honor of war essay

• Corpus ID: 201363328

The Honor of War: Core Value of the Warrior Ethos and Principle of the Law of War

• Nicholas W. Mull
• Published 1 August 2017
• Philosophy, Law, Political Science

One Citation

Peace suspended by a sword: honor & justifications of violence in breaker morant, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

Top of page

Collection Charles Wellington Reed Papers, 1776 to 1926

The medal of honor.

Charles Wellington Reed received the Medal of Honor in 1895 for gallantry in action on July 2, 1863, during the battle of Gettysburg. Despite sustained firing on his position near the Trostle farm, Reed mounted his horse and led to safety another mount carrying the wounded Captain John Bigelow, thereby saving Bigelow's life. In June 1895, John Bigelow wrote to the adjutant general of the United States, recommending Reed for the Medal of Honor for his actions that day. Eyewitness testimony corroborated Bigelow's account of events, and the secretary of war approved the nomination in August 1895. Why Reed received the Medal of Honor over thirty years after the fact, and why the Charles Wellington Reed Papers contain two different Medals of Honor is explained by the early history of the Medal of Honor itself.

Often referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor because it is awarded in the name of Congress, the Medal of Honor was first awarded during the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War, the federal government conferred various badges, medals and certificates for meritorious military service, but only a limited number of military personnel received such honors. Furthermore, the types of awards given often did not provide the serviceman with a way to display the honor in public. During the Civil War, efforts by Senator James Grimes and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to inspire sailors to valorous service led to the creation of the Medal of Honor in December 1861. Legislation authorizing a similar medal for soldiers in the army followed in 1862. The United States federal government issued more than 1,500 Medals of Honor for meritorious service in the United States Army and Navy during the Civil War, the majority of those recipients having served in the army.

The nomination procedures for the Medal of Honor differed by service branch. The navy instituted an application process for the Medal of Honor in July 1862, and made the recommendation of a commanding officer mandatory. The army's requirements for nominating a soldier for the medal were open to greater interpretation. This ambiguity led to the award being bestowed on individuals not regularly enrolled in the military, or for actions not in line with the "above and beyond the call of duty" spirit of the Medal of Honor. Additionally, soldiers could nominate themselves or others long after the Civil War ended, and for actions difficult to document with the passage of time. Regulations adopted in the 1890s refined the qualifications for the medal, but the army's past criteria for awarding the Medal of Honor continued to stir controversy. As a result, beginning in 1916 an army review board evaluated all of the Medals of Honor previously awarded and in 1917 removed more than 900 recipients from the Medal of Honor list. Included on the list of revoked medals was that awarded to contract surgeon Dr. Mary Edwards Walker in November 1865 by President Andrew Johnson in recognition of her medical service during the war. Dr. Walker refused to return her medal, and she wore it proudly until her death in 1919. (President Jimmy Carter restored her medal in 1977. Dr. Walker remains the only woman awarded the Medal of Honor.) To forestall similar problems in the future, in 1918 Congress established clear rules for awarding the Medal of Honor, including a time limit during which recommendations would be considered. The creation of additional medals for different levels of distinguished military conduct further helped to set the Medal of Honor apart.

The design of the Medal of Honor awarded to Civil War soldiers and sailors also changed over time. Working with the U. S. Mint in Philadelphia, the William Wilson & Son Company of Philadelphia designed the medal, which was approved by Secretary Welles. The initial design featured a five-pointed star, containing clusters of laurel and oak leaves in the points. Often used as symbols on military awards and memorials, the laurel represents victory and the oak represents strength. Thirty-four stars, one for each state in the United States in 1862 (including those that considered themselves to have seceded from the Union), unite the points in the center. Within the circle stands Minerva, goddess of wisdom and war, using her shield to strike down a snake-wielding foe, which represented the Union triumphing over secession. On the reverse of the medal was inscribed information about the soldier or sailor, and the action for which the award was given. The medal hung from a red, white and blue ribbon. Differentiating the navy from the army medal was the anchor used in the emblem above the star in the navy medal, and the eagle and crossed cannons on the army's version.

Over time, however, the design of the first Medal of Honor was widely copied as the model for other medals, rendering the actual Medals of Honor less unique. The pattern of the ribbon was changed in the 1890s from thirteen alternating vertical stripes of red and white with a horizontal blue bar at the top, to a center stripe of white flanked by blue and red stripes (as seen in Charles W. Reed's medal above). Awardees could also purchase fabric rosettes or knots to be worn only by Medal of Honor recipients. The army's Medal of Honor was redesigned in 1904 to preserve its distinctiveness as the highest honor awarded to soldiers. The second design retained the five-pointed star and a representation of Minerva in the center. Oak leaves remained in the points of the star, but the laurel leaves now formed a wreath uniting the points, and all the leaves display green enamel. The words "United States of America" replaced the ring of stars in the center. The metal attached to a bar inscribed "Valor," topped with an eagle clutching both an olive branch and arrows in its talons. The red, white, and blue suspension ribbon gave way to a light blue ribbon featuring thirteen white stars, representing the original thirteen colonies. The second design also included a longer blue ribbon to facilitate wearing the medal around the neck. To forestall copying of this second design, General George Gillespie secured a patent for the design in 1904, which was then transferred to the secretary of war. Congress passed a law in 1923 prohibiting the reproduction of medals and badges issued by the War Department, which provided further security for the Medal of Honor. The navy similarly altered the ribbon for its Medal of Honor in 1913, but kept the original design of the medal itself.

Initially Medal of Honor recipients were required to surrender their old medals in exchange for the new design. Perhaps not surprisingly, many veterans felt a sentimental attachment to their original medals, and successfully protested the new rule. Congress reversed the policy in 1907, and allowed Medal of Honor recipients to receive new medals without having to part with their old ones. Recipients in possession of both designs of the Medal of Honor were prohibited from wearing both medals at the same time. Thus, thanks to the 1904 redesign of the Medal of Honor and the 1907 congressional legislation allowing veterans to keep both medals, Charles W. Reed retained his original 1895 Medal of Honor as well as the redesigned version, both of which are part of the Charles Wellington Reed Papers at the Library of Congress.

Broadwater, Robert P. Civil War Medal of Honor Recipients: A Complete Illustrated Record . Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007.

Campbell, Eric A., ed. A Grand Terrible Dramma: From Gettysburg to Petersburg: The Civil War Letters of Charles Wellington Reed . New York: Fordham University Press, 2000.

The Congressional Medal of Honor: The Names, the Deeds . Forest Ranch, Calif.: Sharp & Dunnigan, 1984.

Congressional Medal of Honor Society, http://www.cmohs.org/

Lang, George, Raymond L. Collins and Gerard F. White, comp. Medal of Honor Recipients, 1863-1994. Volume I: Civil War to 2nd Nicaraguan Campaign . New York: Facts on File, 1995.

Schafer, Elizabeth D. "Medal of Honor." In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social and Military History , edited by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, 1301-1303. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000.

• 1 August 1914: Writing about emotions in Berlin
• 2 Honour and humiliation in political communication
• 3 Chivalry against barbarism: Gendered concepts of honour and shame
• 4 POWs, Homecoming, and the End of Sacrifice
• 5 Conclusion

Selected Bibliography

• Version 1.0
• Last updated 8th October 2014

Wartime Emotions: Honour, Shame, and the Ecstasy of Sacrifice

August 1914: writing about emotions in berlin.

On 27 August 1914, Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) wrote in her diary: “I was very moved to read that French soldiers who have been taken prisoners of war cover their faces in shame.” She was equally touched and elated when she read about acts of sympathy on the battlefield: French soldiers sparing wounded German soldiers, German soldiers marking houses in Franc-tireur villages: “Spare! Here lives an old woman who has been kind to me” or “Spare! Here lives a woman who has just given birth”. These traces of kindness made “heavenly sounds” in all the “heroic stupor” and “unnaturally overeffusive state of mind” that seemed to have a solid grip on everyone during the first weeks of war. 1

Kollwitz had witnessed “cheering and singing” when soldiers left for East Prussia, “the loved and embattled” region at the German-Russian borders. She had also seen her eighteen-year-old son being sworn in at a solemn flag ceremony. Both her sons had volunteered, and she could not but feel impressed and affected by their seriousness and excitement. She discussed her twenty-year-old niece Regula who was “full of rage” about the fact that her family had only provided one soldier while others had given more. And she commented on an article by Gabriele Reuter (1859-1941) , a well-known author who had publicly spoken about women’s “ecstasy of sacrifice”. Kollwitz profoundly disliked and questioned the notion of heroism that accompanied Reuter’s appeal. Two weeks earlier, however, she had denounced “cowardice”, declaring herself “ready for sacrifice”. 2

Käthe Kollwitz was not a nationalist. She was married to a social-democrat doctor who treated poor patients in a working-class area of Berlin. Although she never joined the party , she sympathised with the socialist ideals, and attended mass rallies against war, inflation and political discrimination of low-income citizens. As an artist , she worked for left-wing publishers and movements. Chauvinism was completely alien to her, and she was not even overly political. Before August 1914, her diary was dedicated mostly to private matters. In July, she happily vacationed at the East Prussian seaside, enjoying the good weather. War, economic hardship and unequal voting rights seemed distant issues and nothing to be bothered about during the hot summer months. 3

War must have come as a surprise to her and changed her life dramatically. She joined the social-democrat women’s efforts to support needy families whose male breadwinners had been conscripted. Together with her sons and their friends, she read stories and novels about former wars, predominantly those of 1813/15 and 1870/71. She was not seeking acts of heroism or military bravery. Rather, she was eagerly searching for accounts of humanity on the battlefields, of soldiers treating enemies, both military and civilian, in an honourable, generous, and kind manner. She desperately wished to see war as a civilised affair, devoid of brutality, cruelty, and beastliness; she hoped that the new war would be conducted along these lines, although she had an inkling that things might turn out differently. 4

At the same time, Kollwitz could not help feeling “excited”. She experienced a “new beginning” in her own life and was full of admiration for the young volunteers and their unbridled enthusiasm: “The young ones are undivided in their hearts. They give themselves cheerfully. They give themselves like a pure smokeless fire rising high up the sky.” Yet her feelings were mixed: seeing her sons and their friends prepare for the war “hurt like hell and was, at the same time, wonderfully beautiful”. Although she was prepared to sacrifice her loved ones, she did not share the heroic attitude that Reuter preached and demanded. She felt that this kind of heroism would not last:

The emotional boost, I fear, will be followed by an ever blacker despair and trepidation. What lies ahead of us is to bear this burden not only during these weeks, but also in November when the weather is low, or during the coming spring, in March, which is the month of the young who wanted to live and will be dead by then. 5

By March 1915, hundreds of thousands of soldiers had been killed or injured, and millions more would die too. Käthe’s son Peter Kollwitz (1896-1914) had fallen in Flanders two months after he had started his basic training, leaving his parents heartbroken. The public joyful cheering had been succeeded by a more sombre attitude. City dwellers started to suffer due to shortages of food and basic products. Women rioted against rising potato prices, and in November 1915, ten thousand Berliners protested publicly against the war. Even middle-class households found it increasingly difficult to keep their stoves burning. 6 Patience and optimism faded, and resentment grew against war profiteers , social inequality and a government that did not act to protect the citizens’ basic needs. Official propaganda worked hard to counteract this change and to convince people that further suffering and sacrifice were necessary. Faith in the military leadership evaporated during the summer of 1916, when the Russian, British, and French armies surprised the Central Powers and launched bloody offensives on the Eastern and Western fronts. Within five months, the battle of the Somme had cost Germany 600,000 casualties, Britain 420,000 and France 200,000. 7

It has often been questioned how wartime societies managed to endure mass death, hunger, and scarcity without disintegrating. Answers could be found in the propaganda efforts of governments and civil associations that sought to generate public support and a sense of perseverance and meaningfulness. In all warring countries, the state propaganda apparatus vastly expanded and acquired more and more means and tasks. Concepts of mobilising nations and stirring up enthusiasm, or, at least, preventing defeatism and gloominess, were remarkably similar, focusing on the quest for unity and coherence; patriotic spirit; strong will-power; belief in traditional values and national honour; religious faith; and confidence in one’s own government and leadership. According to the official mantra, the war demanded everyone’s sacrifice that would finally bring victory and lasting happiness to the long-suffering nation. 8

Propaganda thus targeted people’s emotions, moods and passions. Its effectiveness was based on certain elements also encountered in Käthe Kollwitz’ diary. When Gabriele Reuter wrote about the “ecstasy of sacrifice” she referred to an established discourse of patriotism that had been widely disseminated since the Napoleonic wars in the early 19 th century. 9 The exhortation and admiration of young men’s voluntary enlistment dated back to that era. The sense of national pride that was displayed by people publicly celebrating real or alleged military victories was part of the nationalism lexicon as it had been drafted during the long 19 th century. And the feeling of shame that overwhelmed prisoners of war (POWs) while they were being marched through foreign streets and city squares drew on the very same semantics of national honour that had to be protected by male soldier-citizens under all circumstances.

As crucial concepts influencing wartime emotions, honour, shame and sacrifice deserve closer scrutiny. This starts with a semantic analysis of political and diplomatic communication during the July crisis , and proceeds to encompass wartime propaganda, both verbal and visual. But it also sheds light on social practices of shaming and humiliation in which citizens engaged during the war. Those practices lend evidence to the power that honour and shame held over people’s minds and souls. It will be argued that the war built on a moral economy of feelings and attitudes that had been developed long before its outbreak. It utilised and radicalised those feelings to a previously unknown degree but it also helped to destroy the very essence of honour and shame: the idea of a shared moral universe resting on notions of equality, chivalry and fairness.

Honour and humiliation in political communication

In July 1914, honour, shame and humiliation were established and well-known concepts within international relations. They had been taught to politicians and diplomats by university lecturers or by their seniors, and had long since been a staple in inter-state communication. 10 Professor Heinrich von Treitschke (1836-1894) was one of the experts on moral laws informing politics. Lecturing at Berlin University in the 1880s and early 1890s, he stressed the concept of the state as the dominant bearer of sovereign power that had to be enacted and safeguarded by all means, including war. Treitschke’s state was imbued with moral meaning in a Hegelian sense, as much as politics was governed by moral laws. According to those laws, the state possessed and displayed a highly developed sense of honour. Anyone who insulted this honour had to bear the consequences. Honour was equivalent to power and had to be publicly acknowledged: “State power has to stand proud and brilliant and cannot even symbolically be contested.” “Any insult offered, even if only outwardly, to the honor of a State, casts doubt upon the nature of the State.” Therefore, “if the flag is insulted, the State must claim reparation; should this not be forthcoming, war must follow, however small the occasion may seem; for the state has never any choice but to maintain the respect in which it is held among its fellows” 11

After 1914, British politicians and academics were keen to interpret those views as a particularly German way of thinking, criticising Treitschke for having drafted a “new German theory of the State”. 12 This theory, however, was neither new nor exclusively German. Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) had argued along the same lines since the 1850s, when he desperately tried to convince Prussian conservatives that politics was about state interests, not about personal sympathies or antipathies (which he called “romantic”). Instead of such romanticism, the state’s interests dictated diplomatic moves and backed international relations. Realpolitik was about defining those interests and seeking the best way and the appropriate allies to serve them. As Bismarck saw it, this was common knowledge among all European governments even if they draped their politics with legal or emotional “deductions”. 13

Honour, as a marker of state sovereignty, was part and parcel of such Realpolitik , and 1914 serves as a case in point. The manifesto of the Austrian Emperor, issued on 28 July 1914, justified the war against Serbia as being “in the defense of the honour of my Monarchy”. When the Russian ambassador at Vienna announced his country’s military mobilisation on 29 July, he added that Russia’s honour as a major power had been slighted, and urged the nation to take the necessary steps. This allegation was refuted by the German Emperor who, in a telegram to the Tsar, assured him that “nobody is threatening the honour or power of Russia”. Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia (1868-1918) , however, was not convinced. His manifesto of 2 August not only referred to Russia’s duty to protect Serbia: “We must also safeguard the honour, dignity, and integrity of Russia and her position among the Great Powers.” For his part, Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) explained on 5 August that he was “forced to draw the sword in order to ward off an unjustified attack and fight for our national honour”. A day later, he issued a proclamation to the German people, in which he argued that Germany’s “power and honour” would be lost if the nation allowed its major friend and ally, the Habsburg Empire , to suffer “humiliation”. On the very same day, the British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith (1852-1928) told the House of Commons:

We are fighting in the first place to fulfill a solemn international obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated. 14

Those words were quickly translated into images printed in newspapers and posters, postcards and brochures with wide distribution and circulation. They were also communicated in lyrics and poems, again, by all sides involved. One of twenty-six-year-old Rupert Brooke (1887-1914) war sonnets, which earned him the attention of the First Lord of Admiralty, Winston Churchill (1874-1965) , and an appointment as a temporary Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, was ‘The Dead’: “Honour has come back, as a king, to earth / And paid his subjects with a royal wage; / And nobleness walks in our ways again; / And we have come into our heritage.” 15

As if he did not quite trust this reappearance of honour, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933) continuously referred to “our respect and good name and reputation before the world”. 16 Using “honour” as a synonym for “prestige” and “reputation” was nothing unusual: sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) had done so in his theoretical writings. He had thus modernised a concept that seemed somewhat alien to him, in a world allegedly governed by the rational assessment of prosaic interest. According to Weber, honour’s anachronism largely stemmed from its roots in a society composed of estates rather than market classes, and from its emotional thrust. In his passionate wartime speeches, however, Weber repeatedly referred to honour as a given fact that was, in common opinion, “rooted in the heart” and “physiologically felt”. 17

Even those who criticised the decision to go to war in 1914 did not doubt that honour was a powerful and legitimate emotional and moral precept. Although members of the British Labour Party did indeed question the government’s argument about honour compelling the country to go to war, they did not dismiss honour as a valid motive and reason to take up arms. James Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) proclaimed in the House of Commons on 3 August, “If the nation’s honour is in danger, we would be with him” (meaning the Foreign Secretary, who had defended the decision to enter the war on exactly those grounds). 18   David Lloyd George (1863-1945) , then Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported the decision, yet not without conceding

that whenever a nation has been engaged in any war she has always invoked the sacred name of honour. Many a crime has been committed in its name; there are some crimes being committed now. But, all the same, national honour is a reality, and any nation that disregards it is doomed. 19

Chivalry against barbarism: Gendered concepts of honour and shame

Why is it, then, that European monarchs, statesmen, and politicians all referred to honour in 1914, and what exactly did they mean? Asquith’s quote of 6 August provides a clue: alluding to the 1839 treaty that bound Britain (no less than Prussia/Germany and other European nations) to safeguard Belgium’s neutrality and independence, he explicitly compared honour to private obligations “in the ordinary concerns of life”. By deliberately linking national honour to personal honour he drew attention to the underlying culture that pervaded 19 th and early 20 th century Europe.

Within that culture, honour bore a powerful, but multifaceted meaning. Honour was at stake when journeymen got into fights about what they perceived as insults; honour was part and parcel of a merchant’s personal and professional life; honour was protected by laws that allowed workers to be immediately fired when they dared to offend their employer or a member of his family. The most rigid and conspicuous concern about honour reigned among the middle classes and the nobility. Over time, these circles had developed a code of honour, a point d’honneur, extremely sensitive to any transgression, demanding strong action on the occasions when the code was violated.

The aristocratic-bourgeois code of honour and the feelings that it produced and nourished was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it might be regarded as an artificially exaggerated means of drawing attention and giving importance to one’s own life and social standing. Every minute detail seemed to matter: every look, gesture and word. This could have a disciplining effect in that everyone was cautious and sought to avoid the kind of behaviour that might be considered to be insulting. Yet at the same time it might lead to personal conflicts and provocations being taken to a disproportionate and life-threatening level of seriousness. On the other hand, the honour code can be viewed as offering precisely those means of mediation and control that conflicts needed in order to be dealt with in a respectful way. Even though some kinds of insults could not be mediated (such as adultery, or a slap in the face), there were many other kinds open to mediation. The duel itself was fought according to strict rules that guaranteed the equality of chances and risks, and set limits to the violence employed during the fight. Most duels actually ended without a drop of blood being spilt. They even ended in perfect harmony, if we believe those duelists who reported on their feelings during and after the event. The fight had not restored only the moral order that governed upper-class men’s behaviour, but also the balance between the two opponents. Each one had preserved his dignity, showing courage and determination and acting in accordance with his principles. Furthermore, the duelists had accepted each other as equals, despite and beyond the initial conflict. The duel itself was regarded as an act of mutual respect: it was based on the notion of equality, both in terms of means and social status, and it sought to reaffirm due respect that had been withheld. 20

Personal honour set the precedent for national honour. To the Prussian officer and acclaimed military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) , wars were nothing but “extended duels” that had to be declared and conducted in accordance with the code of honour. 21 Even if modern wars turned out to be essentially bloody and violent means of asserting and imposing power, they should nevertheless maintain elements of chivalry and honourable behaviour. As they were fought between enemies that still considered themselves members of the same European tribe, basic rules of respect and recognition were supposed to prevail. This is how German students imagined the war when they voluntarily enlisted in 1914: as if they were going “on Mensur ”, meaning fighting a students’ duel in the half-brazen, half-noble tradition of academic youth culture. Cambridge students entered the war with similar ideas, eagerly abandoning the cricket ground for the field of honour. 22

While young men regarded the war as a heroic duel, a forty-six year-old artist and mother such as Käthe Kollwitz harboured ideas of chivalrous soldiers protecting or saving unarmed civilians, women, and children. Meanwhile, the wider public indulged in the sight of modern knights who fought the war up in the skies – with eye contact and as perfectly mannered gentlemen. 23 Down on the ground, Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) , a young German officer deployed on the Western front, recorded in his diary how, despite increasingly unbearable conditions and abounding violence, soldiers recognised and admired bravery on every occasion they encountered it, even when it concerned enemies. From time to time, they negotiated periods of truce in order to recover dead and wounded comrades, and they even used ceasefires over Christmas or Easter to fraternise with enemy soldiers. 24

These views were not shared by the official war propaganda that painted the enemy in the darkest colours . Enemy soldiers on all sides were abhorred as mean, brutal, treacherous and cowardly. In the Anglo-Saxon world, the “rape of Belgium” and German warfare against civilians, cities, and cultural treasures like the Louvain library provoked outrage. British newspapers published drawings titled “The March of the Huns”, and sarcastically mocked the “Triumph of ‘Culture’ ” which consisted in German soldiers slaying women and children. 25 The French propaganda issued a series of images depicting German soldiers violating and mutilating French women and raiding their homes. Les Boches were shown to be despicable animals emitting a disgusting stench. 26 Even American posters urging citizens to subscribe for “liberty loans” used the image of savage German soldiers laying hands on young girls and mothers. 27 Since no enemy soldiers entered the country during the war, German propaganda could not retaliate, but instead focused on German soldiers being generous and compassionate, feeding elderly people and giving presents to children. Allied soldiers, on the reverse, were caricatured as unable and drunk, indulgent and laughable. 28

While such a strategy aimed at dishonouring the enemy by depriving him of masculine traits and virtues, French and British propaganda not only pilloried the German-Prussian soldier as a brutish rapist, but at the same time called on their own male citizens and citizen-soldiers to abide by the honour code. Instead of helplessly enduring the German atrocities and watching their wives, sisters and daughters being violated, they should defend both their own honour as husbands, brothers and fathers, as well as national honour. Quite outspokenly, personal honour and national honour were thought to be synonymous. To protect female and family honour and shield women’s sexual integrity was part and parcel of what men were supposed to do and what earned them honour. Since the nation, too, had to be defended and kept pure and safe, it was the men’s job to go out and fight the aggressor, thus upholding national honour. 29

But it was not just propaganda that sought to disseminate a strong commitment to honour. All armies upheld rigid codes of honourable conduct and used numerous shaming practices to punish those who did not comply. In British and Dominion armies, minor offences fell under Field Punishment No. 1 that was extensively applied: the culprit was tied to a post or the wheel of a gun carriage becoming a public spectacle of humiliation. Similar forms of shameful exposure were applied in the German armies. 30 Military courts tried to punish what was considered to be shirking and betraying true comradeship and patriotic duties. Deserters were treated with utter contempt; they figured as dishonourable traitors and cowards who deserved severe punishment and public shaming. The worst of all was a soldier who defected to the enemy. Time and again, officers made clear that such defectors would be treated like scum by the enemy. No army could or would appreciate traitors who turned against their own comrades and country. 31

The public displayed nothing but contempt for those who shunned their patriotic duty. Propaganda posters showed women (and children) reminding men of their obligation and questioning their sense of bravery. In Britain , women handed out white feathers to those who did not enlist voluntarily before 1916. 32 Young men not wearing a uniform were considered cowards, shying away from their most solemn task: to protect the honour of the fatherland and, with it, the honour of its women.

By shaming them in public, women forced men to recognise and live up to traditional gender roles and characteristics. Men in turn complained about women’s lack of empathy and love. In 1917, the Austrian-Hungarian officer Andreas Latzko (1876-1943) anonymously published an account of war at the Isonzo front (where he had served in the Imperial and Royal Army until 1916). One of the protagonists talked about the “great disillusionment” of the war which did not concern the war itself but women’s attitude: instead of protecting their sons and defending their husbands, they smiled and threw roses and waved their handkerchiefs. “They sent us – sent us! Because every one of them would have been ashamed to stand there without a hero.” To meet this expectation, men enlisted, became heroes and returned with a medal that increased their appeal: “His girl will like him better, and the other girls will run after him, and he can use his medal to hook other men’s women away from under their noses.” 33

When men expected women to “rescue” them from the horrors of war, they referred to women’s role as devoted mothers and loving wives. This seemed to be wildly at odds with women’s alleged display of vanity and their desire “to be in fashion” or “in style”. This view, however, proved blind to what was really at stake: the gendered division of honour and shame. Honour posed quite different demands on men and women. Being an honourable man was associated with multiple meanings, depending on class, profession and situation, but it was always accompanied by the obligation to display courage and determination in order to avoid shame and humiliation. For women, shamefulness was considered a genuine virtue and character trait. Girls were taught from a young age to lower their gaze, avoiding everything that might taint their immaculate status. A shamed woman was a fallen woman who had compromised her honour by behaving indecently or allowing other people to treat her indecently. A dishonoured woman could do nothing to restore her honour, she had to rely on her father, brother, fiancé or husband to act in her place. If the man lacked courage, the woman’s honour was jeopardised. Such cowardly behaviour could not but be perceived as utterly dishonourable, shameful, and unchivalrous.

The notion of chivalry, although increasingly criticised by late 19 th -century feminists, lent powerful support to the honour code, both at individual and at national level. This was evident in the language of international relations as it was spoken during the summer of 1914. To Germany, it was a matter of honour to “stand, in resolute fidelity, by our ally which is battling for its reputation as a great power” and had been humiliated by Serbian politics. 34 Russia had a different view but used the same metaphors: “little” Serbia had to be protected against the Habsburg menace. When David Lloyd George addressed a large audience at Queen’s Hall, London, on 19 September 1914, he claimed that it was “an honourable obligation” to defend Belgium’s liberty and integrity. If Britain had not come to Belgium’s rescue, “our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages”. It was not just a matter of adhering to treaties, Lloyd George insisted, but also a moral duty to help a small, weak country which had been “treated brutally” by its mighty neighbour. In short, it was an act of chivalry, and the politician did not forget to mention the slaughtered “women and children” who had to be avenged. 35

Allied propaganda used even blunter sexual allusions to describe what happened to Belgium and Northern France in August 1914. After Germany’s invasion, the public in France and Britain was flooded with images of female bodies that had been raped and mutilated by brutish German soldiers. As much as the German administration tried to discredit them as crude distortions of reality, they were extremely effective in stirring up people’s moral sensibilities. 36 Even some German intellectuals, among them Max Weber, referred to Belgium’s “rape” and “castration”, although in a rather symbolically and critical manner. 37 In his 1915 address to teachers, Professor Philipp Witkop (1880-1942) offered an altogether different perspective. He strongly recommended a song that described the fall of Liège or Lüttich in barely concealed sexual terms. “Jungfer Lüttich” who was courted by Germany chose another lover (France), before eventually (and lustfully) falling for the German invader who took her by force. According to Witkop, the song served as an excellent example combining current and traditional war lyrics and should be sung in every classroom. 38

Such pornographic allusions, however, did not find everyone’s approval. As early as August 1914, social-democratic newspapers warned against brutalisation and abandoning civilised standards. They reminded their readers, many of whom were already on active duty, to remain “humane” on the battle field and not forget that they were fighting “class comrades” on the enemy side. What mattered most “for us proletarians”, was to “show chivalry” resisting any type of cruel behaviour on the battlefield as well as at home. 39

POWs, Homecoming, and the End of Sacrifice

Interestingly, the Vorwärts article started by drawing attention to POWs that had suffered the fate of “falling into our hands”. Germany had indeed taken thousands of prisoners in the early days of the war, who were interned in camps and labour battalions on German territory. Other countries followed suit, and, by the end of 1918, around 6.6 million soldiers had been taken prisoner. 40 Why was it, then, that the major social-democratic paper urged its readers to treat those prisoners “kindly and humanely”?

The way POWs were treated offers a particularly enlightening perspective on questions of honour and shame as they were negotiated during the Great War. Remembering Käthe Kollwitz’s remark about foreign soldiers hiding their faces as an act of shame, we might ask where this kind of shame originated and what those men felt ashamed of.

The 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions had explicitly removed POWs from the theatre of war and enmity, placing them under the power of the enemy government instead of their captors. It was commonly understood that they should not be treated as enemies or criminals, but “with humanity”. During the First World War, this obligation was dealt with very differently. All governments ostentatiously praised themselves for displaying kindness, dignity and benevolence towards POWs. At the same time, they attacked the enemy for denying their own soldiers the same generous and honourable treatment. A 1916 German family journal reveals:

Daily, troops of prisoners are being marched through the streets of Berlin, but nobody ever spit into their faces or graphically cut their throats – a pleasure that Parisians, men and women, continuously indulge in when they are shown a few Germans. Since POWs have become everyday occurrences, even curious people no longer stare at them as if they were something special. 41

The initial staring had actually been widely reported. Every time that POWs were shown to the public, large crowds gathered in order to catch a glimpse, sneer, or spit at enemy soldiers. 42 Kollwitz witnessed such gatherings in September 1914, when Russians, Belgians and French soldiers arrived by train. “The French look reduced. Many small and miserable men.” She kept her distance: “All in all, this mass of captured enemies is depressing. It reminds me somewhat of Hagenbeck.” 43 Hagenbeck was a famous zoo in Hamburg that exhibited not only exotic animals but also people from far-away places, e.g. Samoans, Inuit or Nubians. While the latter usually attracted large crowds of curious spectators, some contemporaries felt appalled and reacted with indignation to what they considered to be an act of derogatory exposure. 44

While Käthe Kollwitz obviously did not enjoy seeing POWs (or, for this matter, exotic “races”) on public display, others did. Time and again, women were criticised for behaving indecently by showing “unpatriotic” curiosity when French or Belgian soldiers were marched through cities and villages. This was deemed as dishonouring both the women and the prisoners. As much as it violated norms of female decency and shamefulness, it also served to humiliate those who had become a spectacle. Generally, staring was considered to be impolite and tactless behaviour, and children learnt from early on not to stare at others persistently (as is often their habit). Staring at POWs acquired the character of an open insult. Those who stared were in a position of power, and they did not even try to conceal it. The captured were powerless and thus had to endure being stared at – if they did not try to hide their faces. The staring actually reminded them of their impotence that could be felt quite literally. It shamed them in open daylight and publicly demonstrated that they had lost their honour or, at least, that they were no longer in a position to defend it.

In some sense, these men relived the experience of those who had been put on public display for committing a petty crime. Medieval societies had invented the institution of the pillory for people who had offended public morality. Being put in the stocks or a pillory, set up in the marketplace or at a crossroads, were both means of public humiliation. Offenders were exposed to everyone’s stare and comments and often received harsh treatment by those who accidentally passed by or deliberately joined the crowd to watch and cheer. As a legal device, the pillory was abolished in the 1830s. Semantically, though, it has lived on up to the present (indicating its long-lasting impact on people’s imagination and sensibilities).

Being marched through foreign streets and squares, still wearing their uniforms but without their rifles (widely praised as the infantry soldier’s pride) 45 forced men to recognise their loss of power and control over their own lives. They were in the hands and at the mercy of the enemy now, since they had lost the war or, at least, a battle. Although international law protected them and obliged the enemy government to treat them honourably, they could not help but notice that they had failed in their duty to defend home, hearth, and fatherland. Their efforts had been insufficient, and, as a consequence, they felt the blame and shame. 46 Confronted with expectations of manly strength, courage, and determination, defeat and captivity were perceived as clear signs of emasculation.

Questions of honour and dignity were present every time the issue of POWs was raised. Right at the beginning of the war, people debated whether prisoners could and should be discharged or given more personal freedom after pledging their word of honour. According to the Hague Conventions, soldiers, rank and file as well as officers, could ask or accept the offer of parole after solemnly declaring that they would stick to the obligations that accompanied paroling. Such custom had been well established in early modern military conflicts conceived as cabinet wars. The new type of national wars that emerged during the 19 th century, however, posed different demands. Loyalty to the king did not end in captivity, and national honour gained priority over personal honour. Already in 1870, the Prussian Chancellor von Bismarck had complained about the large number of French officers who had betrayed their word of honour and fled, only to be reintegrated into the French army, fighting the Germans once again. Such behaviour indicated that military officers’ professional honour code increasingly and dramatically clashed with expectations of national loyalty. 47

Just as German law professors in 1914 preached distrust against French officers who were suspected of breaking their word of honour, all governments and national media prided themselves of meticulously abiding by the Hague rules while criticising enemy countries for harshly mistreating and humbling POWs. At the same time, however, both citizens and military administrations engaged in all kinds of shaming practices meant to humiliate and disgrace enemy soldiers. Bystanders spat in their faces, tried to beat them up or hurled insults, while prison camp guards used public floggings or tied them to a post. Meanwhile, the press published caricatures and illustrations to ridicule them based on ascribed national traits and stereotypes, or depict them as ruthless perpetrators of atrocious war crimes. Especially those who came from non-European countries or colonies encountered openly racist prejudice and contempt. 48

Treating POWs dishonourably and as dishonourable subjects thus served as another case of how standards of civilised and potentially chivalric behaviour collapsed or were deliberately ignored in times of war. World War I set a particularly gruesome example 49 which can in part be attributed to the effect of propaganda dehumanising the enemy and outlawing him as an alien race. But propaganda was not all that mattered. The longer the war lasted, the more people experienced its hardships and violence first-hand. And the more they saw themselves as victims of the war who sacrificed life and limb, the more they felt the urge of taking revenge and retaliating if they found themselves in a position that permitted or even encouraged such acts.

While many people, men and women, had initially greeted the war with an elated sense of personal sacrifice, the “ecstasy” that some might have felt and that Gabriele Reuter had expressed so powerfully in August 1914 soon evaporated. To Käthe Kollwitz, who had resisted any ecstatic feelings but voluntarily “sacrificed” her youngest son and allowed him to enlist, Peter’s death in October 1914 was a blow from which she never recovered. 50 Young men who had offered their lives “radiating” with joy and pride and not even aware, as Kollwitz noticed with great amazement, that they were making a “sacrifice”, gradually lost the “undiluted, glorious idealism” of the early days and weeks. 51 As the war dragged on, soldiers’ morale plummeted in the face of increasing casualties, abominable conditions and harsh grievances. Mutinies, desertion, and shirking became more and more frequent and promises of imminent victory were received with growing skepticism and distrust. 52

Meanwhile, the home front suffered from similar defects and setbacks. Internal strife was increasingly out of control. Against this background of un-ecstatic sacrifice and growing resentment, the end of fighting was hailed even by those who had suffered defeat. When the German high command urged civilian authorities to negotiate an armistice in late September 1918, no one felt surprise. Although the military had upheld the promise of ultimate victory, as in all warring countries, the fact that a more realistic approach was adopted did not come unexpectedly. Soldiers were eager to leave the battlefields and return home as soon as possible, with or without a formal permit. 53

In Berlin, Käthe Kollwitz was busy organising their welcome. While she was impatiently waiting for her surviving son Hans to be discharged, she appealed, “in the name and on behalf of many”, to Berliners:

The soldiers are coming back these days! When they went to the front, they were adorned with flowers and accompanied by a cheering crowd. Now that they return after four full years of fighting, suffering, bleeding, nobody moves to give them a warm reception. The soldiers must have wished for a different welcome and undoubtedly deserve it. The people of Berlin should be informed about arrival times […] We want to decorate train stations with red flags and garlands.

Her words were well received, and Berliners gathered at stations and brought flags to greet the homecoming soldiers. The dilemma as to which flag to display, however, caused some concern. After long discussions, the Kollwitz family decided against the red flag of socialism but instead hung “the dear German flag” in black, white and red. It was dear to Käthe’s heart because two sons had marched behind it, together with so many others who, like Peter, did not return. But since another new beginning was on the threshold, she added “long red republican” pennants – and a green wreath that served both as the sign of welcome and as a symbol of mourning the dead. 54

For the left-wing artist as for most contemporaries, the homecoming soldiers had fought honourably for Germany’s honour. Even though they had been defeated they had not compromised their honour. According to public opinion, defeat did not result from a lack of courage or determination; instead, it was due to the blatant asymmetry of resources, both human and material, on the battlefields. This was how Käthe Kollwitz argued on 30 October 1918 when she publicly rejected a colleague’s call to arms. In his widely published appeal, Richard Dehmel (1863-1920) , a well-known poet and writer who, at the age of fifty-one had voluntarily enlisted in the army and served until he was wounded in 1916, had urged German men to hurry to the front and defend “our people’s honour and human dignity” in a final desperate battle. In her open letter, Kollwitz fervently criticised Dehmel’s stance. Remembering her own sons’ enthusiasm and spirit of sacrifice in the autumn of 1914, she declared that those times were over. Four years of war had taught different lessons about honour, shame and sacrifice. What counted now was to build the future, and the future needed the young generation. “We did not see Russia as infamous when she agreed to the incredibly harsh conditions of Brest-Litovsk only because she felt compelled to save the remaining strength for domestic reconstruction.” In a similar manner, Germany should not feel dishonoured if the Entente decided to dictate peace rather than negotiate it under law. Instead, the nation should be proudly aware that national honour was unaffected, just as the honour of a single man who deferred to “overwhelmingly strong forces” was left intact. 55

Throughout the war and until its very end, questions of honour, shame, and sacrifice were thus hotly debated. Serving as powerful leitmotivs of national imagination and sensibility, they gave orientation in a war that strained people’s endurance to a degree unknown prior to 1914. Propaganda definitely had its share in mapping individual and collective emotions, but it did not create or invent them. Notions of honour and shame had been deeply embedded in pre-war European societies, with marked differences of class and gender. During the war, national honour was transformed into an overarching and integrating concept calling for, and giving meaning to, every citizen’s personal sacrifice. But, as the Kollwitz-Dehmel controversy shows, the broad consensus about what honour entailed disintegrated. While most people agreed with Kollwitz about the end of sacrifice, others, such as Dehmel, favoured an honourable death over an “undignified life”.

It remains an open question whether, as Kollwitz claimed, the notion of honour really underwent a change after four years of bloody warfare. Especially in countries that considered themselves to have been treated disgracefully by others, honour and shame became battle cries against the “humiliation” suffered by those who set the terms of armistice and peace. To evoke fairness, equality and reconciliation meant to refer to an honour code that had informed diplomatic and political communication at the beginning of World War I. However, it did not account for the fact that this very code had been increasingly violated during the war, having been succeeded by a type of warfare that left less and less room for notions of chivalry and fair play and that was orchestrated on the home front by dehumanising propaganda efforts. The code had thus lost its very essence, which, under the conditions of the postwar order, could by no means be revived and revitalised.

Ute Frevert, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

• Kollwitz, Käthe: Die Tagebücher, Bohnke-Kollwitz, Jutta, (ed.), Berlin 1989, p. 158. ↑
• Ibid., pp. 152, 158ff. ↑
• Kollwitz, Käthe: Briefe an den Sohn 1904 bis 1945, Bohnke-Kollwitz, Jutta (ed.), Berlin 1992, pp. 63, 86-91; Tagebücher, 1989, pp. 139-148. ↑
• The article that Kollwitz quoted in her diary was printed in the Frankfurter Zeitung, 28 August 1914. The author praised the heroic courage of German soldiers fighting regular Belgian troops (that he considered equally heroic and brave, but less well organised and disciplined), irregular franctireurs and enraged Belgian citizens, whom he described as sneaky and insidious. The image of German soldiers as “great, peaceful children” who treated the local population in a “polite, amiable and accommodating” way had already been part of the narratives told about the 1870/71 war, well-known to Kollwitz, who had read war novellas by Detlev von Liliencron in August 1914 (Kollwitz, Tagebücher, 1989, p. 153). See Becker, Frank: Bilder von Krieg und Nation, Munich 2001, pp. 361ff. Post-1870 sources, however, also contained graphic descriptions of German retaliations against franctireurs’ brutality (ibid., p. 236). ↑
• Kollwitz, Tagebücher, 1989, pp. 151, 154, 158. ↑
• Davis, Belinda J.: Home Fires Burning. Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin, Chapel Hill 2000. ↑
• Keegan, John: The First World War, London 1998, p. 321. ↑
• Schmidt, Anne: Belehrung – Propaganda – Vertrauensarbeit. Zum Wandel amtlicher Kommunikationspolitik in Deutschland 1914-1918, Essen 2006; Flood, P.J.: France 1914-18. Public Opinion and the War Effort, Basingstoke 1990; Pennell, Catriona: A Kingdom United. Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain and Ireland, Oxford 2012. ↑
• Reuter, Gabriele: Was fordert der Krieg von den Frauen? in: Der Tag, 26 August 1914. See, for historical reference, Hagemann, Karen: German heroes. The cult of the death for the fatherland in nineteenth-century Germany, in: Dudink, Stefan / Hagemann, Karen / Tosh, John (eds.): Masculinities in politics and war. Gendering modern history, Manchester 2004, pp. 116-134; Colley, Linda: Britons. Forging the Nation 1707-1837, New Haven 1992, chapter VII. ↑
• For the German-French war of 1870/71 and before see Aschmann, Birgit: Preußens Ruhm und Deutschlands Ehre. Zum nationalen Ehrdiskurs im Vorfeld der preußisch-französischen Kriege des 19. Jahrhunderts, Munich 2013. ↑
• Treitschke, Heinrich von: Politics, volume 2, New York 1916, p. 595. ↑
• Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History: Why We are at War: Great Britain’s Case, Oxford 1914, chapter 6; Joll, James: The Origins of the First World War, 2nd ed., London 1992, pp. 217f. ↑
• Kohl, Horst (ed.): Bismarcks Briefe an den General Leopold v. Gerlach, Berlin 1896, p. 316; Rothfels, Hans (ed.): Bismarck und der Staat, 3rd ed., Darmstadt 1958, p. 94. ↑
• The Times, 30 July 1914, p. 7; Ibid, 4 August 1914, p. 3; Geiss, Imanuel (ed.): July 1914. The Outbreak of the First World War. Selected Documents, New York 1967, pp. 280, 324; Johann, Ernst (ed.): Innenansicht eines Krieges. Deutsche Dokumente 1914-1918, Munich 1973, p. 24; Brock, Michael: Britain enters the War, in: Evans, Robert J.W. / Pogge von Strandmann, Hartmut (eds.): The Coming of the First World War, Oxford 1990, pp. 145-178, quote, p. 177. ↑
• Brooke, Rupert: 1914 and other poems, London 1918, p. 13. ↑
• Grey, Edward: Viscount Grey of Fallodon: Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916, volume 3, London 1935, p. 316. ↑
• Weber, Max: Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, in: Roth, Guenther / Wittich, Claus (eds.) Berkeley 1978, volume 2, pp. 932-937, 1068f.; idem: Zur Politik im Weltkrieg. Schriften und Reden 1914-1918, Tübingen 1988, esp. pp. 40, 77. For Weber’s sensitivity to the point d’honneur, see Frevert, Ute: Men of Honour. The Social and Cultural History of the Duel, Cambridge 1995, p. 182; for honour’s emotional impact, see Ibid.: Emotions in History – Lost and Found, Budapest 2011, p. 41. ↑
• The Times, 4 August 1914, pp. 6f. ↑
• Lloyd George, David: Honour and Dishonour. A Speech, London 1914, p. 2. ↑
• Frevert, Ute: Ehrenmänner. Das Duell in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, München 1991 (Frevert, Ute: Men of Honour: A Social and Cultural History of the Duel, Williams, Anthony (trans.), Cambridge 1995); Jeanneney, Jean-Noël: Le Duel. Une Passion française 1789-1914, Paris 2004; Hughes, Steven C.: Politics of the Sword. Dueling, Honor, and Masculinity in Modern Italy, Columbus 2007. ↑
• Clausewitz, Carl, von: Vom Kriege, in: Stumpf, Reinhard (ed.): Kriegstheorie und Kriegsgeschichte, Frankfurt 1993, p. 15. See the references in Frevert, Men of Honour, 1995, pp. 151f., as well as Jünger, Ernst: In Stahlgewittern, 30th ed., Stuttgart 1986, pp. 73, 241, 267. ↑
• Witkop, Philipp (ed.): Kriegsbriefe gefallener Studenten, Munich 1928, p. 11; Levsen, Sonja: Elite, Männlichkeit und Krieg. Tübinger und Cambridger Studenten 1900-1929, Göttingen 2006, pp. 123ff. ↑
• Schüler-Springorum, Stefanie: Krieg und Fliegen, Paderborn 2010, chapter II. ↑
• Jünger, In Stahlgewittern 1986, pp. 29, 51, 64f., 95, 141f., 268; Jünger, Ernst: Kriegstagebuch 1914-1918, Helmuth Kiesel (ed.), Stuttgart 2010, pp. 51, 55, 60, 65f., 97, 220f. For informal ceasefires and moments of fraternisation, see Brown, Malcolm / Seaton, Shirley: Christmas Truce, London 1984; Eksteins, Modris: Rites of Spring. The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age, Boston 1989, chapter III; Lipp, Anne: Meinungslenkung im Krieg. Kriegserfahrungen deutscher Soldaten und ihre Deutung 1914-1918, Göttingen 2003, pp. 185ff. ↑
• The Times, 29 August 1914, p. 9; Punch, 26 August 1914. See Reimann, Aribert: Der große Krieg der Sprachen. Untersuchungen zur historischen Semantik in Deutschland und England zur Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs, Essen 2000, pp. 168ff.; Schramm, Martin: Das Deutschlandbild in der britischen Presse 1912-1919, Berlin 2007. ↑
• Rother, Rainer (ed.): Die letzten Tage der Menschheit. Bilder des Ersten Weltkrieges, Berlin 1994, pp. 468-471 (Les Atrocités Allemandes); Courmont, Juliette: L’odeur de l’ennemi. L’imaginaire olfactif en 1914-1918, Paris 2010; Demm, Eberhard (ed.): Der Erste Weltkrieg in der internationalen Karikatur, Hannover 1988, pp. 62-65; Cf. Horne, John / Kramer, Alan: German atrocities, 1914. A History of Denial, New Haven 2001. ↑
• Harel, Véronique (ed.): Les Affiches de la Grande Guerre, Péronne 1998, p. 45. ↑
• Demm, Karikatur, 1988, pp. 65, 68, 71; Reimann, Krieg, 2000, pp. 177ff. ↑
• For the ubiquity of gendered notions of honour, see poems like Stehr, Hermann: Der Krieg bricht los, in: Die neue Rundschau 23 (1914), pp. 1185-1187, which calls all German men to war in order to protect children and women and the “pure bodies of your virgins” that would otherwise be violated by Russians and Frenchmen. Kollwitz read this poem to her son Hans in September 1914, without further comment (Kollwitz,Tagebücher, 1989, p. 161). ↑
• Englander, David: Mutinies and Military Morale, in: Strachan, Hew (ed.): The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, Oxford 1998, pp. 191-203, illustration p. 192; Putkowski, Julian / Sykes, Julian: Shot at Dawn. Executions in World War One by authority of the British Army Act, London 1993; Hinz, Uta: Gefangen im Großen Krieg. Kriegsgefangenschaft in Deutschland 1914-1921, Essen 2006, pp. 163-165. ↑
• Jahr, Christoph: Gewöhnliche Soldaten. Desertion und Deserteure im deutschen und britischen Heer 1914-1918, Göttingen 1998, pp. 177ff. ↑
• Gullace, Nicoletta F.: White Feathers and Wounded Men. Female Patriotism and the Memory of the Great War, in: Journal of British Studies 16 (1997), pp. 178-206. ↑
• Latzko, Andreas: Men in War, New York 1918, pp. 40-45. Latzko’s book was quickly translated into nineteen languages, but banned in all warring countries. After his authorship became known, he was demoted by the army’s Supreme Command. ↑
• Gay, Peter: The Cultivation of Hatred, New York 1993, quote p. 515. ↑
• Lloyd George, David: Honour and Dishonour, a Speech, London 1914, pp. 1, 5, 7, 10. ↑
• Harris, Ruth: The ‘Child of the Barbarian’. Rape, Race and Nationalism in France during the First World War, in: Past & Present 141 (1993), pp. 170-206; Gullace, Nicoletta F.: Sexual Violence and Family Honour. British Propaganda and International Law during the First World War, in: American Historical Review 102 (1997), pp. 714-747; Reimann, Krieg, 2000, pp. 173ff. ↑
• Weber, Politik im Weltkrieg, 1988, pp. 18, 21f., 70. ↑
• Witkop, Philipp: Der deutsche Unterricht, in: Der Weltkrieg im Unterricht, Gotha 1915, pp. 53-67. ↑
• Unsere Feinde (our enemies), in: Vorwärts, 23 August 1914. ↑
• Speed, Richard B.: Prisoners, Diplomats, and the Great War. A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity, New York 1990, p. 195. ↑
• Hinz, Gefangen, 2006, quote p. 188; Panayi, Panikos: Prisoners of Britain. German civilian and combatant internees during the First World War, Manchester 2012, pp. 231f.; Jones, Heather: Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War. Britain, France, and Germany, 1914-1920, Cambridge 2011, chapter I. ↑
• Panayi, Prisoners, 2012, pp. 62, 64; Jones, Violence, 2011, pp. 38f. ↑
• Kollwitz, Tagebücher, 1989, p. 165. In 1870, French POWs in German camps complained about being visited by civilians; they felt like being in a “menagerie” (Mitze, Katja: Seit der Babylonischen Gefangenschaft hat die Welt nichts derart erlebt. Französische Kriegsgefangene und Franctireurs im Deutsch-Französischen Krieg 1870/71, in: Overmans, Rüdiger (ed.): In der Hand des Feindes, Cologne 1999, pp. 235-254, here p. 248. ↑
• For Hagenbeck and other human exhibitions see Dreesbach, Anne: Gezähmte Wilde. Die Zurschaustellung “exotischer” Menschen in Deutschland 1870-1940, Frankfurt 2005. ↑
• This is how Käthe Kollwitz described it after having seen her son sworn into his regiment (Tagebücher, 1989, p. 158). She was in line with a long tradition of military language and customs, see Frevert, Ute: A Nation in Barracks: Modern Germany, Military Conscription and Civil Society, Oxford 2004, pp. 77f., 115ff., 181ff. ↑
• Becker, Annette: Paradoxien in der Situation der Kriegsgefangenen 1914-1918, in: Oltmer, Jochen (ed.): Kriegsgefangene im Europa des Ersten Weltkriegs, Paderborn 2006, pp. 24-31, esp. p. 25. ↑
• Das Staatsarchiv. Sammlung der officiellen Actenstücke zur Geschichte der Gegenwart, volume 20, Hamburg 1871, pp. 382; Pohl, Heinrich: Entlassung auf Ehrenwort, in: Der Tag, 26 August 1914. The author was a law professor at Greifswald and advised military authorities to be very careful about granting those facilities to enemy officers. A poignant example of those moral-political clashes is, of course, Jean Renoir’s movie La Grande Illusion (1937). ↑
• Jones, Violence, 2011, pp. 79ff.; Hinz, Gefangen, 2006, pp. 163ff.; Hinz, Uta: Die deutschen “Barbaren” sind doch die besseren Menschen.Kriegsgefangenschaft und gefangene “Feinde” in der Darstellung der deutschen Publizistik 1914-1918, in: Overmans (ed.), Hand des Feindes, 1999, pp. 339-361. ↑
• Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane / Becker, Annette: 14-18. Understanding the Great War, New York 2002, pp. 70-90. ↑
• See Schulte, Regina: Käthe Kollwitz’s Sacrifice, in: History Workshop Journal 41 (1996), pp. 193-221. ↑
• Kollwitz, Tagebücher, 1989, p. 163. ↑
• Watson, Alexander: Enduring the Great War. Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914-1918, Cambridge 2008. ↑
• Bessel, Richard: Germany after the First World War, Oxford 1993, chapter III. ↑
• Kollwitz, Tagebücher, 1989, pp. 844, 386, 389. Kollwitz‘ appeal was published in the social-democratic newspaper Vorwärts, 17 November 1918. Two days later, Kollwitz went to see Berlin’s mayor Georg Reicke to make sure that there would be an official welcome organised by the city and military headquarters (Tagebücher, 1989, p. 383). ↑
• Ibid, pp. 839-841. Dehmel’s appeal was published in the Vorwärts that printed Kollwitz’s reply eight days later. The controversy was widely commented on and immediately reprinted in Vossische Zeitung, 30 October 1918. ↑
• Frevert, Ute: A nation in barracks. Modern Germany, military conscription and civil society , Oxford, 2004: Berg.
• Hinz, Uta: Gefangen im Grossen Krieg. Kriegsgefangenschaft in Deutschland 1914-1921 , Essen, 2006: Klartext Verlag.
• Jahr, Christoph: Gewöhnliche Soldaten. Desertion und Deserteure im deutschen und britischen Heer 1914-1918 , Göttingen, 1998: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
• Jones, Heather: Violence against prisoners of war in the First World War. Britain, France, and Germany, 1914-1920 , Cambridge; New York, 2011: Cambridge University Press.
• Kollwitz, Käthe, Bohnke-Kollwitz, Jutta (ed.): Die Tagebücher, 1908-1943 , Munich, 1999: Goldmann.
• Levsen, Sonja: Elite, Männlichkeit und Krieg. Tübinger und Cambridger Studenten, 1900-1929 , Göttingen, 2006: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
• Lipp, Anne: Meinungslenkung im Krieg. Kriegserfahrungen deutscher Soldaten und ihre Deutung 1914-1918 , Göttingen, 2003: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
• Overmans, Rüdiger (ed.): In der Hand des Feindes. Kriegsgefangenschaft von der Antike bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg , Cologne, 1999: Böhlau.
• Reimann, Aribert / Hirschfeld, Gerhard: Der große Krieg der Sprachen. Untersuchungen zur historischen Semantik in Deutschland und England zur Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs , Essen, 2000: Klartext Verlag.
• Rother, Rainer (ed.): Die letzten Tage der Menschheit. Bilder des Ersten Weltkrieges , Berlin, 1994: Das Historische Museum: Ars Nicolai.
• Schulte, Regina: Käthe Kollwitz's sacrifice , in: History Workshop Journal 1996/41, 1996, pp. 193-221.
• Ziemann, Benjamin: War experiences in rural Germany, 1914-1923 , Oxford; New York, 2007: Berg.

This text is licensed under: CC by-NC-ND 3.0 Germany - Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works.

“Halt the Hun!” third U.S. Liberty Loan campaign, poster Henry Raleigh’s poster for the third U.S. Liberty Loan campaign from 1918 shows an American Doughboy halting a German infantryman in his attempt to harm a woman and her child. Raleigh, Henry: Halt the Hun! Third U.S. Liberty Loan Campaign, poster, 1918; source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, WWI Posters, LC-USZC2-655, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93515947/ . Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Prisoners of war in late summer 1914, Cannstatt French prisoners of war are being paraded along the streets of Cannstatt by German soldiers in the late summer of 1914. Kleiber, J.: Kriegsgefangene im Spätsommer 1914, black-and-white photograph, Cannstatt, 1914; source: Stadtmuseum Bad Cannstatt, Sammlung Olaf Schulze, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Courtesy of the Stadtmuseum Bad Cannstatt.

Canadian prisoners of war, 1916 Canadian prisoners of war are standing in front of the Menen city hall, Belgium, in February 1916. Unknown photographer: Kriegsgefangene kanadische Soldaten vor dem Rathaus stehend, black-and-white photograph, Menen (Belgium), 1916; source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 104-0453, via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_104-0453,_Kanadische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg . This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en .

Vom Fels zum Meer für Deutschlands Ehr!, postcard, 1914 This German postcard from 1914 shows Wilhelm II symbolizing the “rock” and the German Navy in the background. The title reads: “Vom Fels zum Meer für Deutschlands Ehr!” (“From the rock to the sea for the honour of Germany!”). Unknown author: Vom Fels zum Meer für Deutschlands Ehr!, postcard; source: Stiftung Universität Hildesheim. Courtesy of the Stiftung Universität Hildesheim.

Hun or Home? U.S. Liberty Loan Campaign, c. 1918 Henry Raleigh’s Liberty Loan Campaign poster shows a woman clasping her child as a German soldier approaches threateningly. Raleigh, Henry: Hun or Home? Buy more Liberty Bonds, U.S. Liberty Loan Campaign, colour lithograph, 1918; source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC2-654, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002719437/ . Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Kultur und Barbarismus, caricature Caricature from a German satirical magazine responding to the accusations against a barbaric German “Kultur.” The text reads: “Seht die Kultur / und ihre Spur / Hier die Barbaren / und ihr Verfahren” (‘See the Culture and its tracks/ Here the Barbarians and their acts’). Unknown artist: Kultur und Barbarismus, caricature, Kladderadatsch, pp. 2-3, 11 October 1914, source: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/kla1914/0648 and http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/kla1914/0649 . This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en .

Deutsche ‘Barbaren’ Attempting to defuse Allied accusations of cruelty and barbarism, this magazine cover from 1915 highlighted the humane and caring conduct of the German soldiers. By showing a German captain helping a French captive it suggested that German soldiers acted according to the highest moral standards. Unknown artist: Deutsche “Barbaren”, in: Feinde ringsum!, Erzählungen aus dem Großen Krieg 1914/1915 für jung und alt, title page, n.p., n.d.; source: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, via Europeana 1914-1918, http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en/europeana/record/9200231/BibliographicResource_3000006447587 . This file has been identified as Public Domain Mark 1.0: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ .

“Have you any women-folk worth defending?”, recruitment poster The title of this Irish recruiting poster from 1915 appeals to male honour as defender of women: “Have you any women-folk worth defending?” Unknown artist, Hely’s Ltd (printer), March 1915, Dublin, Ireland. IWM (Art.IWM PST 13625), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/31624 .

It’s up to you – Protect the Nation’s honor, recruitment poster In this U.S. recruitment poster, Uncle Sam appeals to the sense of duty and honour. Schneck: It’s up to you – Protect the nation’s honor, colour lithograph, n.d.; source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-1960, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/92506221/ . Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Quarante-quatre ans après The front matter illustration “Quarante-quatre ans après” by Jules Monge (1855-1934) depicts a French soldier protecting a girl in a traditional Alsatian costume, evoking the French-Prussian War 44 years earlier. Monge, Jules: Quarante-quatre ans après, 1915, in: Nicot, Alphonse: La Grande Guerre (1914-1915), Tours 1915; source: Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 4-LH4-2764, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6353250t .

For the glory of Ireland –‘Will You Go or Must I?’, recruitment poster This Irish recruitment poster shows a woman with a rifle urging a man with a walking stick to help burning Belgium. Unknown artist: For the glory of Ireland –‘Will You Go or Must I?’, chromolithograph, 1915; source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-11005, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003668400/ . Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

“Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?”, British recruitment poster The British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee published this propaganda poster during the First World War in 1915. It shows a daughter enquiring her father about his role during the war, asking him: “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?” Lumley, Savile, 1915, Great Britain. IWM (Art.IWM PST 0311), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/17053 .

Aux Femmes du Canada, recruitment poster This is a French language version of a 1915 poster from the British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee inciting women to encourage their husbands and sons to enroll. Unknown artist, unknown date, Québec. IWM (Art.IWM PST 12444), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/31023, English Version (Art.IWM PST 11675): http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30467 .

Jungfer Lüttich sheet music Sheet music of the song “Jungfer Lüttich” telling a story about a virgin Lüttich (Liège), who once gave her heart to France, but was then forcefully taken and lustfully surrendered to her German invader. Pöllmann, Ansgar: Jungfer Lüttich, in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 82, 18 February 1915, between pp. 64 and 65; source: Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/NeueZeitschriftFrMusik1915Jg082 . This file has been identified as Public Domain Mark 1.0: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ .

German cruelty to British prisoners, poster Propaganda poster by the British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee from 1915, denouncing Germans for their savage treatment of British prisoners of war. Unknown artist, June 1915, London. IWM (Art.IWM PST 5034), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/28352 .

Prisoner of war tied to a post, Ohrdruf camp A photograph from a contemporary French volume on prisoners of war camps showing a prisoner tied to a post in a German camp at Ohrdruf (Thuringia). Unknown photographer: Le poteau au camp d’Ohrdruf, black-and-white photograph, in: Le régime des prisonniers de guerre en France at en Allemagne au regard des conventions internationales 1914-1916, Paris 1916, behind p. 70; source: Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 8-E*-1158, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1129061 . This image has been identified as public domain.

Commander of Camp Soltau passing two tied up prisoners Photograph from a contemporary French volume on a prisoners of war camp showing in the background two prisoners tied to a post in a German camp at Soltau (Lower Saxony). Unknown photographer: Le Commandant du camp de Soltau, accompagné d’un chien de police, passe devant le poteau auquel deux prisonniers sont liés, in: Le régime des prisonniers de guerre en France at en Allemagne au regard des conventions internationales 1914-1916, Paris 1916, before p. 71; source: Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 8-E*-1158, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1129061 . This image has been identified as public domain.

Kameraden, Zeichnet die Siebente Kriegsanleihe, poster, 1917 When the treasury started using images and slogans to advertise for war loan subscriptions from 1917, these often depicted soldiers as stylised, traditional heroes. This medieval knight, marching through a hail of arrows, for example, bore little resemblance to the warfare that defined the First World War. The text translates: “Comrades, Subscribe to the Seventh War Loan.” Leo Schnug, 1917, Germany. IWM (Art.IWM PST 3213), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/23938 .

Only the Navy Can Stop This, recruitment poster, 1917 This U.S. propaganda poster, printed by the U.S. Navy Publicity Bureau, shows a German soldier brandishing a sword drenched in blood and wading through a tide of women’s and children’s bodies. Rogers, William Allen: Only the Navy Can Stop This, colour lithograph, U.S.A., n.d. [ca. 1917]; source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-4963, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001700444 . Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

“Your king and country need you”, recruitment poster This British recruitment poster shows a decorated war veteran and an active soldier shaking hands. Wood, Lawson: Your King & country need you to maintain the honour and glory of the British Empire, poster for the British Parliament Recruiting Committee, colour lithograph, London, 1914; source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-10880, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003662917/ . Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

“Types” in the prisoner of war camp Zossen-Wünsdorf This photograph shows six prisoners of war of different nationality from the prisoner of war camp Zossen-Wünsdorf. They are descriped as “types”. The subtitle reads: “From left to right: Sudanese, Russian, Belgian, French, English, Turko”. Unknown photographer: Typen a. d. Gefangenenlager Zossen-Wünsdorf, black-and-white photograph, Zossen-Wünsdorf, n.d.; source: Deutsches Historisches Museum, F 52/3369, http://www.dhm.de/datenbank/dhm.php?seite=5&fld_0=BA159118 . © DHM (F 52/3369)

Why Britain is at war, poster, December 1914 This British poster from December 1914 lists the casus belli, among which one also finds “honour.” Unknown Artist, December 1914, Great Britain. IWM (Art.IWM PST 0948), http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/27859 .

For Friendship and Honour, caricature This Punch magazine illustration portrays England, in the guise of courageous “Britannia”, fighting a war of righteousness. Raven-Hill, Leonard: For Friendship and Honour, caricature, in: Punch Magazine, 12 August 1914, p. 151; source: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, 327482, http://heidicon.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/id/327482 . This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ .

The Triumph of “Culture”, caricature This caricature, “the Triumph of ‘Culture’”, published in Punch Magazine on 26 August 1914, shows the smoking ruins of a Flemish village and in the foreground a dead family. The father is slightly apart from the woman and her child. The positions of the adults imply a last desperate act of familial defence of their child, for the man is slightly in front of them and the woman’s arm is wrapped round the child. Standing over the corpses is a German officer in ceremonial uniform, thus hinting heavily at the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, holding a German flag in one hand and a pistol in the other. He looks down at the bodies without any sign of emotion: he is an unfeeling war machine. Partridge, John Bernard: The Triumph of “Culture,” caricature, in: Punch Magazine, 26 August 1914, p. 185; source: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, 327516, http://heidicon.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/id/327516 . This file has been identified as Public Domain Mark 1.0: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ .

External Links 21

• Briefwechsel des Generals Leopold von Gerlach mit dem Bundestags-Gesandten Otto von Bismarck, 1896 (University of Oxford) (Book)
• Brooke, Rupert: War Sonnets (Fordham University) (Primary Source)
• Clausewitz, Carl von: On War, London 1873 (Internet Archive) (Book)
• Clausewitz, Carl von: Vom Kriege, Berlin 1905 (Internet Archive) (Book)
• Französische Kriegsgefangene, Deutschland 1915/1916, Kurz-Dokumentarfilm (Filmportal) (Video)
• Great speeches of the war, 1915 (Internet Archive) (Book)
• Hague Convention of 1899, Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Hague II, July 29th 1899 (Yale Law School Avalon Project) (Primary Source)
• Hansard transcripts of debates in House of Commons and Lords, speeches by Herbert Asquith (UK Parliament) (Database)
• Kaiser Wilhelm II., Ansprachen zum Ausbruch des I. Weltkrieges (Balkonreden), 31. Juli und 1. August 1914 (100(0) Schlüsseldokumente) (Article)
• Kaiser Wilhelm II, Aufruf an das deutsche Volk, 6 August 1914 (Internet Archive) (Audio)
• Latzko, Andreas: Men in War, Los Angeles 1918 (Internet Archive) (Book)
• Lloyd George, David: Honour and Dishonour, A Speech, London, 19 September 1914 (Internet Archive) (Primary Source)
• Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History: Why we are at war: Great Britain's case, 1914 (Internet Archive) (Article)
• Nicholas’ Imperial Manifesto, 2 August 1914 (C.T. Evans History Page) (Primary Source)
• Reichstagsrede Kaiser Wilhelms II., 4. August 1914 (Reichstagsprotokolle) (Article)
• The Hague Convention of 1907, V. Convention Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land (Avalon Project) (Primary Source)
• Treitschke, Heinrich von: Politics, volume 1, New York 1916 (Internet Archive) (Article)
• Treitschke, Heinrich von: Politics, volume 2, London 1916 (Internet Archive) (Article)
• Völkermanifest Kaiser Franz Josephs 1914 (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv) (Article)
• Warnod, André: Prisonnier de guerre, notes et croquis rapportés d'Allemagne, Paris 1915 (Internet Archive) (Book)
• Witkop, Philipp (ed.): Kriegsbriefe deutscher Studenten, Gotha 1916 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) (Book)

External Links

Table of contents

Ute Frevert: Wartime Emotions: Honour, Shame, and the Ecstasy of Sacrifice, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10409

• Introduction
• Project Overview
• Team/Contact
• Legal Notice
• Data Protection Statement
• Accessibility Statement

Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation ? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Current Issue

• October 7, 2022

Is There Any Honor In War?

It’s time for us to begin seeing war not as our making but our unmaking—as democracy’s undoing as well as the brutal thing it truly is..

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com . To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.

So Many Defeats, So Little Honesty

The rise and fall of new york clubbing the rise and fall of new york clubbing.

Books & the Arts / Kevin Lozano

There’s Another Way to Hold Netanyahu Accountable for the Gaza Genocide There’s Another Way to Hold Netanyahu Accountable for the Gaza Genocide

The enduring influence of marx’s masterpiece the enduring influence of marx’s masterpiece.

Books & the Arts / Wendy Brown

Donald Trump's Weak Ground Game Could Be His Undoing Donald Trump's Weak Ground Game Could Be His Undoing

Chris Lehmann

War Is Brutal

Two books to help us see the lies, an epigram from goethe, latest from the nation, foreign policy, stop killing our children, trump is spiraling, and getting creepier, about women voters, donald trump's weak ground game could be his undoing, mandate for judicial supremacy, genocide and ethnic cleansing, there’s another way to hold netanyahu accountable for the gaza genocide, editor's picks.

VIDEO: People in Denmark Are a Lot Happier Than People in the United States. Here’s Why.

Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy

The Honor of War: Core Value of the Warrior Ethos and Principle of the Law of War

Chicago-Kent Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2018

32 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2018

Nicholas W. Mull

Independent

Date Written: August 1, 2017

Recognition of, and understanding of, honor as one of the foundational principles of the law of war is critical to advancing the humanitarian interests of the law of war, along with maximizing compliance. There are three concepts civilization has employed throughout history to regulate human behavior: morality, the law, and honor. The first part of this paper seeks to provide a better anthropological understanding of the concept of honor to distinguish it from anachronistic ideas that offend our modern notions of equality and dignity. It also explores the history of the dynamic relationship between these three concepts to show: one, honor has generally proven to be the dominant concept to cause people to conform conduct to expected social norms; and two, that maximum compliance with social mores is found when all three concepts align. Second, the author uses his expertise in martial culture to provide the outsider with an understanding of the power of martial honor culture. The second part of the paper illustrates how honor is in fact the progenitor principle of the law of war, and international law generally. Ultimately, it concludes that the law of war must be promulgated through an understanding of martial honor culture to further its objectives and maximize compliance in the fog of war.

Keywords: law of war, honor, international humanitarian law, principle, law of armed conflict, war, military, martial, culture

JEL Classification: K33

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Nicholas Mull (Contact Author)

Independent ( email ), do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on ssrn, paper statistics, related ejournals, public international law: human rights ejournal.

Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic

Human Rights eJournal

Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic

Honor, War, and the Monarchical Regime in Shakespeare’s “Henry V”

• June 1, 2022

Mark Harding

• Articles , Arts & Culture Articles , Politics Articles

William Shakespeare’s The Life of Henry V addresses perirenal questions concerning the human condition and the justifications for war. [1] Shakespeare’s play illustrates how the causes of war cannot be explained by simply narrow self-interest or Realpolitik . It is debatable, for example, whether it was in England’s interest to invade France; to the extent that it was not in England’s interest, a Realpolitik interpretation fails to explain all the actions and motivations of Shakespeare’s characters, and especially those of its title character. This essay focuses on is the role of honor . References to honor appear frequently and prominently throughout the play, and these references can be explained in large part due to the fact that monarchical forms of government—more than other political regimes—rely upon the principle of honor.

This essay begins by establishing the pervasiveness of honor within monarchical regimes, a feature that has been established throughout regime-based analyses in the history of political thought. after demonstrating the relationship between honor and monarchies, this essay draws upon prominent examples from henry v , specifically henry’s appeal to honor as an impetus for invading france as well as to motivate and sustain his troops in battle. in developing this argument, my intent is not to prove that henry always behaved honorably. [2] rather, henry’s appeals to honor help explain his success in light of the necessity of appearing honorable, and bestowing honor upon those as the head of state in a monarchical regime. the primary examples of this behavior include henry’s public justification for invading france after receiving an insult from the french court, and his famous speeches at the battles of harfleur and agincourt. as the war develops, henry often changes his reasons for why england must invade and conqueror france, but always returns to emphasizing honor. in particular, this essay focuses on three different ways where honor plays a role in justifying war: henry’s public justification for war, which comes in response to his personal honor being disrespected; his appeal to england’s national honor at harfleur; and finally, his appeal to each soldier’s individual honor at agincourt., regime politics: honor and monarchies, interpreting shakespeare as a political thinker, [3] or more specifically, as someone concerned with the concept of the regime, [4] is far from novel. for scholars like paul cantor, there is evidence that shakespeare understood the importance of regime types. he points to the differences such as the shakespeare’s englishmen are distinct from his romans and perhaps even more to the point, his romans act differently under empire then than they do under a republican regime. [5] discussions of the regime must begin with their origins in the ancient world., beginning in plato’s republic , socrates explains to the interlocutors that seeing justice in an individual soul is difficult, and therefore viewing justice through an individual city may be more conducive to its understanding. by suggesting there would be “more justice in the bigger” (making it easier to observe), this would allow them to consider “the likeness of the bigger in the idea of the littler.” [6] the implication of socrates’ discussion of the regime is that there is a relationship between individual souls and the soul (or constitution) of the city. the regime is often defined as: the form or shape of society, determined by who rules, a specific principle of justice, and the sentiments that dominate the society. [7] some have even gone so far to assert that the regime is most important cause and political fact of all other causes. [8], ancient thinkers since plato, particularly aristotle, sought to identify categorize different regime types based upon these characteristics in either their pure of corrupted forms. for instance, aristocracies and oligarchies were both rule by the few, but the former was said to foster virtue (because of its pure form) while later was characterized by greed for money (as it constituted a “corrupted” form). regardless of the regime type one inhabits, the society will celebrate those individuals to the degree that they fulfill the prevailing image of the best kind of man. [9] put another way, the regime establishes more or less forms of legitimate membership within the community. along with membership, the regime also specifies not only who rules but also how certain ways of life ought to be venerated and enjoy more public legitimacy. [10] this might mean, for example, the individual most celebrated in an islamic republic might be a cleric or the wealthy entrepreneur in an oligarchy., this essay is concerned with monarchical regimes types, insofar as henry v concerns a war between two monarchies, england and france. one of the most serious students of monarchy is montesquieu, who, according one observer, “rivals aristotle as an analyst of political regimes.” [11] montesquieu, like the ancients before him, distinguished between the political forms or nature (i.e., who rules) and the principle (i.e., definition of justice) of each regime. the political form of monarchy, one rules, but is somewhat constrained by laws and custom. with respect to its animating principle of justice, “the principle…of monarchy is honor .” [12] honor, montesquieu claims, “makes all parts of the body politic move; it binds them by its own actions; & it happens that each pursues the common good.” [13] in short, within monarchies, honor is the political currency that “can inspire the most admirable actions” and be relied upon to “subordinat[e the] selfish pursuit of individual interest to the common good.” [14] let us now turn to the applicability of this view of monarchy in shakespeare., henry’s personal honor, montesquieu suggests honor sustains monarchies, and in henry v , this is evident early on in shakespeare’s play. the play opens with two english clergymen, the archbishop of canterbury and ely, conspiring in hopes of distracting henry into invading france as a way to avoid a potential political conflict between the church and the crown. part of this conspiracy is to convince henry that there is a legal justification for invading france via a narrow and dubious interpretation of salic law that would allow henry to be both the rightful heir to both the french and english thrones. [15] upon receiving the archbishop’s counsel, henry is persuaded by canterbury’s justification, particularly when he suggests the war would also fulfill god’s will: “now are we well resolved, and by god’s help.” [16] notably, henry has already made up his mind before he meets the dauphin’s ambassadors., the french ambassador (on instruction from the french king’s son, the dauphin) insults henry by giving him tennis balls as a gift, suggesting his youthfulness makes him more fit to play games than rule. earlier in the play, canterbury and ely remark how in henry’s youth, before becoming king, his behavior was characterized as someone who enjoyed, drink, play and leisure over the business of state. canterbury says,, the courses of his youth promised it not. the breath no sooner left his father’s body but that his wildness, mortified in him, seemed to die too; yea; at the very moment consideration like an angel came and whipped th’ offending adam out of him, leaving his body as a paradise t’ envelop and contain celestial spirits. never was such a sudden scholar made. [17], by suggesting they are “blessed in the change,” [18] his remarks illustrate that immediately after henry’s father died, he changed overnight from disengaged prince into an impressive ruler and statesman. throughout the play, the french court, but especially the dauphin, underestimates henry’s abilities, writing him off as an adolescent pushover. [19], this dismissive attitude is further exhibited by the ambassador’s interaction with henry, in which he tells henry that the dauphin “says that you savor too much of your youth.” [20] this is evidence that the dauphin is unaware of the change in character henry has experienced, “he therefore sends you, meter for your spirit, this tun of treasure; and in lieu of this” and gives henry tennis balls as a gift. [21] this is clearly intended to be a slight against henry, suggesting that he is someone who would rather play a game than participate in serious diplomacy.  henry leaps at the rhetorical opportunity presented to him by the ambassador via the arrogant dauphin.  henry proceeds to turn the taunt of the dauphin into a justification for england’s coming military reprisal:, tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler … but tell the dauphin i will keep my state be like a king, and show my sail of greatness … but i will rise there with so full a glory … and tell the pleasant prince this mock of his hath turned his balls to gunstones. [22], this passage reveals that henry’s is ensuring that there will be consequences to the dauphin’s insult. henry first draws upon both personal outrage towards the taunt, and subsequently conflates his personal honor with that of this political office. although henry had already made up his mind with respect to legal and religious justifications for going to war, the first public justification in front of his own courtiers is make the conflict a matter of this personal honor as king., harfleur and national honor, during siege of harfleur, we see harry’s rhetorical use of honor extend to battle. because this battle would have featured a siege by the english on the french town, we can assume that it would have been especially taxing [23] upon henry’s forces (he tells his troops “close the wall up with your english dead” [24] ). therefore, it is not surprising that henry had to rally his men to carry on the battle. henry’s famous “once more unto the breach” [25] speech draws heavily upon the importance of honor as a means by which to justifying to his men why they must rise once again attack. importantly, henry’s attempt to rally his men makes no reference to salic law, god or piety. rather, his appeal to honor focuses heavily on the troops’ national honor as englishmen (“on, on, you noble english,” “noble luster in your eyes”). [26] in fighting, they are not merely fighting for their king but for their countrymen and their ancestors (“whose blood is fet from fathers from fathers of war-proof,” …“dishonor not your mother,” [27] ) and challenge his men to test the “mettle of [their] pasture.” [28] despite the quasi-nationalistic appeal, it is telling that henry finishes his battle cry with “god for harry, england, and saint george.” [29] this signifies that henry, as king, is not just another englishman fighting alongside his own; more significant, he is their ruler. in terms of honor, and by extension regime politics, this is significant, because of the way in which honor moves top-down in a monarchical regime: “honor belongs intrinsically to the king, who is the foundation for others.” [30], henry’s speech at harfleur is significant insofar as henry changes the emphasis from the infringement of his personal honor by the french into a matter of national pride, which is a matter that concerns the honor of his troops. rather than geo-political or religious justifications, henry uses this “honorary” justification as a way to motivate his troops to secure an early and important victory in the war. while such a speech may not have as much currency in a democracy, it is particularly relevant in the context of monarchical politics., agincourt and individual honor, during the lead up of the famous battle of agincourt, the english troops are rattled about being outnumbered by the heavily armored french forces. henry brilliantly uses honor to turn these concerns into a rallying cry. he welcomes this development for those on the battlefield: “the fewer men, the greater share of honor.” [31] in his saint crispin’s day speech, he expands upon this position by claiming that those who were not present for the battle that day would be missing out something truly glorious and historic:, but if it be a sin to covet honor, i am the most offending soul alive. no, faith, my coz, wish not a man from england. god’s peace i would not lose so great an honor as one man more methinks would from share from me for the best hope i have. o, do not wish one more [32], one can gather that henry is suggesting that there is a finite amount of honor to garner on such an occasion., henry’s famous verses from the saint crispin’s day speech demonstrate yet another evolution in making appeals to honor:, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds this blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition. [33], this speech, like the one at harfleur, is notable as much for what is said as for what is not said. this speech emphasizes the importance of individual glory, pride, and honor for having the chance to be in battle that day for the english. [34] once more, this speech omits the legal and religious justifications for war. however, henry goes even further, making little reference to the nationalistic fervor from harfleur; the only references to england appear in the form of describing how non-combatant englishmen will be missing out. what is left is an egalitarian appeal, suggesting individual honor is the chief motivation for victory., the behavior of the french forces at agincourt can also be explained in terms of honor. the role honor plays in war helps to explain why individuals go to battle with one another. honor explains why people fight for reasons other than self-interest alone. the battle of agincourt for instance, featured the french forces knowing full well that they would be defeated, but still the french nobleman bourbon ordered his remaining troops to charge one more time into the english forces rather than retreat:, let us die in honor. once more back again and he that will not follow bourbon now, let him go hence, and with his cap in hand like a base pander hold the chamber door whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog … let life be short, else shame will be too long. [35], these words (and actions [36] ) can be rationalized in terms of pride and honor. for bourbon, anything other than charging into certain death at this point would be a shameful act., this essay used textual evidence from henry v to illustrate that monarchies are especially prone to championing the importance of honor. the nature of regime politics necessarily grapples with evaluating those individuals whose behavior reinforces the most admirable qualities the regime attempts to foster:, the character, or tone, of a society depends on what the society regards as most respectable or most worthy of admiration. but by regarding certain habits or attitudes as most respectable, a society admits the superiority, the superior dignity, of those human beings who most perfectly embody the habits or attitudes in question. that is to say, every society regards a specific human type (or a specific mixture of human types) as authoritative. [37], throughout shakespeare’s play, his title character draws upon the concept of honor as a tool for successful leadership. this is consistent with the literature concerning the connection between monarchical regimes and honor being the characteristic way of life that undergirds them. this evident from both henry’s words and actions. henry first uses the dauphin’s insult as to further bolster his case for invading france despite the fact he already had legal and theological justifications. in the battle of harfleur, henry changes this to appeal to a form of english nationalism; at agincourt, he emphasizes that individual honor is the most important trait of all. with respect to justifying war, henry changes his emphasis depending upon the circumstances, but it always contains some component of honor., this essay has demonstrated the insights that can be garnered from looking at shakespeare as a political thinker. there is a growing body of scholarship positing that shakespeare took the concept of the regime seriously. other prominent scholars have illustrated that shakespeare’s history provides a venue to reflect on persistence questions of political life throughout time., [1] william shakespeare, the life of henry v: with new and updated critical essays and a revised bibliography , ed. john russell brown, (new york: signet classic, [1623] 1998)., [2] to point to just one example, henry’s speech at harfleur threatens the rape, infanticide, and butchery of the town inhabitants if they do not yield. see henry v , 3.3. 33-43., [3] john alvis and thomas g. west, eds, shakespeare as political thinker (durham: north carolina press, 1981)., [4] paul a. cantor, “literature and politics: understanding the regime,” ps: political science and politics 28, no. 2 (1995): 192-95., [5] paul a. cantor, shakespeare’s rome: republic and empire (chicago: university of chicago press, 2017), 4-5., [6] plato, the republic of plato , 2 nd ed. trans. allan bloom (new york: basic books, 1991), bk. ii, 369a, emphasis added., [7] james w. ceaser, liberal democracy and political science (baltimore: john hopkins university, 1990), 41., [8] bloom, “interpretative essay,” in the republic of plato , 414., [9] rainer knopff, “quebec’s ‘holy war’ as ‘regime’ politics: reflections on the guibord case,” canadian journal of political science 12, no. 2 (1979): 324., [10] leo strauss, natural right and history (chicago: university of chicago press, 1953), 137., [11] paul a. rahe, soft despotism, democracy’s drift: montesquieu, rousseau, tocqueville, and the modern project (new haven: yale university press, 2009), 13., [12] ibid ., emphasis added., [13] ibid ., 25., [14] nannerl o. keohane, “virtuous republics and glorious monarchies: two models in montesquieu’s political thought,” political studies 20, no. 4 (1972): 389; see also rahe, soft despotism , 25., [15] henry v , 1.2.11-14, 33-42; theodor meron, “shakespeare’s henry the fifth and the law of war,” the american journal of international law 86, no. 1 (1992): 6-8., [16] henry v , 1.2. 222., [17] ibid ., 1.1. 24-32., [18] ibid ., 1.1. 38., [19] ibid ., 2.4. 130-31, dauphin: “to that end, as matching to his youth and vanity”., [20] ibid ., 1.2. 250., [21] ibid ., l.2. 254-55., [22] ibid ., l.2. 264, 273-74, 278, 281-82., [23] ibid ., 3.3.1-45; see also, meron, “shakespeare’s henry the fifth and the law of war,” 21-22., [24] ibid ., 3.1. 1-2., [25] ibid. , 3.1. 1-35., [26] ibid. , 3.l. 17, 30., [27] ibid. , 3.l. 17, 22., [28] ibid. , 3.l.  27., [29] ibid. , 3.1. 35., [30] harry v. jaffa, “the unity of tragedy, comedy, and history: an interpretation of the shakespearean universe,” shakespeare as political thinker , eds., john alvis and thomas g. west (durham: north carolina press, 1981), 293., [31] shakespeare, henry v , 4.3. 23., [32] shakespeare, henry v , 4.3.28-33, on this point later in the passage, henry remarks that “and gentlemen in england, now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here” (l.64-65). again, the national pride has given away to individual pride of being on the battlefield that day., [33] ibid, 4.3.60-63., [34] the sentiment about chance is reflective of paul rahe’s observation that in terms of honor, “monarchies are ruled by something like adam smith’s ‘invisible hand’ in soft despotism , 25., [35] ibid ., 4.5. 12-16, 24., [36] for details of the actual events of this charge, see john keegan, “agincourt, 25 october 1415,” the face of battle (london: jonathan cape, 1976), 84., [37] strauss, natural right and history , 137..

Mark Harding is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Guelph. His research and teaching focus on constitutionalism, political theory, and the Canadian Constitution in a comparative context.

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Related Posts

• previous post: Irony and the Meaning of Human Existence: The Wisdom of Classical Irony
• next post: Iris Murdoch: Bringing Philosophy Back to Life

Subscribe to VoegelinView via Email

Stay informed with the best in arts and humanities criticism, political analysis, reviews, and poetry. Just enter your email to receive every new publication delivered to your inbox.

Email Address

Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more: https://www.cambridge.org/universitypress/about-us/news-and-blogs/cambridge-university-press-publishing-update-following-technical-disruption

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings .

Login Alert

• > Journals
• > World Politics
• > Volume 68 Issue 2
• > Honor and War

Article contents

Honor and war.

Southern US Presidents and the Effects of Concern for Reputation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2016

• Supplementary materials

Reputation has long been considered central to international relations, but unobservability, strategic selection, and endogeneity have handicapped quantitative research. A rare source of haphazard variation in the cultural origins of leaders-the fact that one-third of US presidents were raised in the American South, a well-studied example of a culture of honor-provides an opportunity to identify the effects of heightened concern for reputation for resolve. A formal theory that yields several testable predictions while accounting for unobserved selection into disputes is offered. The theory is illustrated through a comparison of presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and systematically tested using matching, permutation inference, and the nonparametric combination of tests. Interstate conflicts under Southern presidents are shown to be twice as likely to involve uses of force, last on average twice as long, and are three times more likely to end in victory for the United States than disputes under non-Southern presidents. Other characteristics of Southern presidencies do not seem able to account for this pattern of results. Theresults provide evidence that concern for reputation is an important cause of interstate conflict behavior.

Dafoe supplementary material

Dafoe supplementary material 1

This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref .

• Google Scholar

View all Google Scholar citations for this article.

Save article to Kindle

To save this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle .

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

• Volume 68, Issue 2
• Allan Dafoe and Devin Caughey
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887115000416

Save article to Dropbox

To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox .

Save article to Google Drive

To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive .

Reply to: Submit a response

- No HTML tags allowed - Web page URLs will display as text only - Lines and paragraphs break automatically - Attachments, images or tables are not permitted

Your details

Your email address will be used in order to notify you when your comment has been reviewed by the moderator and in case the author(s) of the article or the moderator need to contact you directly.

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests.

Please list any fees and grants from, employment by, consultancy for, shared ownership in or any close relationship with, at any time over the preceding 36 months, any organisation whose interests may be affected by the publication of the response. Please also list any non-financial associations or interests (personal, professional, political, institutional, religious or other) that a reasonable reader would want to know about in relation to the submitted work. This pertains to all the authors of the piece, their spouses or partners.

Brill | Nijhoff

Brill | Wageningen Academic

Brill Germany / Austria

Böhlau

Brill | Fink

Brill | mentis

Brill | Schöningh

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

V&R unipress

Open Access

Open Access for Authors

Transformative Agreements

Open Access and Research Funding

Open Access for Librarians

Open Access for Academic Societies

Discover Brill’s Open Access Content

Organization

Stay updated

Corporate Social Responsiblity

Investor Relations

Policies, rights & permissions

Review a Brill Book

Author Portal

How to publish with Brill: Files & Guides

Fonts, Scripts and Unicode

Publication Ethics & COPE Compliance

Data Sharing Policy

Brill MyBook

Ordering from Brill

Author Newsletter

Piracy Reporting Form

Sales Managers and Sales Contacts

Ordering From Brill

Titles No Longer Published by Brill

Catalogs, Flyers and Price Lists

E-Book Collections Title Lists and MARC Records

How to Manage your Online Holdings

LibLynx Access Management

Discovery Services

KBART Files

MARC Records

Online User and Order Help

Rights and Permissions

Latest Key Figures

Latest Financial Press Releases and Reports

Annual General Meeting of Shareholders

Share Information

Specialty Products

Press and Reviews

Napoleon and the Operational Art of War

Essays in honor of donald d. horward. (revised and extended edition).

Prices from (excl. shipping):

• Paperback: €74.00
• E-Book (PDF): €74.00
• View PDF Flyer

Copyright Page

Figures – maps, contributors, the coalitions against france, introduction, the prophet guibert, the french way of war, the campaign against piedmont-sardinia, april 1796, napoleon’s first italian campaign, 1796-1797, the second italian campaign, 1805: ulm and austerlitz, the jena campaign: apogee and perihelion, napoleon’s operational warfare during the first polish campaign, 1806–1807, an ulcer inflamed: napoleon’s campaign in spain, 1808, 1809: the most brilliant and skillful maneuvers, the limits of the operational art: russia 1812, prometheus chained, 1813–1815, napoleon’s war at sea, britain’s royal navy and the defeat of napoleon, biographical note, share link with colleague or librarian, product details.

• Early Modern History
• History of Warfare

Collection Information

• Early Modern History and Modern History E-Books Online, Collection 2021

Related Content

Reference Works

Primary source collections

COVID-19 Collection

How to publish with Brill

Open Access Content

Contact & Info

Sales contacts

Publishing contacts

Stay Updated

Newsletters

Social Media Overview

Terms and Conditions  

Privacy Statement  

Cookie Settings  

Accessibility

Legal Notice

Terms and Conditions   |   Privacy Statement   |  Cookie Settings   |   Accessibility   |  Legal Notice   |  Copyright © 2016-2024

Copyright © 2016-2024

• [81.177.182.159]
• 81.177.182.159

Character limit 500 /500

• KSAT Insider
• KSAT Connect
• Entertainment

Family of Black World War II combat medic will finally receive his medal for heroism

Rebecca Santana

Associated Press

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

FILE - Steve Woodson speaks during a medal ceremony for his father, Cpl. Waverly B. Woodson Jr., to be posthumously honored with the Bronze Star and Combat Medic Badge on Oct. 11, 2023 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)

WASHINGTON – Waverly B. Woodson Jr., who was part of the only African American combat unit involved in the D-Day invasion during World War II, spent more than a day treating wounded troops under heavy German fire — all while injured himself. Decades later, his family is receiving the Distinguished Service Cross he was awarded posthumously for his heroism.

Woodson, who died in 2005, received the second-highest honor that can be bestowed on a member of the Army in June, just days before the 80th anniversary of Allied troops' landing in Normandy, France.

Recommended Videos

His widow, Joann, his son Steve and other family will be presented with the medal Tuesday during a ceremony in Washington hosted by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

The award marked an important milestone in a yearslong campaign by his widow, Van Hollen and Woodson's supporters in the military who have pushed for greater recognition of his efforts that day. Ultimately, they would like to see him honored with the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration that can be awarded by the U.S. government and one long denied to Black troops who served in World War II.

If Woodson is awarded the Medal of Honor, it would be the “final step in the decades-long pursuit of justice and the recognition befitting of Woodson’s valor,” Van Hollen said in a statement.

Troops from Woodson's former unit, First Army, took the Distinguished Service Cross — which is awarded for extraordinary heroism — to France and in an intimate ceremony laid the medal in the sands of Omaha Beach, where a 21-year-old Woodson came ashore decades earlier.

At a time when the U.S. military was still segregated by race, about 2,000 African American troops are believed to have taken part in the invasion that proved to be a turning point in pushing back the Nazis and eventually ending World War II.

On June 6, 1944 , Woodson’s unit, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, was responsible for setting up balloons to deter enemy planes. Two shells hit his landing craft, and he was wounded before even getting to the beach.

After the vessel lost power, it was pushed toward the shore by the tide, and Woodson likely had to wade ashore under intense enemy fire.

He spoke to the AP in 1994 about that day.

“The tide brought us in, and that’s when the 88s hit us,” he said of the German 88mm guns. “They were murder. Of our 26 Navy personnel, there was only one left. They raked the whole top of the ship and killed all the crew. Then they started with the mortar shells.”

For the next 30 hours, Woodson treated 200 wounded men — all while small arms and artillery fire pummeled the beach. Eventually, he collapsed from his injuries and blood loss, according to accounts of his service. At the time, he was awarded the Bronze Star .

In an era of intense racial discrimination, not a single one of the 1.2 million Black Americans who served in the military during World War II was awarded the Medal of Honor. It wasn't until the early 1990s that the Army commissioned a study to analyze whether Black troops had been unjustly overlooked.

Ultimately, seven Black World War II troops were awarded the Medal of Honor in 1997.

At the time, Woodson was considered for the award and he was interviewed. But, officials wrote, his decoration case file couldn’t be found, and his personnel records were destroyed in a 1973 fire at a military records facility.

Woodson’s supporters believe not just that he is worthy of the Medal of Honor but that there was a recommendation at the time to award it to him that has been lost.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Veterans — My Pledge to Our Veterans: Honoring Sacrifice and Commitment

My Pledge to Our Veterans: Honoring Sacrifice and Commitment

• Categories: Honor Veterans

About this sample

Words: 717 |

Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 717 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

1. recognition and gratitude, 2. supporting their transition, 3. advocating for policies and initiatives, 4. educating others, 5. encouraging civic engagement, conclusion: a pledge of gratitude and action.

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Life Government & Politics

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 923 words

3 pages / 1473 words

2 pages / 803 words

1 pages / 624 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Veterans

In societies around the world, individuals who have served in the military are often revered as heroes. The term "hero" is commonly associated with bravery, sacrifice, and service, attributes that are undeniably embodied by [...]

Heroes come in many forms, and among them are the men and women who have served in the armed forces of their countries. Veterans are often hailed as heroes, but what is it about their service that earns them this esteemed title? [...]

Veterans Day is a significant and revered holiday in the United States, a day when we come together to pay tribute to the brave men and women who have served in the Armed Forces. In this comprehensive essay, we will examine the [...]

The history of Veterans Day dates back to November 11, 1919, when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the day as Armistice Day to commemorate the end of World War I. In 1954, the holiday was renamed Veterans Day to honor all [...]

Honoring veterans is a crucial duty that society must uphold to show gratitude and respect for the sacrifices made by these brave men and women. This essay will explore the importance of honoring veterans, tracing its history [...]

War can have a profound psychological impact on veterans and civilians alike. The trauma of war can manifest in a variety of ways, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and other mental health [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Family of Black World War II combat medic will finally receive his medal for heroism

FILE - Steve Woodson speaks during a medal ceremony for his father, Cpl. Waverly B. Woodson Jr., to be posthumously honored with the Bronze Star and Combat Medic Badge on Oct. 11, 2023 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Kevin Wolf]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Waverly B. Woodson Jr., who was part of the only African American combat unit involved in the D-Day invasion during World War II, spent more than a day treating wounded troops under heavy German fire — all while injured himself. Decades later, his family is receiving the Distinguished Service Cross he was awarded posthumously for his heroism.

Woodson, who died in 2005, received the second-highest honor that can be bestowed on a member of the Army in June, just days before the 80th anniversary of Allied troops’ landing in Normandy, France.

His widow, Joann, his son Steve and other family will be presented with the medal Tuesday during a ceremony in Washington hosted by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

The award marked an important milestone in a yearslong campaign by his widow, Van Hollen and Woodson’s supporters in the military who have pushed for greater recognition of his efforts that day. Ultimately, they would like to see him honored with the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration that can be awarded by the U.S. government and one long denied to Black troops who served in World War II.

If Woodson is awarded the Medal of Honor, it would be the “final step in the decades-long pursuit of justice and the recognition befitting of Woodson’s valor,” Van Hollen said in a statement.

Troops from Woodson’s former unit, First Army, took the Distinguished Service Cross — which is awarded for extraordinary heroism — to France and in an intimate ceremony laid the medal in the sands of Omaha Beach, where a 21-year-old Woodson came ashore decades earlier.

At a time when the U.S. military was still segregated by race, about 2,000 African American troops are believed to have taken part in the invasion that proved to be a turning point in pushing back the Nazis and eventually ending World War II.

On June 6, 1944 , Woodson’s unit, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, was responsible for setting up balloons to deter enemy planes. Two shells hit his landing craft, and he was wounded before even getting to the beach.

After the vessel lost power, it was pushed toward the shore by the tide, and Woodson likely had to wade ashore under intense enemy fire.

He spoke to the AP in 1994 about that day.

“The tide brought us in, and that’s when the 88s hit us,” he said of the German 88mm guns. “They were murder. Of our 26 Navy personnel, there was only one left. They raked the whole top of the ship and killed all the crew. Then they started with the mortar shells.”

For the next 30 hours, Woodson treated 200 wounded men — all while small arms and artillery fire pummeled the beach. Eventually, he collapsed from his injuries and blood loss, according to accounts of his service. At the time, he was awarded the Bronze Star .

In an era of intense racial discrimination, not a single one of the 1.2 million Black Americans who served in the military during World War II was awarded the Medal of Honor. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that the Army commissioned a study to analyze whether Black troops had been unjustly overlooked.

Ultimately, seven Black World War II troops were awarded the Medal of Honor in 1997.

At the time, Woodson was considered for the award and he was interviewed. But, officials wrote, his decoration case file couldn’t be found, and his personnel records were destroyed in a 1973 fire at a military records facility.

Woodson’s supporters believe not just that he is worthy of the Medal of Honor but that there was a recommendation at the time to award it to him that has been lost.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Advertisement

Supported by

Israel and Hezbollah Threaten to Hit Harder, Raising Fears of All-Out War

A leader of the Iranian-backed militia said its latest barrage was “just the beginning,” and an Israeli military official said, “Our strikes will intensify.”

• Share full article

By Adam Rasgon Euan Ward Hwaida Saad and Ken Belson

Adam Rasgon reported from Jerusalem, and Euan Ward and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and a top Hezbollah leader vowed on Sunday to increase the intensity of their cross-border attacks, raising fears that the renewed conflict could escalate into all-out war.

The Hezbollah official, the deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem, said the Lebanese militia had entered “a new stage” of open warfare against Israel, while Mr. Netanyahu said his nation would take “whatever action is necessary” to diminish the threat posed by its adversary.

The statements came after a tumultuous week of hostilities.

Early on Sunday, Hezbollah launched about 150 rockets , cruise missiles and drones, according to the Israeli military, targeting what appeared to be the deepest areas it has hit in Israel since the group began firing on it in October, a day after Hamas-led forces attacked southern Israel. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaging in tit-for-tat attacks.

Israel’s military said that its air defenses had intercepted most of the projectiles fired from Lebanon. One hit Kiryat Bialik , a town of 45,000 just north of Haifa. At least four people were wounded by shrapnel in northern Israel on Sunday, according to Magen David Adom, an Israeli emergency rescue service.

Referring to the strikes, Mr. Qassem said that “what happened last night is just the beginning.”

“We will kill them and fight them from where they expect and from where they do not expect,” the militant leader told thousands of people gathered in Dahiya, the Hezbollah-dominated neighborhood in southern Beirut, for the funeral of two Hezbollah commanders killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .