Floats and Buoyed Rafts in Military operations

TIMES ’ war correspondent in a despatch dated 7th February 1945, has described how a regiment of Marshal Koniev’s Russian army forced the crossing of the A river Oder, upstream from Breslau, by loading their equipment upon ‘ doors, gates, tables, benches, greatcoats stuffed with straw and hay, rafts and reed rafts ’. These they pushed before them over the ice and then propelled (swimming ? ) across the swirling water still free of ice in the middle of the channel. Many of the men who plunged into the stream were swept downstream, but a sufficient number managed the crossing safely and succeeded in gaining and in maintaining footholds at two places on the further bank. This account serves as a reminder that men of the immortal ‘ Ten Thousand ’* as well as troops Ied by Alexander in several of his campaigns, employed related expedients when faced with the necessity of crossing broad rivers in enemy territory or occupation, when boats were lacking or insufficient in number for the purpose. These ancient expedients fall into three classes :-(A) the employment of watertight bags filled with hay, chaff or other light and buoyant material ; (B) swimming floats and rafts buoyed usually by inflated skins-rarely by earthen pots or by dried gourds ; and (c) wicker-framed craft of the coracle and curragh type. The oldest of these seem to have been those of the first class, for instances of their use are the most numerous and the* most important of those related by Greek and Roman historians. The earliest of the classical records of the forcing of a river crossing is that described by Xenophon in his Anabasis ( I , 5 , 10). There he tells how the Greek mercenaries supporting Cyrus the Younger in his attempt to gain the Persian throne, had reached a point on the Euphrates opposite the large and flourishing city of Charmande-its site is near the modern Hit, notable for its bitumen wells. Provisions were on the verge of exhaustion, so the Greeks ‘ took the skins which they used as tent-coverings and filled them with light grass ; they then. compressed and stitched them tightly together by the ends, so that the water might not touch the hay. On these they crossed and got provisions : wine made from the date-nut, and millet or panic-corn, the common staple of the country ’. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, Alexander the Great adopted a similar expedient to ferry his troops across the Danube in order’to attack the wild Getae, massed in great numbers on the opposite bank. Few boats were available, so Alexander, doubtless calling to mind the method adopted by the Greek soldiers of Cyrfls to cross the Euphrates, ordered the hides which served his troops as tent-covers to be filled with hay. On these, and in dugouts seized from the river-dwellers, Alexainder succeeded in transporting 1500 cavalry and 4000 infantry across the river. Presumably the horses were made to swim over. The same primitive device was again utilized by Alexander during his pursuit of Bessus into Bactria (328 B.c.). On reaching the Oxus his progress was halted, for neither boats nor boat-building material were available-the assassin of Darius had