The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme

Masterful and original military history. Essential reading for military history nerds and aficionados.

The great Dan Carlin sent me here, and while it is quite academic in parts - one of the opening chapters being an illuminating though dense historiography of military history - it is a great read.

I call it original as it is a history from the perspective of the men, of those who do the fighting, not a zippy narrative from the commanders point of view. What is battle like for soildiers? How has it changed over the centuries?

Before reading the battles selected struck me as very British oriantainted, but there were several reasons for this outside of the writers nationality (and presumably some special access to documents). Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme all happened close to each other, and yet the advances in technology and organization mark them as clearly different in order.

Some parts of battle are universal, others novel. We look at phycological aspects, weapons and kill zones, fatigue, right through to the importance of religion in each period. It's all historical gold.

He also brought me a fresh perspective on the battles of WW2, saying that the image of them as mechanized is largely mistaken - most battles were infantry based and more resembled seiges with occasional open dashes to a specific target. This resembles the current Ukraine conflict, there are modern twists yes, yet a soldier from 100 years ago would be right at home...

The final line, written in the midst of the cold war in the 70s, suggests battles may become obsolete...despite this looking prescient in Europe for decades, sadly it has now been proven wrong.