We march to victory or we march to defeat, but we go forward — only forward.

The line frames progress as an imperative rather than a guarantee of success: the march continues regardless of whether the outcome is triumph or ruin. Its rhetoric emphasizes momentum, resolve, and the refusal (or inability) to retreat, suggesting a worldview in which history and personal ambition are driven by forward motion even when the destination is uncertain. The dash and repetition of “forward” sharpen the sense of fatalistic determination—an insistence that action must proceed despite risk, doubt, or looming loss. Read this way, the quote can function both as a rallying maxim and as a warning about the costs of relentless advance when reflection or reversal is no longer possible.