Martin van Creveld

This is definitely the most interesting book about WW2 I’ve read. The setting is brilliant, and horrible, all at once. Hitler’s own thoughts on his life, as imagined by the author.

It is tough to read the (fictional) self-justification of a person responsible for so much death and misery, and that is also what is remarkable about this book. The author makes Hitler’s mind intelligible.

Rather than picturing him as the monstrous, unknowable evil, a kind of inhuman boogeyman, as Hitler is often portrayed, the author has managed to create a believable inner narrative, that explains the behaviour of the world’s most infamous dictator.

And that is an important perspective. While Hitler may or may not have gone insane at the end, most of the vile evils carried out by him and his party were not acts of madness, but rather calculated, well-planned actions.

War and genocide were not invented by the nazis, they were just frightfully efficient at it. It has happened many times before, and if we do not learn from history, understand what drives people to such extremes, it will happen again and again. A good place to start would be this book. Highly recommended.… (more)

Reading this volume on the heels of Jeremy Black's "Logistics: The Key to Victory" gave me a better perspective on military logistics than could be achieved in the later volume--I'll explain the why later in the review. Van Creveld's work is groundbreaking in three ways. First, he takes a long and unflinching look at a topic avoided by the vast majority of military historians. Second, he has the courage to revise decades and centuries-old thinking on military campaigns and leaders. Third, he applies statistical analysis (admittedly theoretical) to historical campaigns, which wither debunks conventional historical canon or alters the narrative.

Martin van Creveld is an Israeli military historian specializing in strategy, tactics, and logistics. Having received his PhD in History in 1971, he was still a young author when he penned "Supplying War", publishing the book with Cambridge University Press in 1977. This is a relatively slim book at 284 pages, including bibliography, endnotes, and index. There are only 8 chapters, each chapter containing four to seven titled subchapters. The 2004 second edition adds a postscript covering the 30 years between editions, including an analysis of the then new Revolution in Military Affairs. This review looks only at the first edition.

The book proceeds chronologically. Chapter 1 is introductory, discussing war as it developed in the Age of Gunpowder and Absolutism where plunder and magazines served as the bases for an organized army's logistics in the 17th and 18th century. Chapter 2 surveys the Napoleonic era, examining two specific campaigns--Austerlitz in 1805 and Russia in 1812--from a logistical perspective. Chapter 3 takes a look at Prussian Army logistics and the Etappen system of the mid-19th century, culminating in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. The impact (or lack thereof) of the use of railroads in military logistics is the focus here.

Chapter 4 takes on the logistics of World War I's von Schlieffen plan along with von Moltke's modifications, where we see the railroad/motorized supply system for the first time. Chapter 5 concentrates on Germany's World War II Operation Barbarossa, where the Wehrmacht's partially motorized logistics system proved wanting in the vastness of Russia's sprawling landscape. Chapter 8 continues van Creveld's analysis of the Wehrmacht's logistics, this time with Romme's North African campaigns of 1941/42. There being no use for horse-borne logistics and with limited railway infrastructure in the desert, the Afrika Korps had to completely rely upon motorized transport to meet its logistics needs. Chapter 7 is about the Allied invasion of Northwest Europe in 1944, examining how the totally motorized Anglo-American armies under Eisenhower approached the invasion of Germany, with logistical analysis of the apparently never-ending broad front/narrow front debate that railed the Allied commanders in September 1944. Chapter 8 wraps up the author's case using elements from the previous chapters.

This was an interesting and challenging read--van Creveld is a demanding professor who expects his students to be well-read in military history. The book abounds in name-dropping, and the author does not spend the time to explain who these personalities are--so the reader should be prepared before embarking on this read to gain the most benefit. In Chapter 8, van Creveld makes a number of points, one of the most significant being his prediction that armies of the late 20th century are limited in their offensive operations to about 40 miles a day consistently. Interestingly, the US Army's ground forces in 2003's Operation Iraqi Freedom could gain upwards of 60 miles a day; however, it took the better part of three weeks for the 3rd Division to move the roughly 400 miles between the Kuwaiti border berm and Baghdad, an average of perhaps 20 miles a day..

When compared with Black's work, "Supplying War" is still a hallmark work. I think Black got carried away in looking at all that van Creveld did not cover; after all, the earlier author admits that he limited his focus to come up with a readable volume. Black's book is well-nigh unreadable because it covers so much unfamiliar ground--the logistics in conflicts little-known in Western circles. Moreover, I find van Creveld's analysis more applicable to modern military logistics.

For a military historian, "Supplying War" is a must for the library.… (more)