After analyzing how and why the texts witnesses or military historians have always been partial or idealized, usually for reasons historically admissible Moreover, the author tries in turn to articulate its readers the realities of battle.
For this, John Keagan focuses on three emblematic battles of three different periods on which sources are particularly numerous: Agincourt (1415), Waterloo (1815) and The Somme (1916). For each of them, the author provides a narrative of events and its concrete translation at the players in the battle: what did they see, what they understand, how did they fought, what their injuries were or what were the moral and psychological consequences of the battle on them?
Keegan's approach is systematic and analytical. It provides a concrete typology of forms of confrontation: cavalry against cavalry, cavalry against infantry, cavalry against artillery, infantry against infantry, infantry shooting (bows, rifles, machine guns) firing against infantry, artillery against infantry, artillery guns against ... If at Agincourt, fighters face only three of these situations, the Waterloo soldiers are to Sept. For those of the Somme, things are simpler still dramatic, the infantry having no opponents as dams of artillery and machine gun nests.
Keagan's work, which dates from 1976, has become a true classic because of the renewal of the "Battle history" it generated by placing the player on the ground and making it shared the impressions concrete actors in these battles. Keegan has made school, "The Western model of war" Victor Davis Hanson, for example extending this work to the period of the war hoplitic ancient Greek cities.
Read in English, the book also demonstrates a particular strength in its words and its construction, it is also made of a true literary work, in a magnificent style. The French translation in 1993. A must read.
