Today, we are happy to bring you our conversation with John F. Morris, author of Students to Soldiers: Secret Military Education at Elite Schools, 1815–1945

What inspired you to write this book? 

During my first year at the US Military Academy, I developed a fascination for the often-anachronistic practices, rituals, and codes that governed cadet life there. Foremost among these were the draconian rules that I and my classmates were required to follow as freshmen. These were justified as military standards and duties, but I realized quickly that they constituted part of the traditional West Point rite of passage that was transforming us from civilians into cadets and eventually officers. I read about the emergence and evolution of these initiation, transition, and incorporation rites extensively, broadened my research to include other aspects of cadet life, and eventually decided to compare the Academy experience to life at elite schools in Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

What did you learn and what are you hoping readers will learn from your book? 

My initial goal was to learn as much as I could about the cadet and schoolboy experience. During my research, I uncovered underground practices, rituals, and codes that were often quite recognizable to me from my cadet days but that usually had a more anarchic and brutal character, both resulting from and perpetuating what I term “boy tribalism—of the sort popularized by William Golding in Lord of the Flies. I tried to immerse the reader in this rowdy, hypermasculine setting through my own prose and that of several cadets and schoolboys themselves. Furthermore, I attempted to show how acculturation at the schools reflected the era’s transatlantic cultural trends more generally, something that became apparent to me as my research progressed.

What surprised you the most in the process of writing your book? 

At the macro level, what surprised me the most was how similar, regardless of decade and location, were the sets of values and behaviors transmitted to cadets and schoolboys by the underground practices, rituals, and codes I examined. This suggested that transatlantic officer cultures of the period bore significant resemblances. At a more micro level, I was astonished at the extent to which homosexuality played a role in the acculturation process at the British public schools and the monarchical cadet schools. What I thought at first would be no more than a footnote became a recurring theme in the narrative, so much so that it impacted considerably the book’s conclusions.

What’s your favorite anecdote from your book?

Some of my favorite depictions of cadet life come from Werner von der Schulenburg, who entered the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps in 1892. On the one hand, he describes the severity of his rite of passage. Separated from his parents, he “suddenly had such pain in [his] heart that [he] . . . started to weep dreadfully.” In the months that followed, he endured, among other transition rites, “sadistic” beatings from the boy in charge of his room. Schulenburg surprises us, on the other hand, by discussing openly and intensely his relationship a few years later with a boy named Rolf Freiherr von Bergstetten, who “was perhaps the most passionate love of [his] life.”

What’s next? 

I am retiring from the military soon and moving (at least temporarily) to my home in Spain, on the Balearic Sea. I have a few research projects planned, including a post-WWII sequel to this book, a microhistory of Catalonia, a counterfactual history of Anglo-American relations, and an historical romance novel. I would very much enjoy teaching history or languages part-time, advising in the private or public sector on international relations and military strategy, or giving historical tours in Barcelona or elsewhere.