Military Movements

This paper provides an overview and synthesis of scholarship on military movement in land warfare during the Age of Steam, roughly defined as ca.1820 – 1918. It first looks at the use of railways in warfare, which was concentrated primarily in Europe and developed much later than is often realised. It then broadens its focus to look at Asia, Africa and the Americas in this period, where with some notable exceptions (the American Civil War, the Sudan and South African Wars) animal transport remained dominant and the role of railways and of steam power in land warfare was limited. Overall it concludes that the trajectories for industrial change in technologies of movement and of killing were very different, with the former coming later and often in very restricted form. More striking than the transformation wrought by steam power on military movement is the continued heavy dependence on animal and human muscle-power for this most basic military necessity well into the 20th century.