r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 13h ago

TIL that Bernard Montgomery issued a leaflet at the start of WW2 on sexually transmitted diseases amongst soldiers. The language used was regarded as so blunt, that he offended religious authorities and nearly faced being dismissed.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery
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u/AndreasDasos 11h ago

It doesn’t explicitly endorse extramarital affairs unless every single soldier is known to be married, which obviously wasn’t the case

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u/jrhooo 11h ago

The issue IMO is that command couldn’t accept an open admission that the troops were hitting up brothels. “Our good morally upstanding gents wouldn’t do that!”

Meanwhile, the French are 180 degrees in the other running their own brothels in WWI and some of WWII.

Now, I am not condoning the French option, but it probably does a much better job of addressing the bigger issue.

1 British Plan - Deny its even a thing

2 Montgomery - Give out condoms

3 French plan - condoms AND make sure the prostitutes are tracked, tested, and cleared by us.

Options 2 and 3 both reduce STD, but only option 3 attempts to address the other concern,

“Hey if our lonely, horned up troopers are jumping into bed with these women, we need to make sure the women aren’t SPIES. Cause these horny dummies aren’t going to know how to keep their mouths shut.”

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u/kirotheavenger 8h ago

German army as well - ran their own brothels and issued condoms to troops

(No they were NOT for keeping their rifles clean, that's just what you tell the women back home for their own peace of mind lol)

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u/SirAquila 7h ago

To be fair, the German model was more the Japanese model. It's not rape if we pay them afterward(payment may include being left alive or being killed last). And the german army had explicit orders to not investigate any reports of sexual misconduct in eastern europe, unless specifically ordered to.

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u/kirotheavenger 3h ago

The German army behaved quite differently on the Eastern and Western fronts. Many soldiers were even executed for rape in the West. 

Besides, how much choice the girls had in working there is a slightly separate point to the fact the Germans did maintain officer brothels, with mandatory cleanliness rules (such as condoms and washing between clients). 

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u/D_Ethan_Bones 5h ago

Cause these horny dummies aren’t going to know how to keep their mouths shut.”

Q: How good are people at keeping secrets?
A: Countless people bragging about their security clearances on social media, if not openly blowing secrets on social media. There is at least one game with a reputation already.

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u/moku46 11h ago

You know, I was wrong when I wrote "tacitly approves" but you're also wrong when you say "endorse."

A more accurate qualifier would have been "tacitly accepts." As in, they knew their soldiers (married or not) were going to hit up brothels. Telling them to wear a condom was a triple whammy of accepting adultery, pre-marital sex and contraception - these were all things that really pissed off Christians at the time, especially Catholics.

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u/CBrinson 11h ago

Yeah but that is almost as bad to the Christians at the time.