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Combat Motivation

The Behaviour of Soldiers in Battle

  • Book
  • © 1982

Overview

Authors:
  1. Anthony Kellett
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Table of contents (19 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
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  2. Introduction

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Background and Method

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 3-17

    3. Human Factors in War: Four Case Studies

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 19-38

  3. The Garrison Background

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 39-39
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    2. Group Cohesion and Unit Esprit

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 41-58

    3. Manpower Policies

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 59-65

    4. Socialization

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 67-78

    5. Training

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 79-88

    6. A Historical Overview of Military Discipline

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 89-93

  4. Organizational Factors of the Combat Environment

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 95-95
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    2. Primary Groups and the Regimental System

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 97-117

    3. Personnel Practices and Problems in Combat

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 119-132

    4. Discipline

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 133-148

    5. Leadership

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 149-163

  5. Individual Factors of the Combat Environment

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165
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    2. Beliefs, Values, and Commitment

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 167-199

    3. Reward and Recognition

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 201-213

  6. Combat

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 215-215
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    2. Preconceptions of Combat

      • Anthony Kellett
      Pages 217-229
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Keywords

About this book

"What men will fight for seems to be worth looking into," H. L. Mencken noted shortly after the close of the First World War. Prior to that war, although many military commanders and theorists had throughout history shown an aptitude for devising maxims concerning esprit de corps, fighting spirit, morale, and the like, military organizations had rarely sought either to understand or to promote combat motivation. For example, an officer who graduated from the Royal Military College (Sandhurst) at the end of the nineteenth century later commented that the art of leadership was utterly neglected (Charlton 1931, p. 48), while General Wavell recalled that during his course at the British Staff College at Camberley (1909-1 0) insufficient stress was laid "on the factor of morale, or how to induce it and maintain it'' (quoted in Connell1964, p. 63). The First World War forced commanders and staffs to take account of psychological factors and to anticipate wideJy varied responses to the combat environment because, unlike most previous wars, it was not fought by relatively small and homogeneous armies of regulars and trained reservists. The mobilization by the belligerents of about 65 million men (many of whom were enrolled under duress), the evidence of fairly widespread psychiatric breakdown, and the postwar disillusion (- xiii xiv PREFACE emplified in books like C. E. Montague's Disenchantment, published in 1922) all tended to dispel assumptions and to provoke questions about mo­ tivation and morale.

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