Caesar And Supply Logistics

[Favonius Cornelius]

Throughout the Gallic Wars and the Civil War, Caesar is constantly finding himself in need of food supplies for his armies. Many notable military historians and generals (Hans Delbruck , Napoleon) have criticized this as a weakness of Caesar's. As they say, an 'army marches on its stomach.' Supply was always an ancient warfare problem, but it is fair to say that Caesar found himself in trouble with this above the norm.

 

I've always had a hard time believing that a man so remarkably careful and calculated as Caesar was would have a problem with something like supply logistics. Therefore it is my hypothesis that (in many cases) Caesar deliberately undersupplied his men, as a method of getting them to perform super human feats of war, always with the promise that food was over the next hill, or in the camp of an enemy, or past the walls of an enemy camp. Leading the donkey on with the carrot so to speak.

 

Thoughts?

Edited September 26, 2006 by Favonius Cornelius

[Pertinax]

One can hardly believe that a man of such calculating nature (take that as compliment or curse as your heart dictates) would have been so foolish as to be bereft of foodstuffs.Of course Caesar may be emphasising the lack of provender as an audience pleasing ploy , as regards the toughness and dedication of his men (to himself) , it may be the truth and "provender" might perhaps be admixed with "spoils" as a more potent carrot.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Why should competence in one area imply that competence exists in every area? All generasl (and all men) are mixtures of strengths and weaknesses, generally because even successful strategies involve trade-offs. One of Caesar's successful strategies was his celerity--his charging ahead in anticipation of the enemy. The problem was that he also often charged ahead of his supplies, and sometimes even charged ahead of his other men. You can see this both in Gaul, and in his crossing to Britain, and in his crossing to Greece, and in his African campaigns.

 

In fact, if you look at the sum of all of Caesar's days campaigning you find that nearly HALF of them involve rummaging around for supplies that he had failed to obtain or in extricating himself from dangers that he put himself in needlessly. So, he was quite obviously not simply driving forward by virtue of his men's hunger. Rather, his supply problems led him to take a step in place for every step forward.

 

BTW, my criticism has absolutely nothing to do with my support for the republican ideal. Every general who has commented on Caesar's campaigns (Napolean, Fuller, etc) have come to exactly the same conclusion about his failures in this regard. What military considerations are you considering that these generals are failing to consider?

 

One can hardly believe that a man of such calculating nature (take that as compliment or curse as your heart dictates) would have been so foolish as to be bereft of foodstuffs.Of course Caesar may be emphasising the lack of provender as an audience pleasing ploy , as regards the toughness and dedication of his men (to himself) , it may be the truth and "provender" might perhaps be admixed with "spoils" as a more potent carrot.

 

Except this interpretation doesn't explain why he also mentions running off--not only with insufficient food--but also insufficient anchors, sails, men, grain, and all the other goods in the supply wagon. Not carrying spare sails doesn't sound "tough"--it sounds ill-prepared.

 

 

Just to be clear--I'm not arguing that Caesar's logistic problems are a consequence of any military incompetence or "weakness". I'm arguing that they were an unavoidable side-effect of his blitzkrieg strategies.

[Primus Pilus]

This may tie in directly with the swiftness of Caesar's armies. They may have been undersupplied in order to travel lightly, but I think the fast moving armies had more to do with circumstances than any purposeful intention of Caesar to travel unhindered. Since he was constantly being pulled in various directions (whether in reaction to rebellion or because of his own ambition) his armies were in many cases simply not given enough time to procure the necessary supplies. Of course the Gauls did a good job of cutting off Caesar's existing lines of supply and the suggested logistic weakness of Caesar may be that he failed to secure these lines. Bridging the Rhine and Crossing the English Channel were logistic achievements in their own right (despite his military failings in Britain) and when we consider the speed in which he accomplished these things perhaps its easy to understand why his army could never quite gather enough resources. In this case perhaps ambition or impatience truly was a weakness.

 

At any rate, it may have been a weakness, it may have been conscious decision, or as Pertinax suggests, it may have a bit of everything with a bit of simple propaganda in order to illustrate the toughness of the Roman legions (and perhaps to tell the world, "look what I can accomplish even with an underfed army").

[Pertinax]

You may have it in the "blitzkrieg" moniker. One thing about innovative warfare (in its social/time frame context) is the (overused expression) thinking outside the box in terms of speed and movement (as a gambling strategy) the enemies moral/tactical stability versus your ability to prosecute an advance with sufficient force (petrol/fodder).

[Virgil61]

I'm inclined to think it's not either deliberate nor a weakness so much as a reflection of the type of war he was fighting. He's conducting operations on enemy or non-friendly territory and my suspicion is his the rear area of his army wasn't always secured enough for a stable logistical resupply. So much of the Gallic Wars contains mentions of the issue of food and fodder that it's obvious it pre-occupied his mind. Living off the land of your enemy or having allies resupply you with food and fodder wasn't a revolutionary approach, armies had been doing that for centuries. Criticism can be leveled at him but the proof is in the pudding; he won battles. Napoleon tried the same living off the land approach in Russia with disasterous results.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Our answers are similar Virgil, but is it necessary to delimit Caesar's supply troubles to the specifics of Gaul? After all, Caesar had the same problems in Greece and in Africa, where his opponents had no such troubles. Isn't it Caesar's blitzkrieg strategy--which he used in all the campaigns--that gave rise to the problems? After all, he had never bothered to create a well-organized commissariat.

[Virgil61]

Our answers are similar Virgil, but is it necessary to delimit Caesar's supply troubles to the specifics of Gaul? After all, Caesar had the same problems in Greece and in Africa, where his opponents had no such troubles. Isn't it Caesar's blitzkrieg strategy--which he used in all the campaigns--that gave rise to the problems? After all, he had never bothered to create a well-organized commissariat.

 

I don't think we disagree in general. Remember that in Greece and Africa both opponents had a head start in monopolizing the procurement of supplies. But you're right he never did get a decent supply train going it seems.

 

I left our a portion of my post that stated he wasn't adverse to risk-taking. I think both PP, P and you hit on it. He's got a choice, build up a decent supply train which takes precious time and he diminishes one of his strengths--speed. Or he gambles as P says and takes the risk of living off the land in order to maximize his stregth. His strength (speed) exposes his weakness or his weakness (logistics) exposes his strength. Still, it takes commander with supreme confidence enough to make it work (not to make this a Caesar good/bad debate).

[M. Porcius Cato]

Yes, and in terms of confidence, you can build that up by continually getting yourself out of jams (which Caesar was as good at putting himself into as getting himself out of).

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

I think some of it could be put down to propaganda and over exaggeration. If people were led to believe that even though Caesar and his army were half starved and under strength they could still take on and defeat any enemy they come up against then they must be super human and Caesar must be such an amazing general.

If by emphasizing this in his commentries sent back to Rome then surely this can do his career no harm at all, can it?

[M. Porcius Cato]

But the problem with all propaganda explanations is that they fail to account for the report of Caesar's problems in the Alexandrian and Civil Wars, which were written in part by Caesar's lieutenants and published long after they had any propaganda value. In contrast, the blitzkrieg theory can account for Caesar's supply problems in all the campaigns he fought.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

But the problem with all propaganda explanations is that they fail to account for the report of Caesar's problems in the Alexandrian and Civil Wars, which were written in part by Caesar's lieutenants and published long after they had any propaganda value. In contrast, the blitzkrieg theory can account for Caesar's supply problems in all the campaigns he fought.

 

Yes i agree, the blitzkrieg theory is a very good theory and was probably Caesar's biggest problem, he was just too impatient to wait until everything was in order before charging off to conquer the world although sometimes he had no choice in the matter due to uprisings and rebellions that needed dealing with immediately, but i was just saying that maybe sometimes Caesar hyped up the problems with supplies just to enhance his reputation as a great general and leader of men, if he can get half starved legionaries victoriously through a battle then he must be pretty special or so he would have the people of Rome believe.

Even if it was just during the gallic wars it's got to be good propaganda..... right??

[DecimusCaesar]

J.F.C Fuller attempts to explain Caesar's lack of interest on supplies and logistics. He claims that Caesar "was not an organizer" and had a distaste for it. He never organized his campaigns properly and fuller says his invasion of Britain was "amateurish" in the extreme because he failed to get adequate provisions. He seems to have made most of his decisions on a whim.

 

Strangely enough he does make frequent mention of getting corn supplies in his work, which means that it was not sufficently organized. if it was he would not feel the need to mention it at all.

[Andrew Dalby]

A while ago I had a look at one episode in Caesar's supply problems -- the business of the roots at Dyrrachium, when Caesar was besieging Pompey in 48 BC. What struck me was the different spins that even ancient historians could put on this.

 

1. Caesar himself (Civil War, 3.48). He's praising the resourcefulness of his men and the way they kept up morale under difficulty. Incidentally, he doesn't seem to care that the supply problems might put him in a bad light. Why? Silently, I think, he wants to convey his own superior skill in the only arena that really matters -- victory at the end of the campaign.

 

2. Pliny (NH 19.144) alludes to the same episode because he's interested in the vegetable concerned. He says that the soldiers sang about the incident in one of their satirical songs at Caesar's subsequent triumph, complaining that he paid them so little they had to eat 'lapsana'.

 

3. Plutarch (Life of Caesar 39) treats this as a character issue for Pompey and his men, who are losing heart in spite of being well supplied. Pompey (says Plutarch) will not let his soldiers see the food Caesar's men are using, because it will depress them. In choosing this angle Plutarch seems to take a hint from Caesar's narrative and develop it using his imagination.

 

4. Suetonius (Divus Julius 68) treats it as an example of how Caesar's men remained faithful to him in adversity. Pompey's reaction is described -- Suetonius gets this out of Plutarch, I think, and develops it further in his own style -- but in general, Suetonius's angle is that Caesar's legionaries put up with difficulties but got extremely generous rewards from him and thus remained devoted to him: it's an aspect of the way Caesar built up his patronage.

[Pertinax]

Here is the famous ,offending vegetable.

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...=si&img=135

 

Basically, a very starchy root that needs a lot of pulping and cooking to render it 1. safe 2. at all edible.