LAND AND WATER 
December 26, 1914. 
the same connection, an everyday French word, 
■which has been borrowed in England and given a 
technical meaning. 
It means in French nothing more than a state 
of mind or moral attitude. It means, when used 
in English military history, that degree of com- 
bined cohesion and tenacity in the mass, with 
lucidity and elasticity of intelligence and v/ill in 
the leaders, which command success in military 
operations. If, for instance, an army is in a con- 
dition of strict moral cohesion: trusting in its 
chiefs and those chiefs proving their vigour of de- 
cision in no matter what chance circumstance ; if 
this same army shows itself unshakable under 
reverse, conducting, for instance, a difficult re- 
treat without grave losses and without disorder ; 
if it returns to the offensive as buoyantly after 
heavy loss as before ; then we say that its moral is 
very high. If in any one of these factors, but 
particularly in its tenacity and cohesion, an army 
falls below the normal, or far below its original 
standard, then we say that its vioral is low or 
falling. 
The estimation of this element, moral, in pur- 
suing the history of a war is of first-rate import- 
ance. There is hardly any military historian who 
does not rather underestimate it than overestimate 
it. For though equipment, and still more disposi- 
tion and numbers, are the obvious material frame- 
work on which to explain success or failure, yet 
in nearly all the conspicuous victories of history 
moral has had even more to do with the matter. 
A nation at war must be examined if we are 
to judge with its other than material strength in 
three elements. We must estimate the mental 
state and attitude towards the struggle of throe 
quite separate wills and intelligences : — 
(1) That of the public at large, civilian, or 
at any rate, not present with the troops. 
(2) That of the troops themselves in the mass, 
including everything except their higher com- 
mand, including the general officers, and even par- 
ticular important advisers upon military policy in 
the Staff itself — as individuals. 
(3) That of the Government and great Gene- 
ral Staff under the Commander-in-Chief. These 
last two may be taken as one unit on account of 
their perpetual and close interaction one upon the 
other. It is impossible for the moral of the Gov- 
ernment not to affect the moral of its highest com- 
manders in the field and vice-versa. Indeed, in 
moments of great military strain the two are 
nearly identical. 
Having postulated these three separate de- 
partments in the mental attitude of the enemy, let 
us next note that they are thus tabulated in order 
of importance. The attitude of the civil popula- 
tion and of all that is not vv'ith the Army— as finan- 
ciers, popular leaders of the crowd, newspaper 
owners, etc. — is the least important because it is 
the most dependent upon the two others. Save in 
one particular case — that of sudden and unex- 
pected reverse— popular opinion upon a war is 
nearly always directed by the mental state of the 
'Army and of its leaders. If the Army believes 
itself to be strong and its leaders feel themselves 
.to be victorious, popular opinion will stand almost 
any strain, and its breakdov,'n is nearly ahvavs due 
to reflex action from the Army during a war- 
save, I repeat, under the special condition of un- 
^e^pected reverse. And with that special condition 
we are not now concerned, because the enemy has 
not thus suffered as yet. 
The mental condition, or moral, of the Army 
is important in quite another fashion. The vigour, 
unity, and moral strength in general of the armed 
forces are a ^irime necessity to the successful con- 
duct of the war. Lacking them, or weak in them 
compared with the enemy, an army is almost 
necessarily defeated. Nevertheless, the very best 
moral in an army is worthless from the very nature 
and constitution of military po.wer unless the 
higher command and the Government are simi- 
larly decided and strong. History teems with 
examples of armies in excellent moral condition 
which were useless or thrown away by the lack 
of decision or the treason of the higher command, 
or by the scheming of political governors. That 
is how the drunken vandals with their mob of 
slaves and mountain savages were let loose on 
Roman Africa to the lasting weakening of our 
civilisation. And that is how, to take a minor 
example, the excellent army of Metz was betrayed 
in 1870. 
There is another aspect in which our know- 
ledge of the moral of the higher command of the 
Government among the enemy is of higher import- 
ance to us even than our knowledge of the moral 
of his army, and that is in the indication it affords 
of the future. We may not know from actual 
statistics, for instance, what the material losses 
of an army have been. The army itself may not 
have been told and may be, therefore, possessing 
an artificially strong moral. But y^Q may induce 
from the shaldness or what-not of the higher com- 
mand that these losses have taken place. 
With so much in hand, let us first examine 
what can be discovered of popular opinion among 
the enemy. AVe must first remember that there 
are here roughly two bodies to be considered : the 
Austro-Hungarian body with its hotch-potch of 
races and languages, and the German body pro- 
perly so-called, much more closely bound in one 
unity of opinion than those who remember the 
older Germany of 1868 may perhaps appreciate 
to-day. 
As to the former, there can be little doubt 
that, with the possible exception of a few univer- 
sity centres in that quarter of the realm which is 
German-speaking, and of a fairly large middle- 
class opinion in the same region, the war is the 
subject at the present moment both of dislike and 
of alarm. Certain comparatively small (but by no 
means negligible) sections of this combined popu- 
lation are actively opposed to the aims of the Aus- 
tro-Hungarian Monarchy in the war, and would 
welcome its defeat — some 7 per cent of Orthodox 
Slavs are in this position and a smaller body of 
Italian-speaking subjects in the south. A con- 
siderable body are indifferent or doubtfully loyal, 
and this is true of the Ruthenians, of many Poles, 
of many Slovenes, and of many Bohemians.. It is 
probably true of not a few of the Catholic Slavs 
in t!ie south, though the religious division is there 
so strong that it is well not to count too much upo-i 
the racial factor. But the real clement of v,-eak- 
ness in the public or civilian moral of Austro-Hun- 
gary lies, of course, in the attitude of the Magyars. 
It is an eternal question never to be resolved 
where, in any diverse combination, the interests 
of the part separate from the interests of the 
whole. In the particular cage of the connection. 
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