The Face of Battle

What Hacker News says

1. hilbert42Jun 2024
   You're right, The Great War and Modern Memory is not only an amazing history but it's also a remarkable bit of writing in its own right. It's one of those exceptional books on war and the history of warfare and up there with the likes of John Keegan's The Face of Battle and others that comprise the main text corpus about warfare. It's an essential read for anyone who's interested in the subject.

   It's author, Paul Fussell, an educator in English, was a WWII veteran and in that nightmarish push across the border into Germany and so had firsthand experience of what it's like to be in battle. Fussell not only looks at the horrors of The Great War but also at those who participated in it, and of the social milieu that surrounded it.

   Fussell not only speaks from experience but also from the heart, he dedicates the book to the memory of a companion who was killed nearby him. It's a very moving piece of writing.

   I came to the book just by chance, I saw it on a pile of old books on a table outside a secondhand bookstore around two decades ago. My eye was drawn immediately to the remarkable photo of a tragic figure of a young soldier on its cover. The lost and dejected look on that soldier is forever fixed in my memory.

   I doubt if that cover photograph could be bettered, it foretells the book's contents to a tee.

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2. AlbertCoryJun 2022
   A book [1] that's nearly 30 years old now by one of the best military historians of his age, John Keegan: The Face of Battle. It looks at what it was actually like to be there, in the midst of it, at three famous battles. I need to read it again.

   [1] https://www.amazon.com/Face-Battle-Study-Agincourt-Waterloo/...?

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3. gumbyMar 2019
   Fallows references John Keegan's astounding book "The Face of Battle" which discusses Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme from the perspective of the combatants themselves, which was at the time, and to some degree still is, novel. The nature of combat and its tide is quite different from how it looks on the map, in a book, and even in the eyes of the commanders. It's a gripping read (nonfiction though) and has many lessons for the lay reader.
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4. gaddersJul 2016
   I'd also recommend The Face of Battle by John Keegan. It covers Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme:

   "The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at 'the point of maximum danger'. It examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and behaviour generated by battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away."

   http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275833.The_Face_of_Battle

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