ABSTRACT
The problems involved in the provisioning of bigger armies had a decisive influence on strategy. Considering what has been said so far, it might seem that the organization of relay provisioning was mostly an administrative task and that it involved only a few dynamic, logistical element. The most decisive phenomenon in the warfare of the second half of the 17th century was the enormous growth of manpower in the armies. Provisioning by stages gave rise to specific logistic problems in cases where fortress and magazines were found over the entire theatre of war. In the system of the military science of the Greeks and Byzantines, logistics represented the third aspect of war management, in addition to strategy and tactics. The confusion surrounding logistics resulted not only from the novel nature of the difficulties that arose hut also from the circumstance that within an army there was actually nobody in charge of logistic functions.
