Forward Physics with the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

The forward physics program of the CMS experiment at the LHC spans a broad range of diverse physics topics including studies of low-$x$ QCD and diffractive scattering, multi-parton interactions and underlying event structure, $\gamma$-mediated processes and luminosity determination, Monte Carlo tuning and even MSSM Higgs discovery in central exclusive production. In this article, the forward detector instrumentation around the CMS interaction point is described and the prospects for diffractive and forward physics using the CMS forward detectors are summarized. In addition, first observation of forward jets as well as early measurements of the forward energy flow in the pseudorapidity range $3.15<I\etaI<4.9$ at $\sqrt{s}=0.9$~TeV, $2.36$~TeV and $7$~TeV are presented.