The Mask of Command
by John Keegan
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Book Summary Information
Author: John KeeganEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1988-10-04
ISBN: 0140114068
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of The Mask of Command
Book Review: Great Analysis of Heroism of Military Commanders. Buy It!
Summary: 5 Stars
`The Mask of Command' by military historian par excellence, John Keegan is, like his classic `The Face of Battle' an analysis of a particular aspect of military history by a careful study and analysis of four great exemplars. In the earlier work, the exemplars were three famous battles. In this work, the exemplars are four great generals. The first thing that strikes one as we read the table of contents is his choice of military commanders. Alexander the Great and the Duke of Wellington are obvious. The other two, Ulysses S. Grant and Adolph Hitler, are quite surprising. Grant is often pictured as an average or even poor general, always in the shadow of Robert E. Lee. Hitler is generally pictured as a really bad strategist, forcing his generals to make all sorts of ill-advised moves. The fact is, Grant was exactly the kind of general the Union army needed after its long string of true incompetents and Hitler, especially early in the war, made several brilliant strategic decisions. The point of Keegan's picking these four figures is to fit his titular premise that command always involves some public mask the commander presents to their troops.
Keegan's treatment of Alexander brings us non-historians in for some surprises, in that he shared some uncomfortable similarities with Adolf Hitler in his willingness to slaughtering conquered populations and Keegan's claim that Alexander destroyed much and created very little in his short life. This may be something of a surprise when we reflect on, for example, the great library in a city he founded, Alexandria, Egypt, but I believe that was all done by the Ptolmey dynasty created by one of Alexander's generals, to whom the conquests were parceled out at Alexander's death.
Alexander is the model of the great hero as commander. Alexander's behavior in battle clearly reflected his belief that he was kin to the Olympian gods, through Heracles. He literally gave up direction of his troops from afar to wade into the thickest of hand to hand combat and dispatch as many enemies he could reach, with total faith in his own invincibility.
The Duke of Wellington, especially at the battle of Waterloo, is presented as the anti-hero. Oddly, while Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, does not himself shoulder a rifle or wield a saber, he is remarkably involved in the minute to minute contact with the enemy, as he wanders back and forth along the most active two (2) miles of front, doling out reserves with a fine touch and the situation changes from minute to minute.
Ulysses S. Grant is examined as the exemplar of the `unheroic' commander, brought to command by that most unusual method (in the mid-19th century), the professional military school education given by West Point. Unlike all the major European powers who granted command commissions on the basis of title or social rank, the United States granted its most important command positions on the basis of professional education, a very unheroic origin.
Adolph Hitler is the model of the false heroic commander. To begin, Keegan makes the case that Hitler always thought of himself as a military figure, starting with his service in the Austrian army in the First World War. Anyone familiar with the German army during World War II will not have any trouble recognizing that Hitler was the true overall commander of the German land forces, through his creation of the OKW (Oberkommando Der Wehrmacht) which superseded the previous leadership of the famous German General Staff system created by Prussia after the embarrassing send-down by Napoleon's armies.
Keegan's bookends to these four exemplars are chapters of pre-heroic and post-heroic leadership. The pre-heroic leadership may be a bit conjectural to us, as it is based in the archeology of the dim past. Post-heroic leadership is all too familiar to us all. Since this book was published in 1987, it does not reflect the great shift in the world order brought about by the collapse of Soviet communism and the `Eastern Block' and the rise of militant extremism. One must wonder what Keegan would make of terrorist commanders today.
And yet, there is a very important secondary strain in the book's argument that is eminently important today. That is the great Clauswitz dictum that warfare is an extension of political action when other means fail. A corollary of that dictum is that when combat is contemplated, the most important calculus is whether the projected cost in money, lives, and political popularity are worth the anticipated results. One immediately thinks about the relative costs and benefits of two recent American actions, Vietnam and the war in Iraq, and wonder about whether the commanders in those cases properly calculated the costs and benefits of our entering these conflicts, versus the costs and outcomes of continuing with diplomacy.
Like `The Face of Battle', the primary virtue of this book is that it gives us tools to analyze other historical situations, such as the lives and careers of the likes of Caesar, Napoleon, Frederick the Great, and George W. Bush.
A very important book!
Summary of The Mask of Command
John Keegan asks us to consider questions that are seldom asked: What makes a great military leader? Why is it that men, indeed sometimes entire nations, follow a single leader, often to victory, but with equal dedication also to defeat?
Dozens of names come to mind...Napoleon, Lee, Charlemagne, Hannibal, Castro, Hussein. From a wide array, Keegan chooses four commanders who profoundly influenced the course of history: Alexander the Great, the Duke of Wellington, Ulysses S. Grant and Adolph Hitler. All powerful leaders, each cast in a different mold, each with diverse results.
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