Frederick the Great

Frederick II of Prussia ruled from 1740 until his death in 1786 and wrote extensively on war, including a Military Instructions for his generals whose chapter on magazines and subsistence insists that a good army begins with provisioning. That real preoccupation is why Thomas Carlyle’s 1858 history could plausibly put the “serpent … belly” adage in his mouth, and why the credit stuck. But Carlyle is the earliest source anyone has produced, generations after Frederick’s death — and Frederick’s own manual credits its nearest equivalent maxim to an unnamed general.