THE PHYCHOLOGY OF BATTLE

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 1 May 1914, Page 8

THE PHYCHOLOGY OF BATTLE

It is commonly supposed that the first time a soldier is under iire he is in a blue funk, but ilu;.t. with succeeding battles he grows more and more accustomed to the sensation until he comes positively to enjoy it. Now I don't want to lay down the law on the strength of a few months of active service, but I have been under fire some half a dozen times. 1 have also had the advantage of : tali::ng with many men of far great\er war experience, and without ex- . ception their opinion was mine— j namely, that the first time you are under fire the novelty is so overwhelm in:; that you have neither time ;to be afraid, nor is your'mind or ■ imagination in working order to reali ise what is happening. ! 3 know I had been under fire some three or four hours before I had any i rl' vppreciation of the fact. I was . then attached to a mountain bati tery, so was not in the firing line ; | but aftnr an assault I had seen men I brought in dead or wounded and still I mip.ht have been in a dream. A NARROW SHAVE. There was a lull in the fighting, and my skipper and I intent on lunch | were trying to open a bully beef tin, having broken off the key. He was holding it, and I was pulling at the lid, when a bullet came along and buried itself in the tins. That brought me to my cold senses, and j also destroyed all appetite for lunch. I don't pretend that you don't feel nervous during jour first battle, but it is more the nervousness of excitement than of fear. You are afraid principally of being afraid, and now that the moment you have so often dreamed of has arrived, you are so intensely interested in your feelings that there is little room for other emotion than j curiosity. j REMAINS UNPLEASANT. lAs for the theory that you grow ito like being under fire, I cannot aj gree with it. Of 'course, there is a certain amount of excitement every time you go into action, but once the novelty has worn off, and you begin to see things as they really are j I cannot understand any man pre- ; tending to enjoy battle, save in very | special and peculiar circumstances. j For example, in the Indian Mutiny, i att-r Cawnpore, our men were filled with righteous fury against the enemy, and I have no doubt they took ! a fierce delight in slaying them ; but, as a rule the soldier has no personal quarrel with his foe. Tn the Boer War, I daresay, there | were Africanders and British settlers, : who bore a personal grudge against | the Boor?, and hero and there in the j ran.Vs there may have been a man ; 1 ho " remembered Majuba," but the ip. erasre Tommy had no ill-will to i the Borr ;he tried to kill him. be- ; oa!'se it was bis duty and his T>ro- \ fession. I IMAGINATION—ITS VALUE AND j ITS PENALTIES. This is why imaginative men make 1 the best soldiers;. Patriotism, duty, are abstract things, and the unima- . ginative man can form little or no ideal of them True, the imaginative man suffers infinitely more than the clod. Few of us can see, or even think, of the operating theatre without a shudder. ; Think then what it means to the imaginative man to have the operating tent ever at Ms elbow, daily to see the surgeons in their long, wLi+e overalls, splashed and specked wit.. blood, going about their grim work He tnows that his turn may come next ;he is haunted by the fear that the chloroform may run short. All this is enough to make him tim tail, but his imagination saves him. The fear of being branded as a coward is stronger than his fear of death or pain. He has, too, his ideals of duty to sustain him. The man who runs away is usually a very stupid person. HOW IT PEELS TO BE HIT. Modern civilised warfare is a coldblooded business. Death comes out of the void, and rarely do you meet your enemy face to face. It is difficult, therefore, to leel any sense of personal resentment unless some dear friend is killed beside you, or you yourself get in the way of a bullet. I know when I was hit; my feeling were a mixture of surprise and rage. I was angry, just as you would be angry if anyone, unprovoked, hit you in the eye. But the dominant feeling was one of puzzled pained surprise. Why should my unseen foe want to hurt me ? What had I done to him that he should seek my -iood ? ■ WHY ? I have seen a good many men killed in action, and on most of their face© was the startled, questioning expression of a child suddenly and unjustly rebuked or struck. They seemed to be asking God to ! tell them the meaning of it all, and ; perhaps across the border He told ! them. '• But to us war is a terrific puzzle. I am not talking of the war of aven-g-c----inent. when white women and child- j ren ha,e been foully done to death. ; The motive that inspires men. then, i is obvious. But how can one ex-I lain political wars ? To me they i a o,;r of madness. The combatants ha\e no personal animus, • often they! do not even know for what they are i supposed to be fighting. j Soldiers are supposed to be keen I in war. Very young and very green ' soldiers may be, but the man who j has been through it is rarely in a .)'.:rry to repeat the experience. ' It is a g-hastly business, briet&ng v. ith horrible and revolting sights. lhe men who make wars are not ■soldiers, but politicians, who know not what they do. I often hear young Territorials talking eagerly o f the day when they

will jro into battle. I like theirj pluck, and eiithusiasr-, but, believe; me, lads, a .very little of the actual-; ity of war goes a rrii-_,hty long way.' —" Ghipstrap," iv " Modern Man." ■