and
of special instructions relating to the corps of quartermasters. This
was the result of prejudices consecrated by time. The word _logistics_
is derived, as we know, from the title of the _major general des logis_,
(translated in German by _Quartiermeister_,) an officer whose duty it
formerly was to lodge and camp the troops, to give direction to the
marches of columns, and to locate them upon the ground. Logistics was
then quite limited. But when war began to be waged without camps,
movements became more complicated, and the staff officers had more
extended functions. The chief of staff began to perform the duty of
transmitting the conceptions of the general to the most distant points
of the theater of war, and of procuring for him the necessary documents
for arranging plans of operations. The chief of staff was called to the
assistance of the general in arranging his plans, to give information of
them to subordinates in orders and instructions, to explain them and to
supervise their execution both in their _ensemble_ and in their minute
details: his duties were, therefore, evidently connected with all the
operations of a campaign.

To be a good chief of staff, it became in this way necessary that a man
should be acquainted with all the various branches of the art of war. If
the term _logistics_ includes all this, the two works of the Archduke
Charles, the voluminous treatises of Guibert, Laroche-Aymon, Bousmard,
and Ternay, all taken together, would hardly give even an incomplete
sketch of what logistics is; for it would be nothing more nor less than
the science of applying all possible military knowledge.

It appears from what has been said that the old term _logistics_ is
insufficient to designate the duties of staff officers, and that the
real duties of a corps of such officers, if an attempt be made to
instruct them in a proper manner for their performance, should be
accurately prescribed by special regulations in accordance with the
general principles of the art. Governments should take the precaution to
publish well-considered regulations, which should define all the duties
of staff officers and should give clear and accurate instructions as to
the best methods of performing these duties.

The Austrian staff formerly had such a code of regulations for their
government; but it was somewhat behind the times, and was better adapted
to the old methods of carrying on war than the present. This is the only
work