4 ms·

The wikipedia article on John Byng (the ultimate source of the quote) is fascinating, particularly this section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng https:

The wikipedia article on John Byng (the ultimate source of the quote) is fascinating, particularly this section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng "Naval historian N. A. M. Rodger believes it may have influenced the behaviour of later naval officers by helping inculcate: "a culture of aggressive determination which set British officers apart from their foreign contemporaries, and which in time gave them a steadily mounting psychological ascendancy. More and more in the course of the century, and for long afterwards, British officers encountered opponents who expected to be attacked, and more than half expected to be beaten, so that [the latter] went into action with an invisible disadvantage which no amount of personal courage or numerical strength could entirely make up for."" So it seems that Morale did actually improve!

nradov 6y ago
Perhaps, but I'm not convinced that was the real cause of British naval dominance during the latter part of the age of sail. Their real advantages were that the officer corps was at least partly a meritocracy, and the government provided enough funding for realistic training. By contrast the other European navies were so badly managed that they often basically beat themselves through sheer incompetence.
peteretep 6y ago
Also that Candide quote: «in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others»
acqq 6y ago
Byng is not actually a “source”, just the one who has been killed: “He was sentenced to death and, after pleas for clemency were denied, was shot dead by a firing squad on 14 March 1757.” That’s what apparently got Voltaire to write “in this country it is good to kill an Admiral from time to time to encourage the others.” As the article shows, this was known to Lord William Pitt Lennox in 1863, who referred to that while describing another even in his memoir: "Later in the day he had to . . . run messages, and do his little marketings . . . with the risk, if caught out of bounds, of having a flogging, to encourage the others, as a Frenchman said of the execution of Admiral Byng."

nradov 6y ago

Perhaps, but I'm not convinced that was the real cause of British naval dominance during the latter part of the age of sail. Their real advantages were that the officer corps was at least partly a meritocracy, and the government provided enough funding for realistic training. By contrast the other European navies were so badly managed that they often basically beat themselves through sheer incompetence.

peteretep 6y ago

Also that Candide quote: «in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others»

acqq 6y ago

Byng is not actually a “source”, just the one who has been killed: “He was sentenced to death and, after pleas for clemency were denied, was shot dead by a firing squad on 14 March 1757.” That’s what apparently got Voltaire to write “in this country it is good to kill an Admiral from time to time to encourage the others.” As the article shows, this was known to Lord William Pitt Lennox in 1863, who referred to that while describing another even in his memoir: "Later in the day he had to . . . run messages, and do his little marketings . . . with the risk, if caught out of bounds, of having a flogging, to encourage the others, as a Frenchman said of the execution of Admiral Byng."