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Swank and Marchland’s study of Allied soldiers in Normandy in 1944concluded that troops reached maximum efficiency after ten to thirty days ofcontinuous combat but became exhausted after around fifty days.52 While this wasa good guide, Holmes noted that the exact ‘amount of time to produce combatexhaustion depends upon a number of factors, not the least the intensity ofcombat’.53 Another post–Second World War study stated:There is no such thing as ‘getting used to combat’ … Each moment of combat imposesa strain so great that men will inevitably break down in direct relation to the intensityand duration of their exposure.54Simply, an overexposure to combat led to battle fatigue, something cited byStouffer as the single biggest impact on battle performance.55Lord Moran observed that ‘it has always been a military axiom … that aman’s will to fight is the ultimate arbiter of battles and that this is governed by thethoughts which pass through his head’.56 In terms of combat, morale describes the‘quality of mind and spirit which combines courage, self-discipline, and endurance’and which manifests itself ‘in the soldier’s absolute determination to do his duty tothe best of his ability in any circumstances’.57 Given that the conditions of combatinevitably broke men down, maintaining morale was the key to sustained combateffectiveness. This was been the subject of much comment but the essentials arerelatively simple. Shils and Janowitz’s study of the Wehrmacht’s sustained cohesionduring the Second World War emphasised the importance of the ‘primary group’in avoiding disintegration.58 As Richardson put it:52 Richard Holmes, Firing Line, Pimlico, London, 1994, p. 214.53 Holmes, Firing Line, p. 215.54 Quoted in Keegan, The Face of Battle, p. 329.55 Stouffer, The American Solider, pp. 73–4.56 Moran, The Anatomy of Courage, pp. 13–14.57 John Baynes, Morale: A Study of Men and Courage – The Second Scottish Rifles at theBattle of Neuve Chapelle 1915, Cassell, London, 1967, p. 108.58 Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz, ‘Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmachtin World War II’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 2, Summer 1948,pp. 314–15.A tale of three battalions — 11