498 
GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1892 . 
The bearing 
of morale on 
Fire Discip¬ 
linetraining. 
Moral train¬ 
ing. 
PART IY. 
“ Morale.” 
“ We must teach our men to he soldiers, and we must teach them gunnery ; hut let us remember 
that when toe teach them gunnery we are no more teaching them to he soldiers than if we taught 
them how to mafce the gun instead of hoio to use it.” 1 — Williams. 
Good organisation and careful training are not sufficient to ensure 
Fire Discipline in a battery. Sound healthy morale 1 2 is likewise a neces¬ 
sity. During a long period of peace the contingency of war growing 
more and more remote there is a natural tendency to develop the 
“forces reeles ” to the exclusion of the “forces morales .” Yet according 
to Napoleon’s 3 estimate the latter count in time of war for three 
times the worth of the former. Whatever value may be attached to 
this opinion the relative proportion between the two has certainly not 
decreased since the comparison was made. Science has altered the 
conditions of fighting, but it has not changed human nature. It is 
not easier to face death now than it was in the time of Napoleon. 
The high qualities of nerve and endurance which so distinguished 
British artillerymen during the Peninsular War 4 are just as necessary 
as ever, and their development should undoubtedly be placed above 
all other considerations of training. “ We must teach our men to be 
soldiers.” 
Moral and physical training should be carried on pari passu. This 
is why the necessity for the recruit being trained in his battery was 
strongly put forward in Part III. of this Essay. The moral side of 
his military duties should be placed before him from the very earliest 
period of his career. Opportunities for doing this will occur in the 
intervals between drills when the mechanical drudgery, which he has 
at first to experience, can be relieved by oral instruction. This part 
of his training, however, must not be confined to formal instruction. 
To impress him with ideas .of duty, honour, self-respect—in other 
words to cultivate his morale , should at all times both on and off parade 
be the first work of his officers under whom he will have to stand if 
the final test of war service has to be encountered. 
1 Extract from a paper entitled “ Skill-at-Arras,” contributed to the “ Proceedings ” of the 
Royal Artillery Institution, by Lieut.-General Sir W. J. Williams, k.c.b., R.A., October, 1891. 
2 The word “ morale ” is here used not in the strict interpretation of its literal English trans¬ 
lation, but as a substantive in the same sense as Napoleon frequently used the corresponding 
adjective. 
3 “ A la guerre les trois quart sont des affaires morales. La balance des forces reeles n’est quo 
pour un antre quart.”—Napoleon’s Correspondence, 1809. 
4 “ Les canonniers anglais se distinguent entre les autres soldats par le bon esprit quiles anime. 
En bataille leur activite est judicieux, leur coup d’ceil parfait, et leur bravoure stoique.”—Histoire 
de la guerre de la Peninsule, par le General Eoy. 
