Introduction

Summary

We have come through another great war and its reality is already cloaked in the mists of peace. In the course of that war we learned anew that man is supreme, that it is the soldier who fights who wins battles, that fighting means using a weapon, and that it is the heart of man which controls this use.

(S. L. A. Marshall)

On 20 October 1942, three days before the start of the battle of El Alamein, General Georg Stumme, in temporary command of the German and Italian Panzerarmee Afrika, informed his commanders that ‘the enemy is by no means certain of victory. We must increase that uncertainty every day … The feeling of complete moral superiority over the enemy must be awakened and fostered in every soldier, from the highest commander to the youngest man … From this moral superiority comes coolness, confidence, self-reliance and an unshakeable will to fight. This is the secret to every victory.’

In such words Stumme articulated his firm belief that morale was the key factor that would decide the upcoming battle of El Alamein. Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, Stumme's opponent at El Alamein, believed that morale was equally significant. He wrote after the battle that ‘the more fighting I see, the more I am convinced that the big thing in war is morale’. It is vital, therefore, he said, ‘that we make a study of this subject’.