"Napoleonic Road/March Column Length" Topic

Hi,

I'm looking for some information to help me determine how many men can pass down a road in a day. From Paddy Griffith's Battle tactics of the ACW I've got a rough estimate that an Infantry corps takes up about 14miles from head to tail. Would that broadly be about right for the Napoleonic period, or were roads better/worse? I'm primarily interested in the Peninsular theatre, where obviously there are other factors at work, weather and terrain being a couple off the top of my head.

If 14miles is a base line, what would you expect say heavy rain to do or indeed extremely hot weather, or a mountain road rather than a decent flat road. Would these factors simply adjust the fatigue and casualty rates along the way and the column length ie number of men passing down the road remain static?

TIA.

Have you ever had the pleasure of marching in formation for several miles?

It is hardly a fast process even for a platoon of 40 odd men. During a road march you need more space between men so they aren't falling all over each other -- probably a minimum of a yard -- front and back but . . . that distance varies a lot. These formations look like accordions sometimes.

Often the infantry did not march on the road. They marched along side it. Wheeled vehicles would use the road proper. This does not always improve the terrain marched upon.

Finally you have to determine the width of each march column. While this may be 'standard'. You probably have to consider the effects of choke points (bridges) and other terrain.

So . . . what I'm getting at here is that the best anyone can do is an estimate. I see no reason to quibble with almost any estimate made by a primary source.

mjc

what is a "corps"…..in the Union army it could be under 10,000 men. In the Confederate army of ANV, it could be 21-24,000 men or more;

does the column include artillery? ammunition supply? most food/non-battle materiel would follow behind the combatant formations.

so what the column is composed of, the numbers, types and other types of conveyances for support all play a role in the answer, as much as the variation on the road/ground type, size etc…

Thanks for the replies. I'm not expecting anyone to give me an exact figure that they'd stake their house on.:)

I'm just trying to get a handle on rough ballparks. So, if I were to say that only 1000 men could move down a road in a day, I expect that would generate some suggestions that it was wrong.

I think for sake of argument we assume that there's the usual baggage element to the forces, wagons, mules, etc. Because I'm talking generically though, I can't give you exact numbers, ratio's or sizes. As I said, i'm looking for a reasonable figure, something that players are going to look at and go "ok, I can see where you're going with that and I can work with it".

Interesting question.

If a battalion is 1,000 men, and they march in two columns (each four abreast) either side of the road, so the centre is clear for wheeled traffic; and each man is two yards behind the guy in front; then they're going to occupy 240 yards. So in cigarette-packet terms that's about 8,000 men per mile of road. Maybe fewer, because there'll be periodic halts and you'll want everyone to be able to fall out more or less where they are. I don't know, maybe 6,000 infantry per mile?

Cavalry, how about two columns two abreast, and 100 ranks in depth for a 400-man unit. I'd guess five or six yards of road per horse, so call it 1,200 cavalry per mile of road.

On that basis, a generic 20,000-strong corps that included a brigade of cavalry numbering 2,000 to 2,500 sabres, would occupy about five miles of road.

Does that sound about right?

14 miles sounds like a lot, but if the foot march 4 rather than 8 abreast and the cavalry 2 rather than 4, then immediately you're up to 10 miles. So depending on the road quality and the actual corps' exact composition and size, maybe my 5-mile estimate is not that hard to reconcile to Paddy G's 14 miles datum point.

During the ACW formations lines were two deep. During Napoleon's time, whey were three deep. Thus infantry columns would be two-thirds of the length of Paddy's column.

Cavalry column of twos were three wide to form a line, co cav marched six wide.

US terrain was too wooded for march off to the side of the road as in Europe.

Other estimates should hold.

In Volley and Bayonet Road Columns are indicted by placing additional bases behind the unit, usually 3 more (total 4 bases). Given the ground scale of 1"=100 yards a unit (brigade) will have a column 12" or 1200 yards long.

A "fudge" but pretty good.

In Fire and Fury the column is X stands deep (where X is the number of stands) which works out to be nearly the same ratio

For wargaming purposes, on the tabletop, I've seen units placed side-ways on the road to represent road column. But if the French marched six abreast (can't remember where I read that, but it makes sense), then that should be doubled up. Probably the same for other nations.

This has nothing to do with the tabletop. Basing scale and groundscale are often completely unrelated.

I don't really understand your comments Femang. A road column isn't necessarily a line turned through 90degrees.

@4th Cuirassier, thanks. If we work on that basis though, we can get maybe 4 corps concurrently on a 20mile stretch of road. At 2.5miles an hour, it'll take at least two hours for the first corps to clear the "startline". Does this sound right?

What I'm thinking of in simple terms is the following.

Main Road – 10,000 troops
Minor Road – 5,000 troops

Bridges – minus 50%
Wooded areas – minus 20% (working on the basis of not being able to move along the verge)
Mountains – minus 50%

So, a Main road through mountains and with a bridge would be 10,000-50%-50% ie 2,500.

Maybe that's too restrictive?

Additionally, maybe weather should have an effect, say
Rain – minus 10%
Snow – minus 25%
Extreme Sun – minus 10%

During the ACW columns marched in 'fours' for most things and sometimes 'twos' (rarely) by doubling up once the order to "Right, Face" was given.

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to:

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I am not aware that Napoleonic French doubled up into columns of 'sixes', and I have no idea about the other nations. I'll dig out Imperial Bayonets tonight and take a gander.

Just to add a little, French soldiers marched to the beat of the drum. Napoleon found his men could cover greater distances when marching to the drum.

The British 1792 regulations stated that the front of a column of route should never be less than 6 files if the formation of the line was intended to be 3 deep, or 4 files if it was intended to be 2 deep. The maximum width of a marching column of route was 16 or 18 files.

It was stressed that the length of a unit marching in column of route should not exceed the width of the same unit deployed in line.

The narrow roads in some parts of Portugal, Spain and France led to these regulation column widths being officially altered by Wellington. There are general orders stating that the column of route was to be formed from "sections of threes" which means that the frontage of a column of route would have been 3 files.

There are many references to columns made up of sections of threes throughout the Peninsula, so this was obviously put into practice, although when in more open country, no doubt wider columns were used.

After the war forming threes also became a standard method for moving companies to a flank during deployments and formation changes. In these manoeuvres, the column of threes maintained a length exactly equal to their frontage when in 2 deep line. When marching over long distances in column of route by threes, I would imagine that the column would have lengthened slightly and exceeded the frontage of a 2 deep line.

@ Peterborough

IIRC, a typical day's march for most armies on a decent road was 12 to 15 miles (leaving aside obvious feats of footslogging such as Davout getting to Austerlitz). If I'm not mistaken, it was also usual for armies to get the day's march out of the way by about noon, so they could fall out, cook lunch, and forage / do stuff in the afternoon.

This timing suggests a march speed of about 2 to 2.5 miles per hour. So yes, if a 20,000-man corps using the roads as guessed-at in my previous post took up 5 miles of road, it seems to me it would indeed take 2 to 2.5 hours to pass any particular point.

I am not sure how much road space the corps artillery, wagon train, Massena's mistresses, Murat's wardrobe, camp followers etc would take up. I'm guessing they would use the centre of the road and would be encompassed by the basic 5 miles; or would straggle behind.

Wavre is 8 miles from Waterloo; and apparently the rearmost elements of Bulow's Corps were leaving Wavre as the lead elements arrived at Plancenoit. That would have to be about 6 miles of (poor) road, so it roughly checks out.

It seems a reasonable assumption to me that on poor roads, or fast marches, you'd get more strung out. It seems inherently unlikely to me that many French corps would have been much more than five or six miles in length on the march, though, mountains etc excepted. If they were 12 miles long, that's getting on for a day's march from one end of the column to the other, which would have stuffed up many attempts at quick concentration.

I'd be glad to hear of any more solid datum points though. There must be something about this in Elting.

HAMLEY, Gen Sir Edward Bruce, The Operations of War: Explained and Illustrated, ed. by Maj Gen Sir George Aston, new edition, (London: Blackwood & Sons, 1923)p.28 reckons:

'In round numbers, 30,000 infantry on the march extend over about 5 miles of road; adding from one fourth to one third for lengthening out, they would extend over 7 miles; 60 guns with their attendant carriages occupy 2 1/2 miles; 6,000 cavalry, in sections (four abreast), allowing 12 feet of space longitudinaly to each horse, fully 4 miles.'

Which is good enough for me.

He goes on to say regarding 1815 that:

'If Napoleon's army had entered Belgium by one road instead of three, it would have extended as follows:-

90,000 infantry 21 miles
20,000 cavalary 14 miles
350 guns etc 14 miles

Total 49 miles

irrespective of stores.'

He points out that French authority says this would be reduced because of very wide roads by 3/10 leaving a length of 34 miles.

Hence the movement by more than one road.

Well, that actually reconciles quite well to my SWAG* upthread, leaving only the question of actual march speed.

I will try to dig out Hofschroer and find out what he gives as elapsed time for the Prussian marches from Wavre. I probably have stuff somewhere for the retreat to Waterloo too.

* = "Stupid Wild-Ass Guess"

If i remember correctly the 1970s Almark book on napoleon's artillery had great numbers on deployment for a battery and march length numbers.

It depends how large your Corps is of course, but do not underestimate the amount of road space taken up by transport. An 1866 Prussian Corps (approx 25,000 men and 70 guns) took up 50km of road space.

Clausewitz said an infantry division with artillery will take an hour to pass a given point, which is actually pretty good, if you figure divisions were on average about 6-8k men, unless commanded by a very able man. I have looked at a lot of numbers and variables, and several sources including Elting, the Altmark book,and chapter 12 of George Nafzinger's book "Imperial Bayonets". The all say roughly the same thing when you add it all up, and it all comes down to a base movement distance per hour for each arm, modified by the march practices of each nationality, including proclivity for baggage, and assuming a good wide road. The other variables are road width and condition, bridges and defiles, and of course, terrain and weather. Steer clear of actual pace/time measurements, as it all ends up the same. You have to factor in the discipline of the march,and that means the morale and type of troops,which really counted, when the object was to get somewhere faster that 7-15 miles per day. Essentially,troops didn't march faster, they marched longer, and only the best troops of the day could perfom forced marches and arrive anywhere in condition to fight without several hours to several days of recovering energy and stragglers. Another consideration is command ability- armies with better maps, staff services, and communications spent less time waiting, getting lost, and bumping into things. All that being said, it will spin your brain a bit, but you can find very good information and numbers to base your campaign rules on using the sources that I and everyone above have mentioned, and just not forgetting to consider those variables.

4th Cuirrasier;
Agreed; but do not forget the wagons and staff and hangers on this could increase the length by a considerable amount.

Campaign CQG;
Is this including baggage train or on the field of battle?

As Napoleon occaisonally moved his troops by commandered wagons does any one have data on that scanarion?

If Clausewitz said that then Clausewitz is wrong (in this case). It would seem that the length of an infantry march column would be the same as the unit in line, but its not even close. As a few people have mentioned, a battalion in march column stretches out for some distance and behaves according to a strange series of natural laws that must be experienced to be fully understood- but once experienced are, unfortunately, never forgotten.

First off, there is the leg-length/height difference of the men. A larger man has to take fewer steps to cover the same distance of ground. This is one of the few situations in the military when its better to be tall than to be short. Shorter men get worn out much quicker on the march than larger men. This is because they have to take more steps to match the same distance… in part. It is also because the "accordion affect" mentioned above effects them twice as much as taller men. I, for one, had the advantage of being tall in these situations when I was in the marines. I would not have wanted to be 5'6" on the march. The reason is not really obvious unless you've seen it. The pace is set by the officer of a given unit, who is in the front, or else some sort of NCO while he rides around on a horse. The men behind him must keep one arms distance away from him, or more, depending on the situation. This might be easy for the first few miles, but beyond that, and given the load of equipment, a soldier will naturally have to adjust, slow down or speed up, in order to keep this distance. After you get past 9 miles on a march you can get a bit delirious, especially in the heat. Past 15 and its really difficult. I've only ever marched 18 miles in one go with equipment, in the heat and with a few stops for water, and it was no fun. I think the standard for campaigning back then was 25 miles a day- which is what American infantry units have to train for (they can have it). Anyways, so these guys at the very front begin to chop their step, or lengthen their step, to keep the prescribed distance from the guy in the front. And as they get tired it gets more erratic. What you have to picture is that for ever file further back this effect gets worse and worse, until at the very end of the march formation the men will be jogging as often as they'll be walking. This is extremely exhausting. The net effect of this is that the formation will be a good distance longer in march formation than whatever it is supposed to be in line.

Someone made the point that units marched on the side of the road to allow equipment to pass by. This is still the case today. Infantry always march on either side of the road, to allow vehicles to pass.

It occurs to me that (today in the US military) only one unit ever marches to either side of the road, so you wouldn't have two battalions marching next to each other. If this practice was used in the horse and musket era, then the effect might be that a battalion could march within its normal line distance, because each side of the road would have only half the troops in the battalion.

Does anyone have any information on that practice? If this is the case than it seems like the march distance of a battalion could accurately be measured as about its own frontage when in line.

… but if this was the case a good distance would have to be allowed between the battalions to allow them to deploy fully into line.

bloomheller22: Those are very well considered and true points, and I would not argue them- however I would point out that your march proceedures do not reflect the realities of French Napoleonic (for one) march proceedures, which variables make up a different picture. Just as an example, they used two and even three different formation widths for the infantry, both sides of the road, etc., depending on the need and the viability. There were specific techniques to minimize fatigue and the accordion effect, for endurance and to minimise straggling. These relied on experience and discipline. One reason the French marched so effectivly,(longer, with less loss of strength) at least early on, and in experienced units, was the quality of their NCO's in implementing these march proceedures, which included drum cadenced march steps of variable quickness, between proscribed halts of varying short lengths at regular intervals. There is a lot of information out there. Clausewitz was providing a very general rule of thumb only, but after all the math gets done, it still is a good (but only a general) estimate.
Respectfully,
GQG

bbbogie-
Clausewitz was taliking about post-reform Prussian Troops, which baggage was modeled on the frugality of the French example. Baggage is one of the variables that need to be factored in- Russians and Austrians for example had longer columns, which slowed them for a number of reasons. You can see earlier in the Nap wars, Napoleon had not only a march advantage, but the knowledge of the few places his opponenents could actualy be, due to their practical inability to stray from the few best roads!

The main consideration for march length of units are:
· Number of men and vehicles per unit
o Every army since the times of the Pharaohs had baggage and supplies. This baggage is one of the defining elements that makes an army and not a group of warriors. Baggage takes up space.
§ During the Napoleonic wars a unit could have its baggage take up as much road space as the unit it self marching 6 abreast. Some armies have more, some less.
· Room to march: width of road and terrain along road
o If there is flats (farmland or plains) the infantry and cavalry will march on the side of the road with units taking turn braking trail (treading out a path). This will not slow down an army as the lead unit double times or more to get the fences down and what else to ready the way. They rest and the next unit takes care of the next obstacle. The more room beside the road the easier for the baggage to stay with the unit on the march. Minor bridges and stream are not choke points as units double time or more to clear them to keep up with the march rate.
· Spacing between units
o Units need space to take stops, deploy and the normal accordening process of marching.
§ this space is not much but if you need 50 meters between each battalion and you have 36 battalions of infantry 7 batteries of artillery and 12 regiments of cavalry (French Corp Napoleonic) then you need 2,750m extra length to the column.
· Load on troops
o Not only weight of kit but health and care of troops. Are they well fed, watered and have good hygiene.
o Normal load of 50 pounds means normal movement and a days march. An overloaded soldier is slower with more rest taken.
· Choke points
o True choke points are like rivers with long bridges, mountain passes and forested areas where the units must stay on the road. This can double or even triple the length of the march column.
· March rates
o Moving faster stretches out the units (just from stride differents0
One consideration for the distance of the march is daylight, most armies like to take off before dawn and march when it is cooler till about noon. During summer this means a healthy army can easily get a second march in due to the longer daylight. In higher latitudes this can mean 18 hours of dawn, day light dusk during the peak of the season.