After a grandiose military victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. a strange epidemic broke out in Germany: many soldiers and officers who returned from the war turned out to be sick … with morphinism! The investigation showed that the injections of morphine during the war were supposed to "help endure the hardships of the campaign." Soldiers and officers simply could not keep up with the pace of hostilities, high-speed marches in full ammunition. At night camps, in order to sleep, relieve stress and fatigue, they injected themselves with morphine, which was considered at that time a newfangled remedy for all diseases. It was great "refreshing", but when the need for injections disappeared, not many could refuse them.
In the old days, recruits into the army were "shaved" selectively, but for a long time. At different times in different countries, the service life of soldiers varied from 10 to 25 years. They took, as a rule, young and strong village guys who passed a sieve of terrible natural selection: many children were born in peasant families, but not all survived, but the survivors were "healthy by nature." Having entered military service after hard peasant labor and far from abundant nutrition, receiving a daily portion of meat and doing regular physical exercises that develop strength, endurance and dexterity, in the hands of skilled and often cruel instructors, recruits for three or four years became real professional warriors, habitual to hikes.
With the introduction of universal conscription, the terms of service were significantly reduced, and they began to take everyone in a row. Most of the service life was spent on turning a recruit into a soldier, and as soon as it was completed, it was time to retire. In fact, the army began to consist of recruits, much worse than the soldiers of the old days, prepared for the hardships of service. And the loads were constantly growing, and the experience of the Franco-Prussian war showed that without an additional "strengthener of forces" soldiers may simply not endure excessive overloads during blitzkrieg marches.
In Germany, in order to increase the endurance of the soldiers, the system of their nutrition during the campaign was changed. The fruit of the creative efforts of army nutritionists is a product called "pea sausage", made from pea flour, with the addition of lard and meat juice. This high-calorie, but heavy food did not strengthen the strength, but weighed down the soldiers: they felt full, but their strength did not increase. Worse, many of the stomachs did not tolerate this food, and the soldiers began to "toil with their stomachs", which did not add speed and vigor to the columns on the march. The problem remained unresolved.
The French generals also tried to "cheer up" their soldiers. Observing the methods of warfare by the native armies in Africa, the French officers drew attention to the amazing endurance of the natives and discovered many amazing things. Wars were mainly fought to capture slaves for sale to Arab merchants. The military expeditions of the native kings went on a hike light and climbed into the very depths of the jungle. The booty - captured or bought from the forest chiefs of slaves - drove many hundreds of kilometers into the possession of the king who sent them. At the same time, neither the black slave owners nor the slaves they captured had any carts with supplies. In the rainforest, it is simply impossible to drag such supplies with you. There could be no question of any hunt: the caravans went hastily, from source to source, stopping nowhere, fearing an attack by a changed leader or a riot. The slaves and the convoy sometimes brushed off 80 km a day in the harshest conditions of the tropical forest!
The delivered "goods" were sold to Arab merchants, and they took their caravans even further: to Zanzibar and other starting points of the "overseas slave trade" located on the ocean coast. At all stages of the slave journey, the captives demonstrated amazing endurance, traversing virtually the entire continent on foot in a short time. But, overbought by the Portuguese, they seemed to "break" - there was no trace of endurance, and without enduring hardships, they died in huge numbers.
French officers believed that the secret of this African endurance lay in nutrition: the basis of the diet for the convoy and the slaves was fresh cola nuts. According to the Africans, they satisfied hunger, aroused all strength and abilities in a person and protected from most diseases. These nuts were valued more than gold, in fact, being its analogue in settlements between tribes and in domestic trade. In many African states, the stake served as a symbol of peace, a special sacred sign offered by the parties at the beginning of negotiations.
Cola pointed: 1 - flowering branch, 2 - fruit.
In Europe, for a long time, talk about the miraculous properties of the cola nut was considered a colonial fairy tale. The properties of the miracle nut began to be studied only after a report to the command of the lieutenant colonel of the French army. Consuming only crushed kola nut when climbing Mount Kanga, he climbed continuously, for 12 hours, without experiencing fatigue.
Botanists call this plant Cola acuminata. This plant belongs to the Stekulia family. This is a beautiful evergreen tree, reaching a height of 20 m, outwardly resembling a chestnut. It has hanging branches, wide oblong leathery leaves; its flowers are yellow, the fruits are star-shaped. The tree begins to bear fruit in the 10th year of life and gives up to 40 kg of nuts per year, very large, up to 5 cm long. According to the first cola researcher, Professor Germain Saé, the nuts were "a pound each."
C. acuminata is native to the western coast of Africa, from Senegal to Congo. The conditions for this tree are especially favorable in Dahomey, on the territory of present-day Benin. The plant easily adapts to other conditions, growing in the Seychelles, Ceylon, India, Zanzibar, Australia and the Antilles.
Professor Sae, who studied the composition of the nut kernel, found that it contains 2.5% caffeine and a rare combination of vitamins and other stimulating chemicals. A group of scientists in the strictest confidence, under the control of the military, isolated an extract of substances from the pulp of cola. In 1884, the product they created "crackers with an accelerator" was presented to the court of the Paris Medical Academy. Tests of its effect on the human body were carried out in the summer of 1885 in the Algerian desert.
The soldiers of the 23rd Jaeger Battalion, having received only "kola-crackers" and water before the campaign, set out from the fort. They walked at a speed of 5.5 km / h, without changing their pace for 10 hours in a row in the hellish July heat. Having passed 55 km in a day, none of the soldiers felt exhausted, and after a night's rest, they made a return march to the fort also without any difficulty.
The experiment was repeated in France, now with the officers of the 123rd Infantry Regiment. The unit, equipped with only cola nuts instead of the usual marching rations, marched lightly from Laval to Reni, and everyone was so cheerful that they were ready to immediately set out on the return journey.
It seemed the remedy was found! But the question arose: how long can a person live by eating in this way? According to Se, the nut did not replace food for a person, but only, having an intoxicating effect on the nervous system, dulled the feeling of hunger, fatigue and thirst, forcing the body to use its own resources. Other scientists believed that body functions are stimulated by a unique combination of natural elements concentrated in the kernel of the nut.
Nevertheless, the "pure product" was not allowed into the food ration of the military personnel, since the miraculous remedy had a very serious side effect. The accelerator not only strengthened the muscles, relieved fatigue and shortness of breath, but also acted as a powerful sexual stimulant. There was a fear that during the war the troops under the stake could turn into armed gangs of rapists and marauders. Therefore, they decided to use cola extract as a dietary enhancer only in special cases. The bitter taste of cola went well with chocolate, and this "chocolate-cola" became the staple food of the ground forces (during long transitions), sailors, and later pilots and paratroopers.
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The main doping in all armies of the world was vodka. Before the battle, the soldiers were given a special vodka ration to raise their morale, but mainly it helped to prevent pain shock when injured. Vodka relieved stress after the battle.
During the First World War, “hard drugs” - cocaine and heroin - were the main remedies for pain relief from injuries and for relieving stress. The military morphine addict has become commonplace. In Russia, a stunning "trench cocktail" was created: a mixture of alcohol and cocaine. During the Civil War, this "radical mixture" was used on both sides of the front line - both white and red. After that, they did not sleep for days, they went on the attack without fear, and when they were wounded, they did not feel pain. Such a state was supposed to help the soldiers in a terrible wartime. But some did not have time to get out of it, others could not, and still others did not want to.
An attempt to replace conventional products with a certain compact stimulant ended sadly in the late 1920s and early 1930s. last century during the armed conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay over oil-bearing territories. With a generous loan, the Bolivians stocked up on weapons and hired former German officers led by General von Kund to command the army. The backbone of the officer corps of the army of Paraguay consisted of about a hundred Russian officers-emigrants, and the general staff was headed by General of Artillery Belyaev.
Despite the significant superiority of the Bolivian army in weapons, the Paraguayans managed to encircle their large group in the jungle, cutting it off from water sources and supplies. The Bolivian command tried to deliver water and food to the surrounded by air, dropping ice and bags of coca bush leaves from aircraft. Coca leaf chewing gum drove fatigue, after it I did not want to eat, but I was getting more than enough strength.
Bolivian soldiers, for the most part mountain Indians, did not tolerate the hot, humid climate, many were sick with malaria, and they piled on their favorite coca, thinking to solve all the problems at once. Once the besieged people who had chewed on coca leaves saw that Paraguayans were walking on them to the full-length drumbeat, as if on a parade. The besieged fired at them, fired at them, but they did not fall and kept walking and walking. This is a Russian staff captain who served in the officer regiment of the Kappel division during the Civil War, who raised his battalion in a "psychic attack".
The Kappelites used a similar method of attack to mentally break the enemy. Chapaev's seasoned fighters could not withstand such a blow, and there is nothing to say about the Bolivians under the dope of coca! Throwing down the defense, not realizing anything and shouting that evil spirits were chasing them, they ran into the jungle … right at the machine-gun crews of the Paraguayans.
The sad experience of using stimulants by no means put an end to this topic. Military medics hoped, with a scientific approach to business, to implement the most valuable and effective developments, in which the positive effect would be enhanced, and the negative consequences would be weakened.
By the beginning of World War II, intensified research in this area was carried out in almost all countries preparing for military operations. In the Third Reich, stimulants were developed for special units. So, operators of guided torpedoes were given D-9 tablets, which were supposed to "push back the boundaries of fatigue, increase concentration and critical abilities, enhance the subjective feeling of muscle vigor, and weaken urination and intestinal activity." The tablet contained equal doses of pervitin, cocaine, and eucodal. But the expected effect did not work: the subjects experienced short-term euphoria with trembling hands, depression of the central nervous system, weakened reflexes and mental activity, increased sweating, and, according to the saboteurs, they experienced something like a hangover syndrome.
On the other hand, excellent results were recorded when a special chocolate with cola nut extract was given in the same squadron. The best "cheer" before going on a mission, according to German doctors, was a deep, restful sleep for at least 10 hours.
The Japanese were doing much better. Apparently, it was affected by the fact that drugs in the East have long been a part of everyday life and traditions. Systematic studies of the effects of narcotic drugs on the human body began at the end of the 19th century. The fruit of many years of efforts was synthesized in the 1930s. in the military medical laboratories of Japan, the stimulant chiropon (in the European pronunciation "philopon"), which began to be used in the army in the form of injections and pills.
At a certain dosage, chiropon perfectly encouraged the soldiers during tedious pedestrian crossings, removed the feeling of fear and insecurity, sharpened their eyesight, for which they called it "cat's eyes" in the imperial army. At first, it was injected by the sentry who took over the night shift, then they began to give it to the night shift workers of defense enterprises. When malnutrition and the deprivation of many years of war began to affect workers, chiropon was given to day workers as well. So the effect of this drug has been experienced by almost the entire adult population of Japan.
After the war, control over the distribution of the drug by the authorities was lost: the Japanese police and gendarmerie were actually disbanded, and at first the Americans did not even care about how the "natives" spend their leisure time. Numerous laboratories continued to produce chiropone, and an unprecedented wave of drug addiction swept Japan: more than 2 million Japanese people constantly used this drug.
The occupation authorities panicked when their soldiers began to adopt local habits. Communicating primarily with prostitutes, of whom there was an incredible number in hungry, overcrowded with unemployed post-war Japan, the American "ji-ai" learned the taste of chiropone, which local beauties consumed all polls. The injection was fantastically cheap - ten yen, which was roughly six cents! However, despite the seeming cheapness of one dose, this habit was quite expensive: soon there was a dependence on the drug, and the need for it quickly increased to several dozen injections per day (!). In order to get money for injections, drug addicts went to any crime. The "chiropractor" addict became aggressive and dangerous to those around him - to this he was pushed by the peculiarities of the drug, originally designed to "cheer" the soldiers.
In 1951, the Japanese government banned the production of chiropone, but it continued in clandestine laboratories. Starting with Chiropon, the gangsters tried to create a network of heroin production and trade. In preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, all police and special forces were deployed to fight drugs. The drug traffickers ended up in prison, and all the laboratories that produced drugs on the islands were destroyed. And to this day, the laws against drugs in Japan are the strictest: any foreigner, even noticed in a single use of dope, will never receive permission to enter the country.
The current developments in the field of neurostimulants are classified, but they are undoubtedly underway. Their side effect is the "doping scandals" that regularly shake the world of professional sports. "Sport of great achievements" has long become a testing ground for testing the means and methods developed for the training of special forces and personnel of all armies of the world. The tasks are the same: lowering the threshold of pain sensitivity, suppressing fear, strengthening physical strength and stabilizing mental reactions to external stimuli. Stimulants make young healthy people disabled who cannot withstand overload: joints are damaged, ligaments and muscles are torn, kidneys, liver and heart cannot withstand. Very often, sports veterans, like soldiers and officers who have gone through modern wars, lose their psyche.
If we are to approach the issue of increasing the army's combat capability thoroughly, then, oddly enough it may sound, the prospect of … a return to the previous system of its manning, to the revival of the class of professional soldiers is becoming more and more clearly visible. After all, chivalry in Europe, the Kshatriya caste in India, samurai in Japan are, in essence, intuitive developments in the field of selection. Modern genetics has already proved the existence of a gene of increased aggressiveness, which is included in the set of genes of the "ideal soldier". Carriers of this gene are indispensable in crisis situations: during war, cataclysms, lump-sum work. There they are appropriate, useful and happy from the realization that they have found themselves in this life. They are burdened by the routine of life, they are constantly looking for adventure. They make excellent stuntmen, extreme sportsmen and … criminals. Even N. V. Gogol, describing one of his characters as follows: "… he would be in the army, but for the war, to sneak up to the enemy's battery at night and steal a gun … But there was no war for him, and therefore he stole in the service …"
In the old days, those who discovered such inclinations from childhood were taken to the squad of a knight or a prince, and his whole further life proceeded in a certain direction: war, feasts, prey, danger. This gave the "natural warrior" constantly strong emotions, a regular concentrated release of aggression, motivated by a high goal, the expenditure of physical strength and mental energy.
In Russia, such warriors-heroes enjoyed great respect as defenders "from the evil enemy." The clearest example of such a biography is the Russian hero Ilya Muromets, a real living warrior, sung in epics.
In the light of these considerations, the idea arises: even in childhood, using genetic analysis, to identify people predisposed to a military career, thus reviving the military class, to return the army of its heroes. For such soldiers, by nature, no "accelerators" are required. This will not be a return to the past, but, if you like, a step forward - into the future, enriched with accumulated knowledge.
