REVIEW BY DAVID FLINTHAM
History knows many more armies ruined by want and disorder than by the efforts of their enemies, and I have witnessed how all the enterprises which were embarked on in my day were lacking for that reason alone.’ So wrote Cardinal Richelieu at the height of the Thirty Years’ War. But the significance of logistics is not often borne out by histories of the British Civil Wars. The latest in Helion’s Century of the Soldier series is thus welcome – as is the publisher’s recognition of the subject’s importance by giving it the full hard-back treatment.
Author Glenn Price delivers a thorough analysis of this subject, dividing the book into four broad themes: the transportation by both land and water of arms, munitions, and equipment; how the armies were recruited; and how they were provisioned. Internal procurement is also considered at some length, but less space is devoted to the importing of arms and munitions from abroad. Another apparent omission is the actual production of armaments, particularly by the Royalists, who had to build an armaments industry virtually from scratch (and did it so successfully that their greatest challenge proved to be not the production but the transportation).
Garrisoned fortresses are discussed. In addition to controlling the local area, these had a myriad of functions, including as magazines, recruitment and tax-collection hubs, and waystations. The author also stresses the importance of ‘protected corridors’, where communication between key towns was maintained via smaller garrisons – a key aspect of the fighting, particularly during the First Civil War.
