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Summary: Face of Battle
Review: Skip the lengthy and slow introduction, and don't trust Keegan on the American Civil War; he makes outright inaccurate comments regarding it.But when Keegan gets to the three battles he discusses in detail, Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme, he does a wonderful job. A combination of tactics, technology and mentalities gives the reader plausible accounts of what each of these conflicts must have been like for participants. Primary sources are well used. This would be a wonderful resource for historical fiction and fantasy authors, looking for ideas on how to write a realistic battle scene.
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Summary: A personalized account of warfare
Review: John Keegan, professor at Sandhurst, England's equivalent of West Point, wrote this treatise of war from the standpoint of the foot soldier circa the mid-1970's. Within this perspective he compares and contrasts the technological advancements in combat weapons from the battle of Agincourtin 1415, to Waterloo in 1815, and finally to the battle of the Somme in 1916. In each instance he relates how standoff and kill technique has been with us as long as man has been able to propel missiles at his enemy. The difference over time is the number of people that can be killed by one shot or blast. The archers at Aginsourt were successful not only due to their skill, but because of the terrain and the weather. The artillery at Waterloo was more devastating due to the range of its blast and the tight formations of the soldiers. And, the Maxim guns of the Germans at the Somme, after winning the "race to the parapets", were even more effective because the English leadership did not insist that their infantry run across no-man's land rather than walk. Keegan goes into detail upon detail, all layered in a contextural fabric, that leads the reader to see war in a way not previously envisioned. An excellent book and one of the first he wrote in the course of many.
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Summary: Military history from the grunt's perspective
Review: Scholarship is lacking in this book, but that is not its objective. Keegan takes a look at some major battles and tells them from the perspective of the soldier rather than the leaders. This is perhaps the most "human" work of military history in print.
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Summary: Keegan Standard
Review: If you are going to start reading Keegan books then start with this one. His best work in my opinion. I read this book a long time ago, but revisited it recently to get Keegan's take on Agincourt. In this volume Keegan looks at warfare from a human perspective focusing on soldiers and less on leaders. It is a relatively easy read. If you have an interest in this subject of how battle's are fought and won then you should probably read this. Keegan is a great writer of military history. Originally published in 1976 this book is still a standard. The photos in the book are not that good, but it does have a few useful maps.
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Summary: Keegan is not impartial
Review: I have read many books from him, and always enjoyed it (orginal, beautiful style etc...). But I often realized I got one part of the truth through these readings: Keegan defends certain underlying personal ideas through his writings.
In this book in particular, he wants to show that battle is inhuman and became more and more unbearable to soldiers (progressive dehumanization of battle). But he carefully chose battles which were disasters to the losers. And he chose accounts and samples of events that focus on horror, impuissance of individual soldiers and panic terror.
Through other readings of the same battles or other battles a reader can get many more impressions, for experiences of individual soldiers in any battle of history are very diverse. Moreover, it seems (at least in his narrating of Agincourt and Waterloo) he is defending the virtues of english armies against their enemies of always, the French. There were many more written accounts on Waterloo by english soldiers than french soldiers, this is true, but he clearly states somewhere that english won because of the supremacy of cool headed warriors against others.
Well, the extreme quality, courage and professionalism of french troops during the napoleonic wars is universally acknowledged and they were opposed to entire Europe, only after a rapid reorganization of France during the Waterloo campaign. In addition Napoleon and his army commanders were not at the same level as before the exile to Elbe. In spite of that all they faced all their ennemies once more.
etc...
Keegan wants to break the heroic 'myth' (this is even more obvious in his book 'The Mask of Command') because he simply militates against war: good intentions but then is it about history or ideology that we are reading ?
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Summary: A moralistic, liberal view of warfare
Review: It is unusual for an historian to write a work critical of the methods of his own institution; it is even more unusual for a military historian to write a work that is pacific and anti-military. I see both of these characteristics in Keegan's work. The author goes at great length to stress his own lack of practical experience with battle and his lack of sympathy with the idea of the Great Battle as the foundation for military history writing. Drawing from a liberal mode of thought, he seeks not to re-humanize battle or to see the "face of battle," as one is led to believe, but instead to dehumanize battle and thus to call forth a pacifist argument against warfare in the modern age. By arguing that battle has become so mechanistic and deadly as to be fought between "things" rather than men, he paints the portrait of modern battle as so impersonal as to be abolishing itself from practice. Warfare is no longer fought between individuals on the battlefield.
In essence, Keegan is calling for a moralistic treatment of warfare. He criticizes much military history writing for depicting battle stereotypically, with emphasis on the outcome. In countries that have never faced national extinction, war remains something apart from society's heart. Keegan insists that battle is inherently a "moral conflict." As such, military schools, with their attempts to make war into a science, cannot prepare an individual for actual battle. Such attempts at rationalization, Keegan objects, in fact only dehumanize the future officer. Thus, battle accounts tend to describe the course of battle; such "rhetoric of history" offers little or no analysis of the events and players.
Keegan wants to put a human focus on battle. He argues that the action of fighting has remained a constant over the centuries, which he attempts to show in a treatment of three episodes of battle--Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. Although the "face of battle" has remained unchanged--men still must conquer their fears of death, endure, persevere, etc.--the scope of battle has been magnified--battles last longer, involve more men and machines, and are fought over a wider area. It is precisely this increase in scope, along with an increase in personal danger to the individual combatant, that has served to change the very nature of warfare. No longer is battle a contest between two equal parties, who respect and empathize with each other. The personal, hand-to-hand combat of the past has been replaced by a battle of machines--instruments of destruction. The enemy is now demonized into something other than human; the enemy becomes "them," an impersonal, nonhuman party. War is no longer noble, Keegan would say; it is only bloody, for men are sacrificed in the thousands to the instruments of destruction. Due to the impersonalization of warfare, many soldiers must now be coerced if they are to fight at all; forced to take part in such horrors, the soldier loses his humanity and displays a large degree of cruelty to his fellow man. For these reasons, Keegan concludes by arguing that men can no longer abide the stresses of battle placed on them by a warfare of instruments of destruction--that "battle has already abolished itself." This conclusion seems problematical at best. While Keegan explores the human experience of battle, he ignores the forces that lead to battle. By portraying battle as an evil god of destruction borne in and of itself, he fails to acknowledge the inhuman acts of cruelty and aggression that in fact precipitate warfare.
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Summary: scientific look into the psyche of the soldier. Gritty!!
Review: I can taste the dirt, and smell the gunpowder. Keegan asks the question, "how would you react?" From the Generals headquarters to the soldiers foxhole, a thorough, vivid, scientific description of some of the most famous battles in European history.
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Summary: The Face of Genius
Review: I bought this book a long time ago, but only read it recently because it is on the Chief of Staff of the Army's suggested reading list for Cadets, Soldiers, and Junior NCOs. It reminded me of the most exciting college class possible, only in book form. John Keegan, although he has never been in a battle himself, is a fantastic historian, and takes the reader into three very different battles in three very different time periods, all on a very small amount of land. He explains how the footsoldier of each of those three armies felt, and what his reactions were to the circumstances around him. Keegan really knows his stuff. This book should be read by everyone who even purports to be interested in military history and the military in general. I've read reviews where people said it was "dry" and difficult to get into, but I found myself reading each section one right after the other.
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Summary: Engaging, Illuminating, Essential
Review: This book is near the pinacle of popular historiography. It is written at an engaging level appropriate for the interested amateur historian. In a clear and evocotive way Keegan is able to recreate the problems and issues facing all soldiers from ancient times to now. Some might find his writing style to be somewhat dense but any effort required is well worth it.
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Summary: Changes the way you read military history
Review: "The Face of Battle" is not what I would consider a main stream book about military history. Through three important battles in history, tactical issues that are relavent in most all military history books are glossed over in favour of, one might argue, the more relavent logistical and socialogical details of war. How did men relieve themselves on the battlefield? What kept infantry men standing in square against charging heavy cavalry? What happens to the wounded left lying on the battlefield? There are alot of answers in the book that give the reader a more rounded sense of how war exists beyond traditionally emphisised tactical outcomes.
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