Rapid marches.
A standard writer on the Military Art states that, as a general rule, troops marching for many days in succession will move at the rate of from fifteen to twenty miles per day. In forced marches, or in pursuit of a flying enemy, they will average from twenty to twenty-five miles per day; and for only two or three days successively, with favorable roads, thirty miles per day may be calculated on.--The author mentions the following instances of rapid marches:The Roman infantry, in Scipio's African campaigns, frequently marched twenty miles in five hours, each soldier carrying from fifty to eighty pounds of baggage. Septimus Severus marched from Vienna to Rome, a distance of eight hundred miles, in forty days. Cæsar marched from Rome to the Sierra Morena, in Spain, a distance of four hundred and fifty leagues, twenty- three days.
The French, for general activity during a campaign, have no rivals. In 1797, Napoleon, in less than four days, marched near fifty leagues, fought three battles, and captured more than twenty thousand prisoners.
In the campaign of 1800 Macdonald, wishing to prevent the escape of London, marched in a single day forty miles, crossing rivers, and climbing mountains and glaciers.
In 1805 the French infantry, pursuing the Archduke Ferdinand in his retreat from Ulm, marched thirty miles a day in terrible weather, and over roads almost impassable for artillery. In the campaign of 1806 the French infantry pursued the Prussians at the rate of twenty-five to thirty miles per day. Napoleon marched fifty thousand men from Madrid to Astorga nearly twenty-five miles a day for ten days, through deep snows, across high mountains, and rivers swollen by the winter rains.
In 1812 the French forces, under Clausel, after tremendous efforts at the battle of Salamanca, retreated forty miles in a little less than twelve hours.
In 1814 Napoleon marched at the rate of ten leagues a day, fighting a battle besides every twenty-four hours. Hastening to the succor of Paris, he marched seventy miles in thirty-six hours.
On his return from Elba, in 1815, his guards marched fifty miles the first day after landing; then traversed two hundred miles of a rough and mountainous country in six days, and reached Paris, a distance of six hundred miles, in less than twenty days.
In 1809, on the day after the battle of Talavera, the English General Crawford, fearing that Wellington was hard pressed, marched three thousand men sixty-two miles in twenty-six hours. A Spanish regiment once marched fifty miles in twenty-one hours.
The author states that though cavalry, for a single day, will march a greater distance than infantry, for a campaign of several months the infantry will march over the most ground. The cavalry of Murat displayed wonderful activity, and occasionally the English cavalry. In 1803 Wellington's cavalry in India marched sixty miles in thirty-two hours. The march of the English cavalry under Lord Lake, before the battle of Furmchabad, surpasses any achievement of the Romans or the French. He is said to have marched seventy miles in twenty-four hours.
