Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War by Gregory Daly

Author:Gregory Daly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2005-06-09T20:38:14+00:00

The theatre of leadership

As has been pointed out already (p. 116), Keegan has identified five basic categories of duties for a commander apart from mere strategic and tactical functions (Keegan, 1987, pp. 315–38). The imperative of sanction—a

commander’s use of punishments and rewards—is discussed in the next chapter with regard to the morale of ordinary soldiers. The imperative of action, based on the commander’s use of intelligence to plan operations, has already been dealt with in this chapter, and the imperative of example — the sharing of risk by a commander through his physical presence in battle —will be covered in the next section. The remaining two imperatives, those of kinship and of prescription, are more subtle, pertaining less to traditional outward signs of military activity and more to propaganda. They contribute nothing tangible to the army’s

administration or performance and are primarily concerned with the presentation of the commander. The imperative of kinship concerns the creation of a bond between the commander and his men, while that of prescription involves nothing more ‘productive’ than verbal contact between the two.

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