Page 236 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

236 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Preconditions of war – logistics, civilian society and the
consequences of war during the period of the Napoleonic Wars

MARTIN HÄRDSTEDT

Soldiers obviously need food, drink and warmth. Warfare is not possible if the soldiers
don’t get these three things. In the same way horses need fodder. Armies therefore must have
a good logistical organization. There must be a supply system that works. Commanders in
all times have been aware of the difficult problems of moving and feeding an army. Before
the industrialization of Europe, and development of modern communication, armies had to
rely on local resources. It was not possible to move large quantities of food and fodder long
distances. Scholars like Martin van Creveld and John A Lynn have pointed at the importance
of logistics to understand the preconditions of warfare. This paper deals with the importance
of logistics, how the local civilian society was dragged into war and the consequences of
war. My main conclusion is that the consequences of war for the civilian society during the
period of Napoleonic Wars are not found on the battlefield but in the steps of the marching
armies. To understand the consequences of war we must understand the preconditions of war:
the logistical problems. I will use examples from the literature and from my own studies of
the logistical problems during the Swedish-Russian War of 1808-98 (also called the Finnish
War 1808-09). 1

liVing Off the cOuntry
Regarding the question of how war affected the civilian population in the age of Na-
poleon, Geoffrey Best tells us in his War and Society that the actual battles never had any
impact on civilians. Sieges were of course the one exception to this rule, especially if the city
or the fortress were captured in a very costly assault for the attackers. Of course, civilians
became directly involved in the war if they fought as guerillas. Best points out that the battles
almost always took place in open places where very few people lived. The areas affected by
the combat were also restricted. The wartime sufferings of the civilian population stemmed
from the fighting armies’ need for food and fodder. This is a very important conclusion.
2
But how and why were the civilian society dragged into war by the armies need for food and
fodder?

1 Hårdstedt, Martin, Om krigets förutsättningar. Den militära underhållsproblematiken och det civila samhäl-
let i norra Sverige och Finland under Finska kriget 1808-09 [The Preconditions of War. Logistical Prob-
lems and Civilian Society in Northern Finland and Sweden in the Finnish War 1808-09] (Umeå 2002) and
Hårdstedt, Martin, Finska kriget 1808-1809 [The Finnish War 1808-1809] (Stockholm 2006). Also several
articles Hårdstedt, Martin, ”Living off the country — Logistics, Local Resources and Civilian Society in the
North of Sweden during the Swedish-Russian War of 1808-1809 in Between the Imperial eagles, armému-
seum 1998-1999, Hårdstedt, Martin, ”Finska kriget 1808-09 — krigsförlopp och förklaring” i Meddelande
66 Armèmuseum, (Stockholm, 2007), Martin Hårdstedt, ”Sjötransporter och skärgårdskrig — avgörande
faktorer under kriget i Finland 1808” i Skärgård nr 3 2007 (Åbo 2007) and Hårdstedt, Martin, ” Sveaborgs
kapitulation 1808 — ett moralhistoriskt problems egentliga betydelse” i Finsk Tidskrift 2008/1.
2 Best, Geoffrey, War and Society in Revolutionary Europe 1770-1870, Leicester 1982, p. 99.