Modern Cavalry Author:Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III TROOP TRAINING MORALE FACTORS In a truly scientific training for combat we must work in peace for what is required in war. We know, for example... more », that some of our divisions in France covered themselves with glory. We know that other divisions barely "got away with it" to put it mildly. What was the underlying cause that made this difference between two groups of men of the same nation, in the same uniform, armed with the same weapons, and fighting against the same enemy? The whole difference lies in the word "morale." One division had a high degree of morale, the other lacked it. When the German morale broke they retreated. In war the moral is to the physical as three is to one, or so Napoleon states; and it is easily proved. We all vaguely realize the importance of morale in war. What we do not all realize is the necessity of morale in peace, the necessity of training for morale. It is simply another phase of the requirement that the transition from peace to war is to be made as smoothly as possible. To do this we must make peace-time training fit war-time needs. And the great need in war is high morale. What is morale? It is made up of many factors. Chief among these are, loyalty to, and confidence in, the officers, self-confidence upon the part of the men, confidence in their weapons, esprit de corps, and a high degree of physical well being. These are all dependent upon and superinduced by the following: loyalty to the officer, consideration, justice, understanding and exertion of energy on the part of the officer for his men. Confidence in the officer by his acquiring a happy faculty "of delivering the goods"; men will stand any degree of hardship and effort if they know that they are being well led, witness the soldiers of Stonewall Jackson. Confide...« less