For many people today, the thought of letting a child train in the martial arts – boxing, karate, wrestling or the growing practice of historical sword combat called “Western martial arts” – is objectionable. Kids are already exposed to too much violence in video games, TV programs and movies. When our society is plagued by problems of real violence at every level, why would we encourage kids (or, for that matter, adults) to take part in a recreational activity that turns physical conflict into a game?

But just because martial arts involve grappling, throwing punches and swinging swords doesn’t mean they are synonymous with violence. These physical activities, coupled with an understanding of a sense of respect, dignity and trust, may actually reduce violence in society. Studying the arts of violence may diminish the urge to commit violent behavior – a paradox that is at the heart of the code of chivalry.

In this essay, excerpted from an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, Prof. Damon Young explores the aggressive tendencies of youth (boys in particular) and considers how a grounding in the martial arts may be an important part of a concerted social campaign against violent street crime. His thoughts about young men learning to channel their aggressive tendencies are echoes of the philosophers of the Middle Ages who wrote about the importance of chivalry.

Studies show that martial arts training can help make young men more calm and disciplined, and less prone to criminal violence.

I was a schoolboy once, and I can understand the allure of macho posturing and physical confrontation. But when the boys are grown men, it’s not so innocent. Boys get grazes and bruises, but drunk adults die from brain injuries, knife cuts and bullet wounds.

Some of the idiocy may be stopped by a greater police presence, more arrests, harsher sentences. Media campaigns might change some minds – well, it worked with drink-driving. But it won’t dissipate the rampant male aggression, particularly the explosive, adamant and irrational rage that often clouds the minds of young men.

This sounds like an excuse – it isn’t. It’s a partial explanation.

Young male rage brings with it all sorts of identity issues: masculinity, sexual desirability, ennui and socio-economic factors. But from poor ethnic gangs to white, middle-class private school boys brandishing bats, is a common ferocity: angry, swaggering, immature aggression.

The question isn’t how to get rid of it, but: what can we do with it? How can we channel this into something less dangerous, and more productive?

There are many ways to do this constructively, but one is martial arts: teach boys how to fight. Take them to classes, like boxing, judo, karate, kung-fu, ju-jitsu.

This seems absurd: surely learning to fight means more violence. Certainly, some young men are made more violent by martial arts – the macho atmosphere and praise for violence enhance their aggression, instead of diminishing it. And some professional fighters seem to grow more angry and unbalanced as they age.

But research suggests that young men who learn to fight in a safe, structured, respectful martial arts school are less antisocial. How does this work?

First, the martial arts offer controlled catharsis. They get to fight, and fight hard – but against willing participants, under the eye of an experienced teacher, coach or trainer. They learn to be aggressive without being malicious.

Second, combat sports can increase self-esteem. Instead of needing to prove themselves in animalistic rites, martial artists enjoy genuine achievements: gaining grades or belts, executing difficult techniques, winning competitions. They learn there are better ways to get respect.

Third, fighting offers discipline. You have to train regularly, eat well, keep your fitness up, and set realistic targets. Maybe young men can combine this with Friday night drinks and thuggery, but it won’t pay off in the long run. Success demands commitment, and this means less late-night idiocy and more early morning jogs.

Fourth, fighting can teach humility. Confidence can spill over into arrogance, which can lead to more infantile self-assertion in the city. But there’s nothing like losing a fight to teach you your limits. Boys need to learn they’re not invulnerable – as a colleague of mine, a fine arts graduate, put it, “every 15-year-old boy needs to be punched in the face”.

Finally, the martial arts demand trust. In order to train well, you need faith in your teacher and fellow students. You have to know they’ll go light when you’re a beginner, and they’ll release their choke when you tap – and you’ll do the same. In this way, young men learn to be less antisocial, and more gregarious; they learn trust in others, and self-restraint.

It’s no panacea; psyche and society are too subtle and complex for any universal policy to work. But it’s food for thought: don’t deny male rage, channel it into something safe and structured. Instead of just policing the streets, we might educate the angry mind. If we want them to be more civilised, perhaps we must teach our boys to fight.

Related posts:

1. Chivalry, Aristotle, CS Lewis & Martial Arts
2. No First Strike In Chivalry
3. Chivalry Gets Its Chops

If there was such a thing as the Chivalry Awards, perhaps the following would be this year’s winners. But chivalrous people don’t follow their ideals to get trophies or make speeches – they simply do what needs to be done, and set the examples that need to be set, in order to make the world a better place.

Instead, let’s call these The High Points In Chivalry of 2009:

The campus of the Harvard Business School

5) The Harvard MBA Oath — Having seen too many unsavory management practices, several members of the 2009 graduating class of the Harvard Business School felt the time had come to show there were still decent people in the business world. During the spring semester, class members put together a simple eight-point oath of ethics that could be applied in any sector in the world of business. The oath included statements such as, “I will manage my enterprise in good faith,” “I will understand and uphold, both in letter and in sprit, the laws and contracts governing my … enterprise,” and “I will be accountable to my peers.” Their goal was a modest one: To get just 100 members of their class to sign the oath. In the end, however, not 100, but 900 students put their names to the oath – over half of the graduating class. And as news of this movement spread, business students all over the world began to take up the cause. To date, the Harvard MBA Ethics Oath has been adopted (voluntarily) by hundreds of schools around the globe; more than 1,700 students have signed it so far, and the list continues to grow every day. It seems there are still men and women in the business world who want to be champions instead of sharks.

Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols (left) was first on the scene to help an injured fan.

4) Albert Pujols Tends An Injured Fan — At a baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals on Aug. 7, a fan in the stands made an enthusiastic reach for a foul ball … and would up taking a literal nose dive over the wall and onto the field. The on-call EMTs rushed to take care of fellow, but paramedics and fans alike were surprised to see a white uniform at the injured fan’s side — that of number 5, Albert Pujols. The Cardinal’s first baseman stayed with the man for more than 10 minutes as the EMTs bandaged a severe laceration on his face, then reassured the man’s son that everything would be okay as they were taken to a nearby hospital. (The incident earned Pujols the AT&T Sportsmanship Award.) Although taking time away from an important game to tend to an injured spectator isn’t exactly “business as usual” for a top-ranking pro athlete, Pujols’ fans weren’t surprised by the incident — Pujols is known for using his off season to do charity and humanitarian work in the Dominican Republic where he grew up. This incident is just a reminder that a highly successful athlete (Pujols is a multiple All-Star and MVP recipient) can also be a knight in shining armor.

President Barack Obama

3) The U.S. President Takes A Bow — On Nov. 14, President Barak Obama raised some eyebrows when he lowered his head in a traditional bow as he was introduced to Emperor Akihito during a political visit to Japan. Politics aside, this gesture was an effective reminder of the simple principle of humility. As many commentators (from both sides of the political aisle) pointed out, bowing in this circumstance was not a sign of submission or deference, but simply a show of good manners. Even the most powerful man in the world should be gracious (and confident) enough to respect the customs of hospitality when he is visiting someone’s home. (In the 14th century, the King of England once considered it a great honor when, at a royal dinner, he personally knelt beside and served the visiting King of France – not as an act of submission, but as a display of the proper devotion of a host.) In the ideals of chivalry, power and authority should always be coupled with humbleness and sensitivity.

2) A New Moon Rises Over Chivalry – The motion picture New Moon opened on Nov. 20, and this second installment in the Twilight vampire saga based on the books of Stephanie Meyer had the a lot of critics and media analysts buzzing about an unfamiliar topic: chivalry. The cinematic merits of New Moon may be up for debate, but this movie has both pop culture pundits and American teenagers discussing the ideals and practices of chivalry with a sort of dignity and clarity that hasn’t been done in decades. In many ways, the supernatural characters of the Twilight saga resemble the iconic knights of Arthurian legend: Stronger and more powerful than average mortals, and struggling to restrain both their amorous and combative instincts because of the inspiration of love and honor. New Moon’s opening broke box office records all across the board – a fine demonstration that a powerful message of chivalry can still appeal to a broad audience.

A ferry diverts course to help survivors of Flight 1549 as they wait calmly for rescue.

1) Flight 1549 Lands In The Hudson River – Americans were shocked to hear the news on Jan. 15 of a jet airliner that crashed in the Hudson River shortly after takeoff. They were equally stunned – and inspired – by the stories of the evacuation and rescue of the survivors. Passengers, crew and officers, led by Captain Chesley Sullengerber, acted and reacted with dignity, courage and compassion. Rescue personnel and bystanders alike rushed in to help with little thought to their own safety. President George Bush himself commended everyone involved and said, “the skill and heroism of the flight crew as well as the dedication and selflessness of the emergency responders and volunteers” was an inspiration to all. The incident was dubbed “The Miracle on the Hudson,” a reminder to everyone that the world is full of heroes, and that chivalry is alive and well.

This blog entry is part of the Group Writing Project: 2009 In Review, sponsored by DailyBlogTips.

Related posts:

1. Bullies, Business and Chivalry
2. Chivalry’s Dirty Laundry
3. Saluting First Knights

The Battle of Agincourt in 1415 is a watershed moment in the history of chivalry and knighthood. It was an event when the army of France, which consisted primarily of knights armed with the finest “high tech” military equipment of the day, was defeated by a much smaller English force, comprised primarily of yeomen and peasant archers.

Agincourt thus became symbolic of the triumph of the “commoner” over the knightly nobility; of grit and determination over chivalry and gallantry. But there is another side to the imagery of Agincourt — that of a small, courageous band of brothers standing against all odds and emerging victorious not only by force of arms but also by strength of character and virtue. Songs were written about the English King Henry V immediately after the battle saying his victory was won, “by grace and might of chivalry.”

But recent scholarly investigations into the Battle of Agincourt are beginning to remold our image of this historic event — and these updated images of the campaign, the battle and the men who fought it (on both sides) have been incorporated into the recent novel Azincourt» (the medieval spelling) by acclaimed historical novelist Bernard Cornwell.

But if our image of the Battle of Agincourt – the arrogant French knights, the valiant English king, the stalwart bowmen – is being repainted, what does that do to the concept of chivalry? Was Agincourt an excoriation of an outdated notion of aristocratic privilege? Or an atrocity against the very concept of ethics on the battlefield?

This article, written by Bernard Cornwell himself and published in the Oct. 28, 2008 edition of The Daily Mail, may shed some light on just how the concept of chivalry emerged from the muddy battlefield at Agincourt.

Legend says the Battle of Agincourt was won by stalwart English archers. It was not. In the end it was won by men using lead-weighted hammers, poleaxes, mauls and falcon-beaks, the ghastly paraphernalia of medieval hand-to-hand fighting. It was fought on a field knee-deep in mud and it was more of a massacre than a battle.

The romantic image of Shakespeare's Henry V (played here by Sir Lawrence Olivier) maybe inspirational, but it also appears in stark contrast to the authentic image of the king and his army who fought at Agincourt.

Laurence Olivier’s film of Shakespeare’s Henry V shows French knights charging on horseback, but very few men were mounted at Agincourt.

The French came on foot and the battle was reduced to men hitting other armoured men with hammers, maces and axes.

A sword would not penetrate armour and did not have the weight to knock a man off his feet, but a poleaxe (a long-handled axe or hammer, topped with a fearsome spike) would fell him fast, and then it was easy to raise the victim’s visor and slide a knife through an eye. That was how hundreds of men died; their last sight on earth a dagger’s point.

It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle’s height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered.

(Recently) during a conference at the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, French academics met to declare that English soldiers acted like ‘war criminals’ during the battle, setting fire to prisoners and killing French noblemen who had surrendered. The French ‘were met with barbarism by the English’, said the museum’s director Christophe Gilliot.

The French pronouncement smacks of bias, but what is certain is that Agincourt was filthy, horrible and merciless. Yet it is still celebrated as a golden moment in England’s history.

Why do we remember it? Why has this battle galvanised English hearts over the centuries? These are questions I came to ask as I researched my new novel Azincourt» – spelled as it is in France – and discovered just what an extraordinary event it was.

Part of the legend about the archers is certainly true. Most of the English army were archers and their arrows caused huge damage, although they never delivered the knock-out blow it is claimed.

Henry V was also an inspirational leader. He fought in the front rank and part of his crown was knocked off. Eighteen Frenchmen had taken an oath to kill him and all of them died at Henry’s feet, slaughtered by the King or by his bodyguard. And, despite recent claims to the contrary, it seems the English were horribly outnumbered.

In the cold, wet dawn of October 25, 1415, no one could have expected Henry’s army to survive the day. He had about 6,000 men, more than 5,000 of them archers, while the French numbered at least 30,000 and were so confident that, before the battle was joined, they sent away some newly arrived reinforcements. By dusk on that Saint Crispin’s Day, Henry’s small army had entered legend.

But the English should never have been at Agincourt, which lies 25 miles south of Calais. England was in the thick of the 100 Years’ War with France, and Henry had invaded Normandy in the hope of making a quick conquest of Harfleur, a strategic port. Yet the town’s stubborn defence delayed him and by the siege’s end his army had been struck by dysentery.

Sick men were dying and the campaign season was ending as winter drew in. Sensible advice suggested that Henry cut his losses and sail back to England. But he had borrowed huge amounts of money to invade France and all he had to show for it was one gun-battered port. Going home looked suspiciously like defeat.

He instead marched north to Calais with probably nothing more in mind than cocking a snook at the French who, though they had gathered an army, had done nothing to relieve the brave defenders of Harfleur.

Henry wanted to humiliate the French by flaunting his banners, yet I doubt he truly wanted to face that large French army with his own depleted numbers.

The French had been supine all summer, but now, suddenly, they woke and moved to block Henry’s path. Henry tried to go round them. A march meant to last eight days stretched to 16. The English exhausted their food, they were ill with dysentery and soaked from the continual autumn rains.

They were driven far inland in search of a place to cross the River Somme and then trudged north, only to discover the French army waiting for them on a muddy field between the woods of Azincourt and Tramecourt. The English were trapped.

The French were barring the English road home, so Henry had to fight. He hoped the French would attack him and he ordered his archers to protect themselves from knights on horseback by making a thicket of sharpened stakes to impale the stallions’ chests.

But the French remained motionless, so Henry was forced to advance on them. Did he really say ‘Let’s go, fellows!’ as one contemporary claimed? It seems so, yet whatever his words, the English plucked up their stakes and waded through the mud to get close to the French line.

And the French, even though they must have seen that the English were in disarray, did nothing. They let Henry’s men come to within extreme bowshot distance where, once again, the stakes were hammered into the ground and the battle line was reformed on a newly ploughed field that had been soaked by constant rain. If I had to suggest one cause for the French defeat, it would be mud.

The two sides were now little more than a couple of hundred paces apart. The English, astonishingly, had been given time to reposition themselves, and now the archers began the battle by shooting a volley of arrows.

At least 5,000 of them, most converging from the flanks, slashed into the French, and it seems that the shock of that first arrow strike prompted the French to attack.

A handful of Frenchmen advanced on horseback, trying to get among the archers, but mud, stakes and arrows easily defeated those knights. Some of the horses, maddened by pain, galloped back through the French men-at-arms, tearing their ranks into chaos.

Some 8,000 Frenchmen were now advancing on foot. No one knows how long it took them to cover the 200 or more paces which separated them from Henry’s men-at-arms, but it was not a quick approach.

They were wading through mud made treacherous by deeply ploughed furrows and churned to quagmire by horses’ hooves. And they were being struck by arrows so that they were forced to close their helmets’ visors.

They could see little through the tiny eye- slits, their breathing was stifled and still the arrows came. The conventional verdict suggests that the French were cut down by those arrow storms, but the chief effect of the arrows was to delay and, by forcing them to close their visors, half-blind the attackers.

The French knew about English and Welsh archers. The longbow could shoot an arrow more than 200 paces with an accuracy that was unmatched till the rifled gun barrel was invented.

At Agincourt some barbed broadhead arrows (which were designed to cause maximum damage and could fell cavalry) would have been shot at those few horses that attacked the English line. But most were bodkins, long and slender arrowheads without barbs that were made to pierce armour.

A good archer could easily shoot 15 arrows a minute, so 5,000 archers could loose 75,000 arrows in one minute; more than 1,000 a second.

Why did the French not deploy their own longbowmen? Because to shoot a longbow demanded great strength (they were at least three times as powerful as a modern competition bow) and considerable skill. It took years for a man to develop the muscles and technique, and for reasons that have never been understood, such men emerged in Britain, but not on the Continent.

So as the first French line advanced it was being struck repeatedly by arrows, and even if a bodkin did not penetrate plate armour its strike was sufficient to knock a man backwards.

If the advance took four minutes (and I suspect it took longer), then about 300,000 arrows would have been shot at the 8,000 men.

Even if the English were short of arrows and cut their shooting rate to one-third, then they would still have driven 100,000 arrows against the struggling 8,000, and if the legend is correct, then not one of those Frenchmen should have survived.

Yet they did survive, and most of them reached the English line and started fighting with shortened lances, poleaxes and war-hammers.

The fight became a struggle of hacking and thrusting, slaughter in the mud.

But if so many arrows had been shot, how did the French survive to reach the English and start that murderous brawl? The answer probably lies in the eternal arms race …

Learn More: Shakespeare’s Famous Band Of Brothers

The famous St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V, delivered here by Lawrence Olivier in a 1944 motion picture, creates a stirring and romantic image of chivalry at Agincourt. Is it an image of a king, an army and a code of honor built on literary grandeur rather than historical reality?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts:

1. Agincourt Part 2: Where A New Crop Of Chivalry Was Planted
2. Real Knights, Real Chivalry: Part 2
3. Teaching With Chivalry Part III: Ethics, Tactics and Literature

In the second part of this article, as in his latest novel Azincourt,» Cornwell paints a stark and brutal picture of Agincourt. Yet, despite the folly and callousness demonstrated at times by both sides in this battle, the day did not result in “the death of chivalry,” as some pragmatic historians might like to claim. Instead, Agincourt might better be described as “the transformation of chivalry” … from an ideal that applied only to an elite and aristocratic few, to one that every man, “no matter how vile” (in the words of Shakespeare) could achieve.

The English army at Agincourt was one in which peasant and knight stood side-by-side in the mud — it might have brought the knights low, but it also let those humble English yeomen feel a bit of the chivalric glow that had previously illuminated the knightly class alone. This was a moment — perhaps one of the first in all of history — when an everyman could imagine himself as a knight in shining armor.

A 19th century artist's depiction of the disheartened English soldiers receiving blessing on the eve of Agincourt.

Armour technology had advanced and the French plate armour was mostly good enough to resist the English arrow-heads. And how good were those heads?

Arrow-making was an industrial-scale activity in England, yet few men understood what happened when iron was hardened into steel and many of the English arrows crumpled on contact with the enemy’s armour. So the many reached the few, but the many were exhausted by mud, some were wounded and the English, enjoying the luxury of raised visors, cut them down.

What seems to have happened was that the front rank of the French, exhausted by slogging through the mud, battered and wounded by arrows, disorganised by panicked horses and by stumbling over wounded men, became easy victims for the English men-at-arms.

There would have been the ghastly sound of hammers crushing helmets, the screams of men falling, and suddenly the leading French rank being chopped down and its fallen men becoming an obstacle to those behind who, being thrust forward by the rearmost ranks, tripped on the newly fallen bodies and so became victims themselves. One witness claimed that the pile of dead and dying was as tall as a man, an obvious exaggeration, but undoubtedly the first French casualties made a rampart to protect the English men-at-arms.

The French had attacked the centre of the English line where the King, the nobles and the gentry stood. Their aim had been to take prisoners and so become rich from ransoms, but now that centre was a killing ground and, to escape it, the French widened their attack to assault the archers who had probably exhausted their arrows.

Yet the archers had been equipped with poleaxes and other handweapons, and they fought back.

The bowmen wore little armour, and in the glutinous mud they were far more mobile than their plate-armoured opponents.

Any man capable of hauling a warbow’s string was hugely strong and a battle-axe in his hands would be a ghastly weapon. So the archers joined the hand-to-hand fight and the tired French were killed in their hundreds.

The second French line, another 8,000 men on foot, tried to support their beleaguered colleagues, but they too were cut down and the rest of the French melted away. The extraordinary, awful battle was over. The field was now groaning with horribly wounded men; men lying in piles, men suffocating in mud, dead men, blood-drenched men.

Perhaps as many as 5,000 French died that day, while English losses were in the hundreds, maybe not even as many as 200. The few had gained their extraordinary triumph.

There were other victories, like Poitiers in 1356, that were more decisive, and it is arguable that Agincourt achieved very little; it would take another five years of warfare before Henry won the concessions he wanted from the French and even then his premature death proved those gains worthless.

Shakespeare’s heart-stirring Henry V helped ensure the battle’s place in English folklore, but Shakespeare was playing to an audience that already knew the tale and wanted to hear it again.

Agincourt was well-known long before Shakespeare made it immortal, yet even so there were those other great triumphs like Poitiers and Crecy, so why Agincourt?

It must have started with the stories told by survivors. They had expected annihilation and gained victory. It might even be true that the archers, when the battle was over, taunted the French by holding up the two string-fingers that the enemy had threatened to slice off every captured bowman – the V- sign that is common parlance today.

The men in Henry’s army must have believed they had been part of a miracle. The few had destroyed the many, and most of those few were archers.

They were not lords and knights and gentry, but butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers from the shires. They were the ordinary men of England and Wales. They had met the awesome power of France in hand-to-hand fighting and they had won.

The battle is part of the binding of England, the emergence of the common man as a vital part of the nation, and those common men returned to England with their tales, their plunder and their pride.

The stories were told in taverns over and over, how a few hungry, trapped men had gained an amazing victory. The story is still told because it has such power. It is a tale of the common man achieving greatness. It is an English tale for the ages, an inspiration and – far from being ashamed of so-called ‘war crimes’ – we can be proud of it.

Bernard Cornwell on the Battle of Agincourt

Click here to view the embedded video.

Learn More: The Battle of Agincourt

• An article in the New York Times shows how historians are using tax records to reassess the Battle of Agincourt — and a familiar picture of war and soldiers is emerging.
• Historians Anne Curry, Michael Jones and John Watts discuss the latest documentary evidence for the compositions of the armies that met at Agincourt in 1415 on the show In Our Time on BBC Radio.
• Was King Henry V the greatest monarch who ever lived? England’s Daily Mail seeks an answer to the question.

More Of Bernard Cornwell’s Novels of Chivalry and Medieval Adventure:

The Archer's Tale» A Novel of the Hundred Years War
The Winter King» A Novel of Historical King Arthur
The Last Kingdom» A Novel of Alfred the Great and Saxon England

Related posts:

1. Agincourt Part 1: Where Chivalry Died In The Mud
2. Real Knights, Real Chivalry: Part 2
3. The Medicine of Chivalry

Even in the most fearsome times of warfare and battle, like the naval fighting that occurred between Japan and its enemies at the height of World War II, the spirit of chivalry has a crucial function — not, as some might claim, to provide any sense of comfort or courtesy to the enemy, but rather to facilitate the sense of reconciliation and diplomacy that must eventually be established if war is ever to come to an end. This real-life story of two true World War II heroes and the men they served with and fought against is a fine example of how the balm of chivalry can help heal wounds that might otherwise fester for generations.

Humanity in Battle Brings Healing Spirit

British war veteran Sir Samuel Falle, one of 422 officers and sailors of the British Navy rescued by a Japanese warship during World War II, visited Japan and placed flowers on the grave of the ship’s commander last Sunday.

Falle praised the commander’s brave decision to save the men as an example of Japanese chivalry. His story could help change the negative image of the Japanese military during the war and promote reconciliation between former English prisoners of war, many of whom bear anti-Japanese feelings, and the Japanese.

On March 1, 1942, the British Royal Navy destroyer Encounter and its heavy cruiser Exeter were sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy off the coast of Surabaya, a port in what is now Indonesia, in the northeastern Java Sea. About 450 British officers and sailors were left drifting in the water under the scorching sun.

The next day, when the men had been pushed to their limits due to fatigue, thirst and fear of shark attacks, the Japanese destroyer Ikazuchi found them by chance while patrolling that sector of the ocean. Commander Shunsaku Kudo made the decision to rescue all the officers and sailors, despite being in danger of submarine attacks, thus saving the lives of 422 British sailors.

The deck of the Ikazuchi, which had 220 crew members, was filled with the rescued British officers and sailors, who were covered in heavy oil from the water, but the crew members treated them as friendly forces by washing them and giving them clothing and food.

“I remember to this day that they gave me a green shirt, khaki trousers and a pair of tennis shoes. Then, we were given hot milk, corn willies and biscuits,” said Falle, former lieutenant of the British Royal Navy and a former ambassador to Sweden, at a press conference Sunday after paying his respects at Kudo’s grave in Saitama prefecture north of Tokyo.

According to the 89-year-old man (pictured right) – who was in a wheelchair but whose mind was keen – Kudo came down to the deck and addressed the British sailors in English, saying, “You are the honored guests of the Imperial Japanese Navy. You fought very bravely. We respect the English Navy, but the English government foolishly made war on Japan.”

“He treated us with all the chivalry possible as the commander of a small destroyer and it was a remarkable experience that has lived with me throughout my life. I can still see him standing there and addressing us,” said Falle.

In 2003, Falle visited Japan to offer flowers at Kudo’s grave, but could not locate the site. Later, Japanese journalist Ryunosuke Megumi discovered where his grave and his relatives were located, and upon hearing this, Falle decided to visit Japan again. Megumi introduced the story in Japan in 2006 by publishing a book, Save the Enemies, describing Kudo’s decision and the rescue.

“I actually expressed my gratitude in person at the grave of Commander Kudo,” Falle said, after the reunion at Kudo’s gravesite after 66 years.

The next day, a memorial ceremony for Kudo and a welcoming ceremony for Falle, hosted by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense and the Japan-British Society, were held at the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka in Tokyo.

“I am sure that Sir Falle’s visit to Japan will help in strengthening ties with Britain and bringing about reconciliation between former English prisoners of war and Japan,” said Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone.

In fact, Kudo’s decision to conduct such a large-scale rescue operation during a battle at sea, where Dutch and U.S. submarines were swarming, is noteworthy. A Japanese carrier had been attacked and sunk by an enemy submarine the day before in that area of the sea.

Some crew members jumped into the sea to save sailors who could not grab or climb a ladder or a rope by themselves. Moreover, the Ikazuchi searched for all of the survivors in the surrounding area and went wherever survivors were found.

Falle, who had imagined that the Japanese were cruel and strange, felt like he was dreaming and even pinched his arm, as he described it in his autobiography, My Lucky Life, published in 1996.

Kudo, who never told anyone, including his wife, about the event, passed away at age 77 in 1979. The heartwarming story would have been buried in history without Falle sharing publicly about his extraordinary experience.

Kiyosumi Tanigawa, the former navigating officer of the Ikazuchi, aged 92, explained the reason that Kudo did not talk about the operation even after the war.

“Under the right circumstances, with no enemy airplanes, ships or submarines, we took for granted saving enemies who had lost their combat capability and who were dying,” Tanigawa said. “I guess that Kudo might not have thought that he had accomplished a great achievement.”

Tanigawa also explained that the Japanese Imperial Navy did the same thing during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The story became famous by chance because Falle brought it to light, he said.

“Kudo was a well-tempered and silent man of worth, and a quick decision maker,” according to Tanigawa.

After experiencing life as a prisoner of war of the Imperial Japanese Army for three-and-a-half years until the end of the war, Falle started working for the British Foreign Ministry. He continued praising Kudo’s decision at commemorative events in Indonesia and the United States, as well as in England. When the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the war in Surabaya was held in 1992, he spoke at the ceremony, praising Kudo as a model of chivalry. He also submitted a report on his experience titled Chivalry to the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings in 1987.

In April 1998, one month before an official visit of the Japanese emperor to England, former prisoners of war who had been oppressed by the Japanese Imperial Army demonstrated, demanding compensation from the Japanese government and requesting an apology from the emperor.

During World War II, about 60,000 prisoners of war of the Allied powers, including British soldiers, were forced to work to build the Thai-Burma Railway. Over 10,000 died during the operation from malnutrition, malaria or cholera under poor living conditions and a shortage of food. Some have harbored strong anti-Japan sentiments ever since.

To soothe the demonstrators, Falle, through letters to the editor of the Times, called on them to give the emperor a warm welcome and promoted reconciliation with Japan by sharing his experience of Japanese chivalry. His story was printed in the newspaper on April 29, 1998, and helped ease the tide of anti-Japanese sentiment.

“I was very impressed by his attitude that he cannot die until he pays his respects to Kudo and his family for his brave action,” said Kichio Kudo, the adopted son of Kudo’s niece. He came from Yamagata prefecture in northern Japan to see Falle, representing Kudo’s relatives.

“Falle has exemplified the spirit of chivalry more than Kudo did,” he said.

© 2009 Hiroyuki Koshoji

This article was originally published by UPI Asia in a Dec. 11, 2008 report.

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Honor is perhaps one of the most perplexing concepts associated with the ideals of chivalry. We expect someone of knightly character to be honorable, yet disgraceful behavior, from drive-by shootings to brutal campus hazing rituals, are often excused under the guise of alleged honor.

James Bowman has literally written the book on the history of honor. In this essay he takes an interesting look at the concept of honor as it is used (and often misused) in today’s world, and as it was understood in the culture of the 19th century as well. He is obviously skeptical about the prospect that we can (or even should) revive the standards of honor from an age of the past, but through his research he has made a crucial point with regards to chivalry and the warrior’s code: Honor should never be mistaken for ego, and the ultimate purpose of a code of honor in any context is to remind us that we should always hold ourselves to a higher standard than mere legality. That, in the end, is what defines the notion of honor.

A Civilized Remedy for Savage Customs

A culture of "honor" can bind together soldiers, students, or colleagues who must face serious challenges. A leader must ensure that the concept of honor doesn't turn into license for brutality or rule-breaking.

When he was a young cadet at West Point, just before the turn of the past century, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was the victim of a savage hazing incident. The perpetrators were court-martialed and he was called to testify at their trial. MacArthur refused to identify them, though he was himself threatened with expulsion for doing so. “Never lie, never tattle,” his mother had taught him. He stuck to that.

At about the same time, and especially in the South, colleges and universities were introducing “honor codes” whose principle was “Never lie, always tattle.” In the century or more since they came into existence, it would be fair to say that they have had a mixed record of success.

It helped, however, when students still came to college already equipped with some idea of what honor was. Honor was once the hallmark of that now exotic-seeming creature, the gentleman. Ladies had honor too, but it was different from the gentlemanly kind, and more defined by what they didn’t do than by what they did.

When I went up to Davidson College in 1966, it was still an all-male institution, and people could talk without embarrassment of the “Davidson gentleman.” I don’t think anyone could do that today. But Davidson still has an honor code.

What the Victorian designers of that and other honor codes were doing was essentially an extension of what the Victorians had done with honor itself: They had taken a primitive form of tribal discipline that had survived into the modern era and tried to update it according to Enlightenment principles.

Always in the past, honor had been more or less at odds with religion, morality, and law. The custom of dueling, for example, had survived into the 19th century in spite of the repeated condemnations of all three. In parts of the antebellum South, especially South Carolina, dueling was to college kids what football is today.

Elsewhere, however, that old-fashioned idea of honor was already undergoing its transformation.

Beginning with the American Founding Fathers, who decoupled honor from aristocracy, and such Romantic writers as Sir Walter Scott, honor went from being something tribal and pre-civilizational — which it still is today in many parts of the world — to a code of conduct that had made its peace with morality and even religion.

The idea of the Christian gentleman as it had evolved by the close of the 19th century, especially in the English-speaking world, was one of the great achievements of Western culture, but it couldn’t last. The First World War began the destruction of the gentlemanly ideal — and Vietnam completed it. Nowadays, gentlemanliness is thought of as naive and impractical at best, a mask for oppression at worst.

Looking back on that grand Victorian project, we are likely to be impressed by how much of its legacy is still around, from the Geneva Conventions to college honor codes. But, having forgotten the social context that brought both into being, we now treat them as if they were laws rather than a collective expression of trust that men — and now women — of honor can be relied upon to enforce high standards of behavior on themselves, without legal constraint.

Honor is passé in the Western world today. Some see it as too “judgmental,” too much at odds with the spirit of equality that has introduced us to honor’s ersatz and forever-unsatisfying substitute: self-esteem. This fact cannot but have a powerful effect on the coherence and the usefulness of honor codes.

Yet now that we have been forcibly reminded of honor’s existence by a challenge from a culture where it still takes its most primitive and virulent form — where women are the victims of “honor killings,” and where suicide bombers murder innocents in the name of the honor of their religion’s prophet — the honor code can serve another purpose.

We can, that is, take the optimistic view and regard it as one of the impressive ruins of a great civilization that are still lying around us and that may serve as reminders of another idea of honor, one that was invented by our great-great grandparents and that was, while it lasted, an altogether finer and more beautiful thing.

© 2006 James Bowman

About the Author: James Bowman is author of the book Honor: A History» . He is also a writer for the American Spectator, The New York Sun and The New Criterion. He also recently conducted a film study course called The American Movie Hero at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C.

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Whenever I hear someone scoff “chivalry is dead,” I always ask them if they’ve read the U.S. Army’s Laws of Land Warfare (FM 27-10). Most people are astonished to learn that Article 3 of our military’s governing document states that soldiers must always conduct themselves “with regard for the principles of chivalry and humanity.” Unfortunately, on today’s battlefields, both of those concepts are becoming murky and hard to realize. Many people — both real soldiers and “armchair generals” alike — are beginning to feel that honorable behavior should only be given to honorable opponents.

We know that the ideals of honor can be hindering in a hostile situation — especially one in which the enemies, adversaries or competitors are willing (and even eager) to exploit their enemy’s restraint and compassion. So, if your adversaries are willing to fight “no holds barred,” why shouldn’t you? After all, it’s the end, not the means, that’s important, right?

In the following article, ethicist and military analyst David L. Perry looks at the crucial importance of chivalry and the “law of arms” in a fight against terrorists and insurgents. Although his advice, originally published in the Armed Forces Journal, is directed at military officers, his words have surprising relevance in other fields as well. Today, business professionals, athletes, politicians and even students are wondering, “Why should I be fair when everyone else is getting ahead by breaking the rules?” Prof. Perry reminds us that a warrior must act justly and honorably, even when competing against someone who “does not deserve it.” Effective leaders (in any field) demonstrate to their troops that ethics and ideals are just as important as the objectives they’re trying to achieve.

The Law of War and the Fight Against Terrorism

Counterinsurgency has no “easy button.” As every soldier knows, insurgents don’t fight fair. Instead of wearing uniforms to signify their combatant status, they normally “hide in the open” in civilian guise; they infiltrate police and army units; they destroy infrastructure vital to civilian well-being; they kidnap, torture, shoot, behead and mutilate anybody who isn’t their ally; and they slaughter women and children like cattle.

Such people do not deserve mercy. In my view, they have forfeited any moral right to expect it from us. You and your troops may be sorely tempted to deny them humane treatment as a result. But you must resist that temptation. Treat them humanely even though they don’t deserve it.

The U.S. military has been extremely conscientious and diligent during the past three decades in emphasizing the importance of maintaining high standards of conduct, even amid the extreme pressures of combat and counterinsurgency. But I’ve sometimes heard officers and non-commissioned officers complain that upholding the laws of war hampers our war efforts and is pointless against enemies who don’t respect those laws.

That way of thinking is seriously mistaken. Our country needs you to uphold the laws of war because when you don’t, you undermine our war aims. As clichéd as it sounds, successful counterinsurgency really does depend on winning the hearts and minds of the citizens under occupation.

The contemporary laws of war reflect ancient traditions of military chivalry and humanity shared among most of the world’s religions and cultures. And they’re not some foreign imposition on our national ethic, they’re logical expressions of it.

Further, the laws of war have been affirmed in international treaties signed by U.S. presidents and ratified by Congress, and thus have the full force of federal law under our Constitution. Not even the president can ignore or unilaterally override those treaties, a point reinforced by the Supreme Court in its June 29 decision, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Humane treatment of all enemy combatants is your legal obligation, even when some of those enemies don’t reciprocate.

Be mindful of the dark reaches of human nature. The fact that hundreds of unarmed people were massacred at My Lai in 1968 is well-known. But some important details are often forgotten: Some U.S. soldiers of Charlie Company not only killed unarmed villagers with enthusiasm, but also raped and mutilated their victims; others killed without emotion, as if shooting infants and old people were just like any other task they might be asked to accomplish; and still others went on killing even though they clearly felt anguished and sickened by it.

I’m not persuaded that any particular atrocities alleged against our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan resemble My Lai to any great extent. And I’m quite sure that our military leadership and the character and training of our average soldier are much better on the whole today than they were in 1968. But I’m absolutely convinced that we need to remind ourselves again and again what My Lai tells us about human nature.

There will always be a small portion of human society that is deeply sadistic or sociopathic. The military will continually need to screen out such people from its recruit pool and discharge any who get through that screen before they’re deployed. Perhaps we need to redouble our efforts here, to avoid sacrificing the quality of our troops in order to meet numerical recruiting objectives.

But it’s vitally important to recognize that atrocities are not committed by sadistic people only. Almost all of us are capable of barbarism. Even our most admirable soldiers — ones who would courageously give their lives for their buddies without hesitation, ones you’d gladly trust to baby-sit your kids — can be transformed into indiscriminate killers.

Our tendencies to obey authority figures and be team players can unfortunately drown out the soft voice of our conscience if we’re not alert to that risk. Those tendencies are deeply rooted in our nature as a species. Commanders ignore them at their peril.

In the 1960s, Yale psychology professor Stanley Milgram conducted a series of famous experiments in which people were led to believe that they were taking part in a study of the effects of punishment on learning. In fact they were being tested to see how many increasingly strong electric shocks they would inflict on a total stranger, simply because a skinny man in a white coat told them, “The experiment requires that you continue.” (See Milgram’s fascinating book, Obedience to Authority.)

As you can imagine, Milgram’s experimental subjects differed from the soldiers at My Lai in many ways. Most of his subjects were older. They were not encouraged to hate the person receiving the shocks and had no prior reason to resent him. They were given no special training to inculcate a habit of strict obedience. The man leading the experiment would have seemed much less authoritative than a military officer. And there were no penalties for refusing to obey particular commands or even quitting the whole experiment, unlike the threat of court-martial for disobedience in combat.

But these differences make it all the more puzzling as to why most of Milgram’s subjects obeyed completely.

Milgram warns us not to infer from his experiments that most people, deep down, are really sadistic or cruel. In fact, one of his experiments showed that when people were allowed to choose the level of shock to administer, they overwhelmingly used only very light shocks. But Milgram’s studies are disturbing in showing that most people tend to obey authority figures even when asked to do something that deeply violates their conscience. This is something we ought to find profound and disturbing, because it suggests any one of us might have behaved like the soldiers at My Lai who mowed down unarmed people in obedience to direct orders from their superior officers.

Sometimes even our best moral emotions can get us into serious trouble. I can vividly imagine what soldiers feel seeing close friends killed and maimed by unseen enemies, day after day. But there’s a fine line between legitimate moral outrage and blind, indiscriminate rage. We need to retain a valid sense of moral injustice but stop ourselves from lashing out in frustration against innocent people.

Avoid reinforcing a belief among your troops that every inhabitant of an insurgent stronghold is guilty of aiding the insurgents, i.e., that no one is a non-combatant. Small children, at least, are always innocent, even if nobody else is. And adults who might sympathize with our side are sometimes threatened by the insurgents with death if they assist our forces. In any case, no soldier is authorized to be judge, jury and executioner of suspected insurgent sympathizers.

We also need to guard against the moral equivalent of negligent homicide of non-combatants. Commanders must take care to avoid issuing rules of engagement permitting soldiers to clear a dwelling with grenades or blind weapon firing with no prior indication that combatants are present there. In the wake of Hadithah, some troops have claimed that such ROE existed.

Briefing your troops on core values is important. They need to see you take ownership of high ethical standards, that you’re not simply parroting the party line. Hypothetical and practical scenarios can be useful in teasing out the proper and improper applications of ethical principles and legal obligations. Realistic exercises are even more effective in eliciting the kinds of emotional states that can make atrocities likely. Those experiences can then be the subject of reflection and discussion during after-action reviews. To quote a wise Army colonel who spoke at the Naval War College in 2003, train your troops “until they know what the right thing to do feels like.”

Most important, keep a close eye on their attitudes, emotional states and stress levels — before, during and after raids and patrols. Ideally, teach your soldiers to carefully monitor their own emotions and attitudes, and those of their buddies, to look for warning signs of moral fatigue that can lead even decent people to commit atrocities: verbal expressions of indiscriminate rage, callous indifference to the deaths of civilians, unusually aggressive behavior, sullen withdrawal and so on.

Finally, even the clearest code of ethics and the most thorough training programs can be undermined by the wrong objectives, incentives and pressures set by organizational leaders. For example, if you tell military subordinates that your overriding priority is getting actionable intelligence about the enemy — and especially if you add that you don’t want to hear any hand-wringing about “quaint” or “obsolete” laws or ethics — don’t be surprised if your people come up with very creative ways to make you happy, things that even they might be embarrassed or ashamed to do in public. Part of being a responsible, accountable commander is providing clear guidance and then monitoring how your subordinates achieve your objectives.

Chivalry and humanity in war conduct, even in counterinsurgency, are neither dead nor obsolete. We still need warriors who are effective in employing deadly force and are merciful captors, tough soldiers who will show mercy to the defenseless every time.

© 2007 David L. Perry

About the author: David L. Perry is professor of ethics and Gen. Maxwell Taylor Chair of the Profession of Arms at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. His articles have appeared in many military and academic journals, including the Journal of Conflict Studies, the Ethics Journal and Ethics and International Affairs. This article originally appeared in the Sept. 2006 edition of the Armed Forces Journal.

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Chivalry is not about holding doors or tipping hats. The Code of Chivalry is a warrior’s code of honor, not a guide for genteel etiquette — and perhaps there is no more important time to remember that than now, as accounts of war atrocities committed on prisoners at Abu Ghraib are coming to light.

When the U.S. military revealed that detainees at Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq had been physically and psychologically abused, a great public outcry arose. This type of behavior is repulsive to Americans, who want to see their soldiers as knights in shining armor, not cruel barbarians. Reports of these atrocious incidents forced people throughout the world to wonder how the military representatives of an honorable nation could have gone so far down the road to such dishonorable conduct.

On a primal level, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib may be understandable given the context of the soldiers’ mission: These soldiers are fighting back against the terrorists who flew airplanes full of helpless passengers into skyscrapers crowded with unsuspecting civilians on September 11, 2001. Does anyone think terrorists will refrain from humiliating or torturing American soldiers (or civilians) who fall into their hands? Treating Iraqi captives the same way truly is “fighting fire with fire.”

Yet, on a cultural level, the Abu Ghraib incident is appalling: One of our most basic social principles is the granting of mercy to those who have surrendered or are helpless. It’s why we expect police officers to respect the rights of arrestees, and why our jails are clean and safe rather than squalid and hazardous.

The dilemma of Abu Ghraib an old and pervasive one: Do we set aside the restraints of chivalry and honor in order to “get the job done” in the most effective way possible?

The Code of Chivalry dictates humane treatment of captured enemies. Ramon Lull, a 12th century Spanish knight who wrote The Book of the Order of Chivalry, said that a knight “should have pity on poor men, helpless and sick, and should have mercy on the men taken and vanquished (in battle) that request mercy and give themselves up for honorable surrender.” Lull also points out that a merciless knight is “an enemy of justice.”

This expectation has been incorporated in nearly all modern conventions of warfare, including the famous Geneva Convention, which states:

The Code of Chivalry with its ordinance of mercy wasn’t developed to grant dignity or unnecessary liberty to enemies. In a battle against terrorists and murderers, chivalry prevents warriors from becoming the very things they are fighting against. Images of U.S. soldiers emulating the inhumane actions of Hussein’s prison guards in the halls of the same prison where the Iraqi atrocities took place are heartbreaking reminders of how far astray a warrior can go when he or she abandons the seemingly arbitrary restraints of the code of honor.

Chivalry is more than a shield for soldiers’ self respect, however. The U.S. Army’s Laws of Land Warfare refer to “chivalry” as the standard by which soldiers must conduct themselves, stating that the purpose of this restriction is not only to protect the innocent and avoid human rights abuses, but also to “facilitate the restoration of peace.”

There’s little doubt that the Abu Ghraib incidents have poured gasoline on the flames in Iraq and lengthened the duration of this conflict. How many additional months will beleaguered American soldiers have to put themselves in harm’s way because of the actions of a few unchivalrous individuals?

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib incident, the military is proposing new regulations in an attempt to prevent similar atrocities in the future. That’s certainly a good measure, but it’s hardly conceivable that road to Abu Ghraib was paved by a lack of army rules.

More plausible, it would seem, is that the otherwise-rational young soldiers stationed in that prison succumbed to the illusion that chivalry and honor can be set aside temporarily in order to achieve a goal, or to take advantage of a vaccum of oversight. The road to Abu Ghraib may well have been paved by coaches who teach players to tactically break the rules, by parents who pressure teachers to give unjustified high marks to their children, and by managers and executives who condone “cutting corners” in order to boost profits or increase production. The people who travel such a road are usually following role models who lead by example.

In short, Ramon Lull had it right: When the strong and powerful abandon their sense of justice and fair play, mercy, charity and generosity won’t be far behind.

The Geneva Convention may impose restrictions on soldiers in the theater of conflict, but the Code of Chivalry can apply to everyone, and can create an even more basic and binding appreciation of the tenets of decency and humanity. Restrictions of dignity, courtesy and respect are important — vitally important — in any area of conflict, dispute or competition. They protect the humanity of all those involved, and they prevent contained battles from spiraling into endless cycles of “payback.”

Chivalry maybe idealistic, restrictive and noble; it may also be our best defense against allowing more decent young people to start down the road to another Abu Ghraib.

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