GENERAL'S ART

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23954, 2 May 1941, Page 9

GENERAL'S ART

CONTACT WITH MEN SPEECHES AND HUMOUR SOLDIERS' ATTITUDE BY GENERAL WAVELL (World Copyright Hcserved) No. IV. Should a general address his troops, collectively or individually? Only, J think, if he has a gift that way, a gift • not of eloquence necessarily, but of saying the right tiling. He must be very sure of himself. He risks more loss of reputation than lie is likely to gain. J only once remember Allen by addressing a large body of troops, and that was not in commendation. Napoleon in his maxims says: "Jt. is not set speeches at the moment of battle that render soldiers brave. The veteran scarcely listens to them, and the recruit forgets them at the first discharge. If discourses and harangues are useful, it is during the campaign; to do away with unfavourable impressions, to correct false reports, to keep alive a proper spirit in the camp, and to furnish materials and amusement for the bivouac." Disconcerting Answers A general who speaks to men individually may sometimes receive a disconcerting answer. A story is told of Maig, who usually inspected men in a complete and stony silence, that one of his staff told him that it would make a better impression if he .spoke to one or two men. Accordingly, he said to a man: "Where did you start this war?" "I didn't start this war, sir. I think the Kaiser did," was the reply. Allenby once, on a visit to the trenches, found a man sitting on the fire-step delousing his shirt. "Well, picking them out. I see," he remarked. "No, sir, no," replied the man without looking up, "just taking them as they come." Explosions of temper do not necessarily ruin a general's reputation or influence with his troops; it is almost expected of them ("the privileged irascibility of senior officers," someone has written), and it is not always resented, sometimes even admired, except by those immediately concerned. ' Sarcasm Resented But sarcasm is always resented and seldom forgiven. In the Peninsula the bitter sarcastic tongue of Craufurd, the brilliant but erratic leader of the Light Division, was much more wounding and feared than the more violent outbursts of f'icton, a rough, hot-tempered man.

Should iho high commander have a sense of humour? Certainly a sense of humour is good for anyone; but he must not display it too much or too often. I cannot find, indeed, that a sense of humour is a very frequent quality in great generals. Allenby certainly had one, although it was not safe to jest with him. But lie kept it for his unofficial moments. So did Wellington. Haig, I think, had no sense of humour; nor can I find any attributed to Napoleon. The only great commander J can find who was consistently a humorist was that eccentric genius Suvorov, the Russian; and lie was perhaps more of a mountebank than a humorist. Yet the British soldier himself is one of the world's greatest humorists. "Old Bill" in Germany That unhumorous race, the Germans, held an investigation after the late war into the causes of morale, and attributed much of the British soldier's staying power to his sense of humour. They therefore decided to instil this sense into their own soldiers, and included in their manuals an order to cultivate it. They gave as an illustration in the manual one of Bairnsf • thor's pictures of "Old Bill" sitting in a building with an enormous shell-hole in the wall. A new chum asks: "What made that hole?" ".Mice," replies "Old Bill." hi the German manual a solemn footnote of explanation is added: "It was not mice, it was a shell." What can we get tangible out of the random reflections T have given you? Little enough, perhaps. What I have tried to show you is that military history is a flesh and blood affair, not a matter of diagrams and formulas, or of rules; not a conflict of machines but of men. In the lecture hall of a French infantry school which 1 once attended was written the following from Aidant du Pieq:— Man the First Weapon "The man is the first weapon of battle; let us then study the soldier in battle, for it is he who brings reality to it. Only study of the past can give us a sense of reality, and show us bow the soldier will fight in the future." When you study military history do not read' outlines on strategy or the principles of war. Bead biographies, memoirs, historical novels, sucn as "The Road to Glory" or "Schonbrunn." Get at the flesh and blood of it, not the skeleton. To learn that Napoleon won the campaign of 1796 by manoeuvre on interior lines or some such phrase is of little value.

If you can discover how a young unknown man inspired a ragged, mutinous, half-starved army and made it fight, how he gave it the energy and momentum to march and fight as it did, how he dominated and controlled generals older and more experienced than himself, then you will have learned something. Napoleon the Psychologist

Napoleon did not gain the position he did so much by a study of rules and strategy as bv a profound knowledge of human nature in war. A story of him in his early days shows his knowledge of psychology. When an artillery officer at the siege of Toulon, he built a battery in such an exposed position that he was told he would never find men to hold it. He put up a placard: "The battery of men without fear," and it was always manned. Here are a few principles that seem to mo to embody the practice of successful commanders in their relations with their troops: —• A general must keep strict, although not necessarily stern, discipline. Ho should give praise where praise is due, ungrudgingly, by word of mouth or written order. He should show himself as frequently as possible to his troops, and as impressively as possible. Ceremonial has its uses. He should never indulge in sarcasm, which is being clever at someone else's expense, and always offends. Should Tell the Truth He should tell his soldiers the truth, save when absolutely necessary to conceal plans, etc. Eew things annoyed the soldier more in the late war than the extracts published by Intelligence to make out that the German soldiers were lighting badly, and so on, when the soldier knew they were fighting as stoutly as ever. To sum up, the relationship between a general and his troops is very much like that between the' rider and his horse. The horse must be controlled and disciplined, and yet encouraged; lie should, nccordfng to an old maxim, "bo cared for in the stable as if lie was worth £SOO and ridden in the field as if ho were not worth half-a-erown." And the horse knows not only by his own comfort whether ho is being ridden well or badly, but he knows if his rider is hold or frightened, determined or hesitating. A general must drive his men at times. Some of the best and most successful riders and horsemasters are not those who are fondest of horses. A general may succeed for some time in persuading his superiors that he is a good commander; he will never persuade his army that he is a good commander unless 'ho has the real qualities of ono.