The Face of Battle The Face of Battle The Face of Battle is a 1976 non-fiction book on military history by the English military historian John Keegan. It deals first with the structure of historical writing about battles, the strengths and weaknesses of the "battle piece," and then with the structure of warfare in three time periods—medieval Europe, the Napoleonic Era, and World War I—by analyzing three battles: Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme, all of which involved English soldiers and occurred in approximately the same geographical area. When published, the work was groundbreaking. It does not examine the battles only from the point of
Battle of Agincourt Among the "circa" 1,500 prisoners taken by the English, were the following French notables: Anne Curry in her 2005 book "Agincourt: A New History", argues (based on research into the surviving administrative records) that the French army was about 12,000 strong, and the English army about 9,000, giving proportions of four to three. By contrast, Juliet Barker in her book "Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle" (also published in 2005) argues the English and Welsh were outnumbered "at least four to one and possibly as much as six to one". She suggests figures of about 6,000 for the English