Leadership in the Trenches pp 135-164 | Cite as
Officer-Man Relations: Morale and Discipline
Chapter
Abstract
In 1968, R.C. Sherriff, who served as an officer in 9/East Surreys from 1916 to 1918, wrote that his highly successful war play Journey’s End had been criticised because ‘there was too much of the English public schools about it’. Sherriff retorted that ‘Almost every young officer was a public school boy’ and if he had omitted them from Journey’s End, ‘there wouldn’t have been a play at all’. Furthermore,
Without raising the public school boy officers onto a pedestal it can be said with certainty that it was they who played the vital part in keeping the men good-humored (sic) and obedient in the face of their interminable ill treatment and well-nigh insufferable ordeals.1
Keywords
Cohesive Unit Disciplinary System Commanding Officer Regular Unit Military Life
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
- 5.R.M. Bracco, Merchants of Hope (Oxford: Berg, 1993) pp. 158–9, 169–70.Google Scholar
- 6.T.A.M. Nash (ed.), The Diary of an Unprofessional Soldier (Chippenham: Picton, 1991) pp. ix, 27.Google Scholar
- 7.F. Hawkings (A. Taylor, ed.), From Ypres to Cambrai (Morley: Elmfield, 1974) pp. 6, 133.Google Scholar
- 8.G.S. Hutchison, Warrior ( London: Hodder, 1932 ) p. 13.Google Scholar
- 27.F. Majdaleny, The Monastery ( London: Corgi, 1957 ) p. 103.Google Scholar
- 35.C. Dudley Ward, The Welsh Regiment of Foot Guards, 1915–1918 (London: Murray, 1936) p. 52.Google Scholar
- 38.E.T. Dean, “We Will All Be Lost and Destroyed” Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Civil War’, Civil War History XXXVII (1991) 146.Google Scholar
- 42.R.H. Arhrenfeldt, Psychiatry in the British Army in the Second World War (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958) p. 10; Kellett, Combat Motivation p. 274.Google Scholar
- 43.F. Fernadez-Armesto, Millennium ( New York: Scribner, 1995 ) p. 492.Google Scholar
- 53.A.M. McGilchrist, The Liverpool Scottish, 1900–19 (Liverpool: Young, 1930) p. 103.Google Scholar
- 54.C. Headlam, History of the Guards Division in the Great War 1915–1918, I ( London: Murray, 1924 ) p. 193.Google Scholar
- 64.R. Whipp, interview. See also J. Ellis, Eye Deep in Hell (London: Fontana, 1976) passim.Google Scholar
- 80.C.N. Smith, The Very Plain Song of It: Frederic Manning, Her Privates We, in H. Klein (ed.), The First World War in Fiction (London: Macmillan, 1978) pp. 176–8.Google Scholar
- 81.B. Gammage, The Broken Years ( Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1975 ) p. 240.Google Scholar
- 82.C.E. Jacomb, Torment (London: Melrose, 1920) p. 320. This statement conflicts with some of Jacomb’s earlier comments about paternal NCOs and officers: ibid. pp. 73, 171.Google Scholar
- 83.C. Haworth, March to Armistice, 1918 (London: Kimber, 1968) p. 28.Google Scholar
- 92.H.R. Williams, The Gallant Company ( Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1933 ) pp. 62–3.Google Scholar
- 109.T.S. Hope, The Winding Road Unfolds ( London: Tandem, 1965 ) pp. 48–9.Google Scholar
- 116.J. Putkowski and J. Sykes, Shot at Dawn (Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 1989 ) pp. 84–5, 130.Google Scholar
- 142.See J. Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England 1700–1870 (London: Longman, 1979).Google Scholar
- 163.C.A.C. Keeson, The History and Records of Queen Victoria’s Rifles ( London: Constable, 1923 ) p. 219.Google Scholar
- 198.F. Maurice, The Life of General Lord Rawlinson of Trent ( London: Cassell, 1928 ) p. 252.Google Scholar
Copyright information
© G. D. Sheffield 2000