The professionalization of the logistics

We are travelling together across the centuries. Now we are at the beginning of the 20th century, and wars with important changes are waiting for us …

“Logistics...as vital to military success as daily food is to daily work.”
Captain A.T. Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration, 1912

The 20st century was, humanly speaking … calamitous, but it must be recognized that war permit progresses in several fields like medicine, technologies and theories.
The first WW introduced the utilization of trains, trucks instead of horse’s carriages, and the beginning of airplanes. All this new instruments improve dramatically the possibilities in logistic (mass transport with train, flexible deliveries with trucks and rapidity with airplanes). Now goods could crossed a country in 2 days instead of 2 weeks, so in 1914 it was soldiers and ammunitions, but it opened the possibility to transport any types of goods.
The second WW improve the theoretical approach of the logistics. This was a real globalization of the transport, the “Liberty Ships” crossed the Atlantic Ocean to deliver just in time the weapons and the necessary supplies. Just-in-time, again an important word in the actual logistics.
The logistics played again an huge role during this conflict and all Generals and Marshals were aware of it importance.

“You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics”
General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) Supreme Commandant of the Allied Forces in Europe

"Eine Schlacht wird von Logistikern geschlagen bevor sie begonnen hat."
General Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) German Field Marshal and Commander of the Afrika Korps.