Fastest general

[SwordsMaster]

The time also matters, Malaghbroughs march into baveria was considered a lightinging stroke for the time but he only averaged around 5-10 miles aday.

Well, nowadays your average infantry division walks about 12 miles a day...

[Pannonian]

Well, nowadays your average infantry division walks about 12 miles a day...

I imagine the baggage train of the modern infantry division is rather easier to handle and transport than back then.

[The Stranger]

+I doubt that's forced marching... they could march a lot faster.

[CBR]

For long marches the average distance seem to have been around 15 miles/day for most armies. Some cavalry raids did like 5-600 miles in around 14 days IIRC but was smaller units and with the loss of horses to fatigue etc.

40+ miles/day for infantry was possible but such forced marches was done for just a few days only.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...t/m/march2.asc


CBR

[The Wizard]

I've heard Julius Caesar force-marched his army over eighty kilometers in a single day while countering either the Nervii Belgae or Vercingetorix. This is long before trains, trucks, and APCs, mind you.

[cegorach]

OK. Enough with those bloody Mongols.



I have found two interesting examples from history of Poland - namely XVIIth century.

Sobieski's army marching towards Vienna - 27 kilometers per day which was considered a great speed at that time.

Chodkiewicz before battle at Kircholm - 125 kilometers in TWO days.

In both cases these armies included a large number of supply wagons and infantry.

All cavalry forces were much faster of course, but it is not a point to talk about these, I will only add that many armies were capable to achive similar speed to those of Mongol forces.

[Didz]

Given that a man can only walk at a speed of about 4 miles per hour there is a physical limit to how far an army on foot could travel in one day.

The actual distance tends to vary according to how many hours the army is forced to march over a 24 hour period. The maximum obviously being twenty four with no breaks for rest or food, so theoretically the maximum distance an army can march in one day must be around 96 miles. Any distance greater than that would have to be explained.

In practice most armies marched for 2 to 3 hours twice a day with a one or two hour break around midday for lunch, giving an average daily march rate of between 8 and 14 miles per day. A forced march merely involves marching for longer not faster.

Incidently, I read the other day that Crawford increased the daily marching distance covered by the Light Division in the Peninsula not by making them march faster but by ordering that no man was to step out of the ranks to avoid a puddle or other obstruction in their path. He reasoned that men stepping out of ranks to avoid such obsticals caused a small delay which triggered an ever increasing ripple of lost impetus down the column costing the division the equivalent of over one hours march. The men hated him for it, but were punished if they stepped around of over a puddle and in doing so earned the reputation for being the fastest division in the British army.