In the end it wasn't just the bitter winter cold that did for Napoleon's march on Moscow in 1812, or even Tsar Alexander's rallying of the Russian peasantry to harry his army with hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. It was the fact that the general's supply chain was stretched so far that his soldiers could not feed their horses.
Even the greatest strategists have difficulty in striking the balance between security of supply and freedom of manoeuvre. This lesson is often painfully learned. European clothes retailers have seen their Chinese-made autumn collections stranded in warehouses because of new European Union textile quotas. British Airways has lost an estimated £40m ($72m, €59m) as the labour dispute at Gate Gourmet, its catering supplier, spread to its own workforce.
