History AFatherToHisMen / RealLife

** Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate States of America, was beloved by his soldiers, who nicknamed him "Marse Bob" or "Marse Robert". ("Marse" was an old dialect word for "Mister" or "Master".)

** Ulysses S. Grant's final message to the Union Army Veterans was [[{{Tearjerker}} "I love you all as if you were my children."]] In the early stages of the Civil War, he was the last person aboard a transport ship during a retreat - actually having to jump onto it - because he went back to try and find troops who hadn't made it (they were cut off and many managed to retreat along a different path).

* Hans Langsdorff, the final commander of [[CoolBoat Graf Spee]], sacrificed his honour in the eyes of the German Navy by refusing to take his crippled ship into the waiting guns of the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy]]. He chose instead to scuttle her (while giving the old Navy salute instead of the "Heil Hitler" salute) and keep her from the hands of the enemy whilst saving the lives of his 1100 crew. His great [[HonourBeforeReason 'sin']] in the eyes of the [[ThoseWackyNazis establishment]] was to not [[GoingDownWithTheShip go down with his ship]], he was in fact prevented from doing so by his own officers. When he got back to shore he ensured his men were safe and looked after and then followed her into history with a shot to his own head. His crew mattered more to him than his life or his honour.

* That being said, Ernest King himself. Legendarily foul-tempered and capable of grudge-bearing as he was, he was just as staunch a supporter of his subordinates who could meet his high standards of competence and performance and come through for him, much like Hyman Rickover below. This stringent and uncompromising attitude helped foster a talented roster of Naval flag officers (like Nimitz above), collectively responsible for American victory at sea during WWII and the US naval supremacy which followed. Those who endangered good, competent men with their own incompetence would face the full brunt of his wrath--as the US Navy Bureau of Ordinance found out when the many, ''many'' failures of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo Mark 14 torpedo]] became apparent to King and senior US Navy command.
* Hyman Rickover, father of the Nuclear Navy, was definitely not one of the more personable types - he had no tolerance for stupidity, very high and exacting standards, and wasn't afraid to put a subordinate through ridiculous tests to prove they were capable of serving in "his" submarine fleet. But Rickover never certified a submarine for sea duty without being aboard her during trials, would without hesitation pull a ship from sea duty if he felt there were safety risks, and his meticulous nature was because he didn't want any Navy man serving aboard a submarine that Rickover wouldn't put his son aboard.

* Creator/SunTzu recommends this - in moderation. He claims that such connections can improve morale. ''However'', if done in excess, it's a bad thing, considered one of his "Five Dangerous Faults of a General". If the commander sacrifices important advantages for the sake of his troops' comfort, then defeat or prolonged conflict follows. The long-term result would be detrimental to everyone.

* Another non-military example would be, believe it or not, Gordon Ramsay, who is as quick to praise as he is (famously) quick to berate and extremely focused on talent development. He had a staff retention rate of 85% for over a decade back when he was actually in his restaurants instead of on TV. When he left the Aubergine restaurant, almost all the kitchen staff followed him en-masse and the restaurant had to temporarily close. He's nurtured a lot of talented chefs that now run restaurants of their own either within or outside of the Gordon Ramsay empire.
* Also outside the military, sports coaches can take this approach, some with more success than others. One notable example is current [[UsefulNotes/BritishFootyTeams Liverpool FC manager]], Jurgen Klopp, known for being a very successful and popular man-manager. While capable of being reasonably strict on discipline behind closed doors, he's known for being genuinely very close to and popular with his players, greeting players coming off as substitutes with a quick hug and pat on the back, and often longer ones after matches, joining in goal celebrations with the passion of a fan (and has lost several pairs of glasses that way), as well as making a point of deflecting public criticism from his players and onto himself.

* Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev, probably the best military commander of Kievan Rus. Same as Suvorov he slept with his soldiers, ate the same food, and put the loyalty of his Drugina(army) in high regard. Then his mother, Princess Olga turned to Christianity and asked him to do the same, he denied this because "his soldiers will laugh at him". Also then peace was made between Kievan Rus and Byzantium, he wore the same clothes as his warriors on the ceremony (just the cleaner).

* UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, as commander of the Allied forces for the European theater, did what he could to make sure the troops were ready for the invasion of Normandy and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eisenhower_d-day.jpg famously visited paratroopers units]] before they were set to deploy on D-Day. He wrote both [[https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=606 a stirring letter praising their efforts for the invasion itself]] while secretly writing a second letter that would have accepted full blame - "It is mine alone" - if the invasion failed. While respectful of the army's need for discipline, he also did what he could to keep generals like [[BloodKnight Patton]] from getting too harsh with the men, and personally intervened when Patton went after cartoonist [[Creator/BillMauldin Bill Mauldin]] for one sharply critical cartoon in the army newspaper (Ike knew it helped to let the men vent their frustrations through humor).

* The Roman Emperor Trajan not only went through many of the same hardships as his soldiers, but he used shreds of his own clothing [[FromDressToDressing as bandages for the wounded]].

* Would you believe that Genghis Khan was documented to be like this? For good reason, as he was acutely aware that his best-trained troops were ultimately quite few in number, and even after his ascension to the Khanate he still didn't have as large an army as most conquerors on his scale would've liked. As such he was careful to not overtax his armies, keep his men and their mounts in good condition, and keep up their morale and unity. Mongols were well known for never leaving their own behind--indeed, any commander who abandoned injured Mongols to the enemy risked execution. As such, even though the Khan's army was around 125,000 to 130,000 men at its height, they were all fanatically loyal to him and obeyed his commands because they knew he would not waste them on useless assaults.
* During the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic, US Navy Captain Brett Crozier of the ''U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt'' wrote a letter to his superiors requesting aid after the virus made it aboard, stating "We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset -- our Sailors." The letter was obtained by the press, and Crozier was removed from his post because he "exercised extremely poor judgment" in his method of communication. His crew [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/03/coronavirus-capt-brett-crozier-gets-send-off-uss-roosevelt/2939098001/ didn't seem to care, sending him off with applause and cheers]] as thanks for his efforts.

* Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Ché" Guevara were the kind and harsh variants of this trope respectively: both to those directly under their command during the revolution. Castro was a bureaucrat before becoming a revolutionary, and mad enough to fight the revolution whether anyone bothered to join him or not. Understandable given the appalling state Cuba was in when he started. Even his harshest critics will admit that he both genuinely cared about the Cuban people, and never sought any kind of personal glory. Indeed, one of the most annoying things about Castro from the perspective of his critics is how willing he was to be villified: especially if it's to deflect criticism from someone else. Not to mention his habit of admitting to his own failings on television. Guevara was dogmatic and took a dim view of people who failed to measure up morally. However, even his harshest critics will admit that he held others to a lower moral standard than he held himself to AND took the Hippocratic Oath far more seriously even than most trained physicians do. If he was your doctor, no matter if he was lacking critical supplies or medicines, you were going to survive: although sometimes the experience was so harrowing you'd wish you hadn't. Those who have done their research will also point that Guevara acted this way in part because of his BlueBlood background: which he eventually came to loathe and indeed view as a moral failing. Even as a student in Argentina, before ever hearing about Marxism, he was nicknamed "El Ché" (roughly, "the dude") because of his humble attitude. Eventually though, Castro had to get him out of Cuba because of his dogmatism: sending him to advise revolutionaries in Africa (where he would eventually be killed in action).

* This could be more or less literal in Highland regiments, some of whom were led by commanders who were chiefs back home and had many in their regiment who were either blood relations or at least fellow [[TheClan clansmen]]

--->[[TearJerker Slowly and sadly we laid him down,]]
--->[[TearJerker From the field of his fame fresh and gory.]]
--->[[TearJerker We carved not a line and we raised not a stone,]]
--->[[TearJerker But we left him alone with his glory.]]

--> "A man does not have himself killed for a half pence a day and a petty distinction. [[RousingSpeech You must speak to the soul to electrify him]]."

** Although that said, Wellington was A Father To His Men in his own way - a cold, WellDoneSonGuy way. It is noted that the Army of the Peninsula fought so hard simply because they wanted Wellington to give them a sign of his grudging approval. He gave them it too. He wept when he surveyed the carnage at the Siege of Badajoz, both because of the way his men had died but also because they let him down by brutally [[RapePillageAndBurn sacking the city afterward.]] (That said, it was only 15 hours into the sacking that he bothered to order them to stop, and even though a gallows was erected, no soldier was hanged. In his private letters, he even commended his men for their gallantry on such occasion.) He also once cashiered a group of wealthy officers on the spot for billeting themselves in a warm house when the wounded were left outside. When the Army looted the French baggage park at Vitoria (which included pretty much the entire Treasury of the Spanish Empire), he said his famous line (which people have used so often to bash him): "Our army is the scum of the earth, the merest scum of the earth..." But people always forget/ignore the second part: "...but what fine fellows we have made of them!"

* Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, commander of the British Grand Fleet during WWI. He was said to know the name of every man on his flagship, and made a point of ensuring the comfort of his sailors in their remote anchorage at Scapa Flow, including turning a supply ship into a floating theater/church/boxing ring and building a golf course and football pitches on the nearby islands. Once, he learned that a junior officer on his staff had just become a father. He summoned the man and instructed him to go to London and collect any papers being held for Jellicoe at the Admiralty eight hours after arriving. He then told the officer "I expect you will know how to employ those eight hours." His men adored him to the point that there was widespread dismay when he was replaced by Sir David Beatty near the end of the war.

* Also in World War 1, Lieutenant Creator/SiegfriedSassoon, was known for two things, besides being a great war poet: 1) being a brave, charismatic leader whose troops were devoted to him and 2) leaving the war in protest when he thought it had gone on for too long. He won a Military Cross for bringing in the wounded for 1½ hours under heavy fire. He's also one of the main characters in Pat Barker's ''Literature/TheRegenerationTrilogy'', in which he struggles with the knowledge that he is safe in England while the foot soldiers are dying in France, and later goes back to protect them.

* Sir John Moore, who commanded the British Expedition to Spain in 1806. After a combination of Napoleon, poor supplies from home, Spanish incompetence and a brutal winter forced him to retreat, he held his army together through a gruelling retreat, and men still loved him. He died to make sure they could successfully be extracted at La Corunna. There was not time for a proper burial, so:

* UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat instituted Prussia's first ever social welfare system for soldiers too injured for work, to save them from lives of begging. They loved him for it. At the Battle of Kolin, all it took was for him to ride in front of the flagging 1st Guards and yell "You damned bastards! You want to live forever?" for them to rally and prevent the Prussian defeat being even worse than it was.

* Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev, probably the best military commander of Kievan Rus. Same as Suvorov he slept with his soldiers, ate the same food and put the loyalty of his Drugina(army) in high regard. Then his mother, Princess Olga turned to Christianity and asked him to do the same, he denied this because "his soldiers will laugh at him". Also then peace was made between Kievan Rus and Byzantium, he wore the same clothes as his warriors on the ceremony (just the cleaner).

** George B. [=McClellan=] was not just this trope, he was a real-life {{Deconstruction}}. On the one hand, he was a brilliant organizer, who could shape and train a disorganized mob into a formidable army; on the other hand, he was unwilling to risk his men in battle (and constantly convinced that he was outnumbered by the Confederates; if he had been, his timidity would have made perfect sense.) Lincoln's opinion of him reflected this; e once said of [=McClellan=], "There is no man in the Army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he. If he can't fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight," but he also once said of him, "If General [=McClellan=] does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time." When he made the borrowing, replacing [=McClellan=] with Pope, the result was the disastrous Second Battle of Bull Run and [=McClellan=] being reinstated to rebuild the Army of the Potomac. But at the end that went poorly, so he was replaced again. ([=McClellan=] would later run for President as a Democrat, in 1864; but he lost overwhelmingly, including among his own soldiers, to Lincoln.)

* Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev, probably the best military commander of Kievan Rus. Same as Suvorov he slept with his soldiers, eat the same food and put the loyalty of his Drugina(army) in high regard. Then his mother, Princess Olga turned to Christianity and asked him to do the same, he denied this because "his soldiers will laugh at him". Also then peace was made between Kievan Rus and Byzantium, he wore the same clothes as his warriors on the ceremony (just the cleaner).

* During the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic, US Navy Captain Brett Crozier of the ''U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt'' wrote a letter to his superiors requesting aid after the virus made it aboard, stating "We are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single Sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily." The letter was obtained by the press, and Crozier was removed from his post because he "exercised extremely poor judgment" in his method of communication. His crew [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/03/coronavirus-capt-brett-crozier-gets-send-off-uss-roosevelt/2939098001/ didn't seem to care, sending him off with applause and cheers]] as thanks for his efforts.

* During the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic, US Navy Captain Brett Crozier of the ''U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt'' wrote a letter to his superiors requesting aid after the virus made it aboard, stating "We are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single Sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily." The letter was obtained by the press, and Crozier was removed from his post because he "exercised extremely poor judgment." His crew [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/03/coronavirus-capt-brett-crozier-gets-send-off-uss-roosevelt/2939098001/ disagreed, sending him off with applause and cheers]] as thanks for his efforts.

* In ''Literature/OneBulletAway'', the memoirs of Captain Nate Fick, USMC, he cites this trope as the reason why he got out of the Marine Corps. He couldn't bear the thought of any of his men dying, and while [[EverybodyLives none of his men had died under his command]], he knew thus luck wouldn't last forever.

** Although that said, Wellington was AFatherToHisMen in his own way - a cold, WellDoneSonGuy way. It is noted that the Army of the Peninsula fought so hard simply because they wanted Wellington to give them a sign of his grudging approval. He gave them it too. He wept when he surveyed the carnage at the Siege of Badajoz, both because of the way his men had died but also because they let him down by brutally [[RapePillageAndBurn sacking the city afterward.]] (That said, it was only 15 hours into the sacking that he bothered to order them to stop, and even though a gallows was erected, no soldier was hanged. In his private letters, he even commended his men for their gallantry on such occasion.) He also once cashiered a group of wealthy officers on the spot for billeting themselves in a warm house when the wounded were left outside. When the Army looted the French baggage park at Vitoria (which included pretty much the entire Treasury of the Spanish Empire), he said his famous line (which people have used so often to bash him): "Our army is the scum of the earth, the merest scum of the earth..." But people always forget/ignore the second part: "...but what fine fellows we have made of them!"

* UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, as commander of the Allied forces for the European theater, did what he could to make sure the troops were ready for the invasion of Normandy and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eisenhower_d-day.jpg famously visited paratroopers units]] before they were set to deploy on D-Day. He wrote both [[https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=606 a stirring letter praising their efforts for the invasion itself]] while secretly writing a second letter that would have accepted full blame - "It is mine alone" - if the invasion failed. While respectful of the army's need for discipline, he also did what he could to keep generals like [[BloodKnight Patton]] from getting too harsh with the men, and personally intervened when Patton went after cartoonist [[Creator/Bill Mauldin]] for one sharply critical cartoon in the army newspaper (Ike knew it helped to let the men vent their frustrations through humor).

* UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, as commander of the Allied forces for the European theater, did what he could to make sure the troops were ready for the invasion of Normandy and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eisenhower_d-day.jpg famously visited paratroopers units]] before they were set to deploy on D-Day. He wrote both [[https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=606 a stirring letter praising their efforts for the invasion itself]] while secretly writing a second letter that would have accepted full blame - "It is mine alone" - if the invasion failed. While respectful of the army's need for discipline, he also did what he could to keep generals like [[BloodKnight Patton]] from getting too harsh with the men, and personally intervened when Patton went after cartoonist [[WillieAndJoe Bill Mauldin]] for one sharply critical cartoon in the army newspaper (Ike knew it helped to let the men vent their frustrations through humor).

** George B. [=McClellan=] was not just this trope, he was a real-life {{Deconstruction}}. On the one hand, he was a brilliant organizer, who could shape and train a disorganized mob into a formidable army; on the other hand, he was unwilling to risk his men in battle (and constantly convinced that he was outnumbered by the Confederates; if he had been, his timidity would have made perfect sense.) Lincoln's opinion of him reflected this; e once said of [=McClellan=], "There is no man in the Army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he. If he can't fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight," but he also once said of him, "If General [=McClellan=] does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time." When he made the borrowing, replacing [=McClellan=] with Pope, the result was the disastrous Second Battle of Bull Run and [=McClellan=] being reinstated to rebuild the Army of the Potomac. But in the end that went poorly, so he was replaced again. ([=McClellan=] would later run for President as a Democrat, in 1864; but he lost overwhelmingly, including among his own soldiers, to Lincoln.)

** Although that said, Wellington was AFatherToHisMen in his own way - a cold, WellDoneSonGuy way. It is noted that the Army of the Peninsula fought so hard simply because they wanted Wellington to give them a sign of his grudging approval. He gave them it too. He wept when he surveyed the carnage at the Siege of Badajoz, both because of the way his men had died but also because they let him down by brutally [[RapePillageAndBurn sacking the city afterwards.]] (That said, it was only 15 hours into the sacking that he bothered to order them to stop, and even though a gallows was erected, no soldier was hanged. In his private letters he even commended his men for their gallantry in such occasion.) He also once cashiered a group of wealthy officers on the spot for billeting themselves in a warm house when the wounded were left outside. When the Army looted the French baggage park at Vitoria (which included pretty much the entire Treasury of the Spanish Empire), he said his famous line (which people have used so often to bash him): "Our army is the scum of the earth, the merest scum of the earth..." But people always forget/ignore the second part: "...but what fine fellows we have made of them!"

* Leonidas, in the same vein. It has been said that he had a nickname for every Spartan at Thermopylae, and that he refused to sleep in the only tent, preferring to sleep in the mud with the men.

* Lieutenant-General William Birdwood (later Field Marshal and 1st Baron Birdwood), also of WWI. The leader of the ANZAC forces and their fight in Gallipoli, Birdwood was one of the relatively few commanders to have his quarters located within spitting distance of the front lines, and was praised for his evacuation of Gallipoli in 1916. The respect that Australians and New Zealanders had for him was so great, not only were there streets in both countries named after him, but a town in Australia was renamed Birdwood ''before the war so much as finished''.

* UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky. When the Russian Civil War broke out, he had the families of some the higher-ranked army members kidnapped and held hostage so they didn't disobey his orders and forced every capable man to combat against the Whites (since the Bolsheviks only controlled the area around Moscow and were forced to fight against over 10 countries). When he was ''not'' doing any of these, he would ride on his CoolTrain (or, depending on the terrain, his CoolCar) to any part of the front that needed his assistance to hand out cigarettes and chocolates and even appear out of nowhere just to raise the morale of the troops. In his autobiography he speaks fondly of the men he worked with and shows great admiration for who they were.
* This could be more or less literal in Highland regiments, some of whom were lead by commanders who were chiefs back home and had many in their regiment who were either blood relations or at least fellow [[TheClan clansmen]]
** The Highlands were an unusual example of this because the organization of their tribal society made a regiment a prearranged package; they just had to gather at their chiefs bidding as they had always done and formal military arrangements were just an add-on. However it was the case in many places that the Colonel would be a local noble who would recruit from his particular district.
* Field Marshal Sir Colin Campbell had a very close, almost family like, relationship with his men. This lead to him being able to get them to stand before the Russian cavalry in what became known as The Thin Red Line, two ranks of British soldiers against a massed charge of enemy cavalry. They even began an un-ordered counter charge as the Russians began to rout which he stopped with a cry of ''"93rd, damn all that eagerness!"''

* UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington was not just America's first president, but also one of her most beloved generals. He would camp with the men and share in their struggles, and would put himself into the thick of fights to keep morale up. He also built up camaraderie with a lot of the younger officers, especially John Laurens, UsefulNotes/AlexanderHamilton and UsefuleNotes/MarquisDeLaFayette, to where he literally became an adopted father figure to them. When Lafayette was wounded in battle, he instructed his personal physician to "Treat him as though he were my son." When Washington was challenged to a duel by Charles Lee, Washington declined, but Laurens (with Hamilton as his second) took up the duel himself, apparently on the technicality that a son could stand in for a father. By war's end, he would be able to talk his officers out of a planned coup by directly appealing to them with a letter from Congress about their overdue pay: Washington pulled out reading glasses and admitted that in the course of the war he had "gone blind" in service to the country. ManlyTears ensued.
* "Uncle Bill" Slim, commander of the 14th or "forgotten" British army in Burma. When he was defeated originally in 1942 and had led his men out on one of the longest retreats of all time, they cheered him as they passed. Whenever one of his units had to go on half-rations, he put his own headquarters on half-rations too. He reported that this made his staff a little quicker to get supplies out to the front line. When sent a luxurious personal command vehicle -- essentially a motor home -- of a sort already accepted by UsefulNotes/BernardLawMontgomery, Slim complained about it having taken up shipping space that could have more usefully been filled by another tank, and had it converted into an ambulance. Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser served in 14th Army and said that Slim inspired absolute confidence in his men because he looked and acted like an infantryman turned into a general -- which is essentially what he was. He also always described the 14th's achievements to his men in the second person, i.e. "You broke the Japanese in the Dry Belt." Never "I" or even "we."

* Chester Nimitz, who commanded the US Pacific Fleet for World War II, was frequently described by those who worked with him as remarkably even-tempered. Many people described him as an almost grandfatherly figure, utterly lacking in the ruthlessness that was usually associated with reaching an Admiral's rank; the only burden he would place upon his subordinates was that of his unwavering faith in their abilities. He frequently served as a moderating influence on some of his more acerbic subordinates, and also as shield from the mercurial behavior of his own superior, Ernest King.

* Agustín de Iturbide of México was a royalist dragoon in the Mexican War for Independence. He always looked out for his men, sometimes paying them from his own pocket since payments weren't always regular in the 1800's New Spain. He always kept track of their deeds in order to personally recommend them for promotion and even once forgave a group of men he surprised saddling up to abandon him, as they were worried by the fates of their families, pleading for their safety to the Viceroy. His courage and prowess in battle also made them very loyal to him, so much that when he switched sides and liberated México from Spain, they stuck with him. Eventually, his original Celaya Regiment would be the ones to initiate the public proclamation of Iturbide as Emperor, which was met with appraisal from all echelons of society. Even as Emperor, Iturbide reserved command of his old Regiment to himself, and always was beloved by the army for being specially considerate of them, fighting for their rights when the war was over.

* Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev, probably the best military commander of Kievan Rus. Same as Suvorov he slept with his soldiers, eat the same food and put the loyalty of his Drugina(army) in high regard. Than his mother, Princess Olga turned to Christianity and asked him to do the same, he denied this because "his soldiers will laugh at him". Also then peace was made between Kievan Rus and Byzantium, he wore the same clothes as his warriors on the ceremony (just the cleaner).