The Strategic Role of Railways

Abstract

The defeat of Austria by Prussia in 1866 revealed that the railways would become a major military asset in Europe. By that time, the American railroads had already played a significant role in the Civil War. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was the first European armed conflict where the railways played a decisive role.1 During the preceding decades, the rhetoric on the advent of peace through the development of improved communications was often accompanied by arguments stressing the strategic potential of the railways on the domestic and foreign fronts. Both peace- and wartime capability of railways were used to justify their development, often in the same speech or document. The role and performance of the railways in time of war has been woven into the history of Europe since the Franco-Prussian War.2 Noteworthy is also the fact that military features were integral to railway development. Initial railway construction, organization, and discipline relied on military models, and the military authorities exerted some direct or indirect influence during the implantation process. Private initiative or state projects, railways were gradually incorporated in the military arsenal during the second half of the nineteenth century.