Pious Perjury: Discipline and Morale in the British Force in Italy,1917-1918

Abstract

The British force deployed in Italy during 1917 and 1918 is an ideal topic for a study of morale and discipline. Uniquely, reports on troop morale based on mail censorship have survived. These, together with medical and court martial records, provide the basis for this article, which analyses the impact of illness and worsening conditions on the morale of the British troops in Italy. It is argued that these factors had as much impact on discipline as did military operations, and that overall the evidence points to the development of an increasingly lenient approach to discipline within which capital convictions were avoided.