Battle Exhortation: The Rhetoric of Combat Leadership

4. Evolutions

4 Evolutions The tensions discussed in the previous chapter are inherent to the battlefield and influenced quite personally by the exhorting commander. Broadening our focus, let us now consider how environmental and audience concerns affect the discourse. To enable greater depth of treatment, I choose an era and place most familiar: U.S. battle exhortation from the past two generations. The first four sections of this chapter compare the exhortation of theater commanders over sixty years, starting with Dwight Eisenhower. This survey identifies, through war-specific and societal influences, a general evolution of the discourse from the fierce to the mild. The remaining section identifies differences in exhortation engendered by combat arm. In other words, when addressing audiences more specific than the theater at large, commanders tend to motivate troops differently. To illustrate this I compare examples from across a multifaceted (combined-arms) expeditionary group during a single operation. Eisenhower on D-Day As the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II, Eisenhower had to contend with the usual problems of theater command but on a massive scale. Responsible for the entire invasion of Normandy, he had to serve the interests of multiple nations and balance towering egos. In addition, he felt it his and his commanders’ business to cultivate high morale among the troops. One of his criteria in selecting commanders , in fact, was that they “appreciated the importance of morale and had demonstrated a capacity to develop and maintain it.” While he recognized that“methods employed by successful leaders in developing morale differ so widely as to defy any attempt to establish rules,”he felt that the principal means was personally visiting with the troops, and he insisted that he and his commanders do so.“Soldiers like to see the men who are directing operations,” Eisenhower would explain in his war memoirs.“They properly resent any indication of neglect or indifference to them on the part of their commanders and invariably interpret a visit, even a brief one, as evidence of the commander ’s concern for them. Diffidence or modesty must never blind the commander to his duty of showing himself to his men, of speaking to them, of Evolutions 111 mingling with them to the extent of physical limitations.” Contrary to “Dugout Doug” MacArthur or distant John Pope, Eisenhower personally visited twenty-odd divisions, twenty-odd airfields, and a host of warships, depots, and other installations over the four months that preceded D-Day.1 At the same time, he began preparing a traditional exhortation with the help of his staff. It would be distributed as a one-page order to all participants of the invasion shortly before the Allied armada got underway: Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940–41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle . We will accept nothing less than full victory! Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking. [Signed Dwight D. Eisenhower]2 An eye for indoctrinated topics and personally adjusted tensions finds many here: First and last there is the magnitude of the occasion, characterized by the order’s opening (“Great Crusade”) and its conclusion (“great and noble undertaking”). The...