A SCHOOL OF THOUGHT ALL STAFFERS SHOULD REJECT

By "Cincinnatus"

Every political staffer, a former ministerial aide once said, ought to see the 1957 "Paths
of Glory" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050825/) at least once.

Without saying too much about the plot, "Paths of Glory" is the story of some French
soldiers who are assigned an impossible mission during the First World War. They rebel,
and for defying orders, their superiors inflict a cruel punishment.

In the film, it becomes clear that the superiors see the men at their command as mere
cannon fodder, as so many expendable pawns.

The officers depicted in "Paths of Glory" by and large come across as graduates of what
you might call the "beatings-will-continue-until-morale-improves" school of thought.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_beatings_will_continue_until_morale_improves)

This is a very old school of thought that unfortunately persists today in various settings.

Let's be clear -- it has absolutely no place in a professional setting of any kind.

It is, however, a very old school of thought. You can written references to it (well,
indirect references) that are more than 300 years old.

For example, there's a reference to it in writings of the Marquis de Vauban

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauban), a famous military engineer and expert on siege
warfare who died in 1707.

In 1669, at the request of France's then-Minister of War, Vauban wrote a short book on
siege warfare entitled "Memoire pour servir destruction dans la Conduite des Sieges."
Vauban, the story goes, wrote the book in just six weeks.

At the start of the book, Vauban lays out the mistakes that armies laying siege to fortified
positions often make. He puts special emphasis on what one commentator referred to "the
confused and unsystematic character of the attacks."

Vauban paints a scene of profound disorganization:

"Men work on from day to day [setting up the siege of an enemy fortress or town]
without ever knowing what they will do two hours hence. So that everything is done in
a disorderly, tentative way; from which it follows that an approach is always ill-directed.
The batteries and places of arms are never where they ought to be...[and] one is never
in a favourable position for meeting a [counter-attack by the besieged enemy]..."

Why are things so disorganized? Not because the soldiers are scatter-brained, but because

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their leaders, according to Vauban, see them mainly as cannon fodder that can be
sacrificed without a second thought and without any real plan for victory.

He elaborates (emphasis added):

"The [competition] between the general officers often leads them to expose their
soldiers to no purpose, trying to make them do more than they can, and caring little
if they get [20 or 40 men] killed so long as they can obtain four paces more progress
than their fellows.

"By [the officers’] authority they direct the course of the [siege] as they please, and
are continually interrupting the plan of attack and all the arrangements of the engineer,
who far from being able to follow the systematic action which would have brought
affairs to a good end, finds himself reduced to serve as an instrument of their
varying [whims].

"Varying, I say, for one [general] commands one way today, and tomorrow the
general who relieves him will command quite another way; and as they are not always
endowed with the highest capacity for matters of this sort, God knows what failures and
what waste they cause, and how much needless blood they shed in the course of a
siege.

"But what is most absurd is to see these gentlemen, when they have been relieved in the
trenches, describe and lament, or rather boast with a self-satisfied and complacent
air, how they have lost a hundred or a hundred and fifty men during their turn of
duty, among which perhaps there will be eight or ten officers and some brave engineers,
who might have done service elsewhere.

"Is [that not] something to be pleased at and is not their prince much indebted to those
who obtain with the loss of a hundred men what might have been obtained by a little
industry with a loss of ten?

"In truth, if states perish for want of good men to defend them, I know of no punishment
severe enough for those who rob [states] of [those good men] to no purpose."

(Excerpted from "Vauban, Montalembert, Carnot - Engineer Studies" by E.M. Lloyd,

1887)

The "beatings-will-continue-until-morale-improves" school of thought made life hell for

soldiers in Vauban's time.

Vauban hoped that if leaders came to be guided by "reason and experience," they would
abandon this school of thought.

As noted above, this school of thought persists today. Perhaps one day it will wither
away. For now, learn to recognize those who practice it, so you can keep your distance.