ACTA HISTORICA - A MTA TÖRTÉNETTUDOMÁNYI FOLYÓIRATA TOM. 16 (1970)
16. kötet / 1-2. sz. - ÉTUDES - G. PERJÉS: Army Provisioning, Logistics and Strategy in the Second Half of the 17th Century
2 G, Perjés bers and no agricultural progress, food had to be provided for armies three to four times as big as before; considerable quantities of amassed food had to be transported behind the armies on roads that were not a bit better, and with transport facilities of no greater capacity than in the past. The problems involved in the provisioning of bigger armies had a decisive influence on strategy.5 The essence of the strategic problem lay in the fact that it was impossible to procure on the spot the great quantities of food required for the armies; food had to be collected in magazines well before campaigns were launched, had to be processed, and then transported behind armies operating in the field. All this resulted in command difficulties never experienced before, and affected the warfare of the age as a whole. It was for this reason that the experts of the time usually wished to set limits to army manpower, and established an uppermost limit, an optimal strength, at which an army was still sufficiently combat-worthy, but not too big to render provisioning and command impossible. Zrínyi has set such strength at 48 000, Montecuccoli and Turenne at 50 000 men.0 Yet the warnings of the military experts were of no use. Manpower grew unavoidably, and it is easy to see why this was so. It was not the military and technical factors that were decisive in the last analysis, rather it was social and political laws that acted towards increasing the effective strength of armies. In any event, the misgivings of the military experts were not without foundation, and difficulties of command arising from the growth of manpower proved to be ever less surmountable. Even in the second half of the 18th century, Guibert, the famous French military expert, saw the principal reason of the "decline of the art of war" in the fact that Louis XIV and Louvois had "imprudently" inflated the manpower of armies, as a result of which they became clumsy, unmanageable masses.7 5 H. DELBRÜCK: Geschichte der Kriegskunst. Vol. IV. Berlin 1920. p. 343. 6 ZRÍNYI M.: Tábori kis trakta. — MONTECTJCCOI.I: Delia Guerra col lurco in Ungheria. Operi di -. 2. ed. I —II. Milano 1831. Lib. 1II/XXVI. - AUDOUIN: op. cit. II. p. 244. '.GUIBERT: Essai générale de tactique. Vol. I — II. London 1772. II. p. 6. As we have already seen Guibert explained only with accidental causes the increase of manpower in the armies and was not able to perceive its social and economic causes. At the same time historiography later imputed the reluctance of contemporary military experts to armies with too many men to some erroneous view, or even to some superstitions. CLAUSEWITZ, for example, wrote as follows: "Ein anderer Beweis liegt in einer wunderbaren Idee, welche in den Köpfen mancher kritischen Schriftsteller spuckte, nach der es eine gewisse Größe eines Heeres gab, welche die beste war, eine Normalgröße, über die hinaus die überschießenden Streitkräfte mehr lästig als nützlich waren." Vom Kriege. 9. Aufl. Berlin 1915. III. Buch, 8. Kapitel, p. 132. — Jäbns, one of the greatest figure of the German military historiography, shares entirely Clausewitz' opinion: "Dieser Aberglaube, daß ein Heer'zu groß' sein könnte, hatlange geherrscht; erst die neue Zeit hat ihn vernichtet." M. JAHNS: Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften. I —III. Leipzig 1889 —1891. I. p. 466. All this was, however, entirely false. The contemporary experts did not refuse the too numerous armies because of some erroneous opinion, but as we have already seen because of the difficulties of supply. They recognized very clearly the importance of the numerical supremacy and strove, of course, to attain it, nevertheless they could restrict Acta Historien Academiae Scieiitiarum Hungaricae 16, 1970