General's speeches

**Rodion Romanovich** · 05-31-2006, 13:57

How common were general's speeches in wars throughout history? Are there any examples of where they had an important effect to morale etc.? Would they typically contain more tactical or more morale-boosting stuff? Is there anywhere I can find more info about mainly the phrasing and contents of general's speeches in ancient times, before a war, a campaign or a battle? What would a general typically say when addressing his entire army in those times? I've seen a few quoted fragments of speeches but are there any good examples of the entire disposition and content of such a speech? Sometimes there were afaik also religious rituals, sacrifices etc. made before wars or battles, how would they typically look and were they carried out in front of the army or not?

**matteus the inbred** · 05-31-2006, 15:21

Napoleon was a well-known battlefield speech-maker, I expect that published volumes of his sayings or letters might include some or all of these.

The Samurai Sourcebook has a good section on Japanese pre-battle rituals during the 16th-17th century, both prior to campaign and prior to the immediate fighting and also some equally interesting post-battle stuff.
I'm fairly sure that speeches were not as common as Hollywood would have us believe. I suspect that most set-piece medieval fights would have had the commanders or their deputies rousing the troops, but probably with very simple war shouts like 'Dex Aie', 'England and St George' or the house or cause names during the Wars of the Roses, or William Wallace's terse 'I have brought you to the ring, now see if you can dance' at Falkirk. It's probably difficult to be heard by many men without artificial aid. The Romans used to take the omens before a battle and use trumpet signals to communicate the results.
Froissart has some quite good 100 Year's War speech descriptions as I recall.

**Duke Malcolm** · 05-31-2006, 16:22

A more recent example of a pre-battle speech:
Colonel Collins, Royal Irish Regiment

This chap has quite a way with words. My local newspaper quoted him after the Norman Kember incident, as saying "That's what happens when you go hob-nobbing with Sunni Extremists"

**orangat** · 05-31-2006, 19:18

Pre battle haranguing would probably be standard practise and common right up to the napoleonic era. The general was the figurehead and literally the nerve center in medieval times and the loss of the leader would be very disruptive and damaging to morale.

**cegorach** · 05-31-2006, 20:20

When reading about Polish battles in history the speeches were often performed to various degree, of various lenght etc. If professionals were adressed it could be one line e.g.

'In courage hope. In victory rescue. Do your duty !' - spoken before the battle at Klushino in 1610 by Hetman Zolkiewski before the battle against 35 000 large Russian-Swedish army which he attacked with 7000 Poles.
The effect of this wasn't known, in fact the commander and his soldiers were pretty sure they will win ( not a single battle was lost by Poles for about 100 year before this one) even if they were tired and enemy was behind a good defensive position.
Still I know some really morale-boosting speeches like at Chocim in 1621 before the battle against the Ottomans - it was pretty long as well.

I am just giving the examples from Polish history, because they would otherwise will never be quoted, which I hope you find interesting.

Numerous other commanders did this before battles, Napoleon was a real master, he could even inspire soldiers of quite doubtful loyalty like the German soldiers before a battle against other Germans ( i.e. Austrians).

Some commanders however couldn't speak well enough. For example Hetman Koniecpolski one of the best Polish commanders stuttered and there was even a saying -' he defeats his enemy quicker then he manages to say to do so'.