A series of articles designed to make us think about what exactly we are trying to recreate both in our re-enactments and on a wargames table.

"The moral is to the physical as three is to one"

--Napoleon Bonaparte

When formulating rules for morale in Napoleonic wargaming, how many of us really consider what we are trying to represent? We read accounts of battles and are told of units running away for no apparent reason (Cuesta's Spanish army at Talavera), units remaining steadfastly in place despite their steadily mounting casualties (any number of examples come to mind) and units gallantly charging the enemy when death is virtually certain (Polish lancers at Somosierra pass). Guided by such examples, we pen rules to ensure these events are catered for but what about the non-exceptional situations? Just how much effort goes into ensuring that "routine" morale reflects the historical patterns? After all, the exceptional cases are what makes interesting reading and the unexceptional is taken for granted and we have to dig for the little golden nuggets of information.

This article is designed to act as a guide for prospecting and to set you thinking about what causes morale to rise and fall and how the state of mind of the troops comprising field units affect the way they conduct themselves in battle. I don't profess to have a magical insight into the subject but, in formulating the morale rules for Shoeburyness Wargames CIpb, I believe the members have taken a thorough and possibly unique look at how to represent morale on the table top. I fight most of my Napoleonic games to these rules and have assisted in their development over a period of some five years.

The thinking behind our approach to morale and its dovetailing into the rest of the rules is the result of considerable research and playtesting - your views would be appreciated. First, I must come clean: when we started out, we were seeking a means of avoiding too much thumbing through tables and the adding and subtracting of factors. We hoped for a rapid assessment of the situation, a die roll and a result quickly. In the end we had a system that, after some experience, gave us just that but the mechanics ended up fairly complex and, in borderline cases, the adding and subtracting is still necessary. What is it, then, that needs to be taken into account in assessing the morale of a unit in combat? In my judgement, there are five aspects of a unit's situation that determine how its members feel about fighting on:

1) Are they in a formation appropriate to the role they are being asked to undertake? (e.g. if threatened by cavalry, are they in square; if defending against infantry attack, are they in line and thus able to bring maximum firepower to bear?).

2) Does the unit still have sufficient officers for full and effective control or are casualties to the command structure too heavy for the rank and file to feel secure and remain disciplined?

3) How heavy are the unit's casualties thus far?

4) Is the unit in good order or is its cohesion and alignment spoiled by the terrain over which it is marching, action by the enemy, or disruption by its own activities (charging, meleeing, changing formation, etc.)?

5) Are the circumstances under which the unit tests morale such as to bolster or undermine the confidence of the men?

The unit's previous battle experience and training will also be relevant and we allow for this by categorising units as Class A Elite, Class B - Veteran, Class C - Trained/Experienced, Class D Levies/Militia, Class E - Peasants/Rabble. Also, the abilities of the generals in command of the higher formations will affect the confidence of the units they control (by reputation if nothing else!).

Let us now take each of the above affecting aspects and examine it in more detail:

1) FORMATION

Some formations are so obviously right for the actions required that they donotneed elaboration. However, training Manuals changed and individual generals had their own ideas about what formation to use in different circumstances. Also, not every unit in any given army was trained under a new Manual from its inception. The whole principle behind adopting a particular formation for specific activities is to optimise the chance of success. The men would generally have known this and would have derived confidence knowing that their commander had adopted the prescribed formation for the intended action - and vice versa.

Although recent articles in wargaming journals have called into question some of the previously held tenets of Napoleonic warfare, it is generally accepted that the French felt more at home attacking in column of divisions than in a two-deep line, whilst the British seemed to tackle everything in the latter formation except receiving cavalry.

Prussians and Spanish, in the early years of the period held to Frederician formations and drill but, later, both were influenced by the French method.

2) COMMAND CONTROL

When the dreaded clouds of French tirailleurs, sharpshooting Jaeger, or green-jackets of the British rifle battalions skirmished against the main enemy formations, their objective was to undermine the confidence of the troops in close order who were generally not in a position to make effective reply. One of the main targets in this excercise was the officers commissioned and non- commissioned - and the gradual attrition of the controlling element in a unit's complement of men led to a loss of cohesion in manoeuvre, delays in the issue of orders and an uncertainty of purpose in the rank and file.

Confidence was eroded and desertion became easier. Taken far enough officer casualties severely hampered the effectiveness of the unit due to loss of morale. In addition to the depredations of the skirmishers, close order fire combat was effective against the officers as well as against the common soldiers. All this means that a way should be found for lack of command control to have an effect on morale (and manoeuvre capability) and for skirmishers and fire combat to have an effect on command control.

At Shoeburyness, we allocate a number of command control factors (CCF's) to each unit and then give skirmishers the opportunity to reduce them each time they fire (regardless of whether casualties are caused to the unit as a whole or not) and for close order fire combat to have a potential effect as casualties are caused to the target unit.

3) CASUALTIES

A soldier, seeing his comrades fall, hearing the sounds of death or mutilation, sensing the steady closing towards the centre as casualties mount must perforce suffer the agonies of doubt as to his immediate future. Dense clouds of powder smoke heighten the confusion, order is hard to maintain as the bodies pile up and suddenly there are just not enough comrades to give moral support. Given sufficient of these individual uncertainties, the morale of the entire unit becomes unsteady; shaken; destroyed. Not immediately, of course, but this must be the ultimate outcome of substantial attrition continuing for long enough.

4) DISORDER

The whole purpose of field manoeuvres was the delivery of an effective attack, the mounting of a sound defence or the smooth change of front or formation. By maintaining good order, a unit was able to develop maximum firepower or shock at the appropriate moment. Passage through rough or cluttered terrain, climbing/descent of steep hills, penetration by other units (friendly or enemy), closing to the centre whilst taking casualties, engaging in melee, breaking in rout, changing formation; all these activities tended to disorder a unit and reduce its confidence until order was restored.

As long as it was not threatened and officers were present in sufficient numbers to deal with the situation, good order and proper dressing could be adjusted and retrieved relatively quickly. However, if attacked whilst in a disordered state, the unit was less able to fight efficiently and its morale suffered. Thus, an infantry battalion caught by cavalry midway through forming square, could be expected to disperse or suffer heavily.

This can be reflected in rules by the gradual accumulation of disorganisation points during appropriate activities and their shedding whilst not engaged in anything other than simple marching or formation changes. These points are to be taken into account when morale requires testing.

5) CIRCUMSTANCES

Most of the above conditions can be kept track of on paper or by the provision of discreet marker pins next to the unit. Circumstances, however, are where the totting-up of factors is inescapable, because they are not inherent in the testing unit's status. "Circumstances" can include: what support does unit enjoy?; by how much enemy is it threatened?; are its colleagues running away around it?; is the enemy in flight?; of what class is the unit?; are there field officers of high reputation close at hand?; etc., etc.

The list can be endless - only the players can decide what circumstances should be considered as relevant and what emphasis should be placed on each one.

The "Shoeburyness Rules" should soon be available commercially and, of course, I am not about to provide whole sections of them here. However, we allocate the following morale points to the five aspects:

FORMATION 3
COMMAND CONTROL 4
CASUALTIES 4
ORDER 4
CIRCUMSTANCES 5

The mathematicians amongst you will immediately realise that this totals 20. As the points are lost during combat, the total enjoyed by a unit will fall and failure to roll, on a 20sided die, a score below a unit's total at the relevant time results in loss of morale status.

There are four status levels: STEADY, UNSTEADY, SHAKEN and PANIC. Status, following an unsuccessful die roll, is determined by the amount by which the die score exceeded the required score. Depending on the reasons for testing, the enforced reaction of a unit without STEADY morale is given by the rules. Steady units carry on as ordered. By throwing the die before making the various calculations, experienced players can usually assess whether or not to go through the full procedure for determining status. This achieves our desired target stated above.

Finally, it is important to determine in what situations during a unit's experiences it should test its morale. The shock of its first casualties (first figure loss), continuing losses after a certain point, threats from flank or rear, becoming aware of an impending charge, witnessing the rout of supporting formations, etc. all represent such situations - there are obvious others.Close reading of the literature of the period is essential in deciding these situations.

First-hand contemporary accounts of fighting (e.g. Memoirs of Sgt. Bourgogne; Recollections of Rifleman Harris; etc.) give clues to the experiences and reactions of individual soldiers under various circumstances, whilst the more copious histories (Oman, Fortescue, Napier) provide the broader picture. This is possibly the most critical aspect in the designing of morale rules. trust this brief insight gives food for thought and leads to a re-assessment of this difficult and sometimes controversial but key factor in good Napoleonic Miniatures rule design.