Abstract
One major concern of this study has been to gain some general understanding of why men fight, and, more particularly, to account for the way men performed in combat in the First World War. Why were some trench fighters more zealous, aggressive and disciplined in their combat roles than others? How were these men able to endure the harshness and horrors of combat? What exactly was this ability to endure? What were its correlates, and from what did it derive?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Frenchmen mobilised into the army numbered 8,410,000, and 537,000 of these became prisoners or were posted missing; Austro-Hungarians numbered 7,800,000, and 2,200,000 were taken prisoner or were missing. In Britain and the Commonwealth, 8,904,467 men were mobilised, and 191,652 were prisoners or missing. See: V. J. Esposito, A Concise History of World War 1 (London: Pall Mall Press. 1965) p. 372.
My own conclusions are similar to those of Charles Moskos, who argued that the combat motivation of the U.S. soldier in Vietnam in the 1960s was influenced by ‘an underlying commitment to the worth of the larger social system for which he is fighting. This commitment need not be formally articulated, nor even perhaps consciously recognised. But the soldier must at some level accept, if not the specific purposes of the war, then at least the broader (moral virtue) of the society of which he is a member’. See: C. C. Moskos, ‘Why Men Fight’, in D. Popenoe, Sociology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971) pp. 119–26. Moskos’ paper first appeared in: Transaction Magazine (New Jersey: November 1969).
This type of exchange is referred to by Homans as the exchange of punishments, and by Ekeh as negative exchange. See G. C. Homans, Social Behaviour (London: Routledge, and Kegan Paul, 1961) p. 57; Ekeh, op. cit., p. 150.
F. H. Dalbiac, History of the 60th Division (London: Allen and Unwin, 1927).
H. R. Sandilands, The Fifth in the Great War (Dover: Grigg and Sons, 1938) p. 294. (28th division, 2/Northumberland Fusiliers, May 1917, Struma Valley). According to the same source, upon the Struma front in April 1918, the ’Divisional panto staged for the amusement of the troops a song entitled “Boris the Bulgar” and it had made a great hit. On a night in April notices were left on our wire by an enemy patrol, quoting two verses of the song, and requesting that the music be supplied’ (p. 249).
C. Packer, Return to Salonika (London: Cassell, 1964) pp. 91, 104.
A. J. Smithers, Sir John Monash (London: Leo Cooper, 1973) pp. 98–9.
H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957) Chapter 10. By discipline is meant ‘the consistently rationalised, methodically trained and exact execution of the received order, in which all personal criticism is unconditionally suspended and the actor is unswervingly set for carrying out the command’ (ibid., p. 253).
M. Weber, ‘Some Consequences of Bureaucratisation’ in L. A. Coser and B. Rosenburg, Sociological Theory (New York: Macmillan, 1957) pp. 442–3.
W. Plomer (ed.), Kilvert’s Diary, Vol. 1 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969) pp. 212–13.
J. C. King, The First World War (London: Macmillan, 1972) p. 269.
M. Ferro, The Creat War (London: Routledge … Kegan Paul, 1973) p. 184.
J. Keegan, The Face of Battle (London: Jonathan Cape, 1976).
K. Lorenz, On Aggression (London: Methuen, 1966).
Copyright information
© 1980 Tony Ashworth
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ashworth, T. (1980). Conclusion. In: Trench Warfare 1914–1918. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04356-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04356-9_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-04358-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-04356-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)