Was Prussia the first country to use railways for military usage?

[railroadyoshi]

Hello there.

I would not be surprised if the Prussians were the first to use the railway for military use. Ever since Frederick I, and especially after Frederick II took the throne in 1740, the Prussian military was the most effective and most renowned in Europe for over a century

The mention of a railway being used at Constantinople by Mehmed (An Ottoman Turk who, yes, took the city in 1453 effectively ending the Middle Ages) is interesting. I was taught that under the cover of dark a 2 mile road was built to drop the army into the Golden Horn behind the chain, but I had heard no mention of a wooden track.

[edit] gosh! How much am I forgetting? I hate to run off on a tangent like this but forgetting which group of Turks it was?! Yes, the Seljuks were a long ways back in the mid 1050's I believe. Thank you jimrice4449.

[FJ and G]

In 1846, Prussia was first to take military advantage of the railway, using it to move an army corps with horses and guns to Cracow

 

That was the same year as the Mexican War. No railways operated in Texas during that time and I cannot find any mention of troops being moved from the North via railway, esp. since the North wasn't that enthusiastic about the war as it was seen as a way to open up more slave states. 

There's an intriguing glimpse at a primitive railway used to wrest control of Constantinople back in 1453 (?): A passage:

Mehmed knew that he must find a way of getting part of his fleet into the Golden Horn so that he could attack the sea walls. With audacious ingenuity his engineers contrived to build tracks up and over the hill behind Galata from the Bosporos. Οn the morning of 23 April the Emperor and his people were horrified to see that about seventy of the smaller Turkish ships had been lowered into the water well behind the protective boom. A Venetian attempt to set fire to them ended in disaster.

found in

http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/nicol_fall.html

 from

Donald M. Nicol

The Fall of Constantinople

From: Donald M. Nicol, The Immortal Emperor, Cambridge Univ. Press, Canto edition, 1992. (ISBN 0 521 41456 3). © Cambridge U.P.

 

I believe it was a wooden rail contraption but am not too sure. If anyone has info on early railways in the usage of military campaigns, I'd love to hear about it.

 

Incidentally, a short incline railway was instrumental in securing victory for Britain and her allies in the Crimean War of 1855-6 (?). A stationary steam engine pulled cars up the incline and horses pulled the trains from there. It connected a port near Sevastopol with the troops on a plateau about 500 feet up. Ordinary wagons were mired in mud and proved useless.

 

thanks 

 

 

1846
P