Book Review: The Mask of Command by John Keegan

[RTO Trainer]

The Mask of Command
John Keegan, former Senior Lecturer at England's Royal
Military Academy at Sandhurst, presents a book on what it is to
command. As is usual for Keegan, he provides an exposition of his
topic by producing historical examples that are archetypal. In this
book, the subject being command, he displays the archetype commanders
of history: Alexander the Great as Heroic Leader, the Duke of
Wellington as the Anti-heroic Leader, Ulysses Grant as the Unheroic
Leader, and Adolf Hitler as the False Hero. Keegan also takes a
further step in a fifth chapter devoted to leadership in the nuclear
age. The information presented is dense, one has the impression of
having read a far longer book when finished, though the prose is not
and the reading is easy, probably a result of Keegan's early career
utilizing the spoken word.
If command is about motivating others to do as you wish them
to do, then these archetypes are about the means employed by
commanders to achieve that end. For Keegan, these four types are
mixes of more or less of two styles of leadership, heroism, or sharing
the risk, and directorship, or issuing orders to be followed and the
archetypes move progressively from almost purely heroic (Alexander) to
dictatorial (Hitler). Keegan's approach shows how these four
commanders presented their masks, the image they wished their
followers to see and believe in.
Alexander, was a priest, king and general. He led from the
front of battle until severely wounded at the battle of Multan in 325,
a sucking chest wound, which made the extreme heroics of his earlier
days impossible. This style was a requirement of the time and the
culture. In order to give orders one had to be within earshot, but
the danger to which Alexander regularly exposed himself to along with
the troops he lead was more than was necessary. Heroics alone,
though, do not typify the heroic leader, a measure of the theatric is
also required. Keegan spends some time on the performances that
Alexander went through in order to retain the loyalty and spirit of
his men. Theatrics that included allowing them to believe that he had
died and then rallying them latter with his "miraculous" reappearance,
as well as displays of petulance, sulking in his tent in order to
shame his troops into following his lead.
The scene changes and the subject is now Wellington.
Characterized "anti-hero," by Keegan, apparently because Wellington
seemed to deliberately shun Alexandrine heroism, the identification of
the leader as one of the men. Wellington went to war in civilian
clothes. He was known to his men as "the long nosed bastard that
beats the French." He exercised command, like Alexander, according
to the demands of his culture, but here the culture was of the English
gentry, refined and dignified, not to mention the idea that leadership
was a product of breeding and societal position. Sulking and rousing
oration was quite beyond the bounds which Wellington would employ. We
do get a mix of the heroic style, however, Wellington would regularly
expose himself to the same dangers faced by his troops and for much
the same reasons. Even so, the limits of technology would not require
Wellington to have stood under fire and issue written orders in
perfect grammar, though he would do so anyway. Not Alexandrine, but
heroic, nonetheless.
Again, technology is a factor in the development of the third
type. Rifles were capable of reaching to longer distances, artillery
was of greater range and more accurate. Grant, Keegan's Unheroic
Leader, would have to direct battles from the rear of the battle zone,
a requirement of the greater ranges and scopes of the battlefields of
his time. Communications too, had advanced with rail and telegraph
extending the necessity of direction to not only one battle on one
field but of whole theaters of action and multiple commands. Even
still, Grant was not separated from the battles his men fought. He
personally rallied dispirited federal troops at Shilo as well as
gathering knowledge of the terrain and conditions first hand. He was
always protected, never exposed like Wellington, but always exercising
control forward. As for theatrics, Grant typified the professional,
avoiding display and knowing that a largely volunteer army constituted
in a democratic culture must be, "led, not driven to battle" as
Wellington and Alexander had been able to do.
Finally we arrive at the False Hero. Hitler lead from a
headquarters well away from battle zones and required his followers to
perform impossible tasks, partly because of this distance. His style
was totally dictatorial, even to the extent that those who questioned
or criticized were dismissed and replaced with yes-men. These
combined on him to produce results like the German Sixth Army's
entrapment at Stalingrad. Hitler's false heroic is exemplified in his
avoidance of personal contact with the troops he "lead" and in the
donning of a "false mask" by using propaganda to claim that he did
share the ordeal of the soldiers by his past as a combat soldier in
World War I. It was Hitler's "false mask", his desire to be seen as
the great heroic leader that led him to emulate the Alexandrine
theatrics without the exposure to the risk. Too, he attempted to
ignore the technological realities, ironic for all his acceptance of
military technological strengths, and try to accept all concentration
of operations and decisions from too far away, even overriding the
judgement of his subordinates on the scene. Culture plays a role here
to, but it is largely the invented "volk" culture propounded by the
Nazi's. This culture requires the leader, the fuhrer, to be just as
Hitler was. That, of course, was a matter of making up the rules as
they went along.
Keegan's fifth chapter focuses on the here and now. How, he
asks, should commanders command in the modern reality of the nuclear
age. The book was published in 1988 and so, perhaps, it suffers from
there being no treatment of General Schwartzkopf. In any event,
Keegan calls for a "post-heroic" leader. This leader would be focused
on preventing war and minimizing battles and must emphasize prudence
and rationality to counter a technology that could produce instant
war. Schwartzkopf misses this mark I think. But Keegan did not
anticipate the end of the Cold War. I think this "post-heroic" leader
is a political cry of the time and it misses the mark even then.
Keegan's "post-heroic" leader would be wholly inapt to the
situation in the event of a war. For diplomacy, I'll take Keegan's
vision, but for warfighting there can be no substitute for an
Alexander, Wellington or Grant. I believe that the leader we need
will understand the importance of the commander in place and their
relationship to each other. He will command forward and utilize the
technology afforded by the times while not relying on it. He will
surround himself with advisors and subordinates whose judgement is
trusted and whose views differ from his own. The use of theatrics
must be the province of the individual, dictated by comfort and
conscience, but it must not become propaganda. This requires, first
and foremost, education. The "post-heroic" commander must have an
understanding of, if not knowledge of, all the technology at his
disposal. He must have an understanding of his own culture and the
culture he faces. He must know his subordinates and insist that they
know theirs.
I have found this to be most helpful to me in crystallizing
some of my own thoughts as to what a commander must be. Keegan's
choice of archetypes was inspired, and except for the weakness of the
last chapter, the book is extremely informative and well written. It
is apparent that Keegan already knew his principles in quite some
detail. It fills a gap in historical study that has needed treatment
for a long time.

Keegan, John. The Mask of Command. Viking Penguin: New York, 1987.

[V-Man]

>must have an
>understanding of, if not knowledge of, all the technology at his
>disposal. He must have an understanding of his own culture and the
>culture he faces. He must know his subordinates and insist that they
>know theirs.

I haven't read this, but I have a real problem with Keegan's examples.
Hitler and Alexander were National Leaders, faced with both military as well as
diplomatic issues.
Wellington was a tightly controlled field commander, exclusively, but he had
to concern himself with issues of diplomacy, but within a rigid framework
estblished by his Naltional Leader (the Prime Minister & VR).
Grant was a purely battlefield commander for the bulk of the war, rising to
command of all armed forces of his nation only in it's last year. At different
points during his military career, he commanded at all levels, as well as
numerous (mind numbing, for him) staff jobs.
By the time Grant was a National Commander, if not National Leader, his
enemy was so thuroughly beaten that most of the connotations that go with
National Commander were laregly irrelevant.

I can accept his terms (heroic, anti-heroic, etc) while rejecting the men he
choose. Better cadidates were available.
Using WW II, we have excellent heroic leaders - Patton, Stilwell,
Montgomery, Zhukov, & Rommel, we have Bradley & MacArthur for the Anti-Hero
(Mac was fairly heroic in WW I, but not so in WW II).
Hodges, Truscott, & Nimitz for Un-heroic, Chaing Kai Shek for the Unheroic
Leader (he is also a National Leader, but he's the best that pops into my mind
that was actually a career officer).

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