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8 - Conclusions: The mirrors and the mirrored
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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- 05 April 2013
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- 04 April 2013, pp 308-321
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Summary
Where did wargames come from? What purposes did they serve? Who participated in them, why, and what for? What forms did they take? What factors drove their development, and to what extent did they reflect changes in the art of war itself? What did they simulate, what didn’t they simulate, how, and why? What do they reveal about the conduct of war at the times, and in the places, where they were played? How useful are they in training for war and preparing for it? Why are some so much more popular than others, how do men and women compare in this respect, and what can the way the sexes relate to wargames teach us about their nature and the relationship between them? Finally, what does all this tell us about real war, fake or make-believe war, the interaction between the two, and the human condition in general? These are the sorts of questions the present volume has set out to answer; now that the voyage is almost done and the port is in sight, it is time to try and answer them.
Like all things with a long history behind them, wargames are almost impossible to define. They appear to have their origins in four basic human needs. The first is religion − meaning either the will to appease the gods by shedding blood in their honor or to determine, with the aid of combat of champions and judicial combat, what their wishes might be. The second is the perceived need for some mechanism to enable adversaries to settle certain kinds of disputes while risking all, but without endangering the rest of society, as in the case of single combat, trial by battle, and the duel.
Introduction
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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- 05 April 2013
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- 04 April 2013, pp 1-8
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Summary
Where did wargames come from? What purposes did they serve? Who participated in them, why, and what for? What forms did they take? What factors drove their development, and to what extent did they reflect changes in the art of war itself? What did they simulate, what didn’t they simulate, how, and why? What do they reveal about the conduct of war at the times, and in the places, where they were played? How useful are they in training for war and preparing for it? Why are some so much more popular than others, how do men and women compare in this respect, and what can the way the sexes relate to wargames teach us about the relationship between them? Finally, what does all this tell us about real war, fake or make-believe war, and the human condition in general? These are the sorts of questions the present volume will try to answer. Before it can do so, however, it is first of all necessary to say a word about what wargames are, where they stand in relation to other kinds of games on the one hand and to “real” war on the other, what has been written on them, what may be learnt from them, and where all this may lead.
What is a wargame?
Games, including wargames which form the subject of this book, are all around us. Even the most superficial observation will soon conclude that not only humans but many kinds of animals engage in games, i.e. play. The great Dutch historian Johan Huizinga has argued, to my mind with very good reason, that not economic needs (as Karl Marx thought) but play and games represent the real source from which all human culture, everything beautiful, true and good, springs. In his view, a game is an activity characterized above all by the fact that it creates its own little world. To this end it is carefully and often ceremoniously separated from “real life,” standing to the latter as the terrarium or tableau in a glass paperweight does to the room in which it is positioned. Within the space where the game is held, and for as long as it lasts, cause and effect are abolished. The nature of the activity does not matter much. Provided it is done for its own sake, for “fun,” as people say, almost anything may be turned into a game.
Wargames
- From Gladiators to Gigabytes
- Martin van Creveld
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- 05 April 2013
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- 04 April 2013
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Where did wargames come from? Who participated in them, and why? How is their development related to changes in real-life warfare? Which aspects of war did they capture, which ones did they leave out, how, and why? What do they tell us about the conduct of war in the times and places where they were played? How useful are they in training and preparation for war? Why are some so much more popular than others, and how do men and women differ in their interest? Starting with the combat of David versus Goliath, passing through the gladiatorial games, tournaments, trials by battle, duels, and board games such as chess, all the way to the latest simulations and computer games, this unique book traces the subject in all its splendid richness. As it does so, it provides new and occasionally surprising insights into human nature.
4 - Battles, campaigns, wars, and politics
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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- 04 April 2013, pp 139-188
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From squares to hexes
The wargames discussed in this volume so far were played by real men using real weapons, though admittedly some of them were blunted or otherwise modified to make them less dangerous. Either the games took place out of doors, as most did from the Stone Age on, or else they were held in special structures such as the Colosseum. Without exception, all were somewhat dangerous – danger, in fact, was precisely what set them apart from other two-sided games in which victory was won not by fighting but by other methods. Many, notably single combat, combat of champions, gladiatorial combats, trial by battle, and duels, were very dangerous indeed. In some cases this was carried to the point where the fighting was as real and as deadly as anything in war. The difference consisted in the purpose the games served; also in the ceremonies with which the games started and ended and of which they were a part.
However, between about 1450 and 1525, a vast change came over warfare, and with it wargames. Until then, practically all weapons used by all civilizations around the world had been edged and derived their energy from human muscle. This even applied to those which, like siege engines, used various contrivances in order to combine the energy of numerous individuals. The introduction of firearms, as demonstrated most convincingly at Constantinople in 1453, changed all that. On the one hand it made weapons much more powerful and much more deadly.
Index
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- 04 April 2013, pp 322-332
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Frontmatter
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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7 - The females of the species
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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- 04 April 2013, pp 270-307
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Summary
To play or not to play
Ever since God created Adam and Eve women have always formed about half of humanity, as they still do. Yet an extraterrestrial being watching participants at almost any kind of wargame, past, present, and presumably future, would never guess that this is the case. Female reenactors form perhaps 2–3 percent of the total. As it happens, the number who served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and in the US armed forces during World War II was similar. Many groups, seeking authenticity, do not allow women to join at all. Some appear to regard them as an evil that may or may not have to be tolerated. Others, to the contrary, are constantly on the lookout for female recruits who could fill the ranks of their cantinières (canteen women, dating to Napoleonic times), medical corps, signal service, or secretaries. One British group of reenactors has even established an ATS (Army Territorial Service) unit specifically so that women are able to join and play along in a “historically accurate role.”
According to the best available book on the subject, most women get involved in the hobby in the wake of their male relatives or boyfriends. Most are found at the larger, more public, and less authentic events; reenactments that try to capture the fatigues of real war, such as operating under difficult weather conditions or camping outdoors, tend to attract fewer women than the rest. But it is not just a question of avoiding physical effort and what are sometimes somewhat Spartan living conditions; as far as the available figures go, women playing computerized wargames also form a small minority. Based on the surveys, Dunnigan says that, at the time when he was selling his hexed wargames by the hundreds of thousands, the number of women who showed any interest in them only amounted to perhaps 1 percent of the total. Women who participate in the more physical wargames are rare, but they do exist.
1 - On animals and men
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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Summary
Hunting, combat sports, and contact sports
To begin at the beginning, both humans and many species of animals hunt. In so far as hunting is a question of using violence to catch, overcome, and kill a living creature, unquestionably it has certain things in common with warfare. Unless the animals are driven to be killed, physical effort and/or skill play an important role. So does chance in the form of a sudden gust of wind that may carry the hunter’s scent, or, in the days of edged weapons, deflect his arrow from its intended target. Hunting also involves strategy, although it differs from the kind commonly used in war. Not many animals will stand and fight the hunter just as he fights them, and almost none will do so unless it is cornered first. Even if it is, normally precautions are taken to ensure that the killing is one-sided. That is why, in English, hunting is also known as the “chase,” from the French chasse, “pursuit.” Semantically it is closely associated with its opposite, to flee; the same is true of its German and Dutch equivalents, Jagd and jacht.
Other similarities between hunting and war, specifically including the willingness to shed blood and the outdoor life that both require, do not have to be explained in any great detail. Plato at one point claimed that war was simply a different form of hunting, which was not meant exactly as a compliment to soldiers. Xenophon and Machiavelli, both of whom had commanded men in war, saw things in a different light. To them it was a useful form of military training. Pigsticking and other forms of big-game hunting continued to be advertised as such down to the last years of the nineteenth century. Warriors of all periods have often hunted during their leisure hours. For example, the Roman Emperor Hadrian is said to have incurred a scar when hunting, causing him to grow a beard and ending a centuries-old tradition when Romans had shaved. During the Middle Ages, and indeed for centuries after they had ended, hunting was the warrior’s sport par excellence; before he was killed at the ripe old age of twenty-six, World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen spent his leave hunting.
Contents
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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- 04 April 2013, pp vii-viii
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5 - From bloody games to bloodless wars
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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- 04 April 2013, pp 189-229
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Summary
Toil and sweat (but no blood)
As Clausewitz never tires of telling us, combat is the very essence of war. Paradoxical as it sounds at first sight, the same may be even more true of wargames. Throughout history, the intricacies of higher strategy, intelligence, logistics, command and control, and similar aspects of war have only appealed to a relative handful of people. Indeed it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that, for every person who took an interest in the above-mentioned fields, a hundred roared their heads off as blows were delivered and parried, blood was shed, and some combatants stood triumphant even as others went down to defeat. To be sure, there have always been some wargames, such as chess and its relatives, which did not involve physical combat and focused on the more intellectual aspects of war instead. That was precisely why they never became nearly as popular, or generated nearly as much excitement, as their bigger brothers did.
The spread of firearms put an end to the great fights/nothing fights, agona, ludi, jeux, Ritterspiele, jousts, or whatever else the more violent wargames were called. For almost five hundred years after that, violent wargames were not two-sided and two-sided wargames were not violent. What weapons could still be used in the latter tended to be rather childish, as when early nineteenth-century Prussian troops facing each other in mock battle used clappers to simulate the sound of musket-fire, and when H. G. Wells enlisted children’s toy guns to help him play among fortifications made out of volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica strategically positioned on the floor. It was only the spread of simulators and shooter-type computer games – as we shall see, the two, originally separate, ended by becoming practically the same – from the 1960s on that finally enabled two-sided games to become violent again: albeit only in the form of blips “firing” at other blips on the screen.
3 - Trials by combat, tournaments, and duels
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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A certain kind of justice
As a look at the literature will show, the line between trial by combat on one hand and single combat and combat of champions on the other has always been rather vague. As long ago as the Middle Ages, various authors referred to the same episodes by different terms or used the same terms when referring to very different episodes. In all three cases the fight, rather than being an integral part of ongoing hostilities, is clearly separated from them by means of challenge and response as well as the fact that it took place in a location specially set apart for the purpose. Often it is supposed to act as a substitute for those hostilities or to put an end to them, albeit that in most cases things did not work out as planned, the terms of the preliminary agreement were violated, and hostilities opened or resumed. In all three cases the fight is carefully stage-managed, the objective being to enable as many people as possible to watch it. In all three cases, the fighting serves as an ordeal and is intended to prove a point – either that God is on one’s side, or that one’s cause is just, or simply that one trusts in one’s prowess and stands ready to take on any enemy who dares to present himself. What sets trial by combat apart from the other two is a unique characteristic which justifies treating it separately: namely the fact that, in this case, the fight is neither an exhibition nor a contest but part of a formal judiciary process. As such it takes place at the behest of a judge, or judges, who commands both sides and presides over the proceedings.
Acknowledgments
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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2 - Games and gladiators
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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- 04 April 2013, pp 54-96
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Origins and development
The Roman ludi, best translated as festivals or games, have a long history. Held on fixed days of the calendar to honor some god, they went back at least as far as the monarchy which itself came to an end in 510 BC. Originally they featured a procession (pompa, in Latin). This was followed by chariot races, stage plays, and similar popular entertainments. From 275 BC on, hunts, animal fights, and the throwing of condemned criminals to the beasts were added. Over time, the number of festivals and their duration grew; by the time of Augustus they took up no fewer than sixty-one days each year. Since we know that Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 161–80) decided to cut them to 135, his successors must have added even more.
Apparently it was only towards the middle of third century BC that the ludi began to be supplemented by the introduction of life-to-death fights between pairs of specially selected gladiators (from gladius, the short sword that, along with the pilum or javelin, formed the legionaries’ principal offensive weapon). The clearest account of the fights’ origins is found in Nicolas Damascus. A Syrian/Greek historian, philosopher, and naturalist who lived at about the time of Christ, he had been tutor to the children of Anthony and Cleopatra. He was also a friend of Herod the Great and spent the last years of his life in Rome. While most of his books have been lost, fragments of them are quoted in the works of other ancient historians.
6 - Enter the computer
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Wargames
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Present at creation
Starting in 1945 and lasting for about a decade and a half, a vast wave of change swept over armed conflict as well as the wargames used to simulate it, prepare for it, and, of course, play at it. Largely responsible for the change were two technologies in particular: digital computers and nuclear weapons. Separately and together, so revolutionary were they that those who designed them, developed them, considered ways to employ them, and put them to use (or non-use) could truly claim to have created a new world: one in which humanity, like it or not, will have to live until the end of time.
To speak of computers first, considered from one point of view they have a very long history going back all the way to the ancient Egyptian abacus that Herodotus describes. Considered from another, they only date to the years immediately following World War II when the first multifunction, programmable machines were introduced. Even if visions of such machines that never made it into reality are included, one need go no further back than the “analytical engine” that Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace built during the first half of the nineteenth century.
The Nation-State in Question
- Martin van Creveld
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- Perspectives on Politics / Volume 3 / Issue 1 / March 2005
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- 09 March 2005, pp. 206-207
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- March 2005
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The Nation-State in Question. Edited by T. V. Paul, G. John Ikenberry, and John Hall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 400p. $60.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.
As John A. Hall notes in the introduction, many authors (including the present writer) writing in the 1990s questioned the future of the nation-state, which, to them, was coming under attack both from above—at the hand of global economic forces—and from below, at the hand of various national or ethnic revivals. As he also notes, the purpose of the volume under review is to question that question and see whether there is still some life left in the nation-state. To do so, he and his fellow editors have assembled an impressive battery of American, Canadian, and British scholars, each of whom has something interesting to say. Let us see, then, what they do say.
7 - War of the accountants
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Supplying War
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- 22 June 2023
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- 15 March 2004, pp 202-230
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Summary
The pitfalls of planning
In the course of our inquiries so far, we have deliberately concentrated on a number of the most spectacular mobile campaigns of all time, and though some of these ended less happily than others, there does not appear to have existed any very clear connection between the amount of preparation involved in a campaign and its success or lack of it. For example, Marlborough's march to the Danube certainly entailed incomparably less administrative difficulties than did the least of Louvois’ sieges - which was probably one reason why he undertook it in the first place. Two of Napoleon's most successful campaigns - those of 1805 and 1809 - were launched with almost no preparation at all, while although his war against Russia was prepared on a scale and with a thoroughness unequalled in the whole of previous history, this did not prevent it from becoming a monumental failure. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War came as a surprise even though military preparations for it had been going on for years, with the result that there was little connection between the course of the campaign and Moltke's plans. Nothing daunted, a generation of staff officers before 1914 spent every minute - including even Christmas Day - planning the next war down to the last train axle, yet when war came it was totally unexpected, and the meticulously prepared plans led to nothing but failure. Twenty-five years later, the entire German invasion of Russia was nothing but a huge feat of improvisation with a preparation time of barely twelve months - not much in view of the magnitude of the problem. Rommel's African expedition was launched without so much as six-weeks’ preparations and with no previous experience whatsoever, yet is commonly regarded as one of the most dazzling demonstrations of military skill ever.
Given the very short preparation times allowed to many of these campaigns, it is not surprising that they had to be conducted on a logistic shoestring. Napoleon in 1805 did not succeed in obtaining even one half of the wagons with which he intended to equip his army. In August 1914, the outbreak of war caught the Great General Staff in the middle of a major reorganization involving the complete overhaul of the gigantic railway deployment plan.
Postscript: Where are we now?
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Supplying War
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- 22 June 2023
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- 15 March 2004, pp 239-262
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Almost thirty years have passed since, living in London and working mainly at an old dressing table of my landlady who has long since passed away, I wrote Supplying War. Thirty years is a long time; while some things have remained more or less the same, others have changed beyond recognition. Against this background, the present postscript attempts to do three things. Part I asks what has happened to the history of military logistics as a field of study. Part II asks where Supplying War itself stands amidst the rapidly growing literature, including some that is critical of it. Part III takes a brief look at the post-1945 development of military logistics themselves. What has happened to them, and where are they headed?
To start, then, with what happened to logistics as a field of study. As even a cursory look at the catalogues will show, the most obvious change has been the amount of attention paid to the issue. Thirty years ago the literature on the history of military logistics was extremely limited; indeed almost the only group attracted by the subject were a few Austrian-Hungarian officers who, for some obscure reason, had done a considerable amount of work on it between about 1866 and 1914. Then as now, discussions of warfare tended to revolve around the marvels of ever more sophisticated weapons and weapon systems, a term that was just coming into vogue. Others wrote of armies that advanced and retreated, maneuvered and outflanked, encircled and penetrated; by contrast, logistics were not considered sexy. In part, this may have reflected the impact of the most influential twentieth-century military pundit, Basil Liddell Hart, whose work on strategy first saw the light of print in 1929 and continued to be published each time a major conventional war broke out anywhere in the world. Unfortunately he had died some years before I came to England so I did not have the privilege of meeting him. However, his legacy was intact and his light was marching on.
Frontmatter
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Supplying War
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- 22 June 2023
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Notes
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Supplying War
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8 - Logistics in perspective
- Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Supplying War
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- 22 June 2023
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- 15 March 2004, pp 231-238
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Summary
Looking back over the present study, particularly its latter chapters, it sometimes appears that the logistic aspect of war is nothing but an endless series of difficulties succeeding each other. Problems constantly appear, grow, merge, are handed forward and backward, are solved and dissolved only to reappear in a different guise. In face of this kaleidoscopic array of obstacles that a serious study of logistics brings to light, one sometimes wonders how armies managed to move at all, how campaigns were waged, and victories occasionally won.
That all warfare consists of an endless series of difficulties, things that go wrong, is a commonplace, and is precisely what Clausewitz meant when talking about the ‘friction’ of war. It is therefore surprising that the vast majority of books on military history manage to pay lip service to this concept and yet avoid making a serious study of it. Hundreds of books on strategy and tactics have been written for every one on logistics, and even the relatively few authors who have bothered to investigate this admittedly unexciting aspect of war have usually done so on the basis of a few preconceived ideas rather than on a careful examination of the evidence. This lack of regard is in spite - or perhaps because - of the fact that logistics make up as much as nine tenths of the business of war, and that the mathematical problems involved in calculating the movements and supply of armies are, to quote Napoleon, not unworthy of a Leibnitz or a Newton. As a great modern soldier has said:
The more I see of war, the more I realize how it all depends on administration and transportation.. .It takes little skill or imagination to see where you would like your army to be and when; it takes much knowledge and hard work to know where you can place your forces and whether you can maintain them there. A real knowledge of supply and movement factors must be the basis of every leader's plan; only then can he know how and when to take risks with those factors, and battles are won only by taking risks.