Morale is a central element of war and wargames. Commanders and game makers ignore it at their peril. But what exactly is it? A complicated question to be sure. This is the first in a series of articles that explores what the answer might be. I don't know how many articles will be in the series, suffice it to say I plan to be comprehensive. The first order of any investigation is to look at definitions. First, how wargames define what morale is ... "Morale is when my men pass a morale check so that they don't run off the table." Sound familiar? This is what "morale" is in almost all wargames that use it. other wargames don't even take this much into account. Most board games ignore morale all together, and opt only to consider moving and shooting. So the experience of morale in wargames is rolling dice (testing fate) at a critical moment in the game. Critical moments as defined by most wargames are directly tied to casualties. only by killing can one win a battle. The variable length turn/critical distance idea has changed this somewhat, but games like my Stupid Simple Rules, or GDWs Soldier's Companion, are the exceptions in considering critical distances in with morale checks. So morale is basically seen as standing in the face of killing force. Waygames also muddy the water a bit more by tying words like "elite" , "crack"I "veteran". "militia"I "green", and "novice" to the idea of morale. These are often described as "training" levels. This suggests that green troops can become veteran troops with time and maybe even crack or elite. This usually works out to the "better" trained troops having better morale check rolls than less trained units. Situational factors are considered as dice modifiers but these also ignore the many differences between the psychology of a veteran and a novice. What ever the dice modifiers morale in games is really dice rolling. It is a game, detached from the emotionally charged experience of a person in combat. A game of craps, where one's money is on the line come slightly closer to an emotional experience since one is in risk of losing something valuable. Donald Featherstone was right -- when the battle is over, our little lead men come back to "life" ready to fight again another day. So, do war gamers know very much about morale? My guess is that as a rule, we do not. The fact is that learning about a real experience of having one's morale tested is generally only learned by living through such a gut wrenching moment. I don't recommend it. They tend to change the way one sees the world irrevocably. The fact is, most of what this series of articles are going to be about are going to sound rather weird to anyone who has not been there themselves. I urge you to read on anyway. Even If we as game makers continue to game out morale by using dice rolls (as I have done) an understanding of what those dice rolls are about is very helpful. OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY TERMS "The moral is to the physical as three is to one." --attributed to Napoleon An exploration of what morale means in the greater world must begin with a look at the origins and definitions of several key words. Morale, moral, moral, courage, courage, spirit, ,fealty, fidelity, faith, discipline, rally, rout, aggressive, and coward all reveal something about the nature of the subject. You may be surprised by what they reveal. The word "morale" is perhaps the best place to start. Intriguingly, this word is only 160 years old! Its earliest reference is from 1831 when a certain General Thompson wrote about facing a mob of civilians. "But the greatest advantage of all, on the side of the people, is the morale. Every soldier knows in his heart that he was not made to fire upon the citizens." Hmmm, this doesn't look like what we normally think of as morale. In fact, a recent player of a face to face French- Revolution game had no qualms about ordering the National Guard to open fire on the Paris mob. But General Thompson has qualms. Maybe it is because he knew that the definition of morale is, moral principle or practice, conduct of behavior with regards to confidence, hope, zeal, and submission to discipline, said of a person engaged in some enterprise. Morale is the process of acting out or living a disciplined moral life! This is definitely not what we normally think of as being morale. Yet when one thinks about it, soldiers that shoot women and children (a not very moral act) are not generally rated as being the best soldiers. In fact they are generally stereotyped as being "craven cowards" who do not stand up and fight when a real enemy comes along. So the definition fits. Yet morale is not a very old word. Napoleon would never have heard of it. In fact his famous quote, shown above, uses the word moral not morale! "O tempera, O mores." "Oh the times and the customs." bewailed the ancient writer. Times are bad, and good Roman virtues are no longer practiced by the people. What will it all lead to? How can the empire defend itself if its moral core is rotten? Naturally the answer is that it can not defend itself, and so falls another decadent empire. The word moral comes from the latin word "moralis" which means custom. Now a custom can be good or bad, but they often have values placed on them by the cultures of given historical periods. This leads to a definition of moral: pertaining to affecting or operating on the character or conduct of a person as distinguished from the intellectual or physical nature of human beings. In other words, moral behavior is not related to instinct. We chose to do what we do, but not for intellectual reasons (i.e. this is smart so I will do it, or I am too dumb to know what is good or bad). We chose to act a certain way because of elements in our characters. So the strength of a mans moral convictions can effect his behavior. A one, Mr Allison, wrote in 1835 "The loss of the contending parties was nearly equal; but all the moral advantages of victory were on the side of the French." "The morale advantages of victory," sounds Impressive. I wonder what they are? My best guess is that the French conducted themselves "better" during the fight. In other words the actions they performed during the battle showed their virtues and beliefs rather than their vices. This would definitely be a process of morale. Right under the definition of moral is the word moral courage. Courage is a very familiar word to wargamers. War stories abound with tales of daring rescues in the face of overwhelming odds, desperate defenses, and other kinds of self sacrifices. How is moral courage different from this? It is the courage which enables men to encounter odium, disapproval, or contempt, rather than depart from what they deem the right course. So this is the willingness to face hardship rather than quit the cause. This again focuses on self sacrifice. Sacrifice is loaded with religious connotations. What is "right" is almost always defined as religious terms. So a martyr's strength of convictions allows him to go meet his maker in the most grisly manners singing! People who are weak in faith, or people who say they believe in an ideal but who don't (i.e. hypocrites) are generally unwilling to sacrifice themselves with the same degree of joy. So doubt is a strong weapon to use on an enemy, and a danger we all face from within ourselves. A Mr Colton wrote in 1822 "Hypocrisy sometimes neutralized Cromwell's moral courage, never his physical." If this is true the Ollie, had the ability to 'act but that sometimes he could not bring himself to do so. Stephen Fitzjames wrote in 1860 "Morale courage is readiness to expose oneself to suffering or inconvenience ... It arises from firmness of moral principle and is independent of physical constitution." The flesh may be willing but if the spirit is weak then nothing is likely to happen. The word courage alone is worth looking at. It comes from the Latin word cor, which means heart. One thinks of Richard the Lionhearted in association with this word. He was a brave knight who symbolized the English (or maybe I should say Norman), fighting spirit. Webster's Dictionary defines it as being mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. Being strong is spirit (again another religious connection) then enables one to stay the course. The connection between heart and spirit is widely observable. Aristotle thought that the human mind was housed in the heart rather than in the brain. (of course he also thought that heavier objects fall faster then light ones!) The Aztecs had similar spiritual connections between heart, spirit and sacrifice. In one of their rituals a captured warrior armed only with a lily had to fight fully armed jaguar warriors. He was thought best of if he fought back with courage as honor. This made him a "better" sacrifice for the gods. All of the words so far point toward one idea that is never Included in wargames: faith. As a midwesterner/southerner, this word does not bother me. It has gotten a bad name over the last few years due to what ever is the most recent church scandal, but that gets away from what the word really means. Its root word in Latin is fides, to trust. Trust is a pretty powerful word, right up their with truth and justice. Fides is also the root word for fidelity and fealty, truth and loyalty. Faith is implicit in the feudal contract. A chronicler in 1250 wrote "Bi de feid ic oz to King Pharaon" (By the faith I owe to the King Pharaoh). Faith to one's lord could be tested as noted in 1300 "Dair faith lasted littel space. Dai lefte De lagh of hel drightin" (Their faith lasted little space, they left the rear of the high King - i.e. fled from battle). Or on a more positive example from the persecution of Catholics in England in 1588 "The discipline they received of Christe they delivered faythfully to the people." No matter what the costs, and one must remember that in 1588 Catholic priests were considered to be spies for Philip of Spain, so they were taking big risks. The last quote refers to discipline. Another word that is familiar to wargamers. The word conjures images of smartly dressed soldiers standing in nice straight lines, marching in step. Indeed, marching is one of the basic disciplines of the military. But look where the word comes from. The root word is the Latin disciplina, to teach or learn, and discipulus, pupil. It is a person who follows a path, trying to learn, a disciple. Everyone knows bible stories of the actions of various disciples of Christ. They are his students. They study and live a moral discipline that enables them to face martyrdom with ease. In fact their courage and moral strength allow their cause to eventually be the one that "conquers" the decadent Roman Empire in 310AD. The early Christians followed a discipline of peace, but Just as I will later show with Gandhi, they were very active in their love. Roman legionaries followed a discipline of arms (ie marching, and fighting). When they died in battle they were just as dead as a Christian in the circus, but who was made into a saint? Self sacrifice is central to all disciplines. One does not need to die for the cause. General Patton was right there. But consider what one does lose by "making the other poor son of a bitch die for his cause." One kills. Most people never kill another human. There are laws against that kind of thing (right back to the ten commandments). But the laws are different for soldiers. This does not lessen man's inhibitions of doing the deed though. The fact is that warriors, acting basically on their own, seldom even fight let alone kill someone. Gather a group of people into a mob on the other hand and they can be vicious. Mobs lack discipline since their members are generally strangers to one another. They are not companions, in fact they are just as likely to turn on one of there own members as they are to attack someone else. The brings up the word companion. Companions at arms by definition trust one another (often times more than they trust their own family members). Creating such small unit cohesion is the goal of most training and leadership. "Arise my Knights oh Battell, I create you companions." wrote Shakespeare. Men march in step and give up their power of individual choice to become part of the group. As noted in 1297 "To symon compayngnoun ic habbe ygyve power of discipline" (To summon my companion I have given the power of discipline). Soldiers learn the discipline of marching together, which builds morale. They fight by what ever the tactical doctrine is at the time (ie what they learned by being disciples of a certain set of moral principles.) When battle starts, men's mettle is tested. Men seldom remember ideologies or rational reasons why they came there. They stay because it is morally right to stay with and protect those whom one trusts and loves. When small units are broken up they often lose their will to fight. They rout. The root word of rout is the Latin ruptus, to break. In 1598 a certain Mr Barret noted that "Men once disordered commonly fall into rout." Shakespeare noted "They beganne ... a rout, confusion thicke; forth with they fly." Note the word confusion, not able to fuse back together into a unit. It is seen as obvious that disordered men run away from battle. Yet that is not the end of the fight. They can rally. "His hapless foes (i.e. defeated) ... to rebellious fight rallied their powers" wrote Milton in 1667. One need only fight a nice safe place to hide (in this case hell) hopefully out of harms way to begin collecting one's power/men back together. When this is done "The battalions rallied and came boldly to charge a second time" Defoe 1723. How many times a group of men will do such stupid (le contradictory to their self preservation) thing is a true test of their morale. Predicting such things is very difficult. To begin wrapping up, consider two more words: aggressive and coward. Aggressive is generally considered a good quality in a soldier. It comes from the Latin word ab gress, to advance. Moving forward is generally the first step in a battle. Coward is the only of the words with an Anglo Saxon origin. It means Cow, a tail, and ard, a person who does the former; In this case turns tail and runs. "Come fore, Sir Coward! Why cowre ye behynde?" wrote a man in 1440. So both of these traits which are assigned to people are based on their behavior, in battle and out of it. But is it that easy to judge a persons qualities? We will see. AFTERWARD Morale then is a very complex concept. It is not so much related to killing as it is with doing good. It relates to ones willingness to face hardships and give up one's own goals in favor of the goals of a higher power. Men's faiths are tested, and often broken. This is at least as important as three is to one and maybe more so. Since a battle will surely be won by the 100 men who are willing to die for their cause rather than the 1000 who are not willing to make such a sacrifice. If this topic excites your interest, write in and share your thinking on the topic. Related Morale and Instinct: Pass and Fail Back to Experimental Games Group # 21 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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