Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton Book

"Clearly, logistics is the hard part of fighting a war."

--Lt. Gen. E. T. Cook, USMC, November 1990

"Gentlemen, the officer who doesn't know his communications and supply as well as his tactics is totally useless."

--Gen. George S. Patton, USA

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."

--Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps)

As the last of those three quotes puts so pithily, the true study of war lies less in the romantic areas of strategy and tactics than it does in the less romantic but perhaps more practical and pertinent study of the real business of making war - logistics and operational analysis. In this masterful work, Martin Van Crevald applies operational analysis to the texts of history to dissect some of the most important military campaigns in Western history with an eye toward explaining how logistics dictated, or more often failed to dictate, the strategy and and tactics of some of histories most famous commanders. By doing so, he shows that insufficient logistic support virtually foredoomed many a campaign to failure regardless of the merit of the commander or the skill of the troops.

Martin van Crevald is the only non-American author whose books are on the required reading list for American Army officers. It is pretty much impossible to read this book and not see why that is so. Certainly one of the best books on military theory I've ever read, and maybe one of the best books of history I've ever read.