john keegan the face of battle

New York: Penguin, 1978. These feelings, after all, are the product of some of man’s deepest fears: fear of wounds, fear of death, fear of putting into danger the lives of those for whose wellbeing one is responsible. The military zealot is, in particular, a rare bird, at least among British officers, who deliberately cultivate a relaxed and undogmatic attitude to the life of Grandeur and Servitude. But if we may conclude that the official historians’ decision to deal with the emotive difficulty in military historiography by denying themselves any explicit emotional outlet whatsoever was unsatisfactory, and that some exploration of the combatants’ emotions, if not the indulgence of our own, is essential to the truthful writing of military history, we are still left with the problem of how it is to be done. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the... Curtis LeMay: Strategist and Tactician (The Generals), It's Really About Time: The Science of Time Travel, Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II. However, it is by no means the case that all, or even many, regular officers find it difficult to talk or think about war from an unprofessional point of view. ‘They look,’ exclaimed an Oxford professor whom I had brought down to lecture, ‘like the people I was in college with before the war.’. But, as Mr Michael Howard concluded at the end of a long, very painstaking and generally warm review, ‘the trouble with this sort of book is that it loses sight of what armies are for.’ Armies, he implied, are for fighting. Action is essentially destructive of all institutional studies; just as it compromises the purity of doctrines, it damages the integrity of structures, upsets the balance of relationships, interrupts the network of communication which the institutional historian struggles to identify and, having identified, to crystallize. For there is a fundamental difference between the sort of sporadic, small-scale fighting which is the small change of soldiering and the sort we characterize as a battle. Please try again. As it is, he seems to suggest that it is by no means abnormal (‘Then was seen with what strength and majesty the British soldier fights’) that a leaderless brigade of infantry (the brigadier and his three colonels had been disabled) should overcome, at the cost of over half its number, a very much stronger combined force of infantry, cavalry and artillery led by one of the foremost soldiers of the age (Soult was already a marshal). You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. There are, however, besides the extravagance of his language, other elements in Napier’s account of the Fusiliers’ advance which deserve attention because we will find them recurring in the work of other much more sober, much more ‘scientific’, historians. Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized . He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London. For example, while running away may intuitively seem highly sensible from the standpoint of . But it is only one of the stones to his hand. If literature of this latter sort reinforces, as I think it does, my personal view that there exists in the military mind neither a psychological barrier nor an institutional taboo against free discussion of the profession of arms, its ethics, dimensions, rewards, shortcomings, if military society is, as I have found it to be, a great deal more open than its enemies will admit or recognize, what then is this other and more important obstacle which I have suggested stands in the way of an intellectual transition from the superficial and easy to the difficult and profound in the study of war–or more particularly of battle–which lies at its heart? Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. ‘Before the war’; the pun is a little too adventitious to stand very much elaboration. To see our price, add these items to your cart. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Try again. The first is the extreme uniformity of human behaviour which he portrays: the British are all attacking and all with equal intensity (‘no sudden burst of undisciplined valour …’); the French likewise are all resisting (though some admittedly super-energetically–‘the hardiest veterans, breaking from the crowded columns, sacrifice their lives …’); no individual turns tail and runs, drops down to sham dead or stands thunder-struck at the indescribable horror of it all. They differ too in the demands they make on the reader’s credulity. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. British military historian John Keegan, the author of such groundbreaking works as The Face of Battle, addresses some fundamental questions about war: Is man innately violent?Are soldiers like other men? John Keegan examines every branch of warfare in its history, psychology, netallurgy, genetics, logistics, archaeology, tactics and strategy. Though the fog of war may hide the scene of battle and muffle its sounds, occasionally a voice breaks through to tell its tale. This anthology collects such testimony. John Keegan. The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme, The Illustrated Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme, The Storm of Steel: Original 1929 Translation, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, The First World War: A Very Short Introduction, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. John Keegan, the author of The Face of Battle is allowing the reader to view different perspective of history, from the eyes of the soldier. As the stunned Russians attempted to reform their line, a relieved Napoleon ordered forward the Cavalry of the Guard to cause more disorder and thus cover the safe retirement of Murat’s weary but elated squadrons…For the loss of 1,500 men, Murat had won Napoleon a vital respite. There was a problem loading your book clubs. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. The troopers of Grouchy, d’Hautpol, Klein and Milhaud swept forward in turn. I owe special debts of gratitude to Mr Barrie Pitt and Mr Derek Anyan. John Keegan's The Face of Battle and Sir Charles Oman's The Art of War in the Middle Ages provide insight into how historians approach the subject of battle. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. The occasional accompanying verbatim reports from various participants adds piquancy to the work. The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme by John Keegan The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the point of maximum danger. Its grounds are serenely parklike, ornamentally watered and planted and landscaped, its buildings those of an English ducal mansion, fronted by nearly a square mile of impeccably mown playing-field, on which it is difficult to imagine anything more warlike being won than a hard-fought game of hockey. Imagination and sentiment, which quite properly delimit the dimensions of the novelist’s realm, are a dangerous medium, however, through which to approach the subject of battle. I just missed National Service and never had much to do with the Armed Forces but I have always wondered how I would have dealt with active service. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Christopher Duffy, who was lucky enough to spend some weeks teaching Yugoslav militia the elements of Napoleonic drill for a film enactment of War and Peace, described to me the thrill of comprehension he experienced in failing to manoeuvre his troops successfully across country ‘in line’ and of the comparative ease with which he managed it ‘in column’, thus proving to his own satisfaction that Napoleon preferred the latter formation to the former not because it more effectively harnessed the revolutionary fervour of his troops (the traditional ‘glamorous’ explanation) but because anything more complicated was simply impracticable. Learn more about the program. The Face of Battle, Soldiers: A History of Men in Battle, The Mask of Command and other major works Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan OBE FRSL (15 May 1934 - 2 August 2012) was an English military historian , lecturer, writer and journalist. I am also grateful to Mr Kenneth White, of the Staff College Library, and to the staff of the London Library. $33.35. Perhaps–it is only an impression–he is more typically a French or British than a German or American figure, the horizons of the Sahara or the North-West Frontier encouraging a breadth of outlook denied to the Hauptmann or the First Lieutenant on dreary garrison duty in Arizona or Lorraine. No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of their order, their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front, their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as slowly and with a horrid carnage it was pushed by the incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the height. The Face of Battle was his 1976 analysis of major battles in history including Agincourt (October 27, 1415). Something went wrong. And excellent many works of that sort turn out to be. Unparalleled in its breadth, this anthology will become the standard work for understanding a fundamental part of human history—the conduct of war. To redeem, copy and paste the code during the checkout process. "The Face of Battle†by John Keegan has become a classic in the thirty years since it was published. Snow, “In this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle.” —J.H. In Intelligence in War, John Keegan illustrates that only when paired with force has military intelligence been an effective tool, as it may one day be in besting al-Qaeda. He will, or should, want to know a great deal more about many things–arms, equipment, logistics, morale, organization, current strategic assumptions–than the General Staff text will tell him, before he will feel able to generalize about anything with the confidence that its author displays about everything. Marking the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, this landmark history of the conflict surveys the events, strategies, campaigns, and personalities of World War II, and covers in depth five key battles, weapons production, ... The ‘General Staff’ historian also avoids the responsibility, for his mind is made up for him by prevailing staff doctrine about the proper conduct of war and he will accordingly select whatever facts endorse that view, while manhandling those which offer resistance. Now, as Romantic prose passages go, this is clearly a very remarkable achievement, rich in imagery, thunderous in rhythm and immensely powerful in emotional effect; it almost vibrates on the page, towards its climax threatens indeed to loosen the reader’s hold on the book. The book contains keen insights and some surprises. For by teaching the young officer to organize his intake of sensations, to reduce the events of combat to as few and as easily recognizable a set of elements as possible, to categorize under manageable headings the noise, blast, passage of missiles and confusion of human movement which will assail him on the battlefield, so that they can be described–to his men, to his superiors, to himself–as ‘incoming fire’, ‘outgoing fire’, ‘airstrike’, ‘company-strength attack’, one is helping him to avert the onset of fear or, worse, of panic and to perceive a face of battle which, if not familiar, and certainly not friendly, need not, in the event, prove wholly petrifying. Agincourt is one of the most instantly and vividly visualized of all epic passages in English history, and one of the most satisfactory to contemplate. Churlishly, it fails to pay tribute to the pioneering quality of his work. Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-350) and index. All formations disintegrated; the men broke up their columns into a single thick and ragged skirmishing line and inched their way forward up the bare glacis of the fields until they were within some six hundred yards of St-Privat. Revolutionary War buffs will delight in the copious details and vivid battle scenes.” —Publishers Weekly. The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme, Inspire a love of reading with Amazon Book Box for Kids. The anthologist historian avoids it absolutely, usually justifying this abdication of his function by the plea that he prefers to let the reader make up his mind for himself–as if someone he impropriates of only a fraction of the record is thereby put in any position to do so. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. . The face of battle by Keegan, John, 1934-Publication date 1976 . It sounds unbelievably complicated; indeed, it reads like something from a military Kama Sutra, exciting, intriguing, but likely to have proved a good deal more difficult in practice than it reads on the printed page. Is a disciplined army essential for a civilization's success? There are, however, objections to general dependence on the technique and not wholly those concerned with the paucity or absence of material from which to work. I for my part, anxious not to overtax their politeness, have generally avoided making any close tactical analysis of battle, entailing as that would my passing judgement on the behaviour of men under circumstances I have not had to meet, and have concentrated the weight of my teaching on such subjects as strategic theory, national defence policy, economic mobilization, military sociology and the like–subjects which, vital though they are to an understanding of modern war, nevertheless state what, for a young man training to be a professional soldier, is the central question: what is it like to be in a battle? Little wonder either that my soldier colleagues regard their ‘leadership’ lectures, in which the psychological problems of controlling oneself and one’s men in battle are explicitly reviewed, as the most taxing of their assignments in the military training programme. Sorry, there was a problem loading this page. I also corresponded fruitfully with Professor Bernard Bergonzi and Dr C. T. Allmand. He was, perhaps, an unusual figure, but not an uncommon one. And what are its usages and assumptions? Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. "The Face of Battle: a study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme" Summary The book "The Face of Battle: a study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme" authored by John Keegan is a non-fiction resource dedicated to enlightening the reader concerning the history of the military with the emphasis being between the 1960s and 1970s. Starting with Agincourt, moving on to Waterloo, and finally the Somme, the author describes warfare as experienced by the warrior of the day. And the right to inflict suffering must always be purchased by, or at the risk of, combat–ultimately of combat corps à corps. Free 2-day shipping on qualified orders over $35. Keegan stands alongside possibly only Sir Michael Howard as the collossus of post-WWII British military historians/analysts. But if it leads him to question–as I have found it does me–the traditional approach to writing about combat corps à corps, to decide that, after he has read the survivors’ letters and diaries, the generals’ memoirs, the staff officers’ dispatches, there is yet another element which he must add to anything he writes–an element compounded of affection for the soldiers he knows, a perception of the hostilities as well as the loyalties which animate a society founded on comradeship, some appreciation of the limits of leadership and obedience, a glimpse of the far shores of courage, a recognition of the principle of self-preservation ever present in even the best soldier’s nature, incredulity that flesh and blood can stand the fears with which battle will confront it and which his own deeply felt timidity will highlight–if, in short, he can learn to make up his mind about the facts of battle in the light of what all, and not merely some, of the participants felt about their predicament, then he will have taken the first and most important step in understanding battle ‘as it actually was’. 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