Not a Miracle

High morale also contributed to many successes in the First World War. Stacey emphasizes the value of Canadian morale at Vimy Ridge. Every individual was told his own specific task, which “helped to produce and maintain the high morale required” to carry out such a formidable operation. In another example, after the battle for Hill 70, General Arthur Currie paid tribute to the “fighting spirit of the men, the esprit de corps and training.” Bird’s 1917 psychological study of the soldier emphasized the value of high morale that allowed men on the battlefield to “think scarcely at all… shouting lustily as they proceed.” A letter from a frontline soldier in this study, written in March 1917, maintains that “the best thing is to get through [the difficult experiences of war] as cheerfully as possible.” In another letter, a British officer writes of advancing soldiers who were wounded and continued to push on towards the enemy. In his opinion, “It’s not as that they don’t feel the pain – make no mistake about that – they won’t feel it.” Whether specific instances of bravery are exaggerated or not, the fact remains that troop morale during a frontal infantry assault, whether across No Man’s Land or the beaches of Normandy, was critical.

Not a Miracle

The frontal infantry assaults that occurred during the First World War and on D-Day are indeed comparable in many ways. In both cases, assaults were preceded by a massive bombardment. The element of surprise was crucial. Defensive barriers confronting attacking troops were alike. Offensive technology designed as a solution to those defences never proved to be as effective as needed. The mode and weapons of infantry attack, though separated by three decades, stayed more or less the same. Perhaps most importantly, morale was of chief significance because of the inevitable heavy casualties involved in frontal attack. Ambrose casts these terrible losses on the Normandy beaches in a positive light, emphasizing the achievement that was made possible by the sacrifices of assaulting troops. He writes, “[i]t was not a miracle. It was infantry.” Though these words describe D-Day, they apply equally to the men who went over the top in the countless assaults of the First World War.