The introduction of the book is a reflection on Keegan's military history, in his time, is taught as a set of traditions to future officers. The historian presents his discomfort at the fact that he teaches young officers how appropriate a fight when he was himself involved in any war. This starting point opens on training to teach officers and main strengths and weaknesses of the military history of the moment. The main criticism leveled at it is that this is a story "view from above", and learns nothing about the actual course of the battle, at the fighter. It assumes that the soldiers tell, too, their participation in combat in an idealized form. The real question posed can be summarized as: what happens to the soldier it concretely to the war?
Keegan tries to answer through three great examples of battles involving England Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. Each time, he exhibited the traditional presentation of the battle and sees what sources it came from. Then moving to the heart of the clash, he tries to explain the meaning of the main operations and from the point of view of the soldier how it behaves before the battle, which he does it happen during fight, what ideas it gives there on what may be the war. Thus, for example Keegan chips away the myth of the longbow that would only cause of victory at Agincourt, providing a more complex story. If longbows have led to significant losses, fighting hand-to-body and even social classes of English archers had their importance in the course of the battle. Similarly, it challenges the effectiveness of cavalry charges and shows that men of English arms, planting stakes on the ground and clinging on the defensive, have perfectly withstood the shock of the French chivalry. The purpose of Waterloo is perhaps less powerful -it must be said that this is one of the most discussed historiographique- battles on the map but the description of troops still engaged after undergoing six hours of bombardment is impressive. However, Keegan uses limited secondary sources and not free from bias. The chapter on the Somme can also be compared with that of Waterloo, but it is where Keegan speaks the links between the army and society (training battalions Kitchener) when he forgets a bit in the other two examples.
The goal for Keegan is not however "reraconter" three battles, but to experience his new method of analysis which also provides him with no definitive answers, he acknowledges himself only assumptions . The battles are not much contextualiséses because Keegan probably expects the reader to already know a little-hence the choice of three famous shocks. In his conclusion, he tries to apply the same principle to the fighting of the Second World War, but the dedicated volume is too low for this to be conclusive. Comparison of three battles with studied mountaineering is somewhat confusing. It does not really answer one of the key issues of military history: the battles did they become increasingly harsh, and soldiers increasingly best to support them? It also feels the cold war context with a few sentences launched on a possible confrontation with the USSR, which of course now aged. But Keegan points out an essential point: the story of the battles is not only that of the commanders, it is also that of combatants. It is not going after things, and makes some considerations instead of fighting the future: according to him, the expansion and increasing depersonalization of the battlefield are the psychological pressure on the soldier one major weaknesses of armies in the field. The nature of war has not changed: it remains a contest between men, despite technological advances. The battles last longer and longer and, by the prowess of armaments, "killing zone" confronting the soldier is becoming wider: the danger is omnipresent, much more than in the past. If arming extends the scope of the engagement, fight hand-to-hand infantry remain an essential component of the war. Ultimately, it is a book about writing military history, and in this sense, the bet has been won: Face of the Battle became one of the references for the historians of the new "story BATTLE ". He pulled her out of the contempt in which we still held it at the time in military history, which lives from the time a renaissance.
In summary, at an affordable price, a fundamental military historiography which, thirty years later, remains as precious. A revised and updated new edition would however welcome.
