ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim's contribution to the development of French sociology and sociology in general is undisputable. He and his collaborators contributed substantially to the understanding of the relations between the individual and society and of social facts in general. Emile Durkheim stressed that social facts need to be distinguished from psychological phenomena and individual-level explanations, no matter how self-evident these may be at first glance. The core of military action, at least infantry action, belongs to the small group: the squad or the platoon, currently referred to as the smallest units of action. The success of these primary groups is based on continuous interaction between the members of the group and the development of group cohesion. In military research, conducting case studies of singular national armed forces or unique events, such as battles, is still a common approach. In military history, ceaselessly stressing the unique character of events is even more the case than in other disciplines of military studies.
