English

Noun

forced march ‎(plural forced marches)

1. (military) A movement on foot by soldiers or military prisoners, who must, in order to satisfy a military requirement, travel at a speed or in adverse conditions that would normally tire them excessively.
   • 1885, Ulysses S. Grant, Personal memoirs of U.S. Grant, Chapter 28:

     I did not believe this possible because of the distance and the condition of the roads, which was bad; besides, troops after a forced march of twenty miles are not in a good condition for fighting the moment they get through.

   • 1914, Joseph A. Altsheler, The Scouts of Stonewall, ch. 4:

     [M]any of their leaders could not yet wholly believe that Jackson and his army, making a forced march in the dead of winter, were at hand.

   • 2001 June 24, Howard Chua-Eoan, "War of the Worlds," Time (retrieved 8 August 2013):

     American and Filipino prisoners from the fall of Corregidor in 1942 were refused food and water on a six-day, 97-km forced march to their place of confinement at Camp O'Donnell.

See also

• Loaded march Loaded march on Wikipedia
• death march
• just march