delanceyplace.com 07/15/05 - army uniforms

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In today's excerpt  - an unexpected key reason that armies began to wear uniforms, as well as a powerful message regarding modern day soldier interaction with civilians.  Soldiers in the 1600's in England, like soldiers everywhere at the time, often scavenged the villages and countryside, murdering and robbing commoners therefore:

"... several military officers in the parliamentary army grew determined to limit the impact of the conflict on English noncombatants, as well as to improve the performance of their men in the field. Oliver Cromwell ... restored first domestic stability, and then the international might and prestige of England ... and its colonial expansion was proceeding at a pace to match or exceed its continental rivals.

"All this had been made possible by a single, seemingly unportentous core policy: effective military discipline. Soldiers were drilled hard by stern officers; punished severely for infractions; and forced to wear uniforms, for one of the chief problems of sixteenth—and seventeenth—century conflict had been that combatants and noncombatants generally looked much alike, which often led to meaningless casualties during engagements, while making it easier for troops to desert. The results of these seemingly mundane reforms went beyond anything the religious humanists or the jurists had been able to achieve with their eloquent, elaborate calls for the protection of civilians, and in this fact there was simple, concrete lessons to be learned. Indeed, it is one that still holds true today, though it is still ignored with remarkable frequency: strict discipline of soldiers, especially regarding their interactions with civilians, can foster general social stability to such an extent that the political loyalties of those same citizens may well change in order that they may be allowed to benefit from that stability. In other words, ironically, the alteration of political loyalties sought by those who terrorize civilians is actually most quickly and effectively achieved by refraining from those same tactics."