5 The nineteenth century, II
Technology, warfare and
international orderIntroduction: Waterloo to the Marne
Today, defence experts argue about the implications of new information technology for
warfare. In the mid-nineteenth century their predecessors debated the meaning of the
railway, the electric telegraph and, above all else, the new firepower available to infantry.
The need to make strategic, operational and tactical sense of new technology, to find
workable doctrine to govern its use, became a permanent challenge once the Industrial
Revolution had gathered pace in the second quarter of the century.
Strategists in the 1 8 40s and 1 8 50s, for example, had to understand the promise and
the potential pitfalls of the railway. Yes, it provides relatively speedy transport for
men, animals, equipment and food, but only if the lines connect places useful to war-
making. Will not total dependence on the railway restrict operational choice; indeed,
make it predictable to an enemy? And might not the lines be sabotaged? Furthermore,
what happens at the end of the line? For tactical, and possibly even operational, military
movement, armies will still have to advance or retreat as the Romans did, on foot and
hooves. In addition, the loading and unloading of mountains of equipment, munitions
and food for men and animals is a large – or by 1914–1 8 a monumental – logistical task.
A further consideration, one that was to become the engine pushing all the European
great powers into the creation of a more or less capable general staff, was that a state
whose military mobilization plans were utterly dependent upon rail transport required
mastery of, and contingent control over, railway timetabling. Unless military establish-
ments were expert in the planning and management of rail traffic, the result would be
chaos in a time of crisis, probably followed promptly by defeat in a single campaign for
a continental power. The experience of war in 1 8 66 and 1 8 70 appeared to demonstrate
that decisive victory could be achieved by the outcome of an initial offensive alone. And
that victorious offensive could be launched only if military professionals utilized railways
efficiently.