The Rise of Rail-Power in War The growth of the railways transformed the nature of land warfare C.WOLMAR 2010

BACKGROUND:

Throughout the history of pre-industrial warfare, armies and their logistics moved at constant speeds across land masses:

Foot speed as soldiers march across land (infantry carry 60-70 pounds of gear. That means that the average soldier can only carry two to days rations at a time)Horse speed (cavalry armies had their mobility restricted by the need for wagon transportation carrying fodder ) Wagon speed as oxen and horses pulled wheel vehicles carrying supplies (sometimes unavailable due to terrain, weather, season )Railroads dramatically increased the mobility of armies due to their ability to carry large amounts of troops and supplies rapidly across theatres of operations and even continents.

The Horse Soldiers is a 1959 film, set in the American Civil War starring John Wayne.

The movie is based on the true story of Grierson's Raid and the climactic Battle of Newton's Station, led by Colonel Grierson who, along with 1700 men, set out from northern Mississippi and rode several hundred miles behind enemy lines in April 1863 to cut the railroad between Newton's Station and Vicksburg, Mississippi. The raid was as successful as it was daring. By attacking the Confederate-controlled railroad it upset the plans of Confederate General John C. Pemberton.

GENERALRailway boom 1840-1870First use of rail to move troops was Franco-Austrian War 1859The British built the first strategic railway in the Crimean War 1854-1856 linking their base at Balaklava with the siege of Sebastopol the line moved 2400 tons of supplies a day.The use of railroads pre-dated the American Civil War as many European powers had experimented with them in the 1840s and 1850s. None of these experiments however, were near the scale of the usage during the American Civil WarThe railroad system was a characteristic of more advanced industrial nations and acted as a multiplier in the projection of forceOn unpaved roads or over fields, an army can march perhaps 25 miles per day ? A railway of the era could get you over that distance in perhaps 2-3 hours AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-5The first battle of the war (Manassas) was over a rail junctionThe CSA loss of Corinth 1862 allowed US troops to divide the south into small parcels of territory (Corinth was the junction of the Memphis, Charleston, Ohio & Mobile lines)Rail increased the value of the larger Northern population to the Union Army, i.e., the railroad could rapidly move a larger number of well equipped soldiers to successfully invade the Confederate statesUnion General William Sherman and his troops displayed great virtuosity in their destruction of southern railway infrastructure. For a "Sherman Necktie" build a big fire under the middle of some torn-up rails ... then twist two rails around a tree in an "X" while the middle sections are red hot Franco-Prussian war 1870-1871Rail use by Prussians efficient , French use chaotic"Build no more fortresses, build railways," ordered the elder Moltke. In Germany the railway system was under military control with a staff officer assigned to every line; no track could be laid or changed without permission of the General Staff. Annual mobilization war games kept railway officials in constant practice After three decades of construction of widespread railway lines France and Prussia were able to send massed armed forces straight to the battlefront or onto enemy soil. Often, troops were deployed far beyond the railheads, they subsisted by traditional methods that differed little from Napoleonic times,The implementation of a mass of railways quickly servicing the field of battle with troops and supplies, meant swifter methods of communication from the home-front to the battlefront. With the battlefront no longer a remote area apart from the home-front, newspaper-correspondents could travel to and fro, sending back their reports. Troops could go on leave. The wounded could be cared for at home. The nation at war thus became an armed camp Great War 1914-1918On the outbreak of the Great War the railways which Germany had constructed jointly with the Belgian Government , even across the Belgian frontier, enabled her to throw into that country great masses of troops for an invasion of France and then , also by rail, back through Germany for the attack on Russia.For the British Army all goods were moved from the Channel Ports to the Railheads . Railheads were established at various points within reasonable distance of the front-lines. Here goods were taken from the train, reorganised into lorry loads and sent by road to the trenches. Railheads were usually 10-15 miles from the front .In the earliest days of the war, all rail operations were under the control of the French allies. Authority for control of the railways was moved to the Quartermaster-General in November 1915, where a Director of Railways was installed. The prime need was for the transportation of principally artillery shells, to the gun batteries located in. Nearly 200 million shells - were fired by the British alone during the course of the conflict. Artillery-fire being the cause of 90% of all military casualties

Logistics is the word used to describe the supply, movement and maintenance of an armed force under operational conditionsDid the growth of the railways transform the nature of land warfare ?

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