The Franco-Prussian war was the first prototype of a modern war, one featuring the use of railroads, artillery, and all the new technology of creation and destruction that had come into existence since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815
Not particularly important, but doesn’t the American civil war from a few years earlier also fit this description?
(Even if it does, Bloch may have been less familiar with it.)
Not particularly important, but doesn’t the American civil war from a few years earlier also fit this description?
This seems right to me; my impression is that the impact of railroads was pretty one-sided in the American civil war (where the North had an extensive and connected rail network that they used a bunch, and the South didn’t have as much capacity to begin with and lost it quickly), whereas both France and Prussia had significant rail networks in 1870 (tho the Prussian one was laid out a bit more effectively for war than the French one, which had Paris as the sole hub, meaning if you wanted to move things from one bit of the front line to another you had to backtrack a lot first).
That is not true; the CSA had worse railroads, but they were still important throughout the war. Some of the most important Union offensives late in the war- the Atlanta campaign and the siege of Petersburg- were intended to sever the South’s railroads; and the war ended almost immediately after the Union cut off the railroad routes to the CSA capital of Richmond at the Battle of Five Forks. Both sides were heavily reliant on railroads for supply, and also used railroads to move troops (for the CSA, e.g. moving Longstreet’s corps to fight at Chickamagua).
Nitpick—for replies like this, it’s helpful if you say which part of the parent comment you’re objecting to.
Obviously the reader can figure it out from the rest of your comment, but (especially since I didn’t immediately recognize CSA as referring to the Confederate States of America) I wasn’t sure what your first sentence was saying. A quote of the offending sentence from the parent comment would have been helpful.
Not particularly important, but doesn’t the American civil war from a few years earlier also fit this description?
(Even if it does, Bloch may have been less familiar with it.)
This seems right to me; my impression is that the impact of railroads was pretty one-sided in the American civil war (where the North had an extensive and connected rail network that they used a bunch, and the South didn’t have as much capacity to begin with and lost it quickly), whereas both France and Prussia had significant rail networks in 1870 (tho the Prussian one was laid out a bit more effectively for war than the French one, which had Paris as the sole hub, meaning if you wanted to move things from one bit of the front line to another you had to backtrack a lot first).
That is not true; the CSA had worse railroads, but they were still important throughout the war. Some of the most important Union offensives late in the war- the Atlanta campaign and the siege of Petersburg- were intended to sever the South’s railroads; and the war ended almost immediately after the Union cut off the railroad routes to the CSA capital of Richmond at the Battle of Five Forks. Both sides were heavily reliant on railroads for supply, and also used railroads to move troops (for the CSA, e.g. moving Longstreet’s corps to fight at Chickamagua).
Nitpick—for replies like this, it’s helpful if you say which part of the parent comment you’re objecting to.
Obviously the reader can figure it out from the rest of your comment, but (especially since I didn’t immediately recognize CSA as referring to the Confederate States of America) I wasn’t sure what your first sentence was saying. A quote of the offending sentence from the parent comment would have been helpful.