“The line of supply may be said to be as vital to the existence of an army as the heart to the life of a human being. Just as the duelist who finds his adversary’s point menacing him with certain death, and his own guard astray, is compelled to conform to his adversary’s movements, and to content himself with warding his thrusts, so the commander whose communications are suddenly threatened finds himself in a false position, and he will be fortunate if he has not to change all his plans, to split up his force into more or less isolated detachments, and to fight with inferior numbers on ground which he has not had time to prepare, and where defeat will not be an ordinary failure, but will entail the ruin or surrender of his whole army.”

George Henderson (1854 to 1903)

Colonel George Francis Robert Henderson CB, was a British Army officer and military author. He saw service in India, Egypt, and South Africa (Second Boer War).

Probably best known for his masterpiece ‘Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War’.