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 metaphor at the beginning of the First World War, when the British Expeditionary Force's attempts to stop the German advances were widely likened to it. Shakespeare's version of the battle of Agincourt has been turned into (several minor and) two major films, starring Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989. Made just prior to the invasion of Normandy, Olivier's rendition gives the battle what Sarah Hatchuel has termed an "exhilarating and heroic" tone, with an artificial, cinematic look to the battle scenes. Branagh's version gives a longer, more realist portrayal of the battle itself, drawing on both historical