Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage

by Walter B. Cannon

Physical Substitutes for Warfare

The idealization of the state and the devotion of service to social welfare, which have been suggested as moral substitutes for military loyalty, leave unanswered the claims of the militarists that in war and in preparations for war opportunities are offered which are peculiarly favorable to the development of important physical qualities—bodily vigor, sturdiness, and ability to withstand all manner of hardships.

In the evidence previously presented, it seems to me there was a suggestion that offers a pertinent alternative to these claims. When the body goes onto what we have called a war footing, the physiological changes that suddenly occur are all adapted to the putting forth of supreme muscular and nervous efforts. That was what primitive battle consisted of, through countless myriads of generations—a fierce physical contest of beast with beast, and of man with man. Such contests, attended as they were by the thrill of unpredictable incidents, and satisfying completely the lust of combat, are to be contrasted with the dull grind in preparation for modern war, the monotonous regularity of subservience, the substitution everywhere of mechanism for muscle, and often the attack on an enemy who lies wholly unseen.[*] As Wallas with nice irony has remarked, “The gods in Valhalla would hardly choose the organization of modern lines of military communication, as they chose the play of sword and spear, to be the most exquisite employment of eternity.”

[*] Lord Wolseley, while commander-in-chief of the English forces, in 1897, secured sanction for not displaying the regimental colors in battle. “It would be madness and a crime,” he declared, “to order any soldier to carry colors into action in the future. You might quite as well order him to be assassinated. We have had most reluctantly to abandon a practice to which we attached great importance, and which, under past and gone conditions of fighting, was invaluable in keeping alive the regimental spirit upon which our British troops depended so much.” All war has been transformed by the invention of the far-reaching and fate-dealing rifle and automatic gun, with which an enemy kills, whose face is not even seen. War is almost reduced to a mechanical interchange of volleys and salvoes, and to the intermittent fire of rifles and machine guns, with short rushes at the last, in which there is no place for the dignity and grace of the antique battle of the standard. (See London Times, July 31, 1897, p. 12.)

T. F. Millard, the well-known correspondent of the Russo-Japanese War, wrote as follows of the characteristics of present day conflicts: “A large part of modern war is on too great a scale to give much opportunity for individual initiative. Soldiers can rarely tell what is going on in their immediate vicinity. They cannot always see the enemy they are firing at, and where they can see the object of their fire such an important matter as range and even direction cannot be left to them.... Troops are clothed so much alike nowadays that it is very difficult to distinguish friend from foe at five hundred yards, and large bodies of troops rarely get that close to each other in modern war while there is light enough to see clearly.... Battery officers simply see that their guns are handled according to instructions. They regulate the time, speed, objective and range as ordered.... The effects of the fire are observed by officers appointed to that duty, stationed at various parts of the field, often miles and miles apart, and who are in constant communication with the chief of artillery by telephone.” (See Scribner’s Magazine, 1905, xxxvii, pp. 64, 66.)

The testimony of a captain of a German battery engaged against the French and English in 1914, supports the foregoing claims. He is reported as saying: “We shoot over those tree tops yonder in accordance with directions for range and distance which come from somewhere else over a field telephone, but we never see the men at whom we are firing. They fire back without seeing us, and sometimes their shells fall short or go beyond us, and sometimes they fall among us and kill and wound a few of us. Thus it goes on day after day. I have not with my own eyes seen a Frenchman or an Englishman unless he was a prisoner. It is not so much pleasure—fighting like this.” (See Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, December 26, 1914, p. 27.)

While it is true that physical strength can be developed by any form of hard labor, as, for example, by sawing wood or digging ditches, such labor does not stimulate quickness, alertness, and resourcefulness in bodily action. Nor does it give any occasion for use of the emotional mechanism for reënforcement. If this mechanism, like other physiological arrangements, is present in the body for use—and previous discussion leaves little doubt of that—then as a means of exercising it and, in addition, satisfying the strong instinct for competitive testing of strength and physical skill, some activity more enlivening than monotonous gymnastics and ordered marching is required.

In many respects strenuous athletic rivalries present, better than modern military service, the conditions for which the militarists argue, the conditions for which the body spontaneously prepares when the passion for fighting prevails. As explained in an earlier chapter, in competitive sports the elemental factors are retained—man is again pitted against man, and all the resources of the body are summoned in the eager struggle for victory. And because, under such circumstances, the same physiological alterations occur that occur in anticipation of mortal combat, the belligerent emotions and instincts, so far as their bodily manifestations are concerned, are thereby given complete satisfaction.