aryaman wrote:Instead, Lynn argues for the development in Louis XIV period for a system based on supply lines that linked armies to depots, and his arguments are very strong, thanks to a much deeper knowledge of that period than Creveld.
OTOH, if I remember Lynn's book properly (the one on Louis XIV wars), he himself contradict this argument by pointing out that depots were only useful to start the war earlier than your opponents, and that after a few weeks, it becomes business as usual, and the armies had to live off the country.
As the Louis XIV wars were not wars of movement, positionning, march and counter-march but rather a grand affair of sieges and fortifications line, it was not even that useful in the end, hence why the front stayed so statics over years and years and years.
Let's face it, the only practical supply way before the railroads were rivers. Armies along rivers could be (limitedly) supplied, siege trains could be transported, and foraging could be extended further than the immediate vicinity of the army.
But as soon as you were not in range of a river anymore, supply transportation was not an option, and fodder was always the biggest problem anyway (being too bulky to be transported), so armies had to live "off the land", and staying too long in the same area meant having all your horses starving.
Napoleon did face the same challenges as Louis the XIV and the only difference which allows him to field much greater armies than the Sun King is that the road network in Europe had multiplied greatly over a century, and he made clever use of it by dividing his Armies in Corps (his real innovation).
Each Corps would travel alongside different routes so that forraging would be made easier than for larger, bulkier army, but at the same time, Corps were strong enough and self-sufficient (containing both Cavalry, Artillery and Infantry) to be able to held their ground in case of encounter with an enemy formation, long enough for other Corps nearby to come to the rescue.
But that's about the only difference. So I am with Creveld here: Supply lines going all the way back to France to supply the Grande Armée during the Russian Campaign ? No way. The Russians never cut these non-existent lines in the back of the French anyway, so had they existed, Napoleon wouldn't have been in trouble. But they didn't, and the Russians burned everything to the ground in front of the French as they progressed, and thus, they were doomed to fail. No need to read Lynn or Creveld here, War and Peace is sufficient.
Cat
