Perception, habit, and innate coping mechanisms are important features of military morale. Soldiers during the Great War relied, like anybody, on the information available to them as they made sense of their experiences. Their sensemaking was constrained by what they could see, what they could hear, and what they were told. Subtler influences also informed how they navigated the world, and these were often drawn from their cultural and social context, not to mention their surroundings. In this way, morale was nurtured (and sometimes destroyed) at the confluence of men’s physical world, their social groups, and their psychologies. Some of the components of morale morphed as time passed, but military morale rested, to a great extent, on the ability of individuals to cope with great stresses and unimaginable horrors. The army provided them with many of the tools, resources, and mechanisms that helped them to do so but, significantly, it appears that so long as victorious peace appeared likely (and necessary) men were willing to confront crisis, both acute and chronic. Of course, individuals had their breaking points, but resilience and endurance were the norm. Whilst this narrative hinges on the power of the human spirit, there were features of English infantrymen’s morale that were unique to them: their very specific local identities and patriotism, and their lack of a explicit political identity, which was a key feature of their sensemaking. English infantrymen’s perception of military service was not interwoven with their sense of citizenship. These parochial patriotisms were potentially less vulnerable to change than more pronounced political identities.

The prologue begins with the illustrative example of a single soldier whose attempts to rationalise the war in letters to his son reflect the broader themes of the book. This man’s child, Bentley Bridgewater, donated a sequence of letters written to him by his father to the National Army Museum. In these, the reader is confronted by a man looking to maintain his relationship with his distant son whilst also crafting a meaningful narrative around his war experiences. In short, it helps to expose the ways in which men sought to create or imagine agency. The preface moves on to explicate the central importance of narrative (and agency) in human cognition and sensemaking, exploring its role in psychology but also in its broader historical context.

Soldiers’ desires to craft a narrative out of the war experience encouraged them to look towards the future. This chapter focuses on another central feature of soldiers’ psychologies: their hope. Infantrymen invested themselves in visions of victorious peace, which supported their morale and encouraged resilience. Nonetheless, their hopes for peace changed over the course of the war. At the end of 1914 and 1916, soldiers remained confident that the next year’s campaigning would bring the war to a successful close. However, their experiences in 1917 left them uncertain that victory was even possible. Censors noted that men began considering the likelihood of a negotiated peace during this period. Nevertheless, the German offensives of 1918 restored men’s faith in victorious peace. Soldiers gleaned immense psychological benefits from their investment in a peaceful future. Hope was a coping mechanism fed by memories, dreams, and fantasies that provided a vision of an alternative world devoid of war: something the men could fight for. Infantrymen developed personal life goals, which instilled their service with a depth of meaning that was itself sustaining. A variety of things fuelled their hope and optimistic reasoning: religion, prisoners, war souvenirs, and rumour all fed hope. Significantly, too, most of these soldiers believed that the German state had to be defeated were there ever to be a lasting peace. More subtle psychological mechanisms were also essential: optimism, certainty, language, acculturation, and the sense of success. So long as men were able to conceive of the war as just, necessary, and winnable they were generally willing to endure the stresses of service.

The preceding chapters reveal that a looming sense of crisis emerged in the BEF during and after the Battle of Passchendaele. Later, these weary men were faced with a major acute crisis – the spring offensives. Infantrymen were practically and psychologically ill-equipped to overcome this challenge. Using the concept of sensemaking, this chapter uses the records of a mix of regular, territorial, and New Army battalions drawn from six regiments to trace why men’s perceptions of battle may have changed and transformed. It charts their experiences during the optimistic days of early 1917, on the saturated battlefields around Ypres, amidst the chaos of Cambrai, in the tiring and demoralising winter of 1917–1918, and whilst facing the German onslaught after 21 March 1918. In early 1917, battle remained the imagined pathway to victorious peace. Yet, by the summer, the weather and Third Ypres left men’s hope of peace – and faith in battle – in tatters. The slow progress, casualties, and trying conditions convinced many that the war had become irreversibly static. These fears were confirmed as the BEF shifted to a defensive strategy. At the same time, esprit de corps was shaken by the BEF’s reorganisation in the new year. The work required to prepare the lines for defence was at the cost of effective training and the BEF retreated in the face of the German attacks. However, whilst the military outcome was sometimes in question, the spring offensives signalled a change in the character of the war in Belgium and France. Heavy casualties were inflicted upon the enemy, the army learnt on the job, and it appeared the conflict had entered a new phase. Somewhat counterintuitively, retreat and withdrawal rekindled soldiers’ faith in battle as the pathway to peace.

The physical world could drain and erode morale. The weather proved to be a central feature in the infantrymen’s experience of war. This chapter considers key themes that emerge from soldiers’ descriptions of winter: the cold, the rain, the mud, the snow, all of which were exacerbated by soldiers’ exhaustion. It discusses in turn the experience of winter 1914, winter 1916, and winter through spring 1917/18. These experiences fed negative perceptions of the military and encouraged men to view the war more pessimistically. They complained about trench conditions, clothing, and food. Furthermore, the anticipation of winter (as much as the experience of it) harmed motivation and morale. It undermined soldiers’ ability to visualise the future as they became frozen in time. Yet, soldiers’ negativity and pessimism after Passchendaele indicate that a deeper, more problematic, and increasingly pervasive gloom descended over the BEF in winter 1917/18. Yet, even then, men fell back on coping mechanisms. Their resilience shone through as they were able to project their discomfort onto the enemy and rationalise their winter experiences as a necessary (and temporary) trial. In fact, the experience of winter transformed soldiers’ perceptions of the campaigning season, which they viewed in a much more positive light. Spring and summer were preferable to the impotence of winter. Even if the warmer months promised more fighting, there was some agency to be found in battle. Furthermore, military action might end the war before the onset of the next winter.

This chapter considers the private lives of the German generals. As men who are typically studied exclusively for their military roles, this chapter uses their letters to ask questions about how they expressed themselves in the ‘private’ sphere. Not surprisingly, their wives, to varying degrees, served as confidants as well as sources of strength. The role of the prominent military wife is also directly discussed with reference to letters by Margarete Guderian – the only available collection from one of the generals’ wives. The role of family is discussed, including the presence of military-age sons who were serving on the Eastern Front in 1941. The demands of senior command took a serious toll on each of the men and the letters over the course of 1941 chart their exposure to physical danger as well as psychological pressure. Coping mechanisms employed by the generals, such as free-time hobbies or spiritual beliefs are also evaluated from their writings. Overall, the value of the correspondence in illuminating a much more rounded view of the panzer generals charged with leading Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union is highlighted.

Historians of appeasement make different assumptions about Britain’s ability to influence events through the threat or use of military force or economic sanctions. Attempts at measuring power are examined critically and key factors identified, including the armed forces, the arms industry, the wider economy and public willingness to support foreign policy. The strength of the Royal Navy is discussed in relation to the size of other navies and to Britain’s commitments, and Churchill’s comment that the Chamberlain government did not neglect the navy is noted. In contrast, Churchill described the loss of Britain’s lead over Germany in air power as a disaster. Britain and Germany’s air power are compared in the context of technical developments. Britain’s limited capability to support France on land is explained, with particular reference to tanks, which Churchill had pioneered. Historians’ debates about the adequacy of Britain’s arms industry are discussed in relation to problems encountered by Germany in rearmament. It is argued that the principal reason why Britain lagged behind Germany was Chamberlain’s unwillingness to accept Churchill’s advice to divert industry from civil trade and industry to producing munitions. The possibilities of collective security through the League of Nations or Churchill’s concept of a grand alliance are explored and the importance of intelligence in influencing perceptions of power emphasized.

While civilians in the metropole had mixed responses to concerted efforts to urge them to carry their gas masks, popular culture continued to make the gas mask an object of humor as well as something to manage panic or fear. As the war continued, new questions emerged that showed the limits of the gas mask’s reach, notably who was responsible for providing gas masks for internees in camps on the Isle of Man or for colonial subjects in places ranging from Aden to India to Singapore to the West Indies. Those planning for civil defense had not considered provisions for those in Britain’s extensive empire, and those in the colonies came to treat imperial civil defense with ambivalence. As Britain’s access to its overseas empire – and most importantly its source of rubber – shifted by the middle of 1942, so too did its instructions about gas masks. It now no longer asked its inhabitants to carry their gas masks everywhere but instead to ensure that they knew where they were and would keep them in good order. Despite poison gas not being deployed in massive attacks on civilians, as feared in the planning stages, the government continued to provide babies’ anti-gas protective helmets to all infants, and to inspect and repair gas masks for other ages throughout the war. At the war’s end, however, it decided not to collect these devices, just in case they could be of use in a future war.

Patriotic war culture has routinely touted the symbiosis between mail and morale. Disciplinarians of wartime feeling have issued reams of advice about how to “write right!” in order to sustain men’s esprit and keep love alive despite distance and danger. Above all, military and civilian opinion-leaders alike have strenuously and repeatedly warned women against dispatching Dear Johns to men serving overseas. These prompts have taken many forms: explicit guidance from newspaper and magazine columnists, marriage counselors, government bodies, and voluntary agencies (like the YMCA and Red Cross) as well as pointed cues about emotional etiquette supplied by popular music, radio and television shows, and Hollywood movies. This chapter probes the challenges of sustaining long-distance love at war – difficulties often minimized by wartime advice-givers, but unmistakable to men and women who have tried, and sometimes failed, to keep intimate relationships intact. It also considers how far prescriptions issued to “waiting women” have changed since the 1940s, proposing that there’s been considerable continuity, despite radical shifts in dating behavior and marital norms in US society.

The war restructured the justice system. Hitler, haunted by the “stab-in-the-back” of 1918, assigned the courts and the Gestapo new roles to safeguard morale. The courts would issue severe sentences to deter dissent, while the political police would ensure that only true opponents faced prosecution. Draconian punishments checked defeatism, while descriptions of the convict preserved support by communicating who was targeted and why. The Gestapo enabled these sentences by resolving lesser offences. Heydrich issued new Principles of Internal State Security during the War authorizing warnings to “correct the mindset and strengthen the will” of supporters who strayed in “momentary weakness.” The new policy also permitted extrajudicial executions to “brutally liquidate” any serious threat to morale. Practically, very little changed about who and what kinds of behavior were a threat. The new policy continued targeting political opponents, criminals, and public offences. Previously, officers had intervened on a case by case basis. Now, station leaders bore personal responsibility for deciding whether to press charges. Selective enforcement passed from the state prosecutor to the Gestapo.

Caporetto had changed the very nature of Italy’s war from an offensive war into a struggle for survival. Italian armed forces, morale, supplies and finance needed to be bolstered, and Britain made the greatest effort – but not for free.

This chapter examines three subjects relating to the themes of authority and allegiances. The first section considers the qualities that Romans considered important for effective generalship, including calculated displays of courage and a reputation for good fortune, which astute generals could foster as a way of strengthening their authority and the morale of their men. The much-debated subject of pre-battle speeches is also discussed, with less familiar but highly relevant late Roman evidence brought to bear. The second section examines the strategies deployed for maintaining the obedience of soldiers and changing patterns of military mutiny over the course of Roman history, with a view to identifying factors which influenced its incidence. The third and final section addresses the subject of civil war: its incidence and impact, and the ways in which commanders sought to negotiate the strains that internal conflicts placed on soldiers’ loyalties.

This chapter considers the experience of war from two perspectives. The first half examines the problem of literary topoi in ancient descriptions of battle and some of the ways in which scholars have tried to make sense of them. Debate about the dynamics of battle is discussed, together with the ‘face of battle’ approach. Attention is given to controversies over the application of conclusions from modern contexts about ‘ratio of fire’ and small-group cohesion. The application of ‘non-linear’ models is also considered apropos the unpredictability of battle. Finally, the battle of Busta Gallorum (43 BC) provides an intriguing case study of a battle for which, unusually, an eyewitness account has been preserved. The second half focuses on civilian experiences of war, especially in the context of sieges. Civilian involvement in the defence of cities is examined, as is the impact of food shortages, famine and disease, together with the sexual violence and enslavement that typically followed the capture of a besieged city. The impacts of raiding and of protracted wars are also considered. Late Roman evidence is particularly illuminating for the experiences of those enslaved through war.

Chapter 6 analyzes the communal feeding centers opened during World War II that initially targeted the working poor in order to ameliorate their deficient diets and boost morale. They provided well-balanced, inexpensive meals that attempted to meet the nutritional standards devised by the state’s scientific advisors. These British Restaurants eventually came to serve a broad cross section of the civilian home front population, not merely the working poor. But this was not the product of a coherent government policy. Rather, this chapter demonstrates that it was the result of a proactive public who used these not-for-profit services for their own purposes and thus became not merely passive recipients of government food control policies but active agents in the project of mass feeding. This chapter explores these institutions as spaces of cross-class and heterosocial encounters, which were frequented by a range of people who generally enjoyed the food and the atmosphere. It concludes that British Restaurants were politically popular both because they reflected a wartime “fair shares” mentality and because they served a larger project that was bent on transforming the poor from beneficiaries of the state into citizen-consumers and thus full members of an economically healthy postwar society.

Demonstrates that music was a vital part of the daily routines of those interned in prisoner of war camps. The forming of orchestras and theatrical revues were a popular way of passing the time and maintaining morale, but in many cases musical activities were used by prisoners of war to conceal attempts to escape. This chapter will give examples of how prisoners of war used music as a means of keeping up their morale to stave off feelings of ‘mouldiness,’ later identified as barbed wire disease.

Examines the development of servicemen’s concert parties in the context of the rapid expansion of the fighting forces, and of the significant figures who were key to the provision of music for the purposes of recreation and amusement. This chapter will show that Britain’s armed forces each had a strong tradition of musical entertainments solely by servicemen for their comrades which was much bolstered by men who had been professional performers before they enlisted. Furthermore, this chapter will show that servicemen used the pantomime form to reinforce their belief that they were fighting in a just war.

Shows how music played a key part in the unit’s identity on land, at sea and in the air. The squadron songs of the RFC, for example, tell us a great deal about how airmen dealt with combat stress and fear. The singing of songs on the march or at rest was a vital component of regimental identity as well as discipline.

Discusses the use of the gramophone for both educational and recreational purposes, showing how this developing technology was used on the fighting fronts in the maintenance of servicemen’s morale, as well as for medicinal and therapeutic uses in hospitals and convalescent homes.