Battle and its emotional effect in war termination

Abstract

The emotional dimension of the human element of war remains understudied. This article explores war’s fundamental cognitive frame of mind, adversariality, with a focus on its emotional thread, in the context of battle and war termination. Adversariality itself is discussed with specific reference to Clausewitz before key emotional aspects—emotion causation and consequence, and stress, anger, and fear—are explored from the perspective of the emotions sciences literature. Finally, three brief historical cases demonstrate the importance of the emotional side of strategy: Königgratz campaign in 1866, Germany’s defensive campaign in 1918, and the War of the Spanish Succession.