In Part I, I explained how a single hidden factor changed both the understanding of warfare and how individual soldiers fought in formations. Today let’s investigate briefly how dignity links certain aspects of military theory with certain aspects of political theory. After all, war is an extension of policy.

How are politics, French tirailleur battalions, and Prussian Auftragstaktik linked? Let’s begin with the foundation of Common Law, Magna Carta. The evolution of the Westminster parliamentary system, although rarely discussed in these terms, came about because a few individuals came to believe that the “common” man could be trusted to decide his own fate rather than be the political possession of an absolutist monarch. (Yes, I know that the Earls at Runnymede were not “common men,” but they got the ball rolling). All of us who are blessed to live in parliamentary democracies owe a great debt to the Westminster system, even with all of its anachronisms, idiosyncrasies, and flaws. It is an ancient system and at times quite creaky, but at its heart the system’s foundational premise is that the individual citizen deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

I mentioned the Westminster system’s flaws. No system is perfect. But I am reminded of Sir Winston Churchill’s comment that it is the worst of all system’s — excepting all others. One of the “flaws”, as I see them, is that those who are entitled to vote, are not obliged to do so. I have discussed this issue with many over the decades and my argument that we should compel people to vote has been countered with arguments that it is unenforceable. Australia, arguably Canada’s nearest parliamentary society, enforces it. They are hardly a police state. We enforce driver testing, and traffic laws, we even enforce jaywalking. We could enforce voting if we cared to do so, thereby demonstrating another ancient conceptual linkage.

I am not formally trained in the law, but it is my understanding than many of our legal concepts stem from Greek and Roman Law and that it is from some of their concepts of Civic Virtue (virtu) and Common Good (pro bono) that many of the foundations of Common Law are derived. This linkage was taught to me by my father long before I could appreciate their greater significance, when he explained to me that I had certain rights and privileges as his son, but that those rights and privileges came with obligations. It was a two-way street. But unlike Australia, we in Canada do not make it a two-way street. We have the right to vote but no legal obligation to do so — only a moral one. This delinking of the right and the obligation creates one of the great flaws in our enviable system.

The birth of Auftragstaktik came from something I mentioned in Part I: Napoleon’s principle of liberté d’action. Freedom of action was double-sided. Commanders were to lead on a loose rein, and allow subordinates some freedom to decide on their actions. Likewise, soldiers were expected to seize opportunities within the framework of the commander’s intent. It was this simple notion, combined with some of the philosophical changes that were occurring in late-18^th century France, which later led the Prussians to reconsider their military leadership philosophy. Further, this principle was operationalized in France through the army corps system, which allowed Napoleon to decentralize command while maintaining cohesion. His corps commanders were granted liberté d’action within strategic objectives, enabling rapid concentration of forces at decisive points. His campaigns in Italy (1796–1797) and the Battle of Austerlitz (1805) exemplified this thinking, where he used superior mobility and timing to achieve decisive victories.

Having swung back and forth between military and political theory, allow me to end with an historical example that demonstrates a powerful, if mundane, manifestation of this linkage. In 1946, having all but destroyed Japan, American officers could walk the streets of Tokyo without sidearms and be treated with respect. Why? The reasons were manifold but simplistically, I attribute it to the way that General Douglas MacArthur treated the defeated nation. He treated the nation and its people, particularly the emperor, with dignity and insisted that troops do likewise.