THE MORALE IN WAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 8, 11 January 1915, Page 4

THE MORALE IN WAR.

Frederick Palmer, author of “The Last Shot” and the most noted Amencan war correspondent now with the, armies in Europe, in the course of! an article on “The Business of War,” says: You hear a lot about the morale in war. It is a French word that may be translated into the temper, the spirit, the mood of an army and ( of a people behind an army. Any-| thing to keep up the morale of your army and to depress that of the enemy is a foremost purpose'of a good army staff, which studies psychology no less carefully than railroad transport. This accounts for each combatant publishing all the good news on its side and all the bad on the enemy’s. It is as much responsible for the censorship as is the need of military secrecy. The Germans were thinking of French morale in dropping bombs from an aeroplane on Paris.) A raid by' a single aeroplane required a score of French aeroplanes to guard against further attacks, while, accord, ing to the German idea, it made the French people think and feel on the defensive, fostering belief in the irresistible power of the German legions. The German army reflects the spirit of the whole German policy—the policy of force and expansion, Germany is the young fighter fighting 1 to gain new ground; France the old fighter seeking self-preservation; England the old fighter striving to keep her mighty empire intact. Berlin fully lighted at night and London and Paris darkened for fear of Zeppelins only carries out the principle as old as human conflict. News of British apprehension in the German Press strengthens the German soldier’s conviction that if ho keeps on hitting hard the enemy will yield; partly because in tiie enemy’s heart is the fear that he may have to yield. And to have the hardestlhitting gun, therefore, might seem hardly less important psychologically than physically-