MILITARY COURAGE.
IN the discussion which has been evoked by the speeches of the officers returned from Zadulaud—a discussion carried on mainly in letters—ono remark is constantly made, that it is absurd of the Generals to praise officers so warmly for being exceptionally bravo. All British soldiers, it is said, are brave—it is shameful for them not to be brave—and it would be far better to single out any less common quality for commendation. We ourselves have remarked on the tendency to overlook the capacities that make Generals, in favour of those which mako heroes, and the comments of military correspondents—for ex- ample, in the Standard—have upon that point been far more severe. The criticism is sensible, and is required, or every quality save courage would be ignored, and yet we do not know whether a -historian familiar with many centuries and many armies would altogether endorse it. He might say, and probably would say, that a profession is almost always right in its instiucts, which are the result of the experience of .ages, and that experi- enee, showed that " mere " courage was a more valuable and a much rarer quality in armies than the generality of outsiders believe. If it were not, the organisers of armies, and, the men who themselves make up armies, would not take so much pains to evoke it ; and, they do take pains. From the earliest times, military leaders have always rewarded daring above all qualities, except, perhaps, that combination of qualities which is called " good-luck ;" and. soldiers have always treated eourage as the one 8inre q'ntilLOU. It is the only quality which in all ages awl under all circumstances has enabled private sol- diers to rise to high command, and it is the only one the want of which the common soldiers will not pardon. They will over- look blundering and condone tyranny in the most astonishing way, but they never forgive visible deficiency of pluck ; and they worship heroism, active daring—the kind of courage which is more than ability- to face danger—with a reverence which of itself suggests that they must feel it to be both a most rare quality and one most useful to themselves. Among Zulus, as among English soldiers, the specially brave 31M11 is the .than specially honoured ; and it was so in the earliest armies of which we have any record. An instinct so deep and so enduring must, a priori, be a valuable instinct, and there can be little doubt that of this one there exists complete explanation. Bravery is the condition of success iu war, though it will not of itself produce success in war ; and the mass of men are not brave, but the opposite of brave, not because the mass of men are timid, for the mass of them have too little imagination to be cowardly, but because the mass of men are selfish. Other motives apart, ninety-nine men in a hundred are unwilling to be killed, or to be hurt, or to make any extraordinary exertion, or to run any unusual risk, They want to be safe, and according to their oWu lights, comfortable. No doubt, a few men in all communities enjoy danger, feel an im- pulse towards it which is a lust, are momentarily the happier because of peril, and would seek it if unmoved by other motive thau that form of desire ; but they are very few. The majority dislike peril, more or less, just as they dislike pain, and will, if unrestrained by some other force, try to get out of its way. To overcome that selfishness is, Count von. %Moltke says, the main object of discipline, which is not drill, but that habit of supporting a special organisation which, when confirmed, becomes in all but a few physically timid men--few even in conscript armies—a habit strong enough to keep the selfishness which we call cowardice in check. The selfishnestsis just as strong in soldiers as in any other class of the community, and is much more strongly provoked. The knowledge of the right way to march does not make you indifferent to shells, nor will a perfect " Set-u]) " induce you to face bullets .without a reason. It is not nice at all to be exposed to the chance of ts severe wound, or a permanent injury, or extreme pain rising to agony, such as soldiers see other soldiers suffer. The temptation to avoid it 18 very great, and is felt by a great majority ; and the few men who can utterly beat down that temptation. or who from -mental and physical constitution do not Feel it, are naturally very greatly honoured. They keep up the ideal which every soldier feels is essential to armies, and in every branch of work in the world those who are recognised as keeping op the ideal are specially favoured by opinion. They can do and do do the thing which
everybody feels ought to be done, and in doing it, set the ex- ample which makes the mass believe it is possible to attain what otherwise they might think a mere ideal. The "men are
encouraged," we say, colloquially, without seeing that they are encouraged. just as they are ea conraged in the practice of other
virtues, in ordinary self-control, temperance, equity, and for- givingness, by example. The men who can resist fear, can corn. spletely set it aside, can act as if it did not and could not exist, are in armies the noble men, just as amidst a chaste monkish community, in the brutal .middlesages, St. Anthony was the perfect and ever-quoted exemplar. He had beaten down the
temptation of that day felt by that community, just as the "Y:0." of our day does, and was reverenced precisely from the _same legitimate, or rather admirable, set of feelings. Men not in armies would reverence military daring—we do not exactly mean courage—just as soldiers do, if they were not bemused by an idea which soldiers know not to-be true. They fancy all soldiers courageous. As a matter of fact, most soldiers—ninety:five per cent., say—can be made courageous enough to face the dangers of battle ; but they have to be made so, and to make them so is the General's highest task, and sometimes his greatest difficulty. In a state of nature, they are not bravo at all. A mob, that is, an unorganiaed.collection of ins dividuals, always runs away from a danger it understands, and a mob which happens to be in uniform runs away, too. Generals know that perfectly well, and if competent, make it their first task either to frighten their men, or to tempt their men, into disobeying their natural and, so to speak, instinctive impulse. They make them afraid to do it, by discipline, which is the habit.of obedience lest punishment follow; and'ashamed to do it, which is the'habit of obeying either opinion or conseienee,lest scorn, external or in- ternal, follow. The most effective of all methods of creating fear is discipline, the steady pressure of legalised authority., so severe, unfailing, and instant, that it is dreaded more than shot; and the most effective of all methods of creating shame is example which dissipates man's only genuine excuse for 'himsellf, that he could not help it. There is this good quality in men, that having an ideal and seeing it attained, they always wish, more or less, to attain it, and will follow, where they could not bring them- selves to go alone. One genuinely daring man will make a whole mob courageous, just as one genuine saint, whose saintli- ness is recognised, will make a whole community, not indeed saintly, but very much better than it was. Soldiers know that by experience, and recognise the extreme value of the one, because they know, as outsiders do not, how necessary he is, and how true is the following sentence, tittered to the writer by a very famous General, himself exceptional in fearlessness :— "in a British regiment of a thousand men, according to my ex- perience, there are usually fifty men who will do anythingrfor- lorn-hope sort of men. Nine hundred, who would else only gape, or perhaps run, will follow them. The ogler fifty are curs, who would lie in the ditch, if they dared." That is very nearly the truth, and being the truth, Generals very naturally respect the first .fifty, and think the five who-by a combination of moral and physical qualities produce those fifty persons ought to be applauded with even an exaggerated roar. They de- serve half the clapping, for courage of their !sort is only haff
physical ; and if they get it the other half is-only payment for great service.
But all British soldiers are brave. Are they i) Experienced officers are not precisely of that opinion. They say that Englishmen have never undergone conscription yet, and till they have, must consider those who enlist picked men ; that it is only certain that English voluntary recruits can, by judicious management, be made in a very great proportion brave men ; and that when all is done they, if inexperienced, want leading, and 'discipline, and moral stimulus, and one glass of rum very much indeed. Their specialty, such officers say, among good troops, is not courage, so much as tenacity, a readiness, if they stand for half-au-hour, to go on pegging away long after other troops—Germans and Americans excepted—would have given the thing U. That is the national characteristic, incivil as in military life ; but it is not courage alone, but something else, without which the English would be beaten by troops like the Sikhs, whom, nevertheless, they have, sometimes at heavy The Sikh is as brave as the odds, repeatedly defeated.
Englishman, and HO probably is the 'Afghan, but he lacks the power to go on when the danger becomes extreme which the Englishman possesses. That power is, however, a
developed, not an inherent one, or an English mob would show
the tenacity of an English regiment, and discipline raight-be reduced to drill ; and among the methods of developing it, none
is so valuable as example. One man of the truly heroic type, or of the inferior but equally useful type to whom fear is un- known, will fire a thousand men, till they can face things from which, but for that example, they would have shrunk 'without a souse of shame. In crises, in fact, the leader is indispensable, and as in extreme dangers only the heroic can lead succesaftilly, the hero naturally seems to his General and his men not only the noblest, but the most useful of mankind. It is this sense, which is founded on long experience, which hasimi need Generals in all countries to overlook the many inconveniences caused by Orders of Valour, and which has from time to time brought men with scarcely any other quality to the top Of armies. The debating assembly always promotes the orator, be he statesman or no ; and the instinct of armies is always in favour of the " be his qualities other than valour what they may.
Previous page
