A losing general (In renaissance era /medieval era/roman era and so on) tends to lose thousands and thousands of their troops. Do we know anything about the effect of that on their mental health?

by sylogg

Disastrous campaign such as Battle of Hefei in Three Kingdoms Era or Phyrrus’s campaign in general or Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea sometimes makes me wonder “Did these guys suffer from PTSD?” Especially generals that retire after spending decades in command and losing several times in their times. Do we have anything that indicates that they were haunted by their losses either in their own writing or someone else’s? Thanks in advance!

TheLordHighExecu

Here are many good posts on PTSD throughout history. It is a hotly-debated topic, with scholars debating whether a set of behaviors indicate PTSD, or even if PTSD existed in the past.

In this post, /u/DonaldFDraper proposes the hypothesis that Napoleonic general Michel Ney suffered from PTSD from losing thousands of men in Russia, leading to his disastrous command of Waterloo.