Combat Motivation : The Behavior of Soldiers in Battle

Kellett, Anthony

ISBN 10: 0898381029 / ISBN 13: 9780898381023

Published by Kluwer, Nijhoff Publishing, Boston, The Hague, London, 1982

Boston, The Hague, London: Kluwer, Nijhoff Publishing, 1982. Very Good EX-LIBRARY, with usual library markings. Stamped "WITHDRAWN" on the rear endpaper. Sharp corners. Light finger soil on the cover. Pages are clean. No underlining. No highlighting. No margin notes. Includes case studies from WW2, Korea, Golan Heights, Vietnam. Bibliographical references. Index. Bound in the original cloth, lettered in shiny gold on the spine and front cover. This is the clothbound (hardcover) edition with ISBN: 0898381061 imprinted on rear cover. From the preface: "The book is based largely on a report written for the Operational Research and Analysis Establishment (ORAE) of the Canadian Department of National Defence. ORAE had been asked by Mobile Command Headquarters… to undertake a holistic study of the various factors and trends affecting combat motivation as a background to a series of studies intended to establish long-term land force requirements. In addition to identifying the influences that impel a soldier into battle and sustain him there, the study was intended to provide input to studies on leadership and unit administration and to supply material for professional advancement training." International Series in Management Science/Operations Research. Keywords: Group Cohesion. Unit Esprit. Military Psychology. Morale. Comabt Fatigue. Stress. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good EX-LIBRARY/No jacket. 8vo. xxi, 362pp. Seller Inventory # 013752

Synopsis:

"What men will fight for seems to be worth looking into," H. L. Mencken noted shortly after the close of the First World War. Prior to that war, although many military commanders and theorists had throughout history shown an aptitude for devising maxims concerning esprit de corps, fighting spirit, morale, and the like, military organizations had rarely sought either to understand or to promote combat motivation. For example, an officer who graduated from the Royal Military College (Sandhurst) at the end of the nineteenth century later commented that the art of leadership was utterly neglected (Charlton 1931, p. 48), while General Wavell recalled that during his course at the British Staff College at Camberley (1909-1 0) insufficient stress was laid "on the factor of morale, or how to induce it and maintain it'' (quoted in Connell1964, p. 63). The First World War forced commanders and staffs to take account of psychological factors and to anticipate wideJy varied responses to the combat environment because, unlike most previous wars, it was not fought by relatively small and homogeneous armies of regulars and trained reservists. The mobilization by the belligerents of about 65 million men (many of whom were enrolled under duress), the evidence of fairly widespread psychiatric breakdown, and the postwar disillusion (- xiii xiv PREFACE emplified in books like C. E. Montague's Disenchantment, published in 1922) all tended to dispel assumptions and to provoke questions about mo­ tivation and morale.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Combat Motivation : The Behavior of Soldiers...
Publisher: Kluwer, Nijhoff Publishing, Boston, The Hague, London
Publication Date: 1982
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good EX-LIBRARY
Dust Jacket Condition: No jacket
Edition: First Edition.