Product Description

Why did Napoleon succeed in 1805 but fail in 1812? Were the railways vital to Prussia’s victory over France in 1870? Was the famous Schlieffen Plan militarily sound? Could the European half of World War II have been ended in 1944? These are only a few of the questions that form the subject-matter of this meticulously researched, lively book. Drawing on a very wide range of unpublished and previously unexploited sources, Martin van Creveld examines the ‘nuts and bolts’ of war: namely, those formidable problems of movement and supply, transportation and administration, so often mentioned - but rarely explored - by the vast majority of books on military history. In doing so he casts his net far and wide, from Gustavus Adolphus to Rommel, from Marlborough to Patton, subjecting the operations of each to a thorough analysis from a fresh and unusual point of view. The result is a fascinating book that has something new to say about virtually every one of the most important campaigns waged in Europe during the last two centuries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #314422 in Books
• Published on: 1979-12-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 295 pages

Review
‘Military buffs, even those who disagree with the author’s conclusions, will find this original and stimulating.’ Business Week

‘I recommend this work for every professional army officer, but particularly those in the operations field who are used to moving units with the stroke of a grease pencil.’ Major Michael D. Krause, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

‘Impeccable scholarship and major new interpretations characterize this work destined to become a classic in military history.’ Technology and Culture

‘This slim volume, unique of its kind, not only iterates the value of the study of logistics to the understanding of any war, any campaign, or any battle, but presents significant historical re-interpretations and revisions on practically every page.’ The American Historical Review

Customer Reviews

A must-have for military history enthusiasts
At first glance, the method of commenting and explaining the complex matter of military logistics trough a very limited number of specific examples (Wallenstein and Patton, but also Napoleon and Hitler's Russian Campaigns in beetween... and some others)may seem ineffective. Logistics are a matter wich has proven hard to grasp even to some great field commanders (Rommel, to say one) so it is difficult to study it through easy , almost textbook examples, using very limited mathemathics (if you passed primary school exams, you can tackle them). Yet this book does. It does not explain a general theory of logistics : it shows there' s not a general theory, only partial models useful in a special historical and technological situation. And it does not tell it to you through the marketing-style tables you'd expect, but through almost annedotic examples,fun to read and fun to ponder. Did you know almost all the bullets Napoleon's Army carried in the campaign to Wien remained unfired ? And that in the same campaign problems arised from shortage of bread... and from his Marshall's disobedience ? L' Empereur had ordered his front line cavalry squadrons to take supplies only from the (more or less willing) villages on one side of the road, to leave the other side for those coming behind. He was simply not obeyed, and this caused supplying havoc afterwards. And Hitler would perhaps not have attacked Russia, if he only attempted the simple calculations shown in this book, showing he simply had not enough fuel and trucks. Read it.

Development of stategic logistics
The development of logistics is traced through the example of seven campaigns from 1630 to 1944. Each campaign represents a significant shift in technology, such as von Moltke's usage of railways, or the advent of the rolling magazine.

The ways in which logistics constrain battlefield strategy are much clearer to me after reading this book. I now understand much more clearly the principles governing the limits of campaigning.

The book is focused at logistics considerations at the most strategic level only.

For such a dense topic the book is a light read brought alive by the explanation of the alternatives on historical campaigns.

A recommendable study of the role of logistics in warfare
Martin Van Creveld explodes a number of myths and provides much food for thought in this assessment of the importance of logistics in warfare. It is not a general account of the subject. The author provides an introductory description of the way in which the generals of the Thirty Years War and subsequent campaigns handled the question of supply and of the way in which considerations of supply dictated strategy. After this, he concentrates on specific campaigns: Austerlitz and the Russian campaign of 1812, the Franco-German war of 1870, the Schlieffen Plan and its modified execution in 1914, Rommel's North African campaign, Operation Barbarossa and the Allied campaign in North-Western Europe, 1944-5. Van Creveld takes pleasure in puncturing time-honoured misconceptions, especially in the context of the Russian campaigns of Napoleon and Nazi Germany, although his best sections are those concerned with the Schlieffen Plan and the Allied campaign in the West from Normandy onwards. In the latter chapter, the author shows how the Allied planners, numbered in thousands, consistently found themselves wrong-footed by events, even to the extent of declaring that actual developments at the front were "impossible". The campaigns under consideration are well-chosen, but one might wish that other campaigns had not been overlooked. It seems perverse for an analysis of military supply effectively to ignore the experiences of the French and of the Allied forces in the Peninsular War, where considerations of supply were absolutely paramount, but which Van Creveld mentions only in an aside. A chapter on the American Civil War would surely have been informative, too, with any number of campaigns providing suitable material for this sort of study. Otherwise, the only quibbles I have are with one questionable statement and a couple of outright errors. To suggest that Napoleon's planned invasion of Great Britain was only a "feint", as Van Creveld implies, seems unsustainable today, but this is merely tangential to his thesis. On the other hand, I can't imagine where Van Creveld gets the idea that Normandy is "a peninsula jutting westward into the Atlantic" (is he thinking of Brittany?). An even stranger error, since it does impinge on Van Creveld's argument, is crediting Frederick the Great with victory at the Battle of Minden in 1759. The victor of Minden was Ferdinand of Brunswick; Frederick wasn't even present. I think these mistakes and the omissions mentioned previously shave a star off a maximum recommendation, but this is still a very good book.