"How Fast were Armies during TYWs" Topic
10 Posts
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Jagger | 15 Dec 2014 8:31 a.m. PST |
I recently read how TYW armies had huge supply trains and many camp followers when on campaign. So just how far on average would an Imperial or Spanish or Swedish army march in a day in decent weather with decent roads? Would they average 8 or 10 miles a day when they wanted to get somewhere? Did they ever do force marches and just leave the supply train and camp followers behind and let them catch up when they could? |
Griefbringer | 15 Dec 2014 1:10 p.m. PST |
Most of the European armies before the invention of railroads and internal combustion engines had huge horse-drawn baggage trains and a varying number of camp followers, and were capable of moving at roughly similar rates. Also, significant amounts of supplies may have been transported by river rather than overland. For a normal days march, around 20 kilometers would be a reasonable starting estimate. |
Daniel S | 15 Dec 2014 2:54 p.m. PST |
It's hard to judge marching speeds due to a lack of detailed information about the day to day operations of most armies. For example in late October 1631 Tilly covered the 36 kilometers from Fulda to Salmunster in a single days march but it took 4 days to march the 40km from Salmunster to Aschaffenburg. But why did the movement slow down? Did Tilly in fact rest his troops for one or more days during that 4 day period? Or were the roads simply bad? Or did the need to forage for supplies cause significant delays? We simply don't know. In a few cases we are lucky because more detailed information exists but I don't think anyone has ever fully studied them with movement and movement speeds as the focus. The ability to send heavy equipment by river was a real advantage when it was possible, at least in the early part of the Swedish invasion there was a real focus on securing river lines to make possible the movement of troops, equipment and supplies by boat. Forced marches did occur, though those were usually made by detachments rather than by whole armies. One army that did see a lot of movement was that of Pappenheim during operations in Westphalia were he used superior mobility to make the most of his limited number of troops. |
jdpintex | 15 Dec 2014 5:16 p.m. PST |
The Swedes made several impressive marches as did the aforementioned Tilly |
Russell120120 | 16 Dec 2014 7:27 p.m. PST |
From "Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army." Similar Army with somewhat similar equipment. Note, the Macedonians also had camp followers, but Alexander liked to limit the use of carts (versus straight up pack animals) because it slowed up the army. Note that the Renaissance era harness would have allowed for much more efficient pulling. The Macedonians did not use oxen. Where water is available seven day supply of food is about the max before the needed extra animals becomes prohibitive. Where water is not available, a three day expedition the army could carry all of its provisions. Beyond that the pack-animal requirement goes up tremendously. By the time you are getting to the fifth day, the extra pack animals are eating too many of their own needed rations to realistically make up the difference. Typical marching speed 2.5 to 3 mph. March rates of 19 miles/day over flat ground in Spring seems to be the max for a largish force. Over rocky terrain they appear to have been able to make 15 miles/day over a three day period. Light troop/cavalry mixes seem to have been able to get around 22 mpd fairly easily, and cavalry close to 45 to 55 mpd. However, the army would need to stop at least once every seven days to rest the animals. Note in the book, but I have read that cav. that is not carrying its own forage could expect to advance about 14 mpd. Note that if your army gets too big, you start having the accordion effect, if their is only one trail open to them. An army with 65,000 men (10 abreast) and 6,000 cavalry (5 abreast) stretches out 16.5 miles before you even start counting baggage and camp followers. You have to cut short the march time to daylight hours for the trailing element. |
cwlinsj | 16 Dec 2014 11:10 p.m. PST |
I wish to make the case that rate of march differed greatly, depending on location and year of the TYW. There could be no uniform rate. The TYW was particularly devastating. All armies of this period lived off the land and needed to forage while on campaign. This slowed the rate of advance greatly. After the first few years, Germany was hit with famine, resulting in even less available foodstuffs. Armies needed to disperse along a greater frontage just to eat – again affecting their rate of march. By the end of the TYW, cannibalism was common as populations suffered up to 90% losses and nobody was left to till the earth. Movement slowed to a crawl. The only reliable travel was by river. |
Daniel S | 17 Dec 2014 4:56 a.m. PST |
Modern research has long since challenged and disproved the notion of the the "All-destructive" TYW created by the 19thC works of Freytag and others, there certainly isn't any support for the claim that cannibalism was "common". While it did occur many reports do not stand up to scrutiny in that they are always based on 2nd and 3rd hand accounts. Population loss has been extensivly studied by German historians and a highly complex picture has emerged from those studies. While some areas suffered horrible devastation others actually grew and flourished. Lower Austria emerged from the war with a population that was 25% lower than the pre-war population while Styria and Krain actually saw a population increase of 17%. Bohemia was hit very hard by the war, it's decline reached 29%. Brandenburg was very hard hit by the campaigns between 1627 and 1637 with up to 75% of the population being lost to death or flight yet by 1652 the Oder areas had actually recovered to pre-war levels. Even in the worst hit areas such as Würtemberg, Lorraine and France-Comte the losses do not go beyond 60% (which is a pretty horrible number) Nor did army movement slow to a crawl, Torstensson had no trouble averaging between 20 and 30km a day with his army in 1645, the reduction in army size and the move from infantry heavy´to cavalry heavy armies had allowed speed to remain pretty much the same as in the early campaigns. (Which in good conditions meant that the armies of the 1640's were actually faster) |
Jagger | 17 Dec 2014 6:21 a.m. PST |
Thanks all. Lots of good information. I found this from Delbruck, Dawn of Modern Warfare, pg 192: "In the first years of the ECW, the hardest marches were no longer than 10-12 English miles; the longest of all was 13 English miles, that is, not quite 20km. Later when armor was put aside, the marches became longer but still hardly more than 3 German miles, or some 23km." Delbruck is discussing ECW but I would assume it would be very similiar to late war TYWs. And here is a map plotting population loss in Germany during TYW. Pretty devastating.
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Jagger | 17 Dec 2014 6:29 a.m. PST |
I am currently reading Adolphus Gustavus by TA Dodge. My general impression is of a fairly leisurely campaign pace at least through the end of the Danish phase. It also seems much campaign activity was driven by plunder and subsistence rather than purely military strategy. The money from plunder and the gathering of food from any nearby source seemed necessary to keep armies in the field. |
Jagger | 17 Dec 2014 8:22 p.m. PST |
And here is one more reference from Osprey's Lutzen. Reinach's 5 infantry regiments, regimental cannons and 6 field guns force marched 30km from dawn to 6pm on a short November day to reach Lutzen. |
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