I was just watching Black Hawk Down and being quite cynical, the whole reason for the major clusterfuck is that no one gets left behind.
All armies do it today (to the best of my knowledge), but somehow I doubt the medieval armies cared that much about a pikeman or archer who got left behind.
So when did the practice of “no one gets left behind” get started?
That was a tradition of the French Foreign Legion Code of Honor (last entry). I don’t know if they did it first, but they’ve had it as part of their code for a century and a half.
I wondered the same thing after seeing that movie. If they had simply left the first guy to his (admittedly horrible) fate and focused on the mission, they might have saved a lot of trouble, to say nothing of the lives of most of the rest of the unit.
I’ve never heard any explanation from a professional military person. The only thing I can think of is that it would be somewhat hard to build unit cohesiveness if the attitude is, “Get into trouble and you’re on your own, bub.”
A WAG but it probably started in the colonial war era. In earlier times, as the OP noted, there was little concern for individual soldiers. Plus most battles didn’t really go anywhere - the two armies met in a field and started shooting at each other. “Nobody gets left behind” seems kind of pointless when you weren’t going anywhere anyway.
The colonial era was when European and American armies started leading raids into enemy territory. You’d march into the wilderness to fight the “savages” when they attacked a village or trading post and then after you had shot a bunch of them you’d march back to your fort. But every soldier lived in fear of falling into the hands of the enemy. Torture was more likely than a prisoner exchange.
And also, during the period leading up to WWI, people began to have a lot more respect for the common soldier. Previously, officers were highly regarded, but enlisted men were treated as worse than the lowest street dweller. With the rise of nationalism, an aura of respect began to form around the men who defended their countries, until the situation got to the way it is now, where almost no one would dream of criticizing the soldiers themselves. So they probably started adopting “no man left behind” policies around the same time they began to think the men deserved it.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
If they had left that guy behind, none of the other troops would have been willing to leave their base for the *next *mission.
It’s part of the basic covenant between commanded and commander - I’ll do what you tell me to do, and risk my life if I have to, but in return you’ll do your utmost to look after me. If the covenant breaks down, the whole system breaks down.
A soldier would say, it’s easier to charge forward when you’re back is covered.
Gee, I bet the practice was started before humans were even a species. It must be almost as old as altruism or social relationships.
Well no. Not in the general army. Like previously stated, I doubt that the Noblemen cared that much about peasant archers who got left behind?
Maybe it’s connected to the rise of the volunteer army? And then spread to other armies as well?
Yes, it’s part of being a member of a volunteer professional army. Soldiers who are treated like disposable cannon fodder perform differently than soldiers who are treated like valuable members of a team. Even if soldiers really are disposable cannon fodder you don’t want them to think they are.
I suspect that soldiers in pre-modern times cared quite a bit about each other. There were often truces for the purpose of burying the dead, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there were similar truces for retrieving the wounded.
Others beat me to it, the benefits of this practice being:
-Good for morale, since each soldier is confident he won’t be left to some horrible fate
-Good for security, since a captured soldier may be less likely to submit to interrogation since he/she believes they will get rescued.
I have a different take than those who have posted so far.
This idea of never leaving someone behind has only arisen relatively recently, IMHO, like since WWII. The wars and conflicts since WWII have been small, regional conflicts. The survival of our nation or way of life was not at stake.
For WWII and prior conflicts, no special efforts were made to ensure that nobody was left behind. When the large naval amphibious assaults were made in the Pacific (composed of thousands of vessels), sailors and Marines were told that if they fell overboard, they were on their own. This actually happened in a few instances. With the sheer number of vessels involved, it was not feasible to maneuver or even slow down to recover a man who fell overboard. It would compromise the whole battle group, the mission, and could lead to a collision between vessels. So they were left behind.
When soldiers fell, they were buried overseas, unlike today, when we go to great lengths today to fly deceased soldiers home to their families.
Heck, even today, there are situations where a the life of one person (or even a few) would be sacrificed without a second thought. When I was assigned to a ballistic missile submarine a few years ago, I was told that if terrorists ever attempted to gain control of the weapons on board, and I was taken hostage, the response would be made without regard to any hostages. A few hostages means nothing compared to terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons. We would destroy the vessel and everyone in in first.
Baloney. Have you never heard of POW camps?
We have had military personnel captured and taken prisoner as recently as the last decade (during the airstrikes in Iraq prior to the invasion).
Soldiers have always tried to look after their comrades - can’t find cites at the moment but Greek hopolites and Roman legionaries dragged their wounded fellow soldiers out of harms way if it possible. “Not going to leave old Gaius to those dirty Britons”. But whoa betide anyone that helped a comrade and risked the mission or battle.
Having a priniciple that no one gets left behind is fine and proper - particularly for forces like the Foreign Legion fighting groups that took no prisoners - but I don’t believe the Legion took this to mean you took your eye off the objective. As** robby **says it is only in modern times, fighting assymetric wars, that it has become possible to try and put this into general practice. To stick to it you need to have superior forces and - generally - be winning. Difficult to retrieve the wounded if you’re retreating.
I don’t think so. my understanding is that US forces in Vietnam tried to make pick up on their comrades and that was not a volunteer professional army. Similar examples from WW2. A conscript, citizen army needs even more nurturing than a volunteer force - they know are civilians in uniform and need to be “treated like valuable members of a team” to perform well.