Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle

by Richard Holmes

This ambitious, wide-ranging, exhaustively researched book is a compelling attempt to grasp the very nature of war. It takes us through the soldier's experience in its entirety - from the humiliation of basic training and the intense comradeship of army life, to the terror, isolation and exhaustion of battle. What does it feel like to be in the firing line? How does killing change a man? And what do the extreme conditions of war reveal about a man's basic instincts, his courage or his fear, his urge for self-preservation or self-sacrifice? Covering several centuries of warfare, and including the personal recollections of veterans from two World Wars, from Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands and the Arab-Israeli conflicts, Richard Holmes gives us a powerful picture of what motivates the soldier and enables him to maintain the struggle in conditions of extreme degradation and danger.

Genres: Military Fiction, History, Psychology, Nonfiction, Military History, War, Politics

Paperback

First published March 1, 1986

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
See this thread for more information.

Edward Richard Holmes was Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science. He was educated at Cambridge, Northern Illinois, and Reading Universities, and carried out his doctoral research on the French army of the Second Empire. For many years he taught military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

A celebrated military historian, Holmes is the author of the best-selling and widely acclaimed Tommy and Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket. His dozen other books include Dusty Warriors, Sahib, The Western Front, The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French, The Road to Sedan, Firing Line, The Second World War in Photographs and Fatal Avenue: A Traveller’s History of Northern France and Flanders (also published by Pimlico).

He was general editor of The Oxford Companion to Military History and has presented eight BBC TV series, including ‘War Walks’, ‘The Western Front’ and ‘Battlefields’, and is famous for his hugely successful series ‘Wellington: The Iron Duke’ and ‘Rebels and Redcoats’.

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely well done, by an expert (both scholar and veteran.) Holmes studies the psychology of combat. This book belongs on the same shelf as Grossman's On Killing and On Combat, Shay's Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America, Keegan's The Face of Battle, and the like.

The author doesn't come to startling new conclusions (although this book predates a lot of the literature now around on its topic) but he covers this ground vividly and articulately. Like the others cited above, he makes it clear that combat is not glamorous, simple, or easily assimilated, and that most military history fails to capture nearly all (and the most important parts for the participants) of what happens and how it changes people.

Yet one more book that should be required reading for any head of state or legislator contemplating committing his or her country's troops to any war. Not to say that it's never necessary, but it should never be done unless it really must.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This exhaustive examination of how men feel in war is well-researched, careful, and deeply interesting. It complements soldiers' autobiographies with a more meta-analysis of combatants' experiences.

[Rob Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Well researched synopsis on the nature of war, and responses to the same. As I wrestle with my own experiences I was hoping that Holmes might offer some helpful vocabulary and insight. Unfortunately, I found myself frustrated on that front.

All in all, interesting but a little dated, with heavy emphasis on British military experiences, I’m not sure how many of his theories are still valid - particularly regarding warfare since 1985.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, but read Dave Grossman ahead/instead

[Jerry Wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tells of war and the components of preparation, execution, and aftermath.
Covers wars from Greek times to the present. Amazing interviews and write ups through history of war, and there are many to work from, with concentration on the people who grunt from shot to shot
and dread action, do what they must in action, and how they are affected after.
S. L. A. Marshall -- The battlefield is cold. It is the lonesomest place which men share together.p 149
. . . it took an average of 1400 shells to kill a man during the First World War. p. 170 Cf. The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson on WWI shots per death .
Fear is the common bond between fighting men. p. 204
Small arms caused the American forces 3 per cent of their deaths and 27 percent of their wounds in Korea while shell and mortar fragments were responsible for 59 percent and 61 per cent respectively. p. 210\
. . . the hardest thing in war was "to be afraid and sit still. p. 231
E. g. SLA Marshall on average , only 15 percent of the men in American rifle companies in action in the central Pacific and European theaters in the second World war actually fired their weapons in battle. * * * Only thirty six members fi the battalion had actually fired their weapons. p. 299

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holmes has written a fascinating study of the behavior of men in battle (can't put it better). Apparently there is a variety of response that vary from culture to culture, person to person, war to war. An excellent work.

Two quibbles. First, I think Holmes doesn't understand just how unique the Vietnam War experience was to Americans. Second, I just don't know why English writers so uncritically accept SLA Marshall's study that indicated that American soldiers didn't shoot back during World War 2. Let me elaborate. If this was true, we should be hearing anecdotes from men who didn't fire; we don't. If this was true, why were American units routinely pull back for running out of ammunition?

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent survey of the wide range of experiences, emotions, and behaviors that humans exhibit and experience in battle. Holmes draws on centuries of evidence for his findings and covers the entire spectrum of experiences.

[KB · Rating 4 out of 5]

The man is the first weapon of battle. Let us study the soldier, for it is he who brings reality to it.

Although Holmes' book is subtitled "The Behaviour of Men in Battle," it goes far beyond that. Overall, it examines the life of a soldier from enlistment through training, onto the battlefield and then follows him home after his war. If you've ever wondered what the realities of military life entail or what goes mentally and physically for someone on a battlefield, you will surely find both in this book.

Before Holmes really gets into the soldier experience, he discusses the writing of military history and some of the problems with it. Some histories are too operational and ignore the role of the individual. Others are too over the top and cliched. He notes how important and useful personal accounts can be, even though they are flawed in the sense that it is difficult recalling past events, especially ones as confusing and horrible as during war, so that they are often incomplete, one-sided or partly incorrect. Many soldiers also find it difficult to write about their experiences. This means some historians do not always see the importance of written accounts, do not use these accounts correctly, or over-use them and offer little analysis of their own. Another problem faced by military historians is that many have never seen battle themselves.

I was really impressed with the beginning of the book. As I was reading I kept thinking to myself, 'yes, I totally agree with him.' I basically only read military history or books about war, and looking back on what I've read, Holmes makes excellent points. I wasn't alive in 1986 reading military history, but even just taking into account what has been published since this book, his points still stand. In the more operational histories, personal accounts are sometimes thrown in to try and give the view of an average soldier, but get lost in the rest of the detailed text and there are plenty of books out there that just string together personal accounts.

To be sure, Holmes himself uses plenty of first-hand accounts from men that have served, but this strengthens the book rather than impedes it. He draws from a number of secondary sources as well and blends these together in chapters which are divided thematically. There are so many things brought up in this book that I can't even begin to touch on them all, but through all this I think his organization worked really well. He uses examples from all the 20th century wars and plenty from even before then, giving good coverage of each of his topics. One of the most interesting things he touches on, in my opinion, is how the portrayal of war in popular media has shaped men's war experiences. Many of them based their ideas of what war was like off of movies they had seen, or wanted to see themselves as a character they found particularly admirable. Some also viewed their wars as something out of a movie, like it almost wasn't real: "A Marine, wounded in the legs at Hue, told Michael Herr: 'I hate this movie.'"

There are so many other interesting things in here: how soldiers view their enemies, how they react under the strain of battle, how fear controls their actions, how some almost want to be back in war once they have returned home, etc. I was a little less into the book at the end than when I initially started reading it, but it was never a chore - I enjoyed it cover to cover. I seemed that it read pretty fast to me, as well.

If you are looking for discussion about women in the military, you won't really find that here. It does come up early in the book, but Holmes doesn't make much of it. This was published in 1986 and women's roles in the military had been expanding since around the 70s (generally; it depends on the country). However, women in combat roles is a more recent thing and was only really occurring around the book's publication. In that sense, I understand why there is this lack of focus because war, traditionally, has mostly been a man's thing. Regardless, this is still debated a lot even today, so I think more could have been done on the topic.

Perhaps a flaw of the book is that it is very much centered on Western armies, so you'll mostly hear from the Americans and British. The Germans appear pretty frequently, as do the French. Israelis, Russians, Argentinians, Canadians and Australians much less so. Holmes has good coverage of the wars, but leaves out the voices of soldiers of numerous countries that participated. I mean, I can't say much in regards to how many of their memoirs or books focusing on these armies have been translated into English. Still, it is a more narrow scope.

All in all, I truly enjoyed this book. It provides a ton of information without being dense or confusing, and the personal accounts Holmes uses are really wonderful. If the topic interests you, I can't see why anyone would be disappointed.

[Matt Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

I acquired this book as a last act of bureaucratic subterfuge. In my last few months on active duty in the army, I had a desk in a forgotten back corner of a tiny station in Iowa. In my forgotten corner, I found a forgotten bookshelf. Someone used to care about these books. They had labels. It seemed like someone trying to create a resource for professional development. Then they left and everyone forgot, but the books stayed.

Looking through what was available, much of it was either out of date, painfully business-oriented, or overly jingoistic. This title seemed to be the exception, an attempt to deal frankly with the realities of military service, in and out of combat. I had the feeling that I was going to want to read things like this to mentally outprocess from the service. So I took it.

The book is effectively a survey of written sources from Xenophon to Tim O'Brien, as well as interviews conducted by the author, addressing the fundamental components of military life and combat from several points of view. Holmes does tend to rely on European and American sources, likely as a product of his own background in military history. It's also worth noting that the age shows at points, considering that the Falklands War is his representative case study of modern combat.

Overall, I appreciated his approach. There was a lot of myself I could see in the anecdotes he used as reference points. It's helpful to feel reflected as a way of understanding my own experience. It also gives words to a lot of feelings and inclinations that I hadn't been able to label. Outside of veterans, I think it's worth reading for those looking to gain some perspective on the various experiences and outcomes of military life and why people talk about it the way they do. A little slow going at times, but worth the effort.

[Kevin Whiteman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book because of the great details and reality of the story. Each and every soldier has a different personality and a different story. Whether it is a Colonel speaking about his encounters with the Vietcong, or a private that made it through Pearl Harbor they all have the same views of war. They are all intimated. Almost of all of the soldiers except a few felt that they left their life behind them and that the only benefit was that they had the ability to fight for their freedom and the United States. All in all I suggest this book for anyone who is interested in War stories and enjoy reading about the realities of War.

[Maurice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Holmes does not look to campaigns, generals and the big picture in this book, but tries to gain understanding of the common soldier, why he or she enlists, experiences training and his or her baptism of fire and handles the stress and terror involved. Ravished with examples from the Middles Ages through the Napoleontic Wars and through both World Wars to Vietnam and the Falklands, he paints an intersting insight picture in the mind of the common soldier!

[Keith Cavey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whew! This tome was a long, boooorrring read. There were occasional interesting tidbits and noteworthy passages, but this book is more of a reference than a "sit down and read" book. Recommended only for those that are really, REALLY interested in an analytical, non-emotional account of how human beings act in a wartime environment.

[Magdalena Hai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand war.

[Yana Shevkirova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books on this subject I have ever read.