Dawn is breaking. The soldier wakes up after an uncomfortable night spent on the ground wrapped in his coat or, if he is lucky, under a small tent he shares with his companions. Unless he had to resort to sleeping in a hole in the ground. The rhythm at which he advances determines the quality of his slumber: the Trajan legionaries would set up their leather tents within the walls of the camps they built each night, whereas Napoleon’s men, always on the move so they could surprise the enemy, avoided loading themselves down with canvas shelters, instead spreading out in barns they found when they halted or, when they had time, building little huts out of branches.
Personal hygiene, in the modern sense, did not exist before the 19th century, with the exception of certain very rudimentary practices. This is why diseases thrived in the army and were, until the late 19th century, the number one cause of death among soldiers, easily surpassing the number of deaths in combat. Later on, the spread of hygiene standards in Western societies changed the way soldiers saw their conditions, as demonstrated by the many letters sent by the poilus complaining about the terrible filth they were forced to live in in the trenches.
With the exception of the weapons and equipment specific to their professions, the medieval archer and the 17th-century musketeer both wore the same outfits as the shopkeepers of their time, varying according to their wealth and access to supplies. This meant that soldiers were often dressed in rags, forced to resort to looting or even stripping corpses to procure shoes and clothes. The rise of large centralised nations in the late 17th century and reorganisation of the growing European armies led to the adoption of uniforms determined and paid for by states. An entire textile production chain was created and the soldier, dressed in the same high-maintenance uniform as his comrades, became no more than an anonymous cog in a war machine designed to strip him of his individuality.
A soldier’s uniform is a coded costume that, even in its simplified form, like the armband worn by partisans, expresses the identity and imaginary of the man wearing it and those of the group he belongs to and fights for. In regular armies, a combatant seems to disappear behind the outfit’s deceptive uniformity. However, a whole array of insignia, only decipherable by people in the know, can be added to the uniform, revealing the soldier’s rank, speciality, unit, traditions, and even eventful episodes in his military career. Soldiers like to add personal modifications to this system, even though it means going against the rules: small alterations, graffiti, patches, accessories, or a touch of fantasy are all ways for them to appropriate their uniforms and differentiate themselves from their companions.
For thousands of years, right up until the Second World War, walking was the number one way for soldiers to get around, and they usually had to walk around 40 kilometres a day. The transport of food supplies, equipment and weapons mobilised all available resources – what we began to call ‘logistics’ in the 20th century. Transporting men, who were after all capable of walking and getting around on their own, was rare. In the 19th century, the use of trains was heavily criticised for ‘making soldiers unlearn walking’. Trains, requisitioned taxis and helicopters were therefore not used to spare the soldiers; they were a means of getting units where they were needed as fast as possible. Obliged to keep up with the rest of our speed-obsessed society, armies have recently seen the material and financial cost of transporting soldiers skyrocket. Nevertheless, even in the 21st century, these soldiers still have to tread the terrain, embed themselves in it and fight on it; their feet are therefore still as valuable as their weapons.
From ‘Marius’ mules’, the nickname given to the Roman legionaries by Plutarch in Parallel Lives, to soldiers in Afghanistan, the theoretical maximum load a foot soldier can carry is 30 kilos. In 1907, Captain Agrelli from the 144th infantry regiment even compared soldiers to snails carrying their houses on their backs! Whether at the end of a T-shaped staff, in a knapsack or in a shoulder bag, a soldier has to carry a change of clothes, personal belongings, two days’ worth of food supplies and sometimes a portable tool on top of his uniform, weapon and ammunition. Only the carrying method has really changed, with the removal of the many cartridge-pouch and sabre-holster bands, and flask and shoulder straps that applied too much pressure on the chest and restricted movement. The modern soldier carries a modular combat bag made from light and ergonomic materials designed to improve his comfort and including a flexible flask.
In the twentieth century, ammunition became the critical problem for soldiers in every army. Fighters equipped only with close-combat weapons gradually disappeared, while the bayonet lost its importance during World War I, no longer the prime weapon for infantrymen. Despite the reduction in cartridge calibre and weight, the rapid rise in the rate of fire of firearms since the 1870s made combatants far less autonomous; the six magazines of a modern-day FAMAS rifle can be emptied in two minutes of continuous fire. “Trigger discipline”, key to saving ammunition, has therefore become a major preoccupation for military staff since the late nineteenth century and a survival factor for soldiers. However, Western armies now tend to carry “double provisions” composed of 10 or more magazines, representing more than 6 kg as opposed to the 3 kg they carried in 1914.
In order to live, humans must retain a body temperature of 37°C, so that the vital organs can function correctly. The different peoples of the world have always adapted to the conditions imposed by their environment, but the issue of resistance to extreme climates, whether linked to the cold, heat or altitude, became apparent when military campaigns were led far from soldiers’ familiar surroundings. Due to a lack of suitable clothing and equipment, thousands of French and German soldiers died from the cold during the Russian Campaign of 1812 and the conflicts on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. To prevent this from happening again, armies have often recruited soldiers native to the combat zone, used to the climate where they would be waging war. Down through the centuries, armies have also had to create headgear, uniforms and equipment specifically for protecting their soldiers against dehydration, heat strokes and frostbite, all of them potentially deadly.
No matter the circumstances, a soldier on active service must have a daily ration of around 3,500 kcal in order to maintain good physical and mental strength. However, armies in contact with the enemy or on the move do not always have the option of preparing food with fixed or mobile cooking stations, like the field kitchen. In this situation, soldiers receive a combat ration, sometimes complemented by looted produce. Until the invention of tinned food in 1795 and the distribution of individual combat rations, armies used different ways of preserving food. Fruit and vegetables were dried in the sun and macerated in fortified wines sweetened with honey, vinegar or brine. Meat, particularly pork, was salted or smoked, and cooked poultry conserved in lard. As for fish, they were simply salted.
What gives a soldier the strength to hold on, despite the exhaustion, waiting, boredom and permanent sense of danger? Various elements throughout the ages, sometimes different and sometimes similar.
First of all comes the pay, the recompense: everything would become very difficult without it. Then there are the living conditions: sleep, provisions, clothing, food, moving, equipment, rest, leisure time, medical care and so on. For better or worse, they play their part in morale, boosting it or weakening it.
The relationships between officers and soldiers are also important: if they break down, discipline and cohesion will suffer. To command is to find the levels of resistance beyond which morale is damaged.
Contact, whether smooth or difficult, with civilians and with the rear (on leave and through correspondence) counts: if badly handled, it will encourage agitation and deserting.
Finally, self-perception and perception of others, convictions and beliefs underpin the groups and individuals that make up the army and give meaning to the march to the front.
Already loaded down with his weapons and the tools necessary for survival, the Ancien Régime soldier could not carry several months of supplies and ammunition, not to mention his horse’s fodder and cannonballs. Although the term “logistics” did not emerge for quite a while, the supply, transport and distribution of food, ammunition and equipment between production sites and frontlines, often quite far apart, has been a major problem since antiquity. Military logistics was a task assigned to civilian auxiliaries for many years, and was limited to basic foods and heavy-duty equipment. It gained in complexity and scope over the course of the twentieth century due to the extension of communication channels, mechanisation of transport, multiplication of essential equipment and dependence on multiple energy sources. An American soldier in Afghanistan carries 12 electronic devices containing over 70 batteries.
Along with weapons, protective items are the main elements that mark out a combatant. Made of leather or metal, such items were originally used for protection against knives and projectiles. With the development of portable firearms in the 17th and 18th centuries, helmets and heavy armour were abandoned, except for the cuirassiers, then were brought back during the First World War to protect soldiers in the trenches from shrapnel produced by field and trench artillery shells. From 1915 to the present day, armies have had to design new equipment to better protect soldiers and their animals, particularly horses, exposed to the new ‘invisible’ threats posed by chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) hazards and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). And in response to public opinion, which increasingly sees loss of human life as unacceptable, military staff have equipped every soldier with bullet-proof vests, as heavy as a medieval breastplate, although they cannot grant total and guaranteed protection.
The entire existence of soldiers revolves around preparing for combat. Combat is, no doubt about it, the moment of truth in any campaign, its goal and its purpose.
It is impossible to cover all the many aspects of combat here – it would need a dedicated exhibition. It is equally impossible not to mention it.
Like an irradiated zone we mark out while making sure we do not enter, we will therefore confine ourselves to touching on two essential and dialectically linked characteristics:
Whether a pitched battle, ambush or single shot, whether the two sides are balanced or not, combat is at the heart of the violence that is war. Soldiers throughout the ages have experienced, and continue to experience, the racing heart, dry mouth and breathlessness that mark the moments before combat.
Echoes of a body under stress, these universal symptoms are conjured up here, along with the reminder that, in every era and in every army, combat only represents a small part of the time a soldier spends in the field.
Soldiering is the only profession that implies accepting the possibility of killing and of being killed. There are many objects that tell the story of this ultimate sacrifice: those that identify the fallen; others that decorate his grave, ensuring that the final resting place will not be forgotten and reminding us of the soldier’s rank; and yet others that accompany soldiers during their career then are sent to the families or kept with them on their final journey. But soldiers are very far from being equal when it comes to recognition for posterity: for the few well-known figures, how many anonymous corpses have been hastily thrown into a pit after the battle? It was not until 1862, during the Civil War, that the idea of providing combatants with individual metal name plates was brought up – unsuccessfully to begin with. Repatriating the fallen is a practice that became widespread only in the second half of the twentieth century, and the organisation in France of individual homages is even more recent: a ceremony is held for every fallen soldier at the Hôtel National des Invalides.
Once the fallen have been paid due homage and buried, the living still need to be cared for, which can be a much longer process depending on the severity or nature of the wounds. Soldiers have always died in combat, but military healthcare is a field that has undergone significant progress since the late nineteenth century. Before then, warfare was much less deadly than poor sanitary conditions; it has been estimated that over half of the 4,500,000 French soldiers enlisted between 1792 and 1815 died of disease, compared to 150,000 who died in combat. The progress made in sanitisation, anaesthesia, blood transfusions, reconstructive surgery and functional rehabilitation has not eliminated the suffering of war, but has allowed many more combatants to survive despite the mutilations they may have suffered. Insidious and ignored for too long, psychological injuries – euphemistically described as “nostalgia” by nineteenth-century doctors – are a reality for soldiers exposed to trauma, and risk compromising their careers and seriously affecting their mental equilibrium and that of their loved ones.
