"WWI Morale Question" Topic

What happened to units that broke in WWI? Would they return to the field?

I'm only half a dozen books into my research, but it seems that units that half-broke would simply hunker down for a while – I haven't found any evidence of them returning to the fray in a meaningful manner.

Watch the movie: "Fields of Glory".

Ack! There is no movie based on the ruleset. The correct title: "Paths of Glory".

It depended on the unit. Some units refused to fight, some would defend but refused to attack.

I don't think you're going to find an answer beyond "it depends." It varied by time, by nationality, by command, etc.

Usually, once the number of combat dead reached the number of the full strength army, the survivors would suffer a major morale collapse. They might make a partial recovery, they might not.

Examples: Russians in 1917, French mutiny 1917, Italians at Caporetto 1917, Austro-Hungarians at Vittorio Veneto in 1918, Germans at the Black Day 1918.

Before that it depends.

Okay, so hunker down would be the most common response.

But if a unit went so far as to break and flee, are there instances of them returning to the battle in any meaningful timeframe?

I ask because I'm in the early stages of making myself an army-level WWI game, and I'm wondering how much needs to be put into the morale system.

I'm struggling to think of examples of units breaking and fleeing, the weight and depth of fire was such that 'running away' was a really good way of getting killed.

Most units (as in the military definition of 'unit', a thing with a Commanding Officer, typically a battalion or regiment as opposed to a formation or a subunit) which broke in the combat zone would simply hunker down, and either slink away under cover of darkness or surrender if overrun. Sometimes the leading waves would get pinned down and follow up waves would refuse to advance.

There certainly some highly disorderly retreats, and outside of the immediate battlezone, units had more scope to run away – particularly gunners caught with their weapons still in their firing pits.

Disorganised units could always be reorganised and put back into the fray though, it partly depends on your planned game length.

I thought this might be the case. Cheers Martin, very helpful! I can get started mechanically ahead of my reading list now.

I think you will find that once a unit became ineffective because of casualties, regardless of the psychological state of the troops, it would take several weeks to get a unit back into shape to fight again.

I remember reading that even just manning trenches British units were on a 3-4 week rotation, one week in the front line trenches, one or two weeks well back to 'recover' then the next week in the rear trenches (lines of communication) before going back into the front line trenches

I thought so. I was playing Volley and Bayonet last night, and the rallying of routing troops got a little messy after a while. It got me thinking about WWI and how one rarely sees accounts of that sort of thing.

In our higher level (Army) there aren't have morale rules per se, the loss of combat strength represent both physical and morale losses, at 50% strength brigades cannot attack, but they can be reinforced by follow up formations to resume the advance.

In our lower level (Corps) games units can become disorganised and are then both pinned down, fire much less effectively and are much more vulnerable to assault. Battalions which take a position by assault are automatically disorganised – this represents the chaos of mopping up, resupply, exhaustion etc and encourages both attacks in depth (so fresh follow up waves can pass through) as well as immediate counterttacks. The main effect of the creeping barrage on entrenched positions is to disorganise them.

Disorganisation is removed by a dice throw with the usual list of modifiers. It is pretty simple and the players seem happy with it.

One extra tweak is that a position can only be cleared by assault, even if all the defending units are 'destroyed' by artillery fire or whatever, there will always be a remnant left, who need to be cleared out – triggering disorganisation as above. The only time an area is completely cleared is the use of special weapons: major gas concentrations, mines etc.

The morale rules in Great War Spearhead are also pretty simple, essentially a brigade level break test at certain casualty levels. If failed the unit ceases to be combat effective (run away, gone to ground, surrendered or whatever). Personally I like the idea of being able to reinforce the leading waves to get them moving again, it seems to reflect period wave tactics well.

You seem to be talking about whole armies morale breaking as many did in 1917. Generally in absolute rules Scott S is correct, "It Depends." But there are several considerations. Even if an army or a division breaks down there is always usually a "rear area" that soldiers go through and this "rear area" has commond posts, other unbroken units etc., which can, even passively without resort to gixed bayonets, impose a moral (as opposed to morale) authority on the mutinying troops. This will restrict their options, but in the case of the Russian Armies of 1917-1918 where not only the rear area but the entire society was no longer there- there was no government behind it, many times the armies melted away, sometimes in whole divisions.