Morale in War

MORALE IN WAR Modern conditions of war are gradually extending the domain of morale and increasing its influence. For, among belligerent nations. war affects a greater number of people and does so with methods of increasing violence.

I. THE SOLDIER IN THE RANKS In battle, an enemy's long-range guns make their effects felt as far back as 5, io or i5m., and, as they are capable of rapid firing, their effects become formidable to troops even at those distances. Difficulty in seeing their objective does not limit their powers, for they are aided by aeroplanes which inform them con cerning the situation of their objective and the results of their fire. At lesser distances they are supported by light artillery in large numbers, mobile, and capable of making the most advanta geous use of chance features of the ground over the whole of the area at their command; and further support comes from machine guns, which, of light weight and slender dimensions, can pene trate everywhere to equip in a short time the whole of the terrain.

Range of Fire.

It follows, then, that the soldier who ap proaches the battlefield and advances to carry the enemy posi tion, finds that, at great range and over an extremely wide extent —that is to say during a long space of time—he is exposed to a heavy fire, the effects of which are multiplied in severity the farther he advances to the position. Frequently, before being able to advance, he is forced to wait until, thanks to supplies of materiel, cannon, trench mortars and machine-guns, his army has gained a mastery of the fire, and the destructive capacity of the adversary has been thus reduced.

In this time of waiting hours succeed hours, nights follow days, and weeks go by, always under the rain of steel from the enemy. It is under incessant bombardment that the march to victory has to be resumed and continued. Rarely is the battle decided in one day. And the nervous tension, the crisis imposed on the com batant, lasts the same time. During all this wearing period he must fulfil, automatically and of ten left to his own resources, his function as soldier, marksman, machine-gunner, pioneer, link in the chain of intelligence, carrier of supplies, and so on. That is to say this function must be part of his own nature, and to fulfil it he must have received a serious training.

Interception of Supplies.

Furthermore, bombardment spreads its havoc no less widely on the rear of the battle-front, cuts communications, prevents the arrival of supplies. Not only has the combatant to show a bold face to the danger which threatens him, but he often finds himself reduced to a most pre carious existence ; along with the rigours of nights in the open he has to put up with shortage of supplies. And thus physical ex haustion comes to be added to nervous shock, and the severity of the ordeal is heightened.

Tenacity and Endurance.

In the wars of the past, move ment and enthusiasm, the qualities of dash and courage and personal pride, could suffice the soldier in a moment of intoxi cation to meet, with brilliance, the crisis of collision with the enemy. But today, if he is to traverse the long road of the hell which is the modern battle and reach a decision, he must possess an unbreakable tenacity and an energy ready for any sacrifice, and both must be unwavering for long days on end. To what greatness of soul must we not appeal, then, to see the emergence of virtues so solid, so tenacious, so generous? We must leave the answer to the soldiers of the Marne and Yser, Ypres and Verdun.

Further, who can forget the moving spectacle of the British leave-trains returning to the front during the World War? The men were accompanied to the station by a silent throng com posed for the most part of women and children. A few handker chiefs furtively sought the eyes of those who were left behind, especially when the train began to move off. On board the vessel at Dover, the returning men donned their life-saving waistcoats, and stood closely crowded together on deck, imprisoned in their own thoughts. If, from a group here and there, came a song or a noisy demonstration, it was from young soldiers going out to the front for the first time. The others remained impassive, silent, gloomy and their eyes gave token of the cold energy, and the spirit of savage resolve on which they had fallen back. It was to the cry of "Lusitania!" that they would soon be marching to attack. Experience had taught them that mere knowledge of their duties and a fine, fleeting ardour would not suffice to bear the long and bitter ordeal of the modern battle. They required a spirit which must be imbued with the highest feelings, and, quickened with them, a spirit proved in the crucible of discipline.

The soldier of our national armies has drawn the spirit of sacrifice, the sentiment of discipline and duty, from love of his country, from attachment to the family as to the race, and from the indispensable military training, which left its strongest im pression. Of this he gives proof in action by strict obedience to orders. But let there be no mistake; he conserves and maintains these virtues in lasting fashion only in proportion as the com manders have won his confidence by the care with which they surround his daily life ; only in proportion as they know how to conserve that life by their vigilant economy of his blood.

As a whole, the war of the present day demands of the soldier a moral greatness and a professional training, both developed in very high degree. The conservation of those forces, a conservation which alone can assure victory, is incumbent on the commanding officer. And in this way the role and responsibility of the officer expand in an exceptional degree, and grow sharply defined, especially in battle.

In the course of any action of necessarily long duration, the officer can conserve the value of his unit, section, company or bat talion, only by protecting it from the disasters which are contin ually menacing it, and by leading it step by step to the goal, to the final objective which has been assigned to it by the higher command, and the gaining of which constitutes for it the victory. He cannot confine himself to being a daring soldier, superior to his subordinates by his courage and personal example. He must show himself to be constantly dominated and impelled by a double preoccupation : to avoid the destruction of his unit and to bring it nearer its objective. , He is preoccupied to avoid its destruction, because he is in the presence of an armament capable, by suddenly inflicted losses, of destroying the unit, or at least of shattering its morale for a long time, if adequate precautions have not been taken in time. Hence springs the necessity that he should be familiar with the dispositions appropriate to this continual menace, and that he should be able to order and put readily into practice these disposi tions, which by his selection of rendezvous, his tactical forma tions, by hastily constructed earthworks or by any other proce dure, keep the troops halted under cover from the observation, projectiles or poison-gas of the enemy.

How many long hours will not troops have to pass in waiting, in preparation, before seeing the moment for action arrive ? How often has not the officer to provide for these secure dispositions? Yet in this situation the slightest negligence is unpardonable. At that moment will appear all the vigilance and all the power of de cision which the officer must bring to the field of action, in addition to the acquired knowledge and the experience, necessarily incom plete though this be, of manoeuvres. What is required of him, even at these moments, is the all-embracing eye, the sense of fitting opportunity and the gift of decision.

Precision in Attack.

Then, the moment of action having ar rived, the operations of the unit must be carried out without hesi tation or disturbance, in the presence of an adversary who, flinging all his resources again into action, may be able to regain some of his preponderance, to restore to his armament its formidable strength. That is to say, the operations must have been directed in all their details by a commanding officer who has previously assured himself of the participation of neighbouring troops, and has gauged as exactly as possible the position of the enemy which he is approaching. To sum up, together with the feeling of readi ness for action called up by the receipt of orders, but before the moment for action has come, it is by foresight and precision that an officer should be inspired and guided in his procedure. Without these he steps into imprudence, and he draws his troops along with him. They run the risk of not returning. He, and he alone, is to blame.

Value of Experience.

Without going into the increased need for technical knowledge resulting from the employment of ma teriel, at once more various and more potent and also more deli cate, the art of bringing troops on to the battlefield has assumed in our day a capital importance. Every officer ought to concern himself with this, and shape himself for it in time of peace as fully as he devotes himself to the instruction of his men, so that he may be able, when the great day comes, to present himself armed with a certain peace-time experience, and armed above all with faculties well maintained, developed, and turned ever on the alert in the direction of the march toward the objective. He must be ready on that day to resolve the difficulties of this march, difficulties which only the actual conditions will reveal to him, for peace gives no complete idea of the effects of modern weapons on a body of troops. War will bring him face to face with new problems, and will demand that he possess, over and above his professional knowledge, the habit of reflection and prompt deci sion on fresh circumstances. It is a habit which he will need to have acquired during peace-time. It is needless to remark that these faculties of foresight, of adaptation to new problems, ought to be developed the more fully in an officer the higher his rank and the greater the instruments of control which are in his hands. For in this case his orders cover vast spaces, are laden with more far-reaching consequences, and are more difficult to modify in their execution. The moral forces and the capacities which the commander must bring to war, if he is to act in such a way that negligence or imprudence, both always disastrous, may be avoided, have increased in notable proportions—even for the lower ranks.

But war, to pursue the theme further, does not confine its ma terial and moral effects to the battlefields and the invaded regions. It extends them toward the rear, to populations which were form erly kept aloof from it by the barrier of distance. It spreads them overseas in every direction, even to non-belligerents, and produces the most complete upheaval.

The Non-Combatants.

In the rear, not to speak of refugee populations fleeing before the ravages of invasion and terror sys tematically loosed in defiance of the laws of humanity, it is the women, the children and the aged who live in the emotions of the struggle, as a result of the facility and speed of communications; who undergo on occasion the stress of hostile bombardment from the air; who in any case suffer privations of every kind. This means that the field is open, in the heart of the country itself, to the most opposed sentiments and passions, as also to nervous shock and physical exhaustion. But, despite these difficulties, the interior of the country must hold firm to the end, and, what is more, must maintain in foodstuffs, arms, and munitions, and support in energy of spirit, those who fight at the front. In its united aspects, the country becomes and must remain, by its sentiments and its productive activity, the source of the warring capacity of the armies.

Thus, in the old Europe, each country is perforce the near neighbour of powerful States, sees its warlike resistance measured by the degree of union between the interests and sentiments which it comprises, by its jealous watch over its independence, by its progress toward that moral unity which is the essence of a nation, and consequently by the depth of its national sentiment. Only in these moral factors is to be found the energy which will resist concussions of every kind, and will pursue, through ever-increasing sacrifices and through all the vicissitudes of the struggle, the success of the enterprise which will liberate it, once and for all, from all its anguish. And if, among the States of the New World, where menace is less direct, the immediate danger does not de mand the organization of territorial defence, a blow struck against the principles whereby they live will awaken the apprehensions of the peoples and, in community of sentiments, will arm them for the safe-guarding of their free civilization. In short, a sturdy sentiment which binds the entire people as one, imposing itself upon them by the justice of their cause and the necessity for de fending it, is indispensable to the success of a modern war, for that alone is capable of obliging them to the privations and sacri fices which war entails.

To maintain and guide this sentiment during the days of the struggle, to exploit it and to extract victory from out of it, such is the task of the Government. In these days the Government must not be simply the representative of the interests of the coun try, but rather the expression of the passions which are animating it, and to that end the organizer of defence, the creator of the ma terial resources, the arms, munitions, foodstuffs essential to the struggle, and the motive and inspiring power of the forces assem bled on the field of operations. It must show itself a "war Gov ernment," with an active and effective policy, taking a wide view of the ends which it is possible to attain, bearing in mind the means at its disposal. And it must be animated by the will always to augment those means to hasten those ends, while still maintain ing, in the interior of the country, the spirit which does not disarm. It is obvious, then, that war calls for peculiar qualities in the statesmen who preside over it. Without these, it must inevitably end in impotence, or even defeat.

To sum up, whether we are dealing with the soldier, the high command, the nation or the Government, in each of these divisions war demands an ever-increasing share of the moral forces whose close union and wise combination are alone capable of producing victory. It is to the insufficiency of certain of these forces, or to the lack of cohesion between them, that we must look to grasp and explain the collapse, in the course of the last war, of certain Great Powers, and likewise of armies of formidable repute, which in so far as they themselves were concerned certainly did not fall short of that repute. (F. F.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The most important works to be consulted are Bibliography.-The most important works to be consulted are those of Marshal Foch himself: Des Principes de la guerre (1903), with English trans. by Hilaire Belloc (1918) ; De la conduite de la guerre (3rd ed., 1915) ; Preceptes et Jugements du Marechal Foch; extraits de ses oeuvres, precedes d'une etude sur la vie militaire du snarechal par A. Gasset (Nancy, 1919), with English trans. by Hilaire Belloc (1919) . See also J. R. (ancien eleve de l'ecole superieure de guerre), Foch, Essai de psychologie militaire (1921) ; Emile Mayer, La psychologie du commandement: Avec plusieurs lettres inedites du Marechal Foch (1924) ; Ardant du Picq, Etudes sur le combat, Engl. trans. by J. F. C. Fuller, The Reformation of War (1923) and The Foundations of a Science of War; C. von der Goltz, The Nation in Arms (Eng. trans. by P. A. Ashworth, new ed. 1907).

I. Chief Characteristics of the Armies of the Selected Countries