The use and importance of field-fortifications, intrenched camps, &c., as well as the class of military works called coast-defences, will be discussed hereafter.[[6]]
The use of fortifications in the defence of states is discussed by Ternay, Vauban, Cormontaigne, Napoleon, the Archduke Charles, Jomini, Fallot, and, incidentally, by most of the military historians of the wars of the French Revolution. The names of such standard works as give the detailed arrangements of fortifications will be mentioned hereafter.
CHAPTER IV.
LOGISTICS.
III. We have defined logistics to be that branch of the military art which embraces all the practical details of moving and supplying armies. The term is derived from the title of a French general officer, (major-général des logis,) who was formerly charged with directing the marches, encampments, and lodging of the troops. It has been still further extended by recent military writers, and many of them now regard logistics as a distinct and important branch of the art.
We shall here consider logistics as including the military duties ordinarily attributed to the pay, subsistence, clothing, medical, hospital, and transportation departments; in fine, of all the civil and civico-military corps of the army. We shall therefore discuss under this head, the preparation of all the necessary materials for fitting out troops for a campaign and for putting them in motion; the regulating of marches, convoys, the means of transport for provisions, hospitals, munitions, and supplies of all kinds; the preparation and protection of magazines; the laying out of camps and cantonments; in fine, every thing connected with preparing, moving, and guarding the impedimenta of an army.