a lot of people have asked me about
battle fatigue uh they mental illness
suffered by soldiers particularly those
who've been in war for quite some while
under stressful conditions and people
have asked me for instance did it exist
in the ancient world well that's largely
what this video is about i'm not going
to be using the term post-traumatic
stress disorder ptsd partly because it
takes too long to say but also because i
want to keep the scope of this video
reasonably narrow so i'm going to be
talking just about stresses
experienced by soldiers in war and so
civilians having car crashes and
possibly getting ptsd that's a another
subject it's too big for this video i
think if i ramble for more than five
hours that would be too long uh now
battle fatigue has many names uh i've
read that it was called soldier's heart
for instance in the american civil war
um but it didn't become a commonly
recognized thing until world war one
when it was called shell shock now it
was called shell shock because the the
advent of this new phenomenon that the
high command had to deal with quite
significant numbers of troops going a
bit bonkers in the head
it was coincident with a new form of
warfare which was lots of soldiers for
day after day after day standing around
in trenches being shelled so it was
thought that it was perhaps the sheer
concussive effect of these these shock
waves from the the artillery pieces that
were
sending shock waves through the soldiers
heads over and over again and perhaps
that was sending the men mad um by world
war ii it was pretty firmly established
that that was not actually what was
happening
and even in world war ii however the
term shell shock was in the public mind
people knew about it and so they would
be using it then but actually the people
studying it had moved on already
and so battle fatigue battle stress what
what what causes it and did people in
the ancient world suffer from it were
the romans and greeks of old coming down
with it um well we don't know for
certain but there was one uh gyorgyas of
leontini who was writing for instance at
the time of somewhere around the
peloponnesian war who actually he wasn't
writing specifically about combat stress
but whilst talking about something else
he said the following some people in the
past when seeing fearful sights have
lost their presence of mind at that
instant fear extinguishes and casts out
the mind
many have succumbed to groundless
distress great malady and incurable
insanity so deeply does vision carve on
the mind images of actions seen
so that sounds a lot like battle fatigue
doesn't it
and there's another example that i'll
give you which is from herodotus who
describes the battle of marathon one of
the greek hoplites who was suddenly and
unaccountably struck blind there was no
physical wound on him and yet he was
completely blind those of you who have
watched a band of brothers may remember
that there's a character in that who was
struck with hysterical blindness that's
the term we would give it today
but that soldier after a while gets his
sight back whereas herodotus tells us
that the the man struck blind at uh
marathon remained blind for the rest of
his life but he wasn't actually shunned
by his society he was still treated as a
war hero it was another wound he was he
was in the glorious battle of marathon
he was doing his bit and he became you
know quite a popular character um so
perhaps they they didn't see it as a
result of battle fatigue just a funny
thing that happened to one guy
now
there is a clue
that i've noticed that the ancient
people perhaps were aware that traumatic
experiences could lead to mental illness
and that is from laws to do with the
selling of slaves in the roman empire
now if i have a car and i want to sell
you a car and the car has been in a
crash and has been repaired at least in
britain i have to declare that to you so
that you the potential buyer of my car
are fully informed uh it's had a a class
d prang i would have to say and he would
then the buyer have to take that into
account when deciding whether to buy my
car or not well similarly
if i was selling you a slave in the days
of the roman empire there are various
things that i was required
to declare for instance if my female
slave were pregnant i'd have to tell you
if for instance my slave had tried to
commit suicide that was something as
well that i was obliged to tell you so
you can imagine can't you make sense if
my slave was tried to commit suicide i
stopped him he tried again he was
prevented a second time and i think oh
he's one of these days he's going to
succeed he's going to kill himself and
then he's going to be worthless to me
it's better i sell him now so that if he
commits suicide later well you know
buyer beware
that that was no fault of mine well you
had to declare that he was already
suicidal when you sold him which is fair
enough
and something else you had to declare
was
had your slave ever been attacked by a
bear or a lion
why would you have to declare that well
because
perhaps
i don't know this i'm just putting my
modern interpreter's brain on here
and spin on it
perhaps it's because they knew that if
something really nasty had happened to
someone it could make them a bit
mentally unstable and so the buyer
should potentially buy should know that
being attacked by a wild animal a lion
or a bear so this is obviously something
that wouldn't show on the man if he had
great claw marks across his chest and
one missing arm i dare say the buyer is
likely to ask but
so these would presumably be slaves on
whom there was no obvious sign that
they'd been attacked by a lion or bear
but you knew so you were obliged by law
to say
so that suggests that they were
aware of this sort of general concept of
of um
mental illness caused by trauma but
notice that it's a lion or a bear wild
animals
not
was attacked in the street by a load of
guys now a lot of slaves of course were
taken in war so in a lot of slaves they
were in a battle they were they were
fighting away their friends were being
slaughtered left and right they were
then defeated and then captured well
that's a battle and that's friends being
killed that's defeat that's capture
that's that's four traumatic things
happen to you one after the other there
but you didn't have to declare any of
those it's as though they thought oh
yeah well being attacked by a lion or a
bear that could send you mad but battle
that's
normal and in the ancient world it was
expected of men to fight that's one of
the reasons that's one of the things
that men are for that they're they're
fighting units and if you were a roman
and in the in the days of hannibal for
instance in the republic all roman
citizens had
the privilege of fighting it
if you wanted to be a roman citizen you
had to serve in the army and therefore
serving the army was sort of a privilege
um rather than a duty and if you wanted
to hold any significant public office
the minimum service was 10 years and for
most men it was more than that um
so they definitely imagined it as quite
normal for a man to fight in a battle
and of course in those days that meant
with a sword with a spear or whatever
killing people man to man and this was
not expected to send you mad
now
modern studies have looked into how well
troops perform over time and um the
graph isn't perhaps quite what you
imagine so
at first you you recruit recruit someone
and he's a bit rubbish oh hang on i
should do it the other way around for
you and he's a bit rubbish and
then you give him basic training so he's
a bit better and then you give him
perhaps more advanced training more
specialist training and he gets better
again and then he goes into combat
he goes into combat and he gets more and
more effective so he's getting better
and better and better at being a soldier
but it's not a linear relationship it
doesn't just carry on forever because
you know the more experience you get
the more you become eventually you'll be
a super soldier wouldn't you and you'd
be defeating entire armies on your own
but that doesn't happen after a while
there's only so good you can get um you
will have to take risks and you know one
day that you'll wander into a bullet
coming the other way and that'll be the
end of you so
actually it seems that you get better
and better and after a while it starts
to level off and then what happens then
does it plateau are you then at your
peak for the rest of the time no
it levels off and then it starts going
down again
and exactly how long it takes to reach
that peak um
no one can say with certainty but the
the number of days of 80 days is is
reasonably commonly cited so something
like 80 days being in action that's not
being a soldier it's being in action for
80 days you reach your peak and then
you pass your peak and then you start to
decline
how long can you be a soldier not
necessarily in action but but you know
towards the front being a useful
effective soldier during a war
um and remain effective well according
to the british after world war ii they
reckoned about 400 days
after 400 days a man was pretty much
spent you weren't going to get any more
useful service out of him the you the
united states came up with a different
conclusion they reckon between 200 to
240 days uh you got useful uh fighting
life out of a soldier and after that he
was ineffective um now exactly i don't
know what country you're from uh but in
britain the normally used example is the
50th division that fighted the fight it
that fought in world war ii now in 1939
this division was composed mainly of
professional full-time highly trained
soldiers and these were in the british
expeditionary force they went to france
they fought in the battle of france they
fought in the dunkirk campaign they were
evacuated they went back to britain they
were retrained then to fight for in
desert warfare and they were sent to
north africa in north africa they
defeated the italians and then
they fought rommel all the way across
the top of of africa once twice three
times and only ended eventually
they beat him they beat the desert fox
and then they were sent to sicily and
they conquered sicily and then they were
taken back to britain
uh to get them ready for the normandy
landings and it was thought that they
would be superb these soldiers they're
so experienced these are some of our
best soldiers they've seen so much
action they're going to do brilliantly
in in france
liberating europe
and they went across to normandy and
they did fight in france but they didn't
perform very well they surprised people
by not actually performing all that well
and then they went into belgium and
holland and they never made it to
germany
because in december 1944 they were
broken up
they were disbanded they were no more
because
they didn't want to carry on they'd had
enough
um
they there are a number of reasons for
this but battle fatigue is one they just
had enough and uh modern armies have
worked out well indeed ancient armies
i'm sure have worked out how to uh use a
young man's psychology to their
advantage you see young men
anxious things they've never actually
seen action and they are desperate to
fit in with those around them be
accepted in the group and to prove
themselves to be a real man not just to
their friends so that they get accepted
but also to themselves and at the end of
basic training
no one knows how he's going to react
this is something which um
is recorded in memoir after memoir after
memoir and it's true that no modern army
has come up with any
reliable way of saying how a particular
individual is going to react to the
first time they go into action will they
just be a quivering heap of terror on
the ground or will they be charging at
the enemy like a mad thing and perhaps
getting killed nobody knows until that
critical moment comes and young men are
very very anxious about that first
moment they don't want to let their
friends down they want to be accepted by
the group
now you can appeal to that instinct as a
sergeant you could say come on you could
be you could you'll make show me that
you're a real man oh all right and he'll
get up and do the thing or come on you
know show me that you're brave you've
got a duty and so forth that all sorts
of things you can yell at these young
men that will motivate them to to behave
as proper soldiers but
once you've been fighting for a while
you're a bit older you've seen it all
you've done your bit you've nothing more
to prove you now know whether or not
you're a real man you've seen an awful
lot of your friends killed the 50th
division suffered 26 000 losses which
was very very high so everyone in that
unit had seen close friends die they'd
had enough they'd done their bit it was
someone else's turn and
modern warfare is very very loud it's
very very loud there
there's no way of describing to to a
civilian just how loud artillery shells
are when they go off they're just so
phenomenally loud it's louder than
anything you've ever heard or let's hope
will ever hear and
modern war involves being shelled a lot
in world war ii you spent an awful lot
of time being shelled and it was a
constant threat at any moment more
shells might come over and a sniper
could shoot you someone that is so far
away you can't even see him but he's got
a telescope on his uh rifle and he will
be able to see you and he might at any
point suddenly end your life or the life
of the guy who's standing right next to
you reminding you that your life might
end any second and it's totally out of
your control there's nothing you can do
to stop that bullet it arrives before
you know it's even on the way
in ancient warfare of course if someone
twangs an arrow at you you can sidestep
or you can bring your shield up you can
defend yourself in some way you're in
control
it's much more terrifying to be not in
control if you are in a car chase and
you're
you're guiding the vehicle and working
the pedals and the steering wheel and so
forth
then you feel more in control and you
feel far less stressed than your
passenger sitting next to you is just
hanging on and hoping not in control and
yet in the same amount of danger
being in control makes you feel
less stressed um and there are other
things which are really bad about modern
warfare so for example
um it goes on and on and on in the
trenches of world war
one uh in modern warfare
this constant being imperiled near the
front within enemy range of some of
their weapons and the enemy might
suddenly appear because they're in fast
vehicles perhaps or planes flying
overhead you're in constant danger all
the time and you can never completely
relax
and when do you actually experience the
traumatic event that possibly sends you
mentally
deranged well if you're a modern soldier
it's very likely that you are very sleep
deprived when it happens you are
exhausted and an exhausted sleep
deprived mind is far less uh good at
coping with traumatic experiences
whereas in the ancient world almost all
battles were fought after a normal
night's sleep and then a breakfast and
then you line up with all your mates
shoulder to shoulder and there was that
solidarity you're you're in company of
people you know and trust around you and
that makes you feel so much more secure
and you're one of the team but the
modern battlefield's not like that it
because
weapons are so deadly people have to be
dispersed there are very few of your
mates around and they're not immediately
next to you sometimes you can't get to
them for some reason
and if suddenly you lose contact with
your unit that can be so much more
terrifying
so
the modern war is a lot more likely
perhaps to cause
battle fatigue than an ancient war
so
there's another thing i want to talk
about and that is
taboo
upbringing you see
the ancients revered the hero achilles
was great how do you know it was great
because he was really good at killing
people oh he was a fantastic hero and if
you went out and did an awful lot of
killing well well done you
and um
you would be applauded for that killing
other people assuming that their enemies
in battle was it was a good thing it was
a manly thing to do
but what do we say what do we say to
little boys growing up now no no no
don't stop pulling ahead don't do that
put that down no that's dangerous don't
stop fighting don't write see me after
school right okay right any more of this
appalling behavior and you're going to
go in the army and then they go into the
army and then
they uh they're in the barrack room and
no fighting in the background right you
extra guard duty no fighting fighting is
bad and killing killing it's made very
very clear to us throughout our entire
lives killing is wrong it's
fundamentally wrong thou shalt not kill
it's a sin it's it's oh so fundamentally
wrong according to modern society and if
you look at television programs for
instance the number of who done it i
mean you know the classic
christie plot is a a whole dinner party
of a large number of guests and every
single one has a motive to kill whoever
it is that gets killed so surely he must
have been a really bad person if
everyone wants to kill him and yet even
so you must catch the culprit and the
culprit must be punished because killing
is wrong it's fundamentally wrong and
this is what we tell people right up to
the moment that we say oh right here
atkins take this um rifle and you see
those people over there you've never met
uh go and shoot them in the face
so you're asking someone to do something
that's absolutely against everything
that he's been brought up to believe
you're telling people to break a taboo
and do something they do not want to do
humans do not naturally want to kill
other humans
and so the stress of having to break a
taboo on your own with all this loud
noise when you're incredibly sleep
deprived and then day after day after
day after day of this is likely to drive
men mad and in fact
unfortunately uh there have been enough
wars where people have been in highly
stressful situations in peril being
shelled for day after day after day that
we can actually
come up with the stat that after 60 days
of this
98 of people will go mad
98 of people will be driven out out of
their heads by that um
and then well what why how many days
does it take to get to 100 well we don't
actually know that because after 98 all
the people who are not psychopaths will
have gone mad so this is one test for
for psychopathy if you're as to you know
which of your friends is a psychopath
and if you know a reasonable you know
the normal number of friends some of
them will be psychopaths stick them all
in the field get them to dig slit
trenches and shell them for 60 days and
it's a bit harsh on the 98 percent i
know but assuming they survive the the
two who are not do lally after that
they're psychos um
so uh yes 98 people will go mad there is
a breaking point and during world war ii
it was accepted this had been um uh at
least the the people who were studying
this and knew about it it was
near enough proven that everyone has a
breaking point
um now i talked about 80 days till you
get to your peak and then you start to
decline
another way of putting it is
there is
no such thing as getting used to modern
war it's just too loud too isolating too
terrifying and you have to break
horrible taboos that you've been brought
up you have to do things that you've
been told not to do your entire life but
in the ancient world
it was
short you generally weren't
sleep deprived it was praised it was
considered normal
so
in conclusion i would say that
yes
there probably was battle fatigue in the
ancient world
but far
far less of it
did