Troop Morale and Military Unity

Abstract

Napoleon claimed that ‘In war, three-quarters of victory is down to morale, only one quarter to the balance of military forces.’ Indeed, success in a military undertaking does not depend solely on the number and skill of the soldiers, the brilliance of the strategists, or the quality of technical performance. Something extra is needed, something intangible, invisible, contingent, volatile: that something is good troop morale. The role of combatant morale and opinion has been extensively studied for the Great War, often in relation to the various devices employed to buttress morale. Among these were recreational pursuits, notably sport, which as John Fuller has shown,¹ linked the soldier to civilian life, to his pre-war life; another element of communication with civilians was letter-writing, which played a capital role for morale and opinion among soldiers;² morale was also supported with material ‘props’, most notably alcohol;³ military training regimes also contributed;⁴ while the journaux de tranchées or military press,⁵ besides entertaining and informing combatants, helped to create a sense of group membership, a professional military identity. The issue of combatant morale is also an important subject of study during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.