1. A brief history of military logistics

As far back as antiquity, whether in the Roman world or the Far East, the military sphere, as it became more professionalized, was already taking into account logistical concerns, more akin to transport. A Roman legion always travelled with rationally defined impedimenta: light, individual weapons, supplies for a few days, a stake carried by each legionnaire to build an entrenched camp at each night's stopover, etc. Even though the Empire built a network of roads to facilitate and accelerate the legions' movements throughout Roman territory (the motorway network of the Germany of the 3rd Reich and the road network of the Inca Empire reflect the same concerns), it did not conceive of a perennial logistical organization to ensure the resupply of the legions on the march, who had to live on the land.

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