Function and influence

Although patriotism, rational self-interest and natural resilience go far in explaining why and how Germans and Britons fought for so long, armies' impressive records of endurance cannot be understood without reference to junior officers. Examinations of troops' battlefield behaviour and discipline have erred by ignoring or underestimating the importance of these men: Tony Ashworth, for example, misinterprets command relations during the First World War as a direct struggle between other ranks and army staff rather than as a relationship mediated by junior officers. Although identified with the army command in the rear by their commission or Patent, they were also united with combat soldiers by means of shared danger and deprivation. Psychological and sociological research has emphasised the great influence provided by this intermediary position. S.A. Stouffer's study of the American army between 1941 and 1945, for example, found that ‘men's attitudes toward their officers had a real importance in determining whether men fought aggressively and stayed in the fight’. Morris Janowitz and Edward A. Shils similarly concluded from their examination of the Second World War Wehrmacht that soldiers' obedience and combat motivation ‘depended upon the personality of the officer’.