Book Review: The Face of Battle
The book that changed how military history is written
Some say literature begins, and will probably end one day, with war. And in Homer’s Iliad ancient warriors such as Achilles, Ajax and Hector are totally immersed in it. Here, even at the start of Western literary tradition, there is a sense that warfare might never stop, and this feeling is echoed in the Iliad when Agamemnon declares that, ‘we are still fighting, there is no end in sight’.
Homer describes the face of ancient battle in all its gore, savagery, rage, and violence. So much so, that by the end of the epic poem we too are immersed in it much like the ancients were driven to pursue it:
Idomeneus skewered Erymas straight through the mouth, the merciless brazen spearpoint raking through, up under the brain, splitting his glistening skull. Teeth shattered out, eyes brimmed to the lids with a gush of blood, both nostrils spurting, mouth gaping, blowing convulsive sprays of blood, and death’s dark cloud closed down around his corpse. (i)
Much later in history, the armchair violence of Tennyson’s war poem the Charge of the Light Brigade and Wilfred Owen’s much more personal portrayals of World War I, (e.g. Futility) provide stark reminders how war, and the attitudes to it, have changed over the centuries. But in my view, nothing, including how the media has represented conflict in recent history, comes close to understanding what it’s ‘like’ to fight in a battle.
Homer’s glorification of battle, Tennyson’s jingoism, and Owen’s anti-war sentiment, all have their merits and places in our understanding of military history. Individuals witness war from different perspectives (essentially from their own point of view) and in the above cases, poetry is perhaps the wrong medium to seek an answer. What is missing from such accounts, poetic or otherwise, is an appreciation of what is now known as the mechanics of war, or put in more simplistic terms; the experience of soldiers on the front line, rather than that of their generals and politicians.
And this is where The Face of Battle by the late, great, John Keegan wins hands down.
Taking three battles in three different eras as examples: Agincourt (1415), Waterloo (1815), and The Somme (1916), Keegan’s book examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and actions generated by a battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away. It is military history direct from the battlefield and an appraisal of the experience of individuals at the maximum point of danger.
The Face of Battle changed my thinking about military history and prompted me to write about it differently. Keegan’s book was first published in 1976 and has never been out of print. Today it is perhaps a little jaded in some ways, but that is because it is the go-to book if you are serious about writing anything about warfare. It has become a standard text, and concerning the ‘mechanics’ of battle, from the very first chapter exploring the phases of Agincourt, Keegan tells you what he is about:
The answer to some of these questions must be highly conjectural, interesting though that conjecture might be. But to others, we can certainly offer answers which fall within a fairly narrow bracket of probability, because the parameters of the questions are technical. Where speed of movement, density of formations, effect of weapons, for example, are concerned, we can test our suppositions against the known defensive qualities of armour plate, penetrative power of arrows, dimensions and capacities of the human body, carrying power and speed of the horse. And from a reasonable assessment of probabilities about these military mechanics, we may be able to leap towards an understanding of the dynamics of the battle itself and the spirit of the armies which fought it. (ii)
Keegan was a former lecturer at Sandhurst and takes the known facts about the battle, adds up the mechanics, and puts them both under the microscope. In the case of Agincourt, he explores archers versus infantry and cavalry, cavalry versus infantry, infantry versus infantry, the killing of prisoners, the wounded and the will of soldiers to face combat. All are all minutely investigated and supported by contemporary evidence, such as it is. Even commonplace violence in everyday medieval life is explored. And although we might not wholly agree with Keegan’s scenarios, he leaves us in no doubt about what it must have been like to face an arrow storm, participate in a heavy cavalry charge, and fight in the metallic confusion of hand-to-hand combat.
Turning his attention to Waterloo, Keegan next describes the changes in battle since the Middle Ages. He compares the technical advancements, the attitudes, and the various problems of battlefield vision that a Napoleonic soldier faced in 1815. He even compares the scale of the Agincourt, Waterloo and Somme battlefields to make a point. Once again Keegan takes us through the phases of the battle from the initial artillery duel, to the fights for strategic farmhouses. He provides eye witness accounts of the mass advances and repulses of the huge regimental formations of the day. He meticulously sets out what it was probably like to be in a French cavalry charge or a British infantry square. He explores what happened to the wounded after the battlefield was cleared and relates the experience of soldiers; many like Lieutenant George Simmons of the Rifle Brigade who was wounded in the back at the exact moment he was congratulating himself on his apparent invulnerability.
The Somme battlefield is Keegan’s next point of reference. He explains the battle plans, tactics and the initial wild bombardments of the German trenches with heavy artillery and clouds of chlorine gas. Again the soldiers perspective is taken in all its horror and confusion. He recounts the experience of ordinary men thrown into extraordinary circumstances and of infantry facing the raking fire of well-entrenched machine guns. Keegan tells us of the ‘pals’ regiments in which my grandfather served. A sergeant of the 3rd Tyneside Irish regiment crossing no-mans land explains what it was like under fire during the assault:
I could see, away to my left and right, long lines of men. Then I heard the ‘patter, patter’ of machine guns in the distance. By the time I’d gone another ten yards there seemed to be only a few men left around me; by the time I had gone twenty yards, I seemed to be on my own. Then I was hit myself. (iii)
Twenty battalions of the attacking force out of sixty in the first wave had been disabled by machine-gun fire. Still, some men reached the German trenches alive where the mechanisation of warfare surrendered to more ancient methods of survival.
However, this was only the start of several attacks that achieved very little. By the time The Somme offensive ended in November 1916, 419,654 British soldiers had become casualties and nearly two hundred thousand French (compared to Waterloo’s overall casualty figures of 50,000). The number of German casualties on 1st July 1916 have been debated ever since. The tragic consequences are evident in any era and, in a way, the battles of World War I have never stopped for the relatives of those soldiers missing in action. Bodies are still being unearthed over a hundred years later, and we may wonder why war, even on a smaller scale, is still contemplated.
In the final chapter of Keegan’s book, he explores the military aspects of World War II and how the voices from the trenches speak for every soldier in the industrial age. The future, nature, trend, length and abolition of battle - the latter still an emotive subject for many - gives us cause to wonder if Agamemnon’s words still ring true. Keegan argues the point that hopefully, given that pitched battles are largely over in the modern world, and that the young have already made their decision about warfare in general, such recognisable encounters are a thing of the past.
Books such as Keegan’s masterpiece change our perceptions of history and the world around us. And The Face of Battle certainly is a classic that earns the accolade of being ‘without doubt one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language’. A poignant reminder that the importance and futility of war should never be forgotten, as so eloquently endorsed by Wilfred Own before his death in 1918.
If you are interested in history, and especially military history, I heartily recommend that this book will change your perception too.
(i) Homer. The Iliad, trans R. Fagles, 1990, Book 16, lines 362-74, 407-13.
(ii) J. Keegan. The face of Battle, 2014, p69.
(iii) J. Keegan. The face of Battle, 2014, p218.