Batman (military)

A batman or orderly is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant. Before the advent of motorized transport, an officer's batman was also in charge of the officer's "bat-horse" that carried the officer's kit during a campaign. This British English term is derived from the obsolete bat, meaning "pack saddle" (from French: bât, from Old French: bast, from Late Latin: bastum).

Duties

A batman's duties could include:

acting as a "runner" to convey orders from the officer to subordinates

maintaining the officer's uniform and personal equipment as a valet

driving the officer's vehicle, sometimes under combat conditions

acting as the officer's bodyguard in combat

digging the officer's foxhole in combat, giving the officer time to direct his unit

other miscellaneous tasks the officer does not have time or inclination to do

The action of serving as a batman was called "batting". In armies where officers typically came from the upper class, it was not unusual for a former batman to follow the officer into later civilian life as a domestic servant.

By country

France

In the French Army the term for batman was ordonnance ("orderly"). Batmen were officially abolished after World War II. However, in the 1960s there were still batmen in the French Army.

Germany

In the German Army the batman was known as Ordonnanz ("orderly") from the French "ordonnance", or colloquially as Putzer ("cleaner") or as Bursche ("boy" or "valet").

The main character Švejk of the antimilitarist, satirical novel The Good Soldier Švejk by the Czech author Jaroslav Hašek is the most famous portrayal of a batman drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War. (The 1967 German song "Ich war der Putzer vom Kaiser" is actually based on the British instrumental hit "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman" of the same year, with original German lyrics.)

India

The old British term "orderly" continued into the post-independence Indian Army.