Joan of Arc: A Military Leader

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: The history I knew but what I was hoping for a detailed analysis and study of military tactics used by Joan.

If you want a fairly good history of her, you might read this.



Rating:
Summary: A Promise Unfulfilled
Review: This is an exceptionally well-produced book, with glossy pages, excellent maps of the routes Joan traveled and the geography of her campaigns, as well as a number of photographs of historic landmarks related to the life of La Pucelle. If it were a bit larger in size, it would even make a good coffee table book. Mr. DeVries has apparently done a sizable amount of research on his subject and has included excellent endnotes and references. Anyone wishing to follow-up with his or her own study of Joan of Arc would do well to use this work as a starting point. Unfortunately, though, it ultimately fails to deliver on its promise of being a study of her capabilities as a tactician and a strategist.

Having read many of the documents contemporary with Joan's time, as well as numerous biographies (Pernoud, Sakesville-West, et. al.) I was quite familiar with her career. Also, having recently read J.F.C. Fuller's excellent account of the battles of Alexander the Great (The Generalship of Alexander the Great, De Capo Press), I had expected a treatise along similar lines. I was hoping for such things, perhaps, as a review of common fifteenth century tactics, an analysis of how Joan's tactics might have differed from these, information concerning the order of battle for both the French and English during each confrontation, an analysis of how troops were deployed, and so on. Instead, what was presented consisted of basically the same information already presented by Joan's other biographers. Maybe I was expecting too much. For one thing, it may be that medieval warfare was less tactically sophisticated than warfare during more ancient times, despite the advent of gunpowder weapons. For another, it may well be that reliable, detailed documentation of Joan's battles simply does not exist.

The learned clerics at Poitiers asked Joan what need she had of soldiers if God had foreordained the outcome, and she replied, "The soldiers will fight and God will give the victory." Given this supernatural viewpoint, considerations of strategy and tactics become relatively unimportant, little more than a context for a foregone conclusion. Any maybe that's all we really need to know about Joan's military actions.

Rating:
Summary: Nice pictures but little analysis or synthesis
Review: While the subject matter of this book holds great potential interest to the reader, unfortunately, Mr. Devries fails to deliver on that potential by way of new material or analysis - notwithstanding his own claims to the contrary. Mr. Devries, however, does break new ground at the very beginning of his book - in the Acknowledgements. Typically, this section is devoted to thanking other people who have played a role in supporting the author, but Mr. Devries has shown great creativity by turning that old-fashioned notion on its head. His Acknowledgements proudly features - well - himself! In addition to jamming twenty-six (count 'em) instances of the pronoun "I," two of "me" and nine of "my," into this short section, he manages to drag in his family members throughout, and even then, only so far as they must have missed his delightful presence while he wrote this book.
As to the text itself, while not purely a redaction of existing works on the subject, this volume appears to shed little new light - especially as it lacks a certain capacity for critical insight, which one hopes to find in such works. If one does not have ready access to more original works on the subject, this volume may serve to point the reader in the right direction. How sad that readers of exciting materials such as the trial transcript of the Maid of Orleans find no glimmer of that brilliant female mind in the strategies addressed in this volume. If the author had effectively compared Jean's maneuvers with those of past military leaders who found themselves in similar circumstances, we would have had a firm grasp on how Jean's brilliance compared to theirs. Unfortunately, this requires familiarity with a broad range of military analyses and a reading knowledge of the sources in their original tongues--especially since the names of weaponry and even military maneuvers frequently do not translate consistently.
Our universities have for decades been turning out graduates who are hampered by forays beyond their native languages. I can't help but remember how even the limited introductions, terse footnotes, and line drawings in our old Latin editions of Caesar's Belli Gallici carried enough information to bring to life the military strategies of that great leader. Where are the descriptions of the battle techniques utilized by Jean? Where the analysis of how her forces utilized their resources better-or worse--than others of her time? Alongside the spate of TV films on this extraordinary woman, we now have yet another volume that adds inches and weight, but little fire and light, to our love of a singular woman's mind.