Churchill's armies at war: Morale and combat efficiency in the 50th (Northumbrian) and 9th Australian Divisions, 1939--1945

In recent decades, military historians have been highly critical of the British Army's performance in the Second World War. Morale is said to have been especially low, and this alleged weakness has been blamed on the structure of prewar British society and the class system. By contrast, the Australian Army of the Second World War has won little but praise for its morale and efficiency. High morale and performance is taken as a vindication of Australia's democratic society. These interpretations reflect the differing intellectual and cultural climates in Britain and Australian during the postwar decades. The discrepancy is nonetheless curious, given that the British and Australian armies were organized along the same lines, had a similar military culture, and were drawn from societies that resembled each other in many ways.;A point-by-point comparison of two veteran divisions, one from each army, actually shows that the differences between the two armies were much less than previously believed. Both the 50th and 9th Australian Divisions followed a similar curve of morale over the course of the war, including an inevitable decline phase. The decline of the 50 th was more sudden and steeper than that of the 9th, but this was not due to any intrinsically British national or social characteristics. The main factors were casualties twice those of the 9th Australian Division, organizational instability, and a higher rate of command turnover. These problems were rooted in the structure and missions of the British Army as a whole, but the Australian Army had similar problems of its own. The 9 th Division's success did not represent the triumph of Australian democracy, but rather the application of universal military principles. Both divisions were in fact able to adapt and win on the battlefield despite declining morale late in the war. This suggests that morale has been exaggerated as a factor in Second World War battlefield outcomes. A new paradigm of morale is thus called for. Such a paradigm will recognize the distinction between the desirable ideal and the practical reality of morale, the frequency of battlefield failure, and the role played by chance.