PSYCHOLOGY.

‘What’s the stunt to-day?’ inquired Ginger one wet morning.

‘Lecture,’ I answered.

‘What on?’

‘Psychology.’

‘A precious lot of psychology we’ll get in this school. They know as much about it as they do about Mars. I’m fed up with these army lecturers. They make me sick. They’re parrots, and all cribbing from one another.’

‘But this is a new man.’

‘Oh, well, we’ll give him a hearing,’ said Ginger, picking up his notebook and sauntering over to the lecture-room.

What Ginger said was partly true, for many of the lecturers bored us stiff. A few of them were dug-outs who got their theories of modern war from the daily papers. Others were well-meaning men, but often they lacked originality. Army training had repressed their individuality, and they were apparently afraid to break conventions. When a good man did come along the dead-heads seemed to get jealous, and the brilliant rebel quietly disappeared. The army will not be an army proper till jealousy is made bad form.

When we had assembled, Captain Cheerall entered briskly, looked at us—and—smiled. A good beginning! We decided not to sleep, but to plumb his depths.

‘Gentlemen, you may smoke, if you like. I find it breeds a friendly feeling.’

‘Good chap!’ mumbled Beefy.

‘Now that all your chimneys are going, I want to have a chat with you about Psychology; but before I start, let me say to you—don’t hesitate to pull me up if you disagree. Ask as many questions as you like, for I loathe the ancient method which places the lecturer on the pedestal of a mandarin, and forces facts down unwilling throats.’

‘The goods!’ I whispered.

‘Psychology, in brief, is the science which classifies and analyses the phenomena of the human mind. As an old army officer, I regret to say we knew precious little about it before the war. Some of the Staff College men had it as a side-line. Haking, in his somewhat rambling book on Company Training, struck the first intelligent notes on the subject. Colonel Fuller of the “Ox and Bucks” tried to drag it into the arena of military training. Here and there an isolated enthusiast worked out his own pet theories. But, broadly speaking, our army knew nothing about it. The French Army, however, was more progressive. Several French officers had produced excellent books on the subject prior to 1914. And in the French military academies psychology was a term well known to every student. Germany also worked at it, but not so effectively as France. Many of the Russian generals, such as Brussiloff, the Grand Duke, and Alexeieff, were keen students of the science.

‘Why, then, did we know little about it? The answer is this. We are a conservative people. We are mentally lazy. We resent new ideas, mainly because they disturb our happy old ways. Let us admit our faults, for it is the negation of all sound work to cover up errors in military training.

‘Psychology is not so difficult as people think. Professors make it difficult when they ramble off into bewildering scientific phenomena instead of getting down to earth. This game is really a study of what the other fellow is thinking; how his thoughts affect his actions; and the sum total of his intellectual output. You do not require to be a university don to grip its essentials. Common-sense, ordinary intelligence, and organised study will give you the rudiments. And no man has a better opportunity to exploit the science than the army officer. He commands all types, all creeds. In his daily work he is rubbing against the efficient and the inefficient, the alert and the lethargic, the successful and the failure. If you, as future officers, will make it your duty to observe the mental meanderings of your units, you will quickly discover the road to high command. By knowing your men, you can handle them. By classifying and treating them as mere units, you will eventually cause anything from a mutiny to a disaster in face of the enemy.

‘All of you, I hope, will shortly command platoons. You will then have sixty men to rule. You will find your job easy or difficult, according to your ability tactfully to enforce your orders, to create in the minds of your men the belief that you are a more powerful personality, and to get out of all ranks the maximum of work with the minimum of friction. Take an example. When I entered this room I did so in a very alert manner. That was not accidental; it was deliberate. I was determined to impress on you that I was no straggler. Next, I reached this desk, then smiled. Why? To make you feel you were not dealing with a ferocious martinet who uses his rank to enforce his orders and opinions. Thirdly, I said you could smoke. This suggestion smashed any remaining vestige of rank or distinction, so far as this actual lecture is concerned. I came here to get at you.’

‘You’ve got us, sir,’ said Ginger.

‘Thank you,’ he answered, amidst laughter. ‘To carry this particular argument to its final conclusion, let me say I do not know the gentleman who said, “You’ve got us, sir,” but, from his appearance, I imagine he is an intellectual, bored stiff with military formalities, and regards me as a Heaven-sent Harry Lauder to cheer him up.’ (Loud laughter.)

‘Your laughter, gentlemen, I accept, not as a mere compliment, but as evidence of a mental sympathy. In brief, we now understand each other. And that is the basis of good work and military efficiency. Therefore, when you get command of your platoons, this will be your first duty. Know your men.

‘When I say you must know your men, I do not mean that you should disregard any of the regulations laid down for the personal conduct of an officer. Stupid familiarity breeds contempt. If you start addressing the sergeant as “old chap,” the corporal as “Bill,” and a man as “Tommy,” your prestige will fall to zero, and your men will regard you as a priceless buffoon! On the other hand, there is absolutely no need to be a snob, a martinet, or an autocrat. A martinet is a man of limited intellect, afraid of his own inferior knowledge. An autocrat is usually a bully like the Kaiser. My tip is, to act the part of a quiet and courteous British gentleman, with just a suggestion of reserve to frighten off a cad who desires to exploit your very good nature. But your greatest asset is knowledge. Ability engenders respect. Tact retains respect. And psychology enables you to exploit that respect in the very best interests of His Majesty’s Service.

‘Let us still keep to the platoon. The first man you will meet will be the platoon sergeant. Supposing you have mastered this science of the mind, and your knowledge enables you to see that the sergeant is, by temperament, what the Scots call “dour;” he may also be quick-tempered, inclined to resent criticism—in short, “touchy.” Now you are up against something. You must remember that temperament is either hereditary or the result of environment. Again, you may discover that this man is otherwise an excellent soldier. Your acquaintance with psychology will immediately suggest to you that your sergeant will have to be handled with kid gloves, even to the extent of openly conceding a point now and again to his little whims. That is common-sense. No sergeant is perfect, and no officer is perfect; and it would be the height of folly and presumption for any new subaltern to give an otherwise excellent N.C.O. a dog’s life. Be patient, well-meaning, and courteous, and in a month’s time the sergeant will, metaphorically, lick your boots.

‘There are other N.C.O.’s in the platoon. In our present-day armies, as you know, these non-coms. are frequently men of social standing, and—more important—men of character. Degrees are as common as peas in the ranks to-day. All are open-eyed and certainly democratic. Such men are sensitive. But they are not Bolsheviks. They are intensely critical, but equally patriotic. They have only one standard of measurement—BRAINS. This is an embarrassing situation to an officer who is simply “a son of his father”—nothing more. But it is not at all a bad atmosphere for a gentleman of culture, vigour, and enthusiasm. Certainly there is a demand for the higher qualities of leadership. To a keen soldier this is a most glorious incentive. You will not succeed unless your will, your personality, and your merits are predominant. You have got to be top-dog. But you must never obtrude your rank as the badge of that right. To go on parade with the feeling that there is a guardroom behind you to enforce your whims and ill-balanced opinions is madness. The guardroom is really meant for the criminal and the hopeless fool. Knowing your job and knowing your men will really result in less crime, less discontent, and the creation of a happy and efficient unit. This aim is perfectly easy to a student of psychology, provided he has the will which springs from health and broad-based culture.

‘Another important point. When your company commander desires to make new N.C.O.’s, he will, if he knows his job, consult you as to the best men in your platoon. Here you must be careful. The unthinking and brainless sub. is frequently attracted by shallow and insincere qualities. A man who soft-soaps his fads and carries “tales” may strike him as “a ripping chap—just the man for the stripe.” On the other hand, a good officer’s servant, a successful regimental policeman, or an obliging company clerk may figure high in his estimation, to the detriment of other men possessed of CHARACTER, EDUCATION, and DETERMINATION. To pass these men by is to commit a great offence against efficiency. Indeed, if ten thousand stupid subalterns selected ten thousand stupid individuals as platoon sergeants, and these N.C.O.’s were all together in a great push, what would happen? Disaster!

‘I am not here to frighten you; but I am here to kill that damnably dangerous theory that platoon drill, and nothing more, is all a soldier requires to know. We have had enough of this fetich. We are fighting the Germans. They are no fools. Unless you realise the serious responsibility of your high office, you are utterly useless for the Service.

‘Again, you will have to father, guide, train, and lead the men—the glorious MEN. I hope you will not regard this as “a beastly bore,” but as a privilege. The men who died at Mons, who leapt forward from the Marne, who barred the gates at Ypres, and stemmed disaster at Cambrai are no servile, cringing crew. They are Cavaliers and—GENTLEMEN. Remember that! Open out your heart, but keep your head. You will find in your platoons dukes’ sons and cooks’ sons, aspiring generals—and some ruddy fools. Occasionally you may strike a desperado—a man who does not give a tinker’s curse for officers, cells, or a firing-squad. When you run across this type you must go easy. A wrong word, and the man may spring from the ranks and strike you down. And it is here that psychology comes to your aid. Study the man from all angles, and you will discover some little thing which touches his real soul. It may be a little act of kindness. For example, I once had a man who had knifed a policeman in civil life. He was a desperado. The N.C.O.’s were afraid of him. They could do nothing with him except chuck him in the guardroom. This made him worse, and I was really afraid of his committing murder. One day when out walking I met him alone on the road. I did not expect him to salute me. But he did. So I said, “Well, Smith, are you having a walk?”

‘“Yes, sir, away from the—— misery. I’m fed up and nearly off my chump. I’ll desert.”

‘“Have a cigarette,” I answered.

‘“Thanks,” he grunted, but a little flicker in his eyes suggested surprise. Very tactfully I led him out into the country, talking about anything and everything till we struck the top of a mound. This, as you know, was quite an unusual procedure for an officer; but I was dealing with a desperate man, and I was going to have no murder in my company.

‘“Sit down, Smith,” I suggested.

‘“I think I will,” he grunted.

‘I gave him another cigarette, and in twenty minutes’ time he was in a most friendly mood. His brutality—which was really superficial—was melting.

‘“Now, Smith, I’m your company commander. What’s the trouble? Let’s have it out, man to man. They say you loathe the army and hate your officers.”

‘“That’s a—— lie, sir. I don’t hate my officers.”

‘“What is it, then?”

‘“I hate Sergeant B——. He’s a swine. He rags me. I’ll murder him!” he shouted. There was an ungovernable madness in his eyes.

‘“Steady, Smith,” I said. “Let’s talk quietly. Have another cigarette.”

He took one, and his gust of passion passed away.

‘“Then you are either going to commit a murder or desert; is that it?”

‘“Exactly, sir. I’ve nothing against you. You’ve been hard, but square. I’ve got my dues. When I’m wrong I takes my punishment. I likes my officers; but I hates the—— sergeants, specially Sergeant B——.”

‘Now, this Sergeant B—— was a good soldier, but he could not tell the difference between an undergraduate and a ploughman. He used men like machines, and had given me a lot of trouble. At the same time, Smith was no Christian. Yet, somehow, I felt all his offences resulted from misdirected energy. So I said, “Look here, Smith; you’ll go back to barracks. And to-night you must declare a truce between yourself and your so-called enemies. To-morrow morning you will come and see me at the company orderly-room, when I shall have an interesting proposition to put before you. Will you do so?”

‘“Yes, sir,” he grunted, after a long pause.

‘I left him to wander back to barracks. Next morning he turned up shaved, boots shining, and buttons cleaned. I checked my expression of surprise and opened out.

‘“Now, Smith, I’ve been diagnosing your case. You’re over-healthy and naturally mischievous. Your hatred for sergeants is really jealousy. I think in some things you are a strong-minded man. In short, you want to lead, and not to be led. If I could get inside your brain-pot I might discover a lurking ambition to be an N.C.O. and throw your weight about.”

‘He burst out laughing, and I felt I had got him.

‘“To-night you will appear in orders as lance-corporal, and you will be transferred to Sergeant Jones’s platoon. I shall expect you to go to school to improve your education. And here is a week-end pass to celebrate your good fortune. Finally, Smith, I hope to God you will never be before me again, for crime in my company breaks my heart. I’m treating you as a gentleman. And I’m quite sure you will always be one. Fall out, please.”

‘Smith saluted like a Guardsman, turned about, and ceased to be a public nuisance.

‘Sergeant-Major Smith died at Mons.’

When the lecturer finished this anecdote, a terrific cheering burst from all the school, and there was just a suggestion of something dim about the lecturer’s eyes. He was thinking of how Sergeant-Major Smith had held up a whole German battalion when all his officers were wiped out.

‘I hope you will excuse my giving you this story of Smith. But, really, that is better than all the pamphlets on psychology. Smith might have ended up on the gallows. Instead of that, he died as a warrant-officer and a hero. You will now see how important it is to study the human mind. And I hold that if you can master the mental meandering of your platoons, you may rightly aspire to the General Staff. When you are a G.S.O., III., II., or I., you will realise what platoons, companies, regiments, and brigades can do, and will never issue orders likely to cause discontent and endanger our moral.

‘Now, the psychology of your own army is an important thing, but the psychology of the enemy is doubly important. We are up against a most cunning, brutal, and ungentlemanly foe. Great victories can be secured only by clever reading of enemy thought, and astute counter-tactics. Take the battle of the Marne. Joffre brilliantly defeated the Germans, not by superior man or gun power, but by superior strategy, based on a correct reading of the enemy’s power, vanity, and historical beliefs. In this work we also assisted. The Germans were stupid enough to believe that Lord French would throw the B.E.F. into Belgium. This was the German scheme and their dream. Lord French declined the bait, and the Germans lost precious days before they found out their stupid analysis of our psychology. As for Joffre, he certainly had no intention (originally) to fight it out at the Marne, but the blunder of a French general before Namur compelled him to select this field. His retirement was a glorious trick in which he pandered to the Paris dream of Von Kluck, tickled the enveloping theories of the Crown Prince, and drugged the whole German nation—Kaiser and all—into the belief that the end of France was near. Time and again he resisted tempting opportunities for a general action, till the Marne was reached. Then, when the German General Staff was drunk with victory, when their line was lengthened, their munitionment and rationing tedious and difficult, their troops tired with their hitherto magnificent marching, he launched his blow—faulty in parts, but staggering and effective as a whole. With a crash he killed the Paris dream. With a bound he swept corps after corps of the hardest-trained troops in the world into a tragic rout and irredeemable disaster. The Marne was the defeat of Germany. Since then they have simply been fighting for terms. And this glorious victory, for which we ought to thank our God, was helped immensely by the ability to read the enemy’s mind, and the refusal to accept his preconceived theories of the Allies’ action in such a war.

‘Since the Marne we have improved. Take Byng’s thrust at Cambrai. For three years we used preliminary bombardments before making a great assault. And at Cambrai the enemy knew of our coming attack. But he waited for our bombardment. Instead of that, Byng’s men took up their beds—and walked for miles into the enemy’s lines. This was entirely unexpected, and therefore successful. Byng, I say, is a most excellent student of psychology.

‘But we must also admit that the enemy has improved. At Cambrai we massed our reserves in the centre to meet the counter-attack which would be launched in accordance with known German tactics. The Germans, however, discovered the weakness of both of our flanks, and struck sledge-hammer blows. Had it not been for the supreme courage of the Guards, of London and Highland Territorials, Cambrai might have been the funeral of our High Command. This proves that we have no monopoly of psychology.

‘While I ask you to respect and never underrate the power of the enemy, do not fear the enemy. And do not believe he is superior. The German clings with frenzied energy to trench warfare. He is afraid of the open—afraid of the British and the French in open manoeuvre. He remembers the Marne. He remembers the Russian push into north Germany, the success of Brussiloff in Galicia, the brilliant strategy of Maude, and the glorious work of Allenby and Smuts. In open warfare we can beat the German to a frazzle because of our mental alacrity, willingness to scrap original orders, and to adapt ourselves to sudden and unexpected onslaughts. The German is a worker, a thruster, and a courageous fellow; but a mere handful of troops, with only shrapnel and bayonets, held up one million Huns at Ypres. Lord French outmanoeuvred the enemy there. Ypres was the grave of German Push-and-Go.

‘The German is helpless in open warfare.

‘The enemy is not afraid of shells or bayonet, but he is afraid of superior intelligence. The camouflage of Allied military thought is more distressing to Germany than lyddite or gas. Our naval policy in refusing to disclose the facts about the number of German submarines sunk, and how we have sunk them, is destroying the moral of the German Navy. Our counter-propaganda is smashing his propaganda. While he may console himself with the Russian Revolution, he is suffering the fires of hell from the intervention of America. This suffering is easily explained. The American brain is the most resourceful, the most subtle, the most deadly in the world. I am speaking commercially, of course. No Von KÜhlmann, Ballin, Hindenburg, or Von Boy-ed can master it. The American discovery and exposure of the German plot in Mexico was a masterly feat in intelligence. The use of German ships to transport American troops to France is a business-like answer to Germany’s submarine campaign. The prompt organisation of an American Propaganda Department in Switzerland, to inform the enemy—free of charge—about his impending doom, is excellent. Ford’s creation of anti-submarine boats, which are being turned out like sausages, will stagger the gentlemen of Kiel. In short, the American knows the German. American aid is the death of Germany, in the military, political, and commercial sense of the term. And the entry of America, like our own entry into this war, was due to faulty German psychology, a stupid reading of the national mind, failure to understand the spirit and soul of America—as of Britain—as well as blind reliance on bluff, bombast, rapine, terror, corruption, and assassination for the intimidation of neutrals.

‘The Allies are more intelligent than the Germans.

‘Now, gentlemen, I have shown you the tremendous importance of psychology, in the work of platoons, regiments, armies, and embassies. You must study the subject. You don’t need to go to Oxford. You can do it in your own hut. Look at your neighbour! Study his face, his eyes, his talk, his facial expressions and physical actions. Watch him at work. See whether he slacks or pulls, fights or funks, tells the truth or dodges the truth. You will feel at sea for a long time, but in the end your eye and brain will enable you to see the hero and the fool, and instinctively to sense the coming thought or action of an opponent. Psychology gives you the wisdom of the old, the touch of the blind, the sense of the tried, and a general strength which is irresistible. This gift will enable you to create an uncomfortable apprehension in the mind of the enemy—a sense of something tragic; a feeling that there are bombs under the earth and above the earth; that something which destroys the nerves of the German nation and the German High Command.

‘That’s all, gentlemen,’ he concluded.

We gave him a mighty cheer.

‘Oh, by the way, any questions?’ he ejaculated.

No one got up. All seemed satisfied; but just as he was turning away, Ginger Thomson jumped to his feet.

‘Sir.’

‘Yes?’

‘I want to tell you something. Before we came in here we were arguing the point about rotten lectures and rotten lecturers. But I feel we owe you much. You have helped us a lot. We all hope you will come again, sir.’

‘Delighted! Oh, by the way, I missed a most important point. You can never apply this science—to a woman.’

‘What about a girl, sir?’ we all asked.

‘Hopeless! Good-afternoon.’

We burst out laughing as he turned away. Thus he left us as he met us—smiling.

There’s something in psychology.