1945, appears with the permission of the publishers, Ferdinand Schnoningh.
2 F.H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War. Its Influence on Strategy and
Operations (5 vols, London 1979-90), 3/1, 64-5; 3/2, 21, 24, 27, 31, 365.
Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 41 No 2
212
corollarythat casualtiesare too low to disruptthe group)can replicateit. Its

intellectualoriginsare essentiallyAmericanand are groundedon the work of
S.A. Stoufferet al., as well as of S.L.A.Marshall,in the secondworld war.3It
was extendedto the Wehrmachtin a famous articleby MorrisJanowitz and
E.A. Shils4and has beenpushedbackin time to coverearlierarmies,including
those of the FrenchRevolution.5I have arguedelsewherethat the elevationof
the sectionor groupin Germany'sinfantrytacticsin 1917-18 may have linked
best practiceat the operationallevel to the needs of psychologyand so helped
the Germanarmyto surmountthe crisisof 1917-18.6
There are, however,a numberof seriousdifficultieswith the prevalenceof
the small-grouptheory. First,it makes no allowancefor high casualties,particularlyover a short period of time. On the easternfront between 1941 and
1945 the opportunitiesfor the evolution of small-grouployalty were few.7
Evenin the UnitedStatesarmy,the fount of the idea, smallgroupsdid not survive high-intensityinfantryfighting.Fromthe four US divisionswhich landed
on D-Day 1944, 79 percent of officersand 73 per cent of men becamecasualties within seven weeks.8In three months' continuousfightingin the second
world war, an Americaninfantryregimentcould reckon on the loss of its
entirestrength.'
Thus the small-groupargument,which by definitionbecomesof increasing
importancethe more sustainedand vicious the fighting,rests on a paradox:
such operationserodethe very basis on which the unit'smoraleis said to rest.
It has to absorb an increasedflow of replacements,many of whom do not
survivelong enoughto becomeanybody'sbuddyand whose namesand backgroundsthe unit's survivingmembersstruggleto recall.
The primacyof the small group is itself a reflectionof firepower'sdominance of the battlefield. The larger bodies of eighteenth- and and early
nineteenth-centurywarfare,like battalions or regiments,had to disperseto
3 S.A. Stoufferet al., TheAmericanSoldier(New York 1965; 1st edn, Princeton,NJ 1949), 3
vols; S.L.A. Marshall, Men against Fire. The Problem of Battle Command in Future War (New
York 1966; 1st edn 1947); for a corrective,see Anthony Kellett, Combat Motivation. The
Behaviorof Soldiersin Battle(Boston,MA 1982), 97. On the utilitarianoriginsof the comradeship of the smallgroupin the US armyin the secondworldwar, seeJ. GlennGray,The Warriors.
Reflections on Men in Battle (New York 1970).
4 EdwardA. Shils and MorrisJanowitz,'Cohesionand Disintegrationin the Wehrmachtin

World War II', Public Opinion Quarterly, 12 (1948), 280-315.
5 John Lynn, Bayonets of the Republic. Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary
France,1791-4 (Urbana,IL 1984), 30-7, 163-4.

6 Hew Strachan,'TheMoraleof the GermanArmy,1917-18' in Hugh Cecil and PeterLiddle
(eds), Facing Armageddon. The First World War Experienced (Barnsley 1996), 388.
7 Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army. Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (Oxford 1991), 5,
29-45.
8 Sam C. Sarkesian (ed.), Combat Effectiveness. Cohesion, Stress, and the Volunteer Military
(BeverlyHills, CA 1980), 259.

9
Martin van Creveld, Fighting Power. German and US Army Performance 1939-1945
(London1983), 75.
Strachan:
Moraleand ModernWar
Training,
213
reduce their vulnerability as targets. But on the twentieth-century battlefield,

even the small group broke down if it had to pass through a hail of fire, and
geography - broken ground or areas of dense housing - might force dispersal well before contact. 'The company', Marshall wrote, 'coming under fire,
literally begins its engagement by falling apart.'10Thus, for all Marshall's
canonization as the high priest of the small group, his own observations on
'men against fire' point in a very different direction:
The first effect of fire is to dissolve all appearance of order. This is the most shocking surprise
to troops who are experiencing combat for the first time. They cannot anticipate the speed
with which their own forces become fractionalised or the extent to which the fractions
will become physically divorced from each other as the movement is extended and enemy
resistance stiffens."
Finally, there is the key characteristic of the small group: it identifies itself
by its difference from others. In the context of an army, that sense of difference
can amount to a divorce from the collective goals of the higher organization
which the group is designed to serve. The solidarity of the small group can lead
it to refuse to fight, to disobey orders and even to mutiny. Tony Ashworth's
description of trench warfare in 1914-18 as a 'live and let live system',
although overdrawn, makes the point: solidarity at the front line could work
to subvert the intentions of higher command.12 In Korea, the US army discovered that the longer a unit was in the line 'the more intense buddy relations
became': the consequence was that 'in a crisis, and if forced to make a choice,
a man would think first of his loyalty to a buddy and second of his obligations
to an organization'."13
However, Vietnam was the war that made the tension
'Where
explicit.
primary-group solidarity existed', wrote one commentator,
'more than not it served to foster and reinforce dissent from the goals of military organization and to organize refusal to perform according to institutional
norms.'14
Although, in this respect at least, there is little sign that today's professional
armed forces in either the USA or the United Kingdom have digested the
potential difficulties of the small-group thesis, historians of the German army
have begun to do so. Both Omer Bartov and (albeit in a less extreme form)
Stephen Fritz have argued that, since casualty rates in the most bitter and sustained fighting of the twentieth century - the struggle on the eastern front in
the second world war - mean that small-group loyalty cannot explain combat
motivation, then political ideology must.'5"According to Bartov, morale was
10 Marshall, Men against Fire, op. cit., 129.
11 Ibid., 90.
12 Tony Ashworth, Trench Warfare 1914-1918. The Live and Let Live System (London 1980).
13 Kellett, Combat Motivation, op. cit., 102-3, quoting R.W. Little.
14 Sarkesian, Combat Effectiveness, op. cit., 257. Emphasis in the original.
15 Bartov, Hitler's Army, op. cit., 4, 106-78; Stephen G. Fritz, '"'Weare trying ... to change the
face of the world". Ideology and Motivation in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. The View
from Below', Journal of Military History, 60 ( 1996), 683-710.
214
sustained, and the war became barbarized and unlimited, precisely because
each side was fully committed to the cause for which it was fighting, that of
fascism or Bolshevism. Bartov's argument is clearly capable of extension
beyond the eastern front, even if in a moderated form. Political ideology
cements the armed forces to civilian society and validates the strains and sacrifices of the soldier. The first world war, interpreted at the time as a struggle
between liberalism and militarism, or Kultur against civilization, can be
accommodated, at least in part, within Bartov's thesis.16Ludendorff's 1917
programme of patriotic instruction is customarily condemned as ineffective,
but should now perhaps be reintegrated in the explanations for Germany's
sustained combat capability. Britain, too, undertook the political instruction
of troops in 1917-18 and in the second world war resumed the practice precisely as an antidote to falling morale."7
Nevertheless, ideological indoctrination, at least tout seul, does not seem
sufficient to account for high morale; nor does it necessarily have to be a substitute for primary-group theory as opposed to a supplement to it. Specifically,
Bartov's critics have pointed to the fact that his sample was limited and also
skewed in favour of divisions likely to show greater evidence of nazi commitment."8More generally, scepticism regarding the role of patriotism, or commitment to a set of beliefs generated from outside the armed forces themselves,
seems sufficiently great not to be easily dismissed. Much evidence exists to
suggest that German and British soldiers, in both world wars, regarded political education with boredom at best and deep cynicism at worst."9When he set
about rebuilding the morale of the British 14th Army in 1943, Slim put what
he called its spiritual component first: 'There must be a great and noble
object'. But Slim saw the function of ideology as the creation of perseverance
rather than elan.20The general consensus seems to be that political or patriotic
instruction is important in getting the soldier to the front, in inculcating the
sense of duty which causes him to volunteer or to report on mobilization, but
it is at best implicit rather than explicit when in the field.
The third explanation for combat motivation - and the last in the frequency with which it is adduced - stresses negative rather than positive
factors. If we follow Bartov and focus our attention on the eastern front in
1941-45 because it is there that the primary group is most obviously at a
discount, then we should cite punishment as a possible explanation for the
16 Hew Strachan, The First World War, 1, To Arms (Oxford 2001), 1114-39.
17 S.P. Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale. Current Affairs and Citizenship Education in
the British Army, 1914-1950 (Oxford 1992); David French, Raising Churchill's Army. The
British Army and the War against Germany, 1919-1945 (Oxford 2000), 126, 133.
18 The essays by Jirgen Forster and Theo Schulte in Paul Addison and Angus Calder (eds),
Time to Kill. The Soldier's Experience of War in the West 1939-1945 (London 1997), broadly
speaking support Bartov's position.
19 E.g. Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale, op. cit., 109.
20 William Slim, Defeat into Victory (London 1956), 182; Kellett, Combat Motivation, op.
cit., 327.
Strachan:
MoraleandModern
War
Training,
215
sustaineddeterminationto fight.21The Germanarmyexecutedat least 15,000

servicemenin the second world war.22The Soviet army may have executed
that numberat Stalingradalone.23The armiesof pre-industrialEuropewere
governedby the lash: systemsof repressionwere more importantto discipline
than those of emulation.But the comparativeevidencefor modernarmiesis
confused and confusing,much of it being capableof more than one reading.
The Britisharmy sufferedone significantmutiny in each of the world wars,
but neither- at least overtly- constituteda refusal to fight: the first, at
Etaplesin 1917, occurredin a base trainingcamp, and the second, at Salerno
In the firstworld
in 1943, revolvedaroundthe desireto servewith 'buddies'.24
war Britainexecutedsome 346 men, principallyfor desertionin the face of the
enemy;that comparativelyhigh numbermay explainwhy Britainhad no more
mutinies. But in the second world war it effectivelydid not apply the death
penalty,despitethe convictionof manygeneralsthat it was essentialto sustain
disciplinein the field. If the lines of argumentwere straightor mutuallyexclusive, then the Britisharmyshouldhave had moremutiniesin the secondworld
war than it did in the first, but it did not.25The Germanarmy'sreadinessto
dispensethe death penalty in the second world war was a directresult of its
reluctanceto do so in the first: formallyspeaking,only 46 Germansoldiers
were executedbetween 1914 and 1918 and in the aftermathof the war some
wonderedwhetherthis comparativeleniencyhad contributedto the collapse
of 1918. In this case, therefore,thereis some internalconsistencyin the argumentthat toughpunishmentscurbedmanifestcowardice.However,the Italian
army confirms the difficulty of generalizingin this way: it executed more
soldiersthan any other army in the first world war, but at the same time its
disintegrationin the field in October 1917 was probablymore extremethan
that of any otherarmyin the war.
None of these three customary explanations is exclusive of the other.
Moreover, however valuable comparativeperspectivesare, differentfactors
operate in differentarmies at differenttimes in differenttheatres. For the
historian, desertion, mutiny, absence without leave - these all admit of
particularand specificcauses.This, however,is not a luxurypermittedto the
military theorist, whose work has a predictiveand normative quality that
compels him to generalize- even if he uses history as a basis for doing so.
Both the theoristand, perhapseven more, the historianneed to reintegratea
fourthfactorin accountingfor morale,that of training.
21 Hew Strachan,'The Soldier'sExperiencein Two World Wars. Some Historiographical
Comparisons'in Addisonand Calder,Timeto Kill,op. cit., 374-5.
im ZweitenWeltkrieg'in Hans22 ManfredMesserschmidt,'DeutscheMilitirgerichtsbarkeit
Podlech
Die
des Anderen(Baden-Baden
Helmut
Simon
and
Freiheit
Adalbert
(eds),
JochenVogel,
1981); Manfred Messerschmidtand Fritz Wiillner, Die Wehrmachtjustizim Dienst des
Nationalsozialismus.
1987).
ZerstirungeinerLegende(Baden-Baden
23 John Erickson,'RedArmyBattlefieldPerformance1941-45. The Systemand the Soldier'in
Addisonand Calder,Timeto Kill,op. cit., 244.
24 SaulDavid,Mutinyat Salerno.An InjusticeExposed(London1995).
25 French,RaisingChurchill'sArmy,op. cit., 138, 242-3.
216
Marshall'sMenagainstFireis not primarilyaboutthe dynamicsof the small

group. It is about the importanceof training. As Marshall is not only an
importantthinkerbut also a very powerfulwriter,his own words are best.
Since more than a century ago, when the rifle bullet began its reign over the battlefield and
soldiers became aware that the day of close-order formations in combat was forever gone, all
military thinkers have pondered the need of a new discipline. It has been generally realized
that fashioning the machine to man's use in battle was but half of the problem. The other
half was conditioning man to the machine. The mechanisms of the new warfare do not set
their own efficiency rate in battle. They are ever at the mercy of training methods which will
stimulate the soldier to express his intelligence and spirit.26
Training,ratherthan battle,was the dominantexperienceof armiesin the

twentieth century.It has five fundamentalfunctions over and above that of
impartingthe basic grammarof militaryservice.Firstly,it countersthe hardy
perennialof life in the ranks, boredom.Secondly,it distinguishesthe soldier
fromthe civilianand so generatesprofessionalpride.Thirdly,it can createunit
cohesion. The value of sendinginto action a group of men who have trained
togetherand who are commandedby the officerswho have been responsible
for that process, has been particularlyremarkedupon in the USA - which
failedto do any suchthingin eitherthe secondworld war or the VietnamWar.
Fourthly,training is a means by which soldiers can assimilatenew tactical
thinking to the point where it becomes instinctivein its application.Fifthly,
and finally, trainingenables soldiers to come to grips with innovativetechnologies and to masterthem.
The value of training is therefore in large part psychological:it is an
enablingprocess,a form of empowerment,which createsself-confidence.'The
surest cause of a feeling of inadequacy',ShelfordBidwellwrote, 'is that the
soldieris beingaskedto do somethinghe does not understand.'27
'Knowledge',
the motto of the Royal Air Force'sParachuteTrainingSchool runs, 'dispels
fear.'28Surprisecan destroycollectivecohesion on the battlefieldand training
is its best antidote.
The knowledgeso acquiredextends in severaldirections.The first is familiaritywith the confusionand noise, if not the carnage,of battleitself:training,
particularlyif it includes live-firing,can anticipate some of the immediate
shock of combat. This sort of trainingtreats fear as a normalpart of battle.
Secondly,modernbattlescan last for days on end, respectingthe limitationsof
neithernight nor weather.Exercisescan reproducethe continuousnature of
modernwar. An Americanstudyin the secondworld war concludedthat men
operated at maximum efficiency between their tenth and thirtieth day in
action. Thereafter combat exhaustion led first to over-confidence and hyper26 Marshall, Men against Fire, op. cit., 22.
27 Shelford Bidwell, Modern Warfare. A Study of Men, Weapons and Theories (London 1973),
130.
28 Hugh McManners, The Scars of War (London 1994; first published 1993), 53.
Strachan:Training,
Moraleand ModemWar
217
activity,and by the forty-fifthday to lassitude.29

Trainingcreatesthe psychoand
to
to
the
surmountthe low points of
logical capacity elongate peak phase
the laterphases.It does so in partthroughthe inculcationof battledrills,of set
procedures,so that when exhaustionmakes rational thought impossible,or
when fear has taken over, individualsreact without thinking:'In the process
they regainthemselves,pushingfear aside.'3o
Finally, trainingteaches men to kill. It sets out to overcome the civilizing
effectsof peacetimenormsand to defy the most obviouscommandmentof all.
At this level, trainingconcentrateson what happensover the last 200 yards,as
an attackercloseswith his enemy.It resultsin the obviousdisjunctionbetween
combat and trainingin the twentiethcentury:the bayonetwas responsiblefor
remarkablyfew deaths but it occupieda centralposition in the acculturation
of the foot soldier.The imageof the recruiturgedby his instructorto thrusthis
bayonetinto a dummyand then to twist and withdrawit, mouthinghatredfor
his foe the while, is reflectiveless of a necessaryskill and more of the effortto
overcomeone of the principalblocks to combateffectiveness.Marshall'sbestknown observationwas that only 25 per cent of men fire to good purpose
when in combat.His conclusionwas that the task of trainingand indoctrination was to intensify fire: at the rear increasingfire effect was a logistical
problem,but at the front the obstacleto be overcomewas psychological.3"
Marshall noticed that direct supervisionincreasedthe ratio of fire. Low
ratios of firewere thereforein part the consequenceof dispersalon the battlefield. Until the firepower revolution of the last quarter of the nineteenth
century- the adventof the breech-loadingmagazine-fedrifle, of the machine
gun, and of quick-firingartillery- close-orderdrill was a means both of
inculcatinggroup cohesion and of providingset routinesfor employmentin
combat. Butwith the arrivalof the 'empty'battlefield,drill becamea meansof
basic trainingonly and preparationfor combat requiredinstructionthat was
both differentand more realistic.As a consequence,commandwas no longer
directand immediate.In 1973 ShelfordBidwellnoted:
The soldier is taught and encouraged to take cover, a situation in which he may discard his
leader, and, if skilful, avoid taking part in the battle at all. It is easy to escape from the
danger zone; between danger and safety the combat soldier has virtually a free choice. The
problem of morale today lies in training the soldier to select the more dangerous of two
courses.32
The changein the requirementsof trainingwas drivenby social factors as

well as technical.Bidwell'ssoldier was likely to come from an urban background and to be literate,two characteristicsthat were not so typical of the
29 Dave Grossman, On Killing. The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
(Boston, MA 1995), 44.
30 McManners, The Scars of War, op. cit., 124.
31 Marshall, Men against Fire, op. cit., 70; see also Roger Spiller, 'S.L.A. Marshall and the
Ratio of Fire', Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, 133, 4 (1988), 63-71.
32 Bidwell, Modern Warfare, op. cit., 126.
218
of Contemporary
Journal
HistoryVol41 No 2
soldiersof Frederickthe Great.Urbanizationmadehim less accustomedto the

slaughteringof livestock and so less familiar with the sight of blood and
entrails. It meant that he was relativelyprotectedfrom the vagaries of the
weather and less familiarwith terrain and its potentialities.Finally, shortservice conscriptionprevailed in many Europeanarmies from the FrancoPrussianWar until the end of the Cold War. This meant, first, that soldiers
saw themselvesprimarilyas civilians temporarilyin uniform and secondly,
that the time availablefor trainingwas less and thereforethe trainingitself
neededto be more effective.
Hereinare the trueoriginsof the so-called'spiritof the offensive'.Too often
presentedas an irrationalcult assailingarmiesdevoid of directexperiencein
the years precedingthe first world war, it was rathera reflectionthat morale
was of increasingand legitimateimportancein the fire-sweptbattlezone. The
first world war itself would deepen that insight, not undermineit. The tank,
the grenadeand the flamethrowerdid not removethe need for men to cope,
but, by increasingthe pressuresloaded on them, intensifiedthe search for
palliatives.
'The aim of disciplineis to make men fight, often in spite of themselves.'33
Ardantdu Picq wrote those words before the Franco-Prussian
War, but they
inspireda cohort of Frenchmilitarythinkersbeforethe firstworld war. Using
Gustav Le Bon's crowd theory, Loyzeauxde Grandmaison,H. Langloisand
Louis de Maud'huyall anticipatedMarshallin recognizingthat firing at an
enemy was a psychological problem. In Britain, J.F.C. Fuller's Training
Soldiers for War, published in 1914, reflectedthe influence of the French
school.
An army,we find, is still a crowd,thougha highlyorganizedone. It is governedby the same
laws whichgoverncrowds,and underthe stressof war is evertendingto revertto its crowd
form. Our objectin peaceis so to trainit that theirreversionwill becomeextremelyslow; in
other words, we add to each individuala qualityknown as 'moral',so that, when intellect
andreasonfail manis not ruledby his instinctsandsentimentsalone, butby the moralwhich
has becomepartof his nature.34
Fuller,therefore,concludedthat trainingin peacetimemust approximateas

nearly as possible to the conditions of wartime.The onus was on the officer
not to hide the terrorsof the battlefieldfrom the soldierbut to show him how
they could be overcome.The problemwas, of course,that in peace 'we have
everythingsave the rulingfactor- the bullet'.3s
Although much pre-1914 theory was Frenchin origin, practicewas more
developedin Germany.The 1888 field exercisedeclaredthat trainingwas only
well directed if 'it does that which war requires, and if nothing must be
unlearned on the battlefield that was learned on the exercise grounds'.36
33 Ardant du Picq, Etudes sur le combat. Combat antique et combat moderne (Paris 1903), 101.
34 J.F.C. Fuller, Training Soldiers for War (London 1914), 19.
35 Ibid., 112.
36 Martin Samuels, Doctrine and Dogma. German and British Infantry Tactics in the First
World War (Westport, CT 1992), 99.
Strachan:
War
MoraleandModern
Training,
219
Subsequentregulationsmay have been less determinedin their advocacyof

dispersionand in theirrecognitionof fire effect, but BerndSchulte'sargument
that the Germanarmy put so much weight on preparingto maintain civil
order that it underminedits tactical preparationfor the field seems hard to
sustain.37Much of what was promulgatedin relationto moraleand cohesion,
as well as to the role played by will and determination,was designedspecifically for operations.Helmuthvon Moltke the younger,when he becamechief
of the generalstaffin January1906, workedto makemanoeuvresmorerealistic, not least by excludingthe Kaiserfrom the exerciseof command.Between
1908 and 1911 Germanyspent the equivalent of 14.3 million francs per
annumon trainingareas,whereasthe Frenchspent betweenthreemillionand
4.6 million. By 1912 Germanyhad 26 training grounds of at least 5625
hectareseach, when Francehad only seven, and the four largestrangedfrom
300 hectaresup to 2000.38
Of all the Europeanarmiesconfrontedwith the battlefieldrealitiesof the
revolutionin firepowerin 1914, the moraleof the Germanarmyseemsto have
undergoneleastfragmentation.The Frencharmyall but collapsedin the aftermath of the battles of the frontiersbetween 20 and 22 August 1914. Joffre
executed more soldiersin 1914 than Petaindid in the aftermathof the 1917
mutinies, not least because he had recourse to summarycourts martial, a
device denied to P6tain by the reimpositionof the usual disciplinaryprocedures,which made death penaltiessubjectto presidentialscrutiny.The situations in each case were very different.In 1914, the war was largelymobile, in
1917 largelystatic.In 1914 offencestook place in the context of combat, but
the mutiniesof 1917 occcurredbehindthe line and independentlyof battle (in
itself an unremarkableobservation given the complexity of organizing a
mutinywhen unitswere separatedand dispersedby the very act of going into
the line). Thereforethe responsesof 1914 were more clearly indicativeof a
flight from combatthan were those of 1917: the principaloffenceswere abanThe Britisharmy, which had experidoning one's post and self-mutilation.39
enced the effectsof fire in the South AfricanWar and which was deemedby
many observersto be - man for man - the best trained in the tactics of
modernwar,40suffereddisproportionatelymorecasesof desertionand absence
without leave in the winter of 1914-15 than it did as a conscriptedforce in
1917-18.41 At St Quentin on 27 August, the commandingofficers of two
37 Bernd F. Schulte, Die deutsche Armee 1900-1914. Zwischen Beharren und Verdindern
(Dusseldorf 1977); Schulte, Europdische Krise und Erster Weltkrieg. Beitrage zur Militiirpolitik
des Kaiserreichs 1871-1914 (Frankfurt am Main 1983), 295-318.
38 Douglas Porch, The March to the Marne. The French Army 1871-1914 (Cambridge 1981),
200.
39 Nicolas Offenstadt, Les fusilles de la grande guerre et la memoire collective (1914-1999)
(Paris 1999), 14; on the general background to the military justice system and the French mutinies
of 1917, see Guy Pedroncini, Les mutineries de 1917 (Paris 1967), esp. 13-20.
40 Victor Huguet, Britain and the War. A French Indictment (London 1928), 3.
41 Jahr, Gew6hnliche Soldaten, op. cit., 169-72.
220
regular battalions, both of them possessed of combat experience in colonial

wars but neither, it would seem, prepared for the confusion of Le Cateau on
26 August, agreed to the unconditional surrender of their units.42
For the German army, the plan on mobilization was that the training of
replacements during the war should be done at home in the Ersatzheer. But the
lack of personnel left at home and the distance from the realities of the most
recent combat experience combined to bring training closer to the front. The
first stormtroops, created in 1915, were essentially the advocates of a training
system designed to instil in infantry the belief that it could master the conditions of industrialized warfare. On 15 May 1916, 2 OHL ordered all armies
on the western front to send parties to the stormtroops' founder, Rohr, for
training.43
These initiatives preceded the appointment of Hindenburg and Ludendorff
to the supreme command in late summer 1916. Therefore, Ludendorff's contribution to the training and effectiveness of the German army from the winter
of 1916-17 should not be exaggerated. Moreover, its significance was less
tactical and more psychological. Shocked by the Materialschlacht, which he
found on the western front, Ludendorff set about rebuilding the army's
morale, using training as a means to do so. He deliberately and declaredly set
out to recover the spirit of the offensive of 1914. 'In this war, which is apparently dominated by science and numbers', ran the report of the 1st Army on its
experiences on the Somme, 'individual will-power is nevertheless the ultimate
deciding factor.'44
The training schemes adopted in preparation for the spring 1918 offensives
lacked any coherent system of tactics. What was done was left in the hands of
those who were destined to lead their units into action. The unifying theme in
training was the elevation of morale, and the emphasis was on the skills of the
individual, on his fitness and readiness, not on those of the group. Whether the
German army's morale did rise in March 1918 is contentious. German
historians now argue that soldiers went forward only because they saw victory
as the quickest way home. But a number of eyewitnesses used exactly the
vocabulary called up by Ludendorff himself and spoke of the enthusiasm of
August 1914.45
The debate about the impact of training on the British army is also contentious. Like the Germans, the British established training schools and
instructional centres close to the front. As in the German army, these emerged
from the bottom up and practices therefore varied across formations. Not
42 Peter T. Scott, 'Dishonoured'. The 'Colonels' Surrender' at St Quentin, the Retreat from
Mons, August 1914 (London 1994).
43 Samuels, Doctrine and Dogma, op. cit., 19.
44 R.H. Lutz (ed.), Documents of the German Revolution. Fall of the German Empire
1914-1918 (Stanford, CA 1932), 1, 621; for what follows, see Hew Strachan, 'The Morale of the
German Army', op. cit.
45 Ernst Jiinger, Storm of Steel (London 1930), 240, 242; Herbert Sulzbach, With the German
Guns. Four Years on the Western Front 1914-1918 (London 1973), 182.
Strachan:
MoraleandModernWar
Training,
221
until June 1918 was Ivor Maxse appointed Inspector General of Training, too
late to have any significant effect on the performance of the British
Expeditionary Force in the first world war. It is nonetheless clear that individual formations had benefited from realistic training from as early as 1916.
Sir Arthur Currie, commanding the Canadian corps, was very impressed by
the French army's training for the counter-attacks at Verdun in late 1916. He
applied similar principles, including the use of live firing, in his preparations
for the Canadians' assault on Vimy Ridge on 9 April 1917. He attributed his
corps' success to the 'confidence ... born of good training'.46
Part of the problem in assessing the role of training in raising morale is the
virtuous circle created by the war of movement and the resumption of the
offensive. The obvious question is whether morale rose not because of training
but because of the advance itself. Offensives poorly conducted did shatter
morale in the first world war - as the experience of the French army in both
August 1914 and April 1917 demonstrated. But offensives that were well conducted raised morale, despite the fact that they incurred far greater casualties
than did position warfare. The argument that the German army's morale
recovered in March 1918 is supported by the knowledge that that of the
British army also did in August 1918.47
This relationship - that between training, morale and the offensive - was
one central to the Reichswehr in the 1920s. The head of the Truppenamt Hans
von Seeckt is seen by contemporary German historians as having brought the
German army to an acme of professionalism. He spent a third of his year
observing training,48and his conclusions to the 1924 inspections averred that
'every kind of military training was ultimately in vain if the improvement of
the morale of the troops did not keep pace with it'.49
Seeckt's force was a Fiihrerarmee, a cadre for subsequent expansion. In the
short term rearmament in 1935 eased the intensity of Seeckt's training programme and so made it more manageable. By expanding one year's service to
two, 'the wear and tear on the officer and non-commissioned officer corps'
was eased.5s But in the long term growth threatened dilution. During the
course of 1939 the army grew fourfold, from 1.1 million men to 4.5 million. A
'fifth wave' of five divisions created shortly before the outbreak of the second
world war included men who had completed only eight weeks of training and
who had insufficient equipment to do more. Some commanders wanted men
released from front line service so that they could produce the munitions
46 Bill Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare. Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918
(Toronto 1992), 130; see also 90, 100.
47 G.D. Sheffield, 'Officer-man Relations, Morale and Discipline in the British Army,
1902-22', London University PhD, 1994, 90.
48 James Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg. Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform
(Lawrence, KS 1992), 183-6.
49 Robert Citino, The Path to Blitkrieg. Doctrine and Training in the German Army
1920-1939 (Boulder, CO 1999), 53.
50 Report of Major Truman Smith, quoted in ibid., 229.
of Contemporary
Journal
HistoryVol41 No 2
222
The 'phoneywar' of 1939-40 was thereforea vital

which the armyneeded.51
an
opportunityfor intensetrainingbased on the experiencesof the
respite
Polish campaign. Crucially,too, only 76,938 Germansoldiers were killed
between 1 September1939 and 31 August 1940, and thus the trainingthat
was achievedwas consolidatedratherthan forfeited.
In theory, therefore,the pattern of short campaignsallowed the German
army intervalsin which to digest recent tactical experience.In practice, the
numbersundertrainingwere throttledback betweenJune 1940 and February
1941, and the quality that was achievedwas underminedby lack of equipment. When trainingwas gearedup once more, its thrustwas less on tactical
or specialistskills than on its psychologicaldimensions.'The principalaim',
declared OKH's trainingdirectiveof February1941, 'is to educate leaders
and men for ruthlessaggression. . . based on confidencein the superiorityof
the Germansoldier against any opponent and unwaveringfaith in ultimate
victory.'52
Thus, as in 1918, the prime purpose of trainingwas to elevate morale.

Moreover,therewas a furtherparallelwith the firstworldwar:the invasionof
the SovietUnion confrontedthe Wehrmachtwith the need to offset quantitative inferioritywith qualitativesuperiority.OKH's directiveof 8 December
1941 made clear that the key attributeswere not technicalbut spiritual:'the
inner,psychicalattitudeof each individual'.It concluded- on the subjectof
trainingthat 'the final defeatof the Russianarmedforcesgiven the numerical inferiorityof our forces can only be achieved by the superiorityof our
leadershipand the higherfightingqualitiesof our troops'.53
The trainingregimeswere thereforemarkedby their physicaland psychological demands.Guy Sajer,not necessarilya friendto the army or its ethos,
wrote that the combat course he underwentin 1942 was 'the most severe
physicalchallengeI have ever experienced.I am exhausted,and severaltimes
fall asleepover my food. But I feel marvellous,filledwith a sense of joy which
I can't understandafterso much fear and and apprehension.'The aim was to
put soldiers under stress similar to that of a combat situation so that they
became aware of their inner reservesand of their ability to draw on them
beforethey confrontedthe realityof combat.54
The Britishresponseto the experienceof the first world war was on comparablelines. The 1922 committeeon shell shock attributedthe incidenceof
psychologicalcollapseon the battlefieldnot to any underlyingmedicalcondi51 Bernhard Kroener, 'The Manpower Resources of the Third Reich in the Area of Conflict
between Wehrmacht, Bureaucracy, and War Economy, 1939-42' in Militirgeschichtliches
Forschungsamt, Germany and the Second World War, 5/2 (Oxford 2000), 941-3.
52 Ibid., 985.
53 'Weisung fur die Aufgaben der Ostheeres im Winter 1941-42' in P.E. Schramm (ed.),
Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (4 vols, Frankfurt am Main 1961-79), 1,
1080-1.
54 Stephen G. Fritz, Frontsoldaten. The German Soldier in World War II (Lexington, KY
1995), 11.
Strachan:
War
MoraleandModern
Training,
223
tion in the individualbut to failuresto managethe finite stock of courageof

the generality.It concluded:
As the production of good morale is the most important object in military training,... the
best possible training should be given to every man intended to serve as a soldier, and ... by
such means ... he will be protected against the occurrence of 'shell-shock'. . . It is recommended also ... that troops should, where possible, be entered into battle gradually, and not
precipitated into the thick of war."
The futureFieldMarshalArchibaldWavellwas responsiblefor 14 consecutive trainingseasonsbetween1926 and 1939. In 1933, in a lectureon 'training
for war' at the Royal United ServicesInstitute,he endorsedthe purpose of
trainingas psychologicalratherthan tactical,to produce'formidablefighting
men - fit, active, inquisitiveand offensive- confident of making ground
with their own weapons'.56Wavell'semphasison moralewas affirmedby his
belief that trainingshould be in the hands of those who were going to take
units into action. Regimentalcohesion was thereforebought at the price of
tacticalvariation:the infantryhad no tacticalschool until 1939, and even after
the outbreakof war trainingremainedin the hands of individualfield force
commanders."7
In 1941-42 the Britisharmy confronteda crisis in its morale. It had been
defeatedon the battlefield;its equipmentwas poor; and its institutionsseemed
ill-adaptedto the needs of a citizen army in a world war. Desertion rates,
which averaged6.88 per 1000 for the war as a whole, peakedin North Africa
in 1941 at 10.05 per 1000. Presumablymost made theirway to the flesh-pots
of Cairo and Alexandria.58
Calls from seniorofficersfor the reintroductionof
the death penaltywere deflectedby army psychiatrists,who arguedthat the
root problemwas poor training."Significantly,their voices were heard. By
1942 the Britisharmy worked on the assumptionthat fear was normal in
soldiers,and that thereforebattle schools should be set up as a meansto help
them overcome it. Exerciseswere carriedout at a faster tempo; they were
sustainedthroughthe night as well as in daytime;and they were not calledoff
or cancelled as the weather deteriorated.Both danger and disorganization
were injectedinto the conduct of exercises.Trainingitself was brokeninto a
series of separateactions which could be learnedby rote. The Chief of the
ImperialGeneralStaff Sir John Dill fearedthat tactics could become stereotyped. But once again the prioritywas on the abilityto cope with dangerand
disorganizationratherthan tactical flexibility. In July 1941 Lionel Wigram
establisheda battle school for 47 Division, which in January1942 becamea
model for all the other divisionsin the armyin Britain.Soldierswere exposed
55 Robert H. Ahrenfeldt, Psychiatry in the British Army in the Second World War (London
1958), 198.
56 Field Marshal Earl Wavell, The Good Soldier (London 1948), 96, 99.
57 French, Raising Churchill's Army, op. cit., 55, 57-9, 199.
58 Bidwell, Modern Warfare, op. cit., 130.
59 Ahrenfeldt, Psychiatry, op. cit., 204-5.
224
Joumalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 41 No 2
to live firingand the noise of battle;they were postedin slit trenchesand overrun by tanks; and, more controversially,they were taken to abattoirsto get
them used to the sight of blood and carnage.However, the army'spsychiatrists were unhappy with the suggestion that the battlefield was like a
slaughterhouseand this aspect of battle drill was abandoned. What they
endorsedwas the idea of the gradualacclimatizationof men to combat. In the
firstworld war the processhad beenaccomplishedby the journeyfrom Britain
to the rear areasof Francebeforeentryto the front line; in the second world
war, with the Britisharmy ejectedfrom Europe,the landingitself would be
underfire.60
The training given by battle schools has been criticizedby one infantry
officer who servedin Normandy,SidneyJary, as inadequate,unimaginative
and dogmatic.61
But what Jarydoes not ask himselfis how his platoon would
have fared without such training. The two army commanderswho most
inspiredconfidencein theirmen, Montgomeryand Slim,were both persuaded
of the value of training,of the need to continueit duringa campaign,and of
the link between it and morale. Montgomery'spreparationsfor El Alamein
bore testimony to that conviction.62Slim, when he took over the shattered
14th Army in Burma, established two training divisions whose battleexperiencedinstructorswere to pass on 'practicaljunglework' to recruitswho
had completedtheirelementarytraining:'Withina few monthsthe qualityof
reinforcements reaching us from these divisions ...
had completely changed,
not only in skill but, above all, in morale.'63

The US army,too, had to recoverits confidencein the face of defeat at the
hands of the Japanese.Reflectingon the lessons of Bataan in the Infantry
Journal in 1942, Colonel Milton A. Hill castigatedthe Americans'pre-war
trainingas lackingin realityand in toughness.'The soldierwho knows what's
coming is not surprised.He knows what to do and how to do it.' What Hill
meantwas not 'highlycomplicatedindividualor small unit tactics' but 'spiritual training'.Its essencewas pridein overcominghardship,but incorporated
within battle training from the outset there had to be 'something to give
Americanfightersthe desireto kill theirenemies'.64
In general, the evolution in US army training in the second world war
suggeststhat Hill's ideas were followed. The Americansalso startedfrom the
presumptionthat fear was always presentand that trainingwas its best antidote. 'All aspectsof the Armytrainingprogamwhich developeffectivecombat
60 Ibid., 198-9, 202; Tim Harrison Place, Military Training in the British Army, 1940-44
(London 2000), 40-62; Tim Harrison Place, 'Lionel Wigram, Battle Drill and the British Army in
the Second World War', War in History, 7 (2000), 442-62; French, Raising Churchill's Army, op.
cit., 136; Jeremy Crang, The British Army and the People's War 1939-1945 (Manchester 2000),
79-84. I am most grateful for Dr Crang's advice on this topic.
61 Jary quoted in McManners, Scars of War, op. cit., 159.
62 Stephen Brooks (ed.), Montgomery and the Eighth Army (London 1991), 8, 41-3.
63 Slim, Defeat into Victory, op. cit., 191.
64 Penguin Special, How the Jap Army Fights (Harmondsworth 1943), 92-4, 114-18.
Strachan:
Training,
MoraleandModemWar
225
skills serveto reducethe disruptiveeffectsof fearreactionsin combat,in so far

as they providesoldierswith a set of habitualresponseswhich are adaptivein
danger situations.'6sMen were taught automaticallyto adopt certain drills
which were designed to create self-confidenceand to give them a plan of
action to be carried out when in battle. By February1943 battle training
involvedcoursesin infiltration,close combatand villagefighting.A yearlater,
81 per cent of combat infantryreportedon the importanceof realisticbattle
trainingbeforegoing overseas.66
But the Americanarmy'strainingprogrammewas still subjectto criticism.
Many complainedthat therewas far too much close-orderdrill. The army,it
seemed,was determinedto offset what it saw as the cult of individualismin
civilian society by the intimidationof its recruitsand their subordinationto
strictdiscipline.Drill did, however,bond a unit.67The absurditywas that men
were trainedin one formation,but that that unit was then broken up as its
The principle
memberswere fed into front-linedivisions as replacements.68
that men should be led in trainingby those who would lead them in combat
was broken.And, finally, when they got into action it seemed- at least on
S.L.A. Marshall'sevidence- that Hill's summonshad not been heard, for
most did not activelyparticipatein battle.
Marshall'scontributionto the US army after 1945 was designedto train
men to controltheirfear and so enablethemto returnfire. He was successful.
In Koreathe firingratio was 55 per cent and in Vietnamup to 95 per cent.69
Therewas thereforea cleartrajectoryfromthe publicationof Men againstFire
to the performanceof the US armyin Vietnam.But the morale of that army
collapsed.This was not becauseMarshallwas wrong but becausein pursuing
fire effect the US army had neglected other aspects of training. It had, of
course, also to deal with wars which were very differentlyperceivedat home,
as 'limitedwars' for purposesthat were less self-evidentlynecessarythan in
1941-45, and as wars which Americawas not winning.
Both burdensfell particularlyheavilyon the US armyin Vietnamand on its
commander,GeneralWilliamWestmoreland.In 1968 Westmorelandreturned
from Vietnamto become the army'schief of staff. In that office he targeted
trainingas the principalsolutionto the army'spsychologicalrecovery.In 1971
he appointeda boardfor dynamictraining,and a combataimstrainingboard
was set up at Fort Benning.In 1978 a study on army traininglooked at 45
brigade-sizedunits:its conclusionswere sufficientlydepressing,and still sufficiently close to those difficultiesidentifiedin 1971, to ensurethat they were
65 Stouffer, American Soldier, op. cit., 2, 220.
66 Ibid., 2, 230; Robert A. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley and William R. Keast, The United States Army
in World War II. Army Ground Forces. The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat
Troops (Washington, DC 1948), 387.
67 Stouffer, American Soldier, op. cit., 2, 76; Gerald F. Linderman, The World within War.
America's Combat Experience in World War II (Cambridge, MA 1997), 186.
68 Stouffer, American Soldier, op. cit., 2, 217.
69 Grossman, On Killing, op. cit., xiv-xv, 35.
226
of Contemporary
Journal
HistoryVol41 No 2
never released.70
The peacetimetendencyto economizethroughcuts in trainnot
ing,
equipment,was one factor. But the principalcontinuity- not only
with the war in Vietnambut also with the secondworldwar - was that training did not promote group cohesion. In Vietnam individualswere 'trickleposted' into action and withdrawnwhen theirtour was up:thus the personnel
in any one unit continuouslychanged and each memberof the unit had a
differentday when his fightingcould be over, irrespectiveof whetherthe war
carried on or not. This practice recognized that the individual'sstock of
couragewas limitedand that the battle-hardenedveterandid not gain in competencethroughlengthof service.But it violatedthe principlethat those who
fought best together were those who trained together. Peacetimeexercises,
with their opportunitiesfor individualself-promotion,and with many of their
participatingunitsnot fully up to strength,showedrelatedtraits.Thus, for the
Vietnamgenerationthe messageof Marshall'sMen againstFirewas not about
fire effect but about small-groupcohesion.
The two qualitiesdo not, of course, stand in antithesis;indeedthey should
be complementary.Moreover,they have in traininga common denominator.
The US army today startsfrom the same assumptionas the Germanarmy in
the two world wars: in manpowerterms it will probably be inferior to its
opponentsand thereforeit must have a qualitativeadvantage.The tendencyis
to see that advantagein termsof equipment,a trendconfirmedby 'the revolution in militaryaffairs'.Butinternationalarmssalescan often leave opponents
equippedin termsthat are more similarthan dissimilar:in this sense both the
Falklandand the Gulf wars were symmetricalratherthan asymmetricalconflicts. In 1982 the British defeated the Argentiniansdespite the distance
involved,inferiornumbersand comparableequipment:it is hard to resist the
conclusion that trainingwas the key to their qualitativeedge. Moreover, as
one study of morale- based largelyon that war - concluded:'Soldiersare
likelyto find themselvestranslatedabruptlyfromthe routineof peacetimeinto
the realitiesof combat.Unlessthey have trainedrealistically,preparingthemselves mentally as well as physically for the fight, they will suffer severe
psychologicalproblems.'71
Effective peacetime training is an enormous challenge. William Hauser
wrote in 1980 that 'trainingis habituation'.'Unlessthe soldierhas been drilled
in his tasks to - nay, beyond- the point of boredom,he cannot be expected
to keep fighting (in whateverform his particularspecialitydemands)under
stress of shot and shell, confusion, uncertainty,and the infectiousfear of his
comrades.'72But the repetitionand rote inherentin battle drills sit uneasily
with the recruitingand retention needs of voluntarily-enlistedprofessional
armies.So, too, do the draconianpunishmentsemployedby the Germanarmy
in the second world war in training as well as in action. The US army in
70 Sarkesian,CombatEffectiveness,op. cit., 76-83, 176-81.
71
72
McManners, Scars of War, op. cit., 74.

Sarkesian, Combat Effectiveness, op. cit., 189.
Strachan:
Moraleand ModemWar
Training,
227
Vietnam attributedmuch of its malaiseto the lack of an effectivesystem of

field punishment.Men need to be hardenedin peace if they are to be tough
enough for war. But the very processesdesignedto achievethis cut acrossthe
integrationof armedforceswith civiliansociety.Trainingsoldiersto kill, and
gettingthemto realizethat it is certainlyproperand legitimateto do so, create
a divisionmorecompletein peacethan is likelyto be the case in war - when
the perceivedneed for the soldier'sskills endorseshis actions.
The adventof the simulatorand the applicabilityof informationtechnology
to the battlefieldmay dampenthis division. Both also have the advantageof
generatingmotivationand job satisfaction.In addition,they conformwith at
least one aspectof Marshall'steachings- they createthe beliefthat desirable
But they cannot simulatefear,
outcomes will follow effectiveperformance.73
no
man
knows whether he can cope
heat.
cold
and
exhaustion,
Ultimately
he
with the noise and smell of battle until has confrontedit in reality.A professional soldiermay pass his whole careerwithout ever confrontingit. But
that does not relievehim of the need to preparefor it, nor erodethe centrality
of trainingfor all he does. As the US armythinksabout the futurebattlefield,
it could do worsethan reconsiderthe writingsof S.L.A.Marshall.
Hew Strachan
is ChicheleProfessorof the Historyof War, Fellow of All Souls
Collegeand Directorof the LeverhulmeProgrammeon the Changing
Characterof War, Universityof Oxford. His recentbooks include
the firstvolume of The FirstWorldWar(Oxford2001), The First
WorldWar.A New IllustratedHistory (London2003) and
Clausewitzon War(forthcoming).
73 Paul R. Bleda and Robert H. Sulzen, 'The Effects of Simulated Infantry Combat Training on
Motivation and Satisfaction', Armed Forces and Society, 6 (1980), 202-14.

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Training, Morale and Modern War

Training, Morale and Modern War

corollarythat casualtiesare too low to disruptthe group)can replicateit. Its

4 EdwardA. Shils and MorrisJanowitz,'Cohesionand Disintegrationin the Wehrmachtin

France,1791-4 (Urbana,IL 1984), 30-7, 163-4.

(BeverlyHills, CA 1980), 259.

reduce their vulnerability as targets. But on the twentieth-century battlefield,

sustaineddeterminationto fight.21The Germanarmyexecutedat least 15,000

Marshall'sMenagainstFireis not primarilyaboutthe dynamicsof the small

Training,ratherthan battle,was the dominantexperienceof armiesin the

activity,and by the forty-fifthday to lassitude.29

The changein the requirementsof trainingwas drivenby social factors as

soldiersof Frederickthe Great.Urbanizationmadehim less accustomedto the

Fuller,therefore,concludedthat trainingin peacetimemust approximateas

Subsequentregulationsmay have been less determinedin their advocacyof

regular battalions, both of them possessed of combat experience in colonial

The 'phoneywar' of 1939-40 was thereforea vital

Thus, as in 1918, the prime purpose of trainingwas to elevate morale.

tion in the individualbut to failuresto managethe finite stock of courageof

had completely changed,

not only in skill but, above all, in morale.'63

skills serveto reducethe disruptiveeffectsof fearreactionsin combat,in so far

McManners, Scars of War, op. cit., 74.

Vietnam attributedmuch of its malaiseto the lack of an effectivesystem of

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