Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/151

 and more of this kind of discipline. That is one reason for the unexpected hardness and valor of all European and American troops in the late war—forty years of the discipline of peace.

The Germans showed the way to the perfect “psychological preparation.” Its main object, though not its sole one, is perfectly to overcome the natural fear of death. The Italian peasants of the ancient Roman army, it is said, fought so valiantly partly because the men feared their officers more than they did the enemy. We have found another and more scientific way—the power of habit. Take a man and accustom him to obedience, instant and unquestioned, in every act of his life. To obey becomes in time a fixed habit, almost an obsession. The moment arrives when he must obey the whistle or the officer’s command, and advance to probable death. Personal pride, fear of the disgraceful consequences in refusal, love of country, even sense of adventure, urge him forward of course; just as the natural shrinking from pain and death hold him back. But the governing factor in the perfect soldier is the ingrained habit of instant, unquestioning obedience. He goes because his very nervous reflexes tell him that he must.

I cannot find that in the old days of chivalrous warfare conscious hate played much part in the training of a soldier. The ideal—imperfectly felt and realized, but still an ideal—was the generous, adventurous warrior who hated his enemy perhaps,