Cowardice is a characteristic wherein excessivefear prevents an individual from taking a risk or facing danger.[1][2] It is the opposite ofcourage. As a label, "cowardice" indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge. One who succumbs to cowardice is known as acoward.[3]
As the opposite ofbravery, which many historical and current human societies reward, cowardice is seen as a character flaw that is detrimental to society and thus the failure to face one's fear is often stigmatized or punished.[4]
According to theOnline Etymology Dictionary, the wordcoward came into English from theOld French wordcoart (modern Frenchcouard), which is a combination of the word for "tail" (Modern Frenchqueue,Latincauda) and anagentnounsuffix. It would therefore have meant "one with a tail", which may conjure an image of an animal displaying its tail in flight of fear ("turning tail"), or adog's habit of putting its tail between its legs when it is afraid. Like many other English words of French origin, this word was introduced in the English language by the French-speakingNormans, after theNorman conquest of England in 1066.[5]
TheEnglish surname Coward (as inNoël Coward), however, has the same origin and meaning as the word "cowherd".
Acts of cowardice have long been punishable by military law, which defines a wide range of cowardly offenses, includingdesertion in face of the enemy and surrendering to the enemy against orders. The punishment for such acts is typically severe, ranging fromcorporal punishment to thedeath sentence.[6]
TheUnited Statesmilitary codes of justice define cowardice incombat as a crime punishable bydeath.[7]
Generally, cowardice was punishable byexecution duringWorld War I, and those who were caught were often court-martialed and, in many cases,executed by firing squad. British soldiers executed for cowardice were often not commemorated on war memorials, and their families often did not receive benefits and had to enduresocial stigma.[8][9] However, many decades later, those soldiers all received posthumous pardons in the UKArmed Forces Act 2006 and have been commemorated with theShot at Dawn Memorial. Unlike British, Canadian, French, German, and Russian forces, the U.S. military tried soldiers for cowardice, but never followed through with execution while German commanders were less inclined to use execution as a form of punishment.[10]
Considerable controversy was generated by military historianS.L.A. Marshall, who claimed that 75% of U.S. combat troops in World War II never fired at the enemy for the purpose of killing, even while under direct threat.Author Dave Grossman attempted to explain these findings in his bookOn Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Marshall's findings were later challenged as mistaken or even fabricated,[11][12][13] and were not replicated in a more rigorous study of Canadian troops in World War II.[14]
[the] lack of courage to face danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.
As a military historian, I am instinctively skeptical of any work or theory that claims to overturn all existing scholarship – indeed, overturn an entire academic discipline – in one fell swoop...[however] Lieutenant Colonel Grossman's appeals to biology and psychology are flawed, and that the bulwark of his historical evidence – S.L.A. Marshall's assertion that soldiers do not fire their weapons – can be verifiably disproven.
