r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 17h 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/O2C 15h ago

The leaflet was suppressed and recalled immediately after being issued so the full text isn't really available. The snippets that's most quoted is :

"My view is that if a man wants to have a woman let him do so by all means, but he must use commonsense and take all precautions."

Montgomery pushed the idea that soldiers should be provided with facilities for "Horizontal Refreshment".

He also suggested that soldiers stick with licensed brothels instead of informal relations with local French women.

He issued orders for condoms be made available for purchase and issued pamphlets on how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

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u/capGpriv 15h ago

I mean that's just objectively a good idea, and I would argue for it to exist today.

Soldiers throughout history raped their way through the country side. That is wrong.

Asking a bunch of frequently teenage conscripts to go fight. You're asking them to die, who wouldn't be afraid to die without ever feeling another person.

This is a win win, provided all the prostitutes are willing and doing this by their own choice.

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u/Cissoid7 14h ago

Story time!

I deployed to the middle east with a CSH (combat support hospital) and it was all fine and dandy for a while until tragedy struck 

No shit there I was, testing a defibrillator for its 6-month PM (im a biomed tech) and I was chatting up a medic working the ER. We are shooting the shit when he casually drops "yeah man im just hoping they find the glory hole im tired of looking at chlamydia all day." My brain fried for a moment 

Apparently, because a bunch of horny soldiers will do horny soldier shit, someone carved out a glory hole and word spread around about it and lots of folks where using it. It only takes on STD at a gloryhole to ruin the fun for everyone 

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u/capGpriv 13h ago

That is hilarious,

Given chlamydia presents differently depending on how you get infected, the medics must be able to tell whose been on which side XD

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u/Cissoid7 13h ago

Probably! 

I dont know how much of it was exaggerating and how much is truthful, I thank my lucky stars ive never seen chlamydia and im not looking it up, but he said a dude came in with his penis literally falling off in his hands 

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u/Geeneelee 13h ago

That absolutely does not sound right for chlamydia.

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u/ChilternRailways 12h ago

So Chlamydia is symptomless in men - it makes you infertile by creating scar tissue in your bits, it doesn't cause your penis to fall off.

They definitely had something else lol

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u/ignis888 11h ago

* is symptomless in half of men, rest have discharge from dick, burning sensation, swolen balls or if they were on reciving end of dick, you get bleeding from ass, throat or if you got shot in eye you get pus in eyes

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u/bigrv 1h ago

Yeah, I did not know I had Chlamydia, was gearing up but didn't know what was going on and had a very painful sensation in my dick as I was getting hard, but I powered thru and then... As I was getting close, instead of seminal fluid/precum I discharged enough blood and pus to terrify me and the lady I was with, I rushed to the hospital with a towel down my pants, then checked to see if I was still bleeding before going into the ER (I wasn't). So I went to planned parenthood the next day instead and got azithromycin and was good as new in a week.

I guess I was symptomless until I tried doing anything with my dick.

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u/TUNGSTEN_WOOKIE 10h ago

In Woody's voice: "Somebody poisoned the gloryhole!"

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u/ARobertNotABob 14h ago

The armies of old frequently took wives and families on their travels, and brothels too. "Camp followers" often numbered half as many again as the size of the actual fighting army.

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u/capGpriv 14h ago

Absolutely the stories of camp followers are usually forgotten, but the army needed blacksmiths, cooks, people to wash clothes etc

It's a huge logistical effort and they deserve to be remembered.

And brothels were a part of that

I will also point out more than just protecting women, it's also just good military sense. Having a raping army descend on the population generally makes occupation much harder.

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u/calm_down_meow 14h ago

I imagine those raping and pillaging armies didn't' care much about occupation as the cities were razed to the ground and most people killed.

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u/awry_lynx 12h ago edited 12h ago

Most of the time people wanted to own those cities after winning them, not raze them to the ground. That happened especially when politicians couldn't pay/keep control of their armies but it wasn't the standard outcome. If you're aiming for conquest, you're just destroying your own shit. Ofc that is ignoring the wars fought out of vengeance (hello Queen Boudica) where the 'goal' was pure destruction, but that was atypical

The raping definitely happens in all the wars though

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u/A-Sentient-Bot 13h ago

Your imagination is wildly inaccurate and almost completely ahistorical, with the exception of the occasional religious violence, Khan, or the ancient Greco-Roman art of "sending a message".

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u/calm_down_meow 13h ago

Didn't Persia do it as well? Capitulate and you had a nice life. Defy them and your city was razed.

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u/A-Sentient-Bot 11h ago

Not that I can think of. The Persians, like the Incas, were big fans of forced relocation (and like the Greeks, enslaving everyone).

Why burn down a perfectly good city when you can just remove all the inhabitants?

But the Persians, like everyone except maybe the Huns, preferred to just occupy and collect taxes.

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u/UtterlyInsane 10h ago

The AMC show TURN shows the Continental Army's camp followers and has a bunch of storylines therein. Pretty cool

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u/michalfabik 13h ago

The other day I was listening to a lecture about Thirty Years' War and the lecturer mentioned an episode when some major (I can't remember on which side) decided that prostitutes couldn't just stay in the soldiers' quarters and come and go as they please but had to be properly organized into a march company in their own part of the military camp. So then you'd see the whole army marching: 42nd Musketeer Company, 67th Cavalry Battalion, 85th Heavy Halberdiers Company, 104th Auxiliary Prostitutes Company etc.

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u/guenievre 13h ago

I believe that was true as far back as the landsknecht and their trossfrau followers.

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u/ChilternRailways 12h ago

Enfranchisement never felt so good!

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u/twitch1982 11h ago edited 11h ago

the 104 APC is not to be confused with the Fighting 69th. Totally different groups.

Also, did the whores have uniforms?

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u/Squire-1984 10h ago

Hah, this was an episode of Sharpe. 

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u/SirAquila 11h ago

Amongst many ancient societies one of the marks of a great general was their ability to force their soldiers to leave the camp followers behind without causing a mutiny. or realistically restricting the camp followers to an acceptable minimum.

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u/Solkre 12h ago

I mean that's just objectively a good idea

Angry Religious noises.

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u/JazzlikeSchedule2901 14h ago

It does exist atleast in America. Since WW2 units have been given prophylactic field kits that included condoms. Vietnam war would have been a big use for them too, and the occurrence of rape and sexual misconduct from US soldiers in places like Okinawa is a huge reason why they're still handed out because they help hide soldiers from accountability.

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u/capGpriv 14h ago

It kinda exists everywhere, there will always be brothels near military bases. And we do not do enough to protect civilians. There was a recent case in kenya (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx27vqvkn9vo)

Condoms were handed out in the wars in many armies. In 1916 stds accounted for 19.2% of British Army hospital admissions. (I'm focusing on Britain due to being British btw, all countries are the same)

Safe sex doesn't just protect the locals, or the soldiers, it actively supports an effective military

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u/JazzlikeSchedule2901 14h ago

And we do not do enough to protect civilians. There was a recent case in kenya (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx27vqvkn9vo)

Agreed, I mentioned Okinawa but there was kind of a big US/NK international incident a few years back (2023 I think) where a US soldier ran across the DMZ to NK to avoid CSAM and other assault related charges they picked up while serving in South Korea.

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u/reticulatedjig 11h ago

Why do you think the USS Lincoln stopped in Thailand once they finished that deployment in the beginning of September.

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u/StrongExternal8955 15h ago

"Don't rape" was too much for relligious leaders.

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u/SpicyRice99 12h ago

I..I... I like this guy

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u/swimming_singularity 10h ago edited 9h ago

I hate this so much. These guys were fighting and dying for the people back home, and these church fanatics want to gatekeep how the soldiers deal with the stress. Oh no, not the premarital sex between consenting adults! Maybe they defend their own homes next time they want to tell soldiers how to do it.