Specialization of Labor in Military Logistics

Before and during Napoleon’s time, the lines between military specialties were blurred. There were no “pure” infantrymen or cavalrymen defined solely by their combat roles. Instead, each soldier juggled multiple tasks: infantrymen doubled as foragers, and cavalrymen did the same. Their duties extended beyond shooting and maneuvering on the battlefield to include gathering food and resources – instead of shooting, moving, and shooting some more, they were shooting, moving, and foraging. This began to change with the introduction of the magazine system, military wagons, and river barges. These advancements allowed Napoleon’s soldiers to focus more exclusively on being warriors, freeing them from the burden of foraging.

Meanwhile, logistics specialists existed since at least the time of Michel Le Tellier, but they were either public officials, or were purchasing agents[1], or were civilian bakers. They were specialists not by any military arrangement but simply because they were civilians. In 1807, Napoleon established a military train service that replaced the civilian owned and operated wagons[2] with military counterparts[3]. This may have been the start of logistics as an operational specialty.

When logistical systems were insufficient to meet the demands of a campaign – either anticipated (providing enough supplies to get the Grande Armée to a place where foraging became possible) or unexpected (Napoleon’s return from Moscow) – soldiers were forced to revert to procurement as part of their duties. This lack of specialization could have dire consequences: Van Creveld mentions an instance during the Austerlitz Campaign where Napoleon’s cavalry, moving ahead to villages earmarked for the infantry, depleting local food supplies[4]. As a result, the infantry had to venture farther afield to secure resources, thus disrupting operational tempo and cohesion.

French Cuirassier in 1809, by Joseph Louis Hippolyte Bellangé (1800-1866)

Footnotes

[1] Van Creveld, p. 22.
[2] Ibid, p. 18.
[3] Ibid, p. 62.
[4] Ibid, p. 55.

Bibliography

Van Creveld, M. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. 2nd ed. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Napoleon’s Logistics Systems

Introduction

Napoleon Bonaparte, a military genius renowned for his strategic brilliance, faced some of the most defining moments of his career during the Austerlitz Campaign of 1805 and the Russian Campaign of 1812. These campaigns demonstrate both the heights of his logistical ingenuity and the limits of his ability to adapt to unforgiving environments.

This essay examines the logistical innovations implemented by Napoleon and the Grande Armée during those two campaigns. Following this, a quick comparison of two analyses of the defeat in Russia is made and a tentative alternative theory is proposed.

English translation of Charles Joseph Minard's 1869 figurative map of Napoleon's Russian Campaign. The thickness of the lines on top indicate the size of the Grande Armée, showing how it was decimated as it marched into and out of Moscow. The bottom line shows the temperatures the army encountered.
Graphic by DkEgy on Wikipedia.

The Austerlitz Campaign of 1805

During the War of the Third Coalition (1805-1806), Napoleon encountered one of the weaknesses of the magazine system when used for extended forays into enemy territory. It was a chicken-and-egg problem: the advancing troops required magazines ahead of them, but the magazines needed to be built and pre-stocked.

Napoleon solved this problem with a combination of logistics techniques: the head of the advancing troops would operate using supplies they carried, by wagon, or foraged. They then established magazines for use by the middle and tail of the advancing troops, as well as for the army on their return. These magazines would be stocked using a modified contribution system - instead of forcing the locals to contribute supplies to the army, the French would provide receipts that could later be redeemed. “Treat the inhabitants as if they were French”[1] was the idea.

Napoleon also established a series of relay stations after crossing the Rhine. Positioned every 15 to 18 miles, these secured stations established a line of communication. It was bidirectional: supplies moved from France to the advancing army, and sick, wounded, and prisoners were moved back into France.[2]  He created a second line of communication from Strasbourg to Augsburg. It was divided into seventeen sections, with 60 four-horse wagons operating between each. Van Creveld calculated that between 60 and 120 tons of clothing and ammunition could be shuttled per day in this manner.[3]

Van Creveld hints at a modification to the magazines themselves undertaken by Napoleon: instead of just being supply depots, they were also production locales: for example, Braunau was originally a depot that would bake 50K-60K rations per day in anticipation of a Russian advance. The Russians never came, so Braunau was converted to an advanced center of operations, where 100K rations per day were baked.[4]

Even with these modifications, Napoleon would be forced to modify his campaign: instead of passing through the Black Forest (sparsely populated and resource-poor), he would travel through the rich territories of Baden and Württemberg[5]. This indicates that it was still necessary to rely on foraging and plundering, even with these logistical improvements.

Regardless, Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz is considered a tactical masterpiece. As a result of the victory, the Third Coalition collapsed.

The Russian Campaign of 1812

Preparation for the Russian Campaign began over a year before it started: Napoleon had been collecting Intelligence since April 1811[6], he ordered rations, and he amassed ammunition. Earlier, in 1807, he established a military train service that replaced the civilian owned and operated wagons with military counterparts. He expanded this train service in preparation for the Russian Campaign, and he improved the logistics system in Poland through which his army must pass on its way to Moscow.

Napoleon still had to rely on foraging, but only as a supplement to the supplies that would be delivered via wagons and river barges.

The campaign encountered difficulties almost immediately: thunderstorms turned the roads into deep mud, hindering the movements of horses and wagons. The River Vilnya, which Napoleon relied on shipping supplies to Vilna, was too shallow. Laying ahead were further problems: “the country is so wooded that one has trouble to find room for a considerable number of troops”[7]. Finding water would also be difficult[8] for both France and Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia realized that given the size of the Grande Armée and the genius of its leader, to defeat Napoleon required using techniques that to a modern reader appear to be irregular warfare tactics. The French army could only be defeated by distance, climate, and supply. Thus, the Russian army retreated away from the oncoming Grande Armée towards Moscow and in fact had destroyed that city so as to leave nothing for Napoleon to plunder. Further, the Russians swept the fields adjacent to the roads, forcing the French to forage at a distance[9].

Napoleon was pursued by the Russian army, militias, and Cossacks as he retreated back towards France. Their target wasn’t the Grande Armée itself, but rather their logistics system. Napoleon was reduced to foraging, and the Tsar’s forces wanted to deny them even that: the Russians controlled the Grande Armée’s movements, pushing them to retreat along the same roads it used to enter Moscow - paths that were already foraged and stripped bare during Napoleon’s advance.

This was not only Napoleon’s first major defeat but also his most disastrous. Approximately one million military and civilian fatalities were recorded. The result was not only a numerically smaller and demoralized military, but it also marked the first stage of failure of Napoleon’s designs for European conquest.

Why the Defeat?

A defeat of the magnitude Napoleon experienced during the Russian Campaign is rightly the subject of numerous historical and military analyses. Van Creveld attributed it to logistics concerns:

First, the army’s supply vehicles proved too heavy for the Russian ‘roads’, a problem aggravated still further when thunderstorms during the first fortnight of the campaign turned them into bottomless quagmires.  Secondly, the river Vilnya, on which Napoleon had relied for shipping supplies to Vilna, turned out to be too shallow to allow the barges through. Thirdly, discipline in the army was lax, with the result that the troops plundered indiscriminately instead of carrying out orderly requisitions, the outcome being, paradoxically, that the officers - at any rate, those who refused to take part in such excesses - starved even when the men found enough to eat.  Furthermore, the troops’ indiscipline caused the inhabitants to flee, and made the establishment of a regular administration in the army’s rear impossible. Fourthly, some of the troops, notably the German ones, simply did not know how to help themselves. Finally, there was deliberate destruction by the Russians. This sometimes assumed disastrous proportions, e.g. early in July when Murat reported he was operating in ‘very rich country’ which, however, had been thoroughly plundered by the Tsar’s soldiers.[10]

Clausewitz provides a different list of factors that contributed to the defeat:

a. The uninterrupted movement in advance (120 miles in 81 days), which prevented all following of sick, wounded, or tired.
b. Continual bivouacking.
c. Very bad weather in the first five days.
d. Want of precaution in supply, which, so early as upon reaching Witebsk, caused the issue of flour in place of bread.
e. A very hot and dry summer in a country scantily watered.
f. The bloody and extravagant offensive tactic by which Buonaparte always endeavoured to overwhelm his adversary.
g. The great deficiency in hospital preparations, making impossible the recovery and restoration to their corps of sick and wounded, which, indeed, first showed itself during the great halt in Moscow.[11]

Suggested in both these lists are a number of intelligence failures: a lack of detailed maps[12], the depth of relevant rivers at the time of the campaign, the dry conditions near Moscow, the thick forest, the rainy weather and what it did to the roads, the presence of militias and Cossacks, the scorched-earth mindset of the Russians, and so on. Napoleon had been gathering intelligence since April 1811, but all this was missed. All these intelligence gaps would have been discovered in preparation for the campaign, had Napoleon dispatched scouts.

Conclusion

Napoleon implemented great advances in logistics, and through his example downplayed the importance of siege warfare. His modifications to the magazine system, and the improved contribution system, allowed him to move an army as large as the Grande Armée on to enemy soil. He invaded a country then built a logistics system behind him while also establishing multiple lines of communication. Napoleon was apparently the first to create a continually resupplied ammunition depot.[13]. His planning contributed to his success in the Battle of Austerlitz, but his defeat in the Russian Campaign showed that logistic planning was insufficient to guarantee victory.

Footnotes

[1] Van Creveld, p. 53.
[2] Ibid, p. 53.
[3] Ibid, p. 56-57.
[4] Ibid, p. 60.
[5] Ibid, p. 50.
[6] Ibid, p. 62.
[7] Clausewitz, p. 148.
[8] Ibid, p. 193.
[9] Ibid, p. 178.
[10] Van Creveld, p. 65-66.
[11] Clausewitz, p. 97.
[12] Ibid. p. 193.
[13] Van Creveld, p. 57.

Bibliography

Clausewitz, C. von. The Campaign of 1812 in Russia. London, 1843. https://clausewitzstudies.org/readings/1812/Clausewitz-CampaignOf1812inRussia-EllesmereTranslation.pdf

Van Creveld, M. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. 2nd ed. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Some Lessons from Napoleon’s Russian and Italian Campaigns

Introduction and Background

Geography plays a role in all military operations, either allowing or hindering the movement of troops and supplies. Due to the wide area covered by Napoleon’s various campaigns, he encountered a wide variety of topographies, including variations in population density, rivers, unimproved Russian roads, and mountainous terrain. The sheer size of Russia itself becomes another factor. Together with the available logistics systems, these terrains presented Napoleon with numerous challenges and his enemies with numerous opportunities. This paper examines some of the terrains he encountered, considers the success to which various logistics systems worked, and how his enemies exploited weaknesses when the logistics systems failed in specific geographic contexts. We conclude with some hypotheses about why, when Napoleon’s logistics systems failed, his enemies’ succeeded.

As background, the primary means of supplying the Grande Armée were the magazine system, the use of purchasing agents, plunder and foraging, water courses, and carrying supplies either by individual soldiers or by horse drawn wagons . Magazines were inapplicable when campaigning into new territories, and depending on the terrain, the other means of supply would also become inapplicable, leaving the army dependent on what could be carried by troops and horse drawn wagons.

Retreat of the French Grand Army from Moscow, Intercepted by Russian Cossacks, 1812
- John Augustus Atkinson (1813)

Varying Population Density

Both purchasing agents and plunder assume that the army's area of operation was populated to some extent: purchasing agents must haggle with the local population to acquire the needed supplies, and plundering requires towns and farms from which to loot. The long march undertaken by Napoleon during the Russian Campaign crossed areas with varying population densities, some where the population was dispersed, and others that were densely populated - here, “densely populated” meant any place having from 70 to 120 people per square mile In the sparsely-populated areas, using the supplies carried by the troops or by horse were the only options for sustainment.

Foraging requires a suitable geographic environment from which foragers can hunt or gather food, wood, fodder, and other naturally-available goods. This became a problem during the march to Moscow since there were vast areas unsuitable for foraging . For example, large wastelands in Central Europe simply did not have the food to supply the troops and fodder to feed the horses.

Another aspect of purchasing agents, plunder, and foraging is that the large armies of the time would strip the area bare of all usable goods if it was stationary or slowly moving. To avoid “burning out” an area, the army must be kept on the march.

The Russians realized that the Grande Armée survival depended on agents, plunder, and foraging, and so they responded by evacuating and burning the towns and farms that Napoleon would encounter on his march to Moscow. By doing this, the Russians forced Napoleon to rely only upon his supply wagons and what could be personally carried.

Rivers

Rivers, if sufficiently broad and deep, can be used to deliver goods, but crossing them requires the construction of bridges. During the Battle of Berezina, the retreating French army needed to construct pontoon bridges – the existing bridges over the Berezina River having been destroyed. The battle occurred on 26 - 29 November 1812, and the river was not frozen. Napoleon ordered the construction of one bridge for the infantry . Once constructed, he dispatched a force of 7000 men across it to defend the far end . He then constructed a separate bridge for artillery. Once his army and most of the stragglers had crossed, he ordered the two pontoon bridges destroyed. This delayed the Cossacks and Russian Army in their pursuit of the trailing edge of Napoleon’s army. Unfortunately, those same forces were also located on the opposite side of the Berezina River – the side to which Napoleon just crossed.

Condition of Russia’s Roads

A man-made geographic aspect of Russian terrain were the unimproved roads. Unlike the roads of France and other western European countries, Russian roads were frequently just unpaved dirt tracks . These roads became quagmires during thunderstorms and winter thaws, and considerably slowed the movement of Napoleon’s troops and horse drawn wagons.

Except in cities such as Moscow, the roads weren’t sophisticated networks, and this limited the options Napoleon had for either reaching or retreating from Moscow. To avoid the resource-stripped areas caused by the French Army’s approach into Moscow, Napoleon wanted to take an alternative route out of Russia. At the Battle of Maloyaroslavets on 24 October 1812, Napoleon was forced by the Russians to retrace the path he took into Moscow.

Geographic Scale and Weather Variability

Another geographic feature of Russia that worked against Napoleon was its sheer size. Taking Warsaw as the starting point of the Russian Campaign, the distance between Warsaw and Moscow is approximately 715 miles, and the French army crossed that distance, carrying what they couldn’t forage, loot, or purchase. What worked against Napoleon worked for the armies of Tsar Alexander I: the Russians exploited this great distance by retreating before Napoleon, drawing the Grande Armée deep into Russian territory. This not only stretched-out their supply lines but also made Napoleon subject to attack by the Cossacks and the Russian Army.

The Russian Campaign lasted for over 5 months, from late summer to winter, and so the temperatures and weather conditions would change drastically over that time. As such, Napoleon’s army had to carry clothing and gear for multiple seasons.

Mountains

The Russian Campaign did not involve traversing mountainous terrain, though it would have if Napoleon went beyond Moscow. The Italian Campaigns of 1792 - 1801 required the French army to navigate through the Alps’ rugged terrain, and the steep and narrow passes made moving supplies and artillery difficult. For example, getting relief troops to the Siege of Genoa (19 April – 4 June 1800) required moving Napoleon’s Reserve Army through the Great St. Bernard Pass , which is the third highest pass in the Swiss Alps. Genoa fell before he could arrive, so Napoleon instead targeted the Austrians.

Conclusions

As shown here, the methods for supplying the Grande Armée were sometimes insufficient for the terrains Napoleon encountered. When they worked, they worked well, but when they failed, they frequently allowed Napoleon's enemies to exploit those failures. This sounds paradoxical at first: the Russians had to solve the same logistical problems as did Napoleon - why did Napoleon fail but Russia and the Cossacks succeed? This can be attributed to home-field advantage, but there were at least two other factors in play.

First, the targets Napoleon and the Russians chose were different: Napoleon was fighting the Russian Army, whereas the Russians were fighting Napoleon’s logistics system, as illustrated by the scorched-earth tactics, the fighting retreats, etc. Second, the Cossacks were fighting a completely different type of war: the Cossacks operated in a distributed manner reminiscent of America’s Colonial Militias after Benjamin Church taught them how to be militiamen. This would imply that the Cossacks were engaging in what would now be called “Fourth Generation Warfare ,” but significant research would be needed to prove or disprove that conjecture.

 

Bibliography

Bennett, L. “The Grand Failure: How Logistics of Supply Defeated Napoleon in 1812.” Primary Source 1 (No. 1). 2011. Retrieved 10 July 2024 from https://psource.sitehost.iu.edu/PDF/Archive%20Articles/Spring2011/LynchBennettArticle.pdf

Burton, R. Napoleon’s Campaigns in Italy: 1796-1797 and 1800. George Allen and Company, 1912. Retrieved 15 July 2024 from https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.241698/page/n1/mode/2up?q=bernard

Clausewitz, C. V. The Campaign if 1812 in Russia. New-Street-Square, 1835. Retrieved 14 July 2024 from https://clausewitzstudies.org/readings/1812/Clausewitz-CampaignOf1812inRussia-EllesmereTranslation.pdf

Jelineo, J. “Napoleon’s Logistics; or How Napoleon Learned to Worry about Supply.” Air Command and Staff College. April 2012. Retrieved 10 July 2024 from https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD1022125.pdf

Lind, W. & Thiele, G. Fourth Generation Warfare Handbook. Castalia House, 2015.

Mikaberidze, A. Napoleon's Great Escape: The Battle of the Berezina. London: Pen and Sword, 2010.

Van Creveld, M. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (2nd ed). Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Logistics in Napoleon’s Campaigns

Introduction

This paper compares the approaches Napoleon took to solve (or attempt to solve) logistics problems involved in the 1805 Austerlitz Campaign and the 1812 Russian Campaign. From a logistics standpoint, the difference between the two campaigns was the distance Napoleon would have to travel outside France’s borders – Moscow is approximately 1,100 miles further away from France than Austerlitz. Napoleon’s solutions for each of these campaigns will be described, and in the conclusion the strengths and weaknesses of each will be listed.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps (painting by Jacques-Louis David, 1805)

Austerlitz Campaign

Prior to the Austerlitz Campaign into Austria, France was using magazines (prepositioned caches) to provide the army with supplies. The problem with magazines was that they limited the movements of the army, and the Austerlitz Campaign would reach far beyond France’s borders.

France had long used a taxation-like system to fund its military, but the increasing size of the French Army made the tax a severe burden on the French people. The Committee of Public Safety provided a solution: they ordered commanders to procure goods from the populace of countries being invaded using the “contribution system” – the military threatened the locals to provide supplies. The military would thus be exporting the French Revolution, and campaigns would be funded by the nations under attack[1].

At the start of the Austerlitz Campaign, Napoleon realized that the contribution system would be unpopular amongst the subjugated people. To compensate for this, he modified the system once he crossed the Rhine on 29 September 1805: Napoleon would give receipts to the suppliers so that they can be later reimbursed[2].

As Napoleon approached the Danube River, his force captured several Austrian supply magazines. These captured magazines would, together with the supplies gathered from the modified contribution system, allow Napoleon to defeat Austria at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805[3].

The Russian Campaign

Napoleon’s planning for the Russian Campaign began in 1810, when Tsar Alexander I left the Continental System, the European blockade of Great Britain. Napoleon’s intention was to capture Moscow and convince Alexander to rejoin the blockade.

Two years prior, Napoleon supplemented civilian transport contractors with a seven-battalion transportation service, the train des équipages, each of these battalions consisting of 600 wagon teams. As the Russian Campaign approached, he increased the size of the train des équipages to 26 battalions, which could carry 9,200 tons of supplies approximately 10 miles per day to the front. To minimize the stress the 600,000+ soldiers in the Grande Armée would place on the local economy, Napoleon established five different supply routes for his army to assemble at Vistula, Poland, the city from which the march to Moscow would begin[4].

The invasion began on 24 June 1812. The campaign ran into problems immediately: the five supply routes to Vistula lacked fodder for the horses, and many of them died. The roads into Russia turned to mud because of thunderstorms, and this slowed the French Army’s progress.

On 14 September, Napoleon arrived in Moscow, but he found it to be burning: the Russians were making sure the Grande Armée had to rely on their own supplies.

He stayed in Moscow a total of five weeks (three weeks longer than planned[5]) in order to negotiate with Alexander. During this time, Russian Cossacks attacked French supply lines and foraging partners.

Alexander refused to negotiate, and on 19 October, the French Army left Moscow. To avoid the resource-stripped area caused by the French Army’s approach into Moscow, Napoleon wanted to take an alternative route out of Russia. At the Battle of Maloyaroslavets on 24 October, the Russians forced Napoleon to retrace the path he took into Moscow. The Cossacks continued harassing the French Army, and on 5 December, Napoleon transferred command of the French Army to an assistant and returned to Paris. The French Army left Russian territory on 14 December.

Conclusion

The time surrounding the two campaigns demonstrate the evolution of logistics under Napoleon. The Austerlitz Campaign saw the introduction of the modified contribution system. An army of any significant size would put considerable strain on the local populace, and the idea of receipts that would be covered by the French Treasury would lessen that strain – assuming the receipts would be honored.

In the years leading up to the Russian Campaign, Napoleon clearly understood that magazines, foraging, and the modified contribution system would be insufficient for the much more extended march to Moscow[6]. This is why he introduced the train des équipages, starting it at seven battalions and later increasing it to 26 battalions. The train des équipages depended on the existence of quality roads, and they were vulnerable to attacks from the Cossacks.

The limits of the train des équipages and modified contribution system were shown in the Russian Campaign, and the French Army did have to resort to foraging. The Russians knew how to combat this: they used scorched-earth tactics. These tactics forced Napoleon to rely on his existing supplies, and Napoleon was thus defeated[7].

Footnotes

[1] Jelineo, “Napoleon’s Logistics.”

[2] Ibid.

[3] Van Creveld, Supplying War, pp. 44-61.

[4] Jelineo, “Napoleon’s Logistics.”

[5] Van Creveld, Supplying War, p. 64.

[6] Hardemon, "General Logistics Paradigm.”

[7] Bennett, “The Grand Failure.”

Bibliography

Bennett, L. “The Grand Failure: How Logistics of Supply Defeated Napoleon in 1812.” Primary Source 1 (No. 1). 2011. Retrieved 10 July 2024 from https://psource.sitehost.iu.edu/PDF/Archive%20Articles/Spring2011/LynchBennettArticle.pdf

Hardemon, R. "General Logistics Paradigm: A Study of the Logistics of Alexander, Napoleon, and Sherman" (1998). Theses and Dissertations. 5650. Retrieved 10 July 2024 from https://scholar.afit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6653≈context=etd

Jelineo, J. “Napoleon’s Logistics; or How Napoleon Learned to Worry about Supply.” Air Command and Staff College. April 2012. Retrieved 10 July 2024 from https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD1022125.pdf

Van Creveld, M. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (2nd ed). Cambridge University Press, 2004.