7 - Morale

Summary

Early-twentieth-century military professionals often referred to moral rather than morale; a usage reflecting the strong ethical connotations which the term possessed for them. The armies that fought the First World War possessed long and partially shared traditions of motivating soldiers. Armies also possessed the ultimate power to sentence men to death during the First World War. The Germans were most sparing in applying the death penalty because their justice system was staffed by professional legal personnel and influenced more than that of other forces by civilian norms. The citizen-soldiers who were an integral part of industrial war owed their primary loyalties to their families, communities and, through them, the states which they had enlisted to defend. Troops' growing weariness and disgruntlement with the home front, and the greater demands made on morale by tactical innovation, prompted armies to direct new attention to reinforcing these loyalties.