Napoleonic Wars and shellshock, PTSD etc.

[beefprophet]

PTSD and other disorders resulting from exposure to combat in some shape or form has been a problem for the U.S. military from Vietnam to Iraq, and in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan it is reported that more soldiers have died from suicide or depression than from firefights or bombs.

What I wanted to know was - did this sort of thing happen during the Napoleonic Wars? I know that people in general were used to a harsher and more violent lifestyle, but on the other hand standing in a line waiting to get blown apart by artillary at any moment would be a terrible thing to withstand. I've looked online and haven't found anything definitive - any thoughts?

[SeanBeansShako]

Quite an interesting topic indeed worth discussing if you ask me.

I think there has always been PTSD with soldiers in warfare reguardless of the era and technology used. Nobody noticed much or really cared as up until the late 19th century people looked down on soldiers and warfare in general (If you had lived during the time of the 30 Years War or English Civil Wars of the 17th century you'd understand why).

I wonder how much of the British and Russian higher up staff Officers and general staff suffered some form in the post Napoleonic Age? alongside age, It's explain the hilarious circus that was The Crimean War.

[Tibbert]

There's always been PTSD and so on.
I was reading about psychology of warfare and it seems that in WW2 only 20% of US soldiers fired on the enemy, whilst in Vietnam it was about 95%
In the Napoleonic wars it was just the same. Soldiers loading their musket yet not firing, soldiers not stabbing the enemy in a bayonet charge, not sure on percentage though, but I think in one American civil war battle it was around 12000(?).
Currently, as technology and knowledge improved, troops were rotated to allow for them to recover from the effects of combat. However if we go back to 17-19th cent, battles perhaps lasted a few days at most, whereas battles in WW1 + 2 lasted for sometimes months. It wasn't really different I suppose, troops in 17th cent. would have time to recover and so on.

Personally I have no idea why it is so high in modern warfare. Perhaps because of the wounded to killed ratio is a lot higher, or maybe because of the style of warfare. I shall read into it.

[Archduke Sven]

Well PTSD and other combat stress related disorders weren't really known about back in the day. Most people just thought it was cowardice.

Thus there aren't many statistics on those hospitalised (If they even were hospitalised) for mental issues. I'd say the best way is just to take a look at desertion rates, as you can typically see them rise a bit when the intensity of battles increase (1813 campaign for example).

[MagicTeatowel]

Having taken a clue from Wikipedia, I decided to look for the earliest known records of PTSD. The following is from Jonathan Shay, a psychologist, who studied the history and development of PTSD, he is also widely known for his work with Vietnam Veterans.

And well after looking at his stuff, I ended up with Lady Percy's soliloquy in Henry IV (Part 1), written in roughly 1597 by William Shakespeare. It should also be noted that Shay looked at the home coming of troops described in Homers' Iliad and Odyssey, but I felt that was to far back so, well I ignored it

Hear is the passage, I have put in the bold the important bits

O my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offense have I this fortnight been
A banished woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sit'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,
Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talked
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream,
And in thy face strange motions have appeared,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.

Here is link to the source . . . http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_051.html

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Well as you can the see, the bit I put in bold seems to reflect a very accurate description of some of the symptoms associated with PTSD. It mentions things such as sweating, talking in sleep, nightmares, bad sleep patterns and painful facial expressions, as if he was re-living the conflict.

Henry IV (Part 1) covers the period of 1402-1403 and mentions the Welsh revolt, which was part of the Hundred Years War, I think the passage has some sort of relation to the Siege of Shrewsbury, but then again, it could be of any conflict from the rising.

In terms of treatment, the only thing I could find was help from religious figures, both on the ground with the soldiers or and when the soldiers returned. To look further I would suggest looking at Conflicts in the recent future when the same tactics were still widely adopted, maybe venturing into the records of the Crimean War and ACW might be a good idea.

[Hugh MacKay]

I somehow find it quite hard to believe that poems like the one quoted above to be a proper source to prove that PTSD existed centuries ago as much of it was just as artistic as it was something real. However, I don't say PTSD didn't exist. I just dont think it has never been known like we see it today.
Back in the times, centuries ago, people was just forced to go on, continue living with the horrible experiences from their past popping up in their mind. The people that was more harmed than the main group of soldiers would probably just have been excluded from society and excused as lunatics born that way.
With the WW1 definition of Shell Shock, we came closer to knowing what was actually going on, but still not knowing what to actually do about the traumas that many soldiers had. Therefor, I think it's not strange that people understood it as a physical/mental as a result of being under fire from explosive shells rather than being a result of the traumas that many of the soldiers experienced.

[Millander]

Definitly. It wasent understood however.

 I need to find the original source but I read a while ago that on the anniversary of Boridino in the late 1800's the Russian government was planning a huge celebration and looked over the country for any veterans of Boridino. They found that the last surviving Russian Boridino veteran was a child drummer in one of the Garde regiments. After the war he had lived the rest of his life as a fisherman on the Volga. When people began to ask him questions about his service and what the battle was like he would often break down into tears and he died shortly after. This is from memory so some specifics might be incorrect.

 In the Civil War they called it "Soldier's Heart". Many soldiers just tried to shut the war out after the war and channel those memories through reunions and veterans organizations. This is likely one of the reasons that the Grand Army of the Republic became such a large organization. However many combat veterans definitely did live with this inside of them and it would have been exactly the same with the Napoleonic Wars.

 I fond it a shame how their seems to be such a lack of writing by enlisted Napoleonic Veterans. I read the memoirs of Jakob Walter who was a Wurtemburg soldier in the invasions of Russia. He writes of doing/seeing some crazy shit to survive during the campaign. I think he likely wrote about it to release some of the emotions inside.
 

[Bluehawk]

The closest concept to PTSD in the early 1800s Britain was male hysteria, which some psychologists insisted didn't exist, since hysteria was since antiquity believed to be a disorder of the uterus and therefore exclusive to women. But in reality hysterical episodes were nervous breakdowns and they were quite common among the aristocratic men of the previous century, and probably in or after war as well. The French on the other hand diagnosed "nostalgia," believing that "[becoming] sad, taciturn, listless, solitary, musing, full of sighs and moans [and] finally, [ceasing] to pay attention and [becoming] indifferent to everything which the maintenance of life requires of them" was just good old day-dreaming of the homestead and that soldiers from an urban upbringing were less susceptible than their rural comrades. I'd soon think a city-slicker would be more homesick after bivouacking and marching through the countryside for weeks on end, but I'm not a 19th century psychiatrist. In any case, when these soldiers returned to their homes, their symptoms did not subsume...

[Kator Viridian]

Mental illness has always been a problem as much as other illnesses. It was the knowledge of how to document or the identification of that illness.

For example Cancer has seen a "Rise" in cases, but is this because we are now more aware of it as a group of people? or wanting to have more things checked out as we are now more aware of how illness spreads and how our lifestyle effects illness?

PTSD is a great one, if we back track slowly mental illness does not seem to be a direct psychological "Disease" until around the 1950's when psychology really starts to get a take off into general practise and not just for those "Quacks". WWI and WWII put quite a lot of PTSD down to a simple dose of "Cowardice" as is quite commonly documented but was actually recognised along with the term "Shell shock", links were just starting to be made that physical health was playing a direct role in terms of mental health ... but still hard to document due to the lack of awareness.

When you trace is back further for example to the 1600's we are seeing a massive range of "Death" cases, to which I remember one when in school as noted by "Nose Bleed", now this seems strange as a cause of death but this clearly shows a lack of awareness or willingness to explore further causes only looking towards the physical.

Would this then apply to PTSD and Shell shock cases where the prognosis is a simple misdirection from the truth.

[GodsonGuys]

Although not particulalry Napolionic Era Shellshock, I have always found it interesting.

Recently I watch a documentary about German troops and Shellshock, and the amount they shook was dumbfounding.

After searching "Shellshock" on youtube, I just took the first link. It truly is amazing how Serious this is..

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