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BIBLIOGRAPHY 376 INDEX 398

PREFATORY NOTE.

The extent to which railways are being used in the present War of the Nations has taken quite by surprise a world whose military historians, in their accounts of what armies have done or have failed to do on the battle-field in the past, have too often disregarded such matters of detail as to how the armies got there and the possible effect of good or defective transport conditions, including the maintenance of supplies and communications, on the whole course of a campaign.

In the gigantic struggle now proceeding, these matters of detail are found to be of transcendant importance. The part which railways are playing in the struggle has, indeed--in keeping with the magnitude of the struggle itself--assumed proportions unexampled in history. Whilst this is so it is, nevertheless, a remarkable fact that although much has been said as to the conditions of military unpreparedness in which the outbreak of hostilities in August, 1914, found the Allies, there has, so far as I am aware, been no suggestion of any inability on the part of the railways to meet, at once, from the very moment war was declared, all the requirements of military transport. In this respect, indeed, the organisation, the preparedness, and the efficiency throughout alike of the British and of the French railways have been fully equal to those of the German railways themselves.

As regards British conditions, especially, much interest attaches to some remarks made by Sir Charles Owens, formerly General Manager of the London and South Western Railway Company, in the course of an address delivered by him to students of the London School of Economics on October 12, 1914. He told how, some five or six years ago, he had met at a social function the Secretary of State for War, who, after dinner, took him aside and asked, "Do you think in any emergency which might arise in this country the railways would be able to cope with it adequately?" To this question Sir Charles replied, "I will stake my reputation as a railway man that the country could not concentrate men and materials half so fast as the railways could deal with them; but the management of the railways must be left in the hands of railway men." We have here an affirmation and a proviso. That the affirmation was warranted has been abundantly proved by what the British railways have accomplished in the emergency that has arisen. The special significance of the proviso will be understood in the light of what I record in the present work concerning the control of railways in war.

Taking the railways of all the countries, whether friends or foes, concerned in the present World-War, and assuming, for the sake of argument, that all, without exception, have accomplished marvels in the way of military transport, one must, nevertheless, bear in mind two important considerations:--

That, apart from the huge proportions of the scale upon which, in the aggregate, the railways are being required to serve military purposes, the present conflict, in spite of its magnitude, has thus far produced no absolutely new factor in the employment of railways for war except as regards the use of air-craft for their destruction.

That when hostilities were declared in August, 1914, the subject of the employment of railways for the purposes of war had already been under the consideration of railway and military experts in different countries for no fewer than eighty years, during which period, and as the result of vast study, much experience, and many blunders in or between wars in various parts of the world, there had been slowly evolved certain fixed principles and, also, subject to constant amendments, a recognised and comprehensive organisation which, accepted more or less completely by the leading nations, with modifications to suit their national circumstances and conditions, was designed to meet all contingencies, to provide, as far as human foresight could suggest, for all possible difficulties, and be capable of application instantly the need for it might arise.

The time has not yet come for telling all that the railways have thus far done during the war which has still to be fought out. That story, in the words of a railway man concerned therein, is at present "a sealed book." Meanwhile, however, it is desirable that the position as defined in the second of the two considerations given above should be fully realised, in order that what the railways and, so far as they have been aided by them, the combatants, have accomplished or are likely to accomplish may be better understood when the sealed book becomes an open one.

If, as suggested at the outset, the world has already been taken by surprise even by what the railways are known to have done, it may be still more surprised to learn that the construction of railways for strategical purposes was advocated in Germany as early as 1833; that in 1842 a scheme was elaborated for covering Germany with a network of strategical railways which, while serving the entire country, would more especially allow of war being conducted on two fronts--France and Russia--at the same time; and that in the same year attention was already being called in the French Chamber to the "aggressive lines" which Germany was building in the direction of France, while predictions were also being made that any new invasion of France by Germany would be between Metz and Strasburg.

If, again, it is found that a good deal of space is devoted in the present work to the War of Secession, criticism may, perhaps, be disarmed by the explanation that the American Civil War was practically the beginning of things as regards the scientific use of railways for war, and that many of the problems connected therewith were either started in the United States or were actually worked out there, precedents being established and examples being set which the rest of the world had simply to follow, adapt or perfect. The possibility of carrying on warfare at a great distance from the base of supplies by means of even a single line of single-track railway; the creation of an organised corps for the restoration, operation or destruction of railways; the control of railways in war by the railway or the military interests independently or jointly; the question as to when the railway could be used to advantage and when it would be better for the troops to march; the use of armoured trains; the evolution of the ambulance or the hospital train--all these, and many other matters besides, are to be traced back to the American Civil War of 1861-65, and are dealt with herein at what, it is hoped, will be found not undue length.

As for the building up of the subsequent organisation in Europe--Germany, France and England being the countries selected for special treatment in relation thereto--this, also, has had to be described with some regard for detail; and, incidentally, it is shown that the alleged perfection of Germany's arrangements when she went to war with France in 1870-71 is merely one of the fictions of history, so far as her military rail-transport was concerned; that France learned the bitter lesson taught her by the deplorable and undeniable imperfections of her own transport system--or no-system--on that occasion, and at once set about the creation of what was to become an organisation of the most complete and comprehensive character; and that the "beginning of things" in England, in the way of employing railways for the purposes of war, was the direct outcome of the conditions of semi-panic created here in 1859 by what was regarded as the prospect of an early invasion of this country by France, coupled with the then recognised deficiencies of our means of national defence.

Military railways, as employed in the Crimean War, the Abyssinian Campaign, the Franco-German War, the Russo-Turkish War and the Sudan are described; a detailed account is given of the use of railways in the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War; and this is followed by a description of the strategical railways constructed in Germany for the purpose of facilitating war on the possessions of her neighbours.

At the end of the volume there is a Bibliography of books, pamphlets and review or other articles relating to the use of railways for the purposes of war. In the first instance this compilation was based on a "List of References" prepared by the American Bureau of Railway Economics; but, while many items on that list have here been omitted, a considerable number of others have been inserted from other sources. The Bibliography is not offered as being in any way complete, but it may, nevertheless, be of advantage to students desirous of making further researches into the matters of history here specially treated.

The assistance rendered in other ways by the American Bureau of Railway Economics in the preparation of the present work has been most helpful. In the writing of the chapters concerning German designs on Africa, Asia Minor, etc., the resources of the well-arranged and admirably-indexed library of the Royal Colonial Institute have been of great service. I have, also, to express cordial acknowledgments to the General Managers and other officers of various leading railway companies for information given respecting the organisation of railways in this country for military purposes.

The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest

A NEW FACTOR

While the original purpose of railways was to promote the arts of peace, the wide scope of their possibilities in the direction, also, of furthering the arts of war began to be realised at a very early date after their success in the former capacity had been assured in Great Britain.

But when, on the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in 1830, a British regiment was conveyed thereon, in two hours, a journey of thirty-four miles, which they would have required two days to accomplish on foot, far-seeing men became still more impressed, and began to realise that there had, indeed, been introduced a new factor destined to exercise a powerful influence on the future conduct of war.

The geographical position of the United Kingdom led, in those early days, to greater importance being attached to the conveniences of railways as a means of transport than to their actual strategical and tactical advantages; and the issue by the War Office, in 1846, of a "Regulation Relative to the Conveyance of Her Majesty's Forces, their Baggage and Stores, by Rail," may have appeared to meet the requirements of the immediate situation, so far as this country was concerned.

On the Continent of Europe, however, the rivalry of nations divided from one another only by a more or less uncertain or varying frontier, and still powerfully influenced by the recollection of recent conflicts, resulted in much greater attention being paid to the possibilities of the new development.

The first definite proposals for the use of railways for strategical purposes were advanced, as early as 1833, by Friedrich Wilhelm Harkort, a Westphalian worthy who came to be better known in his native land as "Der alte Harkort." A participant in the Napoleonic wars, he had subsequently shown great energy and enterprise in the development of steam engines, hydraulic presses, iron-making, and other important industries in Germany; he had been the first writer in that country to give an account--as he did in 1825--of the progress England was making in respect to railways and steamships; and he had, in 1826, placed a working model of a railway in the garden of the Elberfeld Museum. These various efforts he followed up, in 1833, by bringing forward in the Westphalian Landtag a scheme for the building of a railway to connect the Weser and the Lippe. Later in the same year he published "Die Eisenbahn von Minden nach K?ln," in which he laid special stress on the value to Germany of the proposed line from a military point of view. With the help of such a railway, he argued, it would be possible to concentrate large bodies of troops at a given point much more speedily than if they marched by road; he made calculations as to what the actual saving in time, as well as in physical strain, would be in transporting Prussian troops from various specified centres to others; and he proceeded:--

Let us suppose that we had a railway and a telegraph line on the right bank of the Rhine, from Mainz to Wesel. Any crossing of the Rhine by the French would then scarcely be possible, since we should be able to bring a strong defensive force on the spot before the attempt could be developed.

These things may appear very strange to-day; yet in the womb of the future there slumbers the seed of great developments in railways, the results of which it is, as yet, quite beyond our powers to foresee.

Harkort's proposals gave rise to much vigorous controversy in Germany. The official classes condemned as "nonsensical fancies" his ideas, not only as to the usefulness of railways for the conveyance of troops, but, also, as to the utility of railways for any practical purposes whatever; and contemporary newspapers and periodicals, in turn, made him the butt of their ridicule.

The pros and cons of the use of railways for military purposes were, none the less, actively discussed in numerous pamphlets and treatises. Just as, in France, General Rumigny, adjutant to Louis-Philippe, had already foreshadowed the possibility of a sudden invasion by a German army reaching the frontier by rail, so, also, in Germany, in the words of one writer at this period, "anxious spirits shudder at the thought that, some fine spring morning, a hundred thousand Frenchmen, thirsting for war, will suddenly invade our peaceful valleys at bird-like speed, thanks to the new means of locomotion, and begin their old game over again." On the other hand there were military sceptics--such as the author of a pamphlet "Uber die Milit?rische Benutzung der Eisenbahnen" --who, basing their calculations on locomotive performances up to that date, asserted that, although the railway might be of service in the conveyance of supplies, guns and ammunition, it would be of no advantage in the transport of troops. These, they declared, would get to their destination sooner if they marched.

The most noticeable of the various publications issued in Germany at this period was a book by Carl Eduard P?nitz , which appeared at Adorf, Saxony, in 1842, under the title of "Die Eisenbahnen als milit?rische Operationslinien betrachtet, und durch Beispiele erla?tert." The writer of this remarkable book gave a comprehensive survey of the whole situation in regard to railways and war, so far as the subject could be dealt with in the light of railway developments and of actual experiences of troop movements by rail down to that time; and he argued strongly in favour of the advantages to be derived from the employment of railways for military purposes. He even suggested that, in the event of an inadequate supply of locomotives, or of operations having to be conducted in a mountainous country where locomotives could not be used for heavy traffic, the troops might still use their own horses to draw the coaches and wagons along the railway lines, so that the men would arrive fresh and fit for immediate fighting at the end of their journey.

Describing railways as the most powerful vehicle for the advancement of "Kultur" since the invention of printing, P?nitz showed how Belgium and Saxony were the two countries which had taken the initiative in railway construction on the Continent of Europe; and his references to the former country are especially deserving of being recalled, in view of recent events. He pointed to the good example which had been set by the "far-sighted and energetic" King of the Belgians, and continued:--

Although, in a land torn asunder by revolutionary factions, many wounds were still bleeding; and although the newly-created kingdom was threatened by foes within and without and could organise means of resistance only with great difficulty, there was, nevertheless, taken in hand a scheme for the construction of a network of railways designed to extend over the entire country, while at the present moment the greater part of that scheme has, in fact, been carried out. In this way King Leopold has raised up for himself a memorial the full value and significance of which may, perhaps, be appreciated only by generations yet to come.

While Belgium was thus shown to have been setting a good example, the only railways which Prussia then had in actual operation were the Berlin-Potsdam and the Berlin-Magdeburg-Leipzig lines; though Saxony had the Leipzig-Dresden line, and Bavaria the N?remberg-F?rth and the Munich-Augsburg lines. P?nitz, however, excused the backwardness of Prussia on the ground that if her Government had refused, for a long time, to sanction various projected railways, or had imposed heavy obligations in regard to them, such action was due, not to prejudice, but to "a wise foresight"--meaning, presumably, that Prussia was waiting to profit by the experience that other countries were gaining at their own cost.

Having dealt with all the arguments he could advance in favour of the general principle of employing railways for military purposes, P?nitz proceeded to elaborate a scheme for the construction of a network of strategical lines serving the whole of Germany, though intended, more especially, to protect her frontiers against attack by either France or Russia. Without, he said, being in the secrets of international politics, he thought he might safely presume that Germany's only fear of attack was from one of these two directions; and, although the relations of the Great Powers of Europe were then peaceful, a continuance of those conditions could not, of course, be guaranteed. So, he proceeded--

We have to look to these two fronts; and, if we want to avoid the risk of heavy losses at the outset, we needs must--also at the outset--be prepared to meet the enemy there with an overwhelming force. Every one knows that the strength of an army is multiplied by movements which are rapid in themselves and allow of the troops arriving at the end of their journey without fatigue.

In a powerful appeal--based on motives alike of patriotism, of national defence and of economic advantage--that his fellow-countrymen should support the scheme he thus put forward, P?nitz once more pointed to Belgium, saying:--

The youngest of all the European States has given us an example of what can be done by intelligence and good will. The network of Belgian railways will be of as much advantage in advancing the industries of that country as it will be in facilitating the defence of the land against attack by France. It will increase alike Belgium's prosperity and Belgium's security. And we Germans, who place so high a value on our intelligence, and are scarcely yet inclined to recognise the political independence of the Belgian people, shall we remain so blind as not to see what is needed for our own safety?

P?nitz could not, of course, anticipate in 1842 that the time would come when his country, acting to the full on the advice he was then giving, would have her strategic railways, not only to the French and the Russian, but, also, to the Belgian frontier, and would use those in the last-mentioned direction to crush remorselessly the little nation concerning which he himself was using words of such generous sympathy and approbation.

The ideas and proposals put forward by P?nitz did much to stimulate the discussion of the general question, while the military authorities of Germany were moved to make investigations into it on their own account, there being issued in Berlin, about 1848 or 1850, a "Survey of the Traffic and Equipment of German and of neighbouring foreign Railways for military purposes, based on information collected by the Great General Staff."

In France, also, there were those who, quite early in the days of the new means of transport, predicted the important service it was likely to render for the purposes of war no less than for those of peace.

General Lamarque declared in the French Chamber of Deputies in 1832, or 1833, that the strategical use of railways would lead to "a revolution in military science as great as that which had been brought about by the use of gunpowder."

At the sitting of the Chamber on May 25, 1833, M. de B?rigny, in urging the "incontestable" importance of railways, said:--

From the point of view of national defence, what advantages do they not present! An army, with all its material, could, in a few days, be transported from the north to the south, from the east to the west, of France. If a country could thus speedily carry considerable masses of troops to any given point on its frontiers, would it not become invincible, and would it not, also, be in a position to effect great economies in its military expenditure?

In a further debate on June 8, 1837, M. Dufaure declared that railways had a greater mission to fulfil than that of offering facilities to industry or than that of conferring benefits on private interests. Was it a matter of no account, he asked, that they should be able in one night to send troops to all the frontiers of France, from Paris to the banks of the Rhine, from Lyons to the foot of the Alps, with an assurance of their arriving fresh and ready for combat?

Then, in 1842, M. Marschall, advocating the construction of a line from Paris to Strasburg, predicted that any new invasion of France by Germany would most probably be attempted between Metz and Strasburg. He further said:--

It is there that the German Confederation is converging a formidable system of railways from Cologne, Mayence and Mannheim.... Twenty-four hours will suffice for our neighbours to concentrate on the Rhine the forces of Prussia, Austria and the Confederation, and on the morrow an army of 400,000 men could invade our territory by that breach of forty leagues between Thionville and Lauterburg, which are the outposts of Strasburg and Metz. Three months later, the reserve system organised in Prussia and in some of the other German States would allow of a second Army being sent of equal force to the other. The title of "aggressive lines" given by our neighbours to these railways leave us with no room for doubt as to their intentions. Studies for an expedition against Paris by way of Lorraine and Champagne can hardly be regarded as indicative of a sentiment of fraternity.

France, however, had no inclination at that time to build railways designed to serve military purposes, whether from the point of view of aggression or even from that of national defence; so that in a letter to his brother Ludwig, written April 13, 1844, von Moltke, then a member of the General Staff of the Fourth Army Corps of the Prussian Army, declared that whilst Germany was building railways, the French Chamber was only discussing them. This was so far the case that when, later on, Germany had nearly 3,300 miles of railway France was operating only a little over 1,000 miles.

Apart from the experiences, on quite a small scale, which had been obtained on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the earliest example of what railways could do in the transport of large bodies of troops was afforded in 1846, when Prussia's Sixth Army Corps--consisting of over 12,000 men, together with horses, guns, road vehicles and ammunition--was moved by rail, upon two lines, to Cracow. In 1849 a Russian corps of 30,000 men, with all its equipment, was taken by rail from its cantonments in Poland to G?ding, Moravia, whence it effected a junction with the Austrian army. There was, also, a certain movement of German troops by rail to Schleswig-Holstein in the troubles of 1848-50; but of greater importance than these other instances was the transport of an Austrian army of 75,000 men, 8,000 horses and 1,000 vehicles from Vienna and Hungary to the Silesian frontier in the early winter of 1850.

It is true that, owing to the combined disadvantages of single-line railways, inadequate staff and rolling stock, unfavourable weather, lack of previous preparations and of transport regulations, and delays from various unforeseen causes, no fewer than twenty-six days were occupied in the transport, although the journey was one of only about 150 miles. It was, also, admitted that the troops could have marched the distance in the same time. All the same, as told by Regierungsrat Wernekke, the movement of so large a body of troops by rail at all was regarded as especially instructive. It was the cause of greater attention being paid to the use of railways for military purposes, while it further led to the drawing up, in May, 1851, of a scheme for the construction throughout the Austrian monarchy of railways from the special point of view of strategical requirements; and to a reorganisation of the methods hitherto adopted for the transport of troops by rail, the result being that the next considerable movement in Austria--in the year 1853--was conducted with "unprecedented regularity and efficiency," and this, also, without any cessation of the ordinary traffic of the lines concerned.

In 1851 a further striking object lesson of the usefulness of railways was afforded by the moving of a division of 14,500 men, with nearly 2,000 horses, 48 guns and 464 vehicles, from Cracow to Hradish, a distance of 187 miles, in two days. Reckoning that a large column of troops, with all its impedimenta, would march twelve miles per day, and allowing for one day's rest in seven, the movement would, in this instance, have occupied fifteen days by road instead of two days by rail.

The French railways, especially, attained a remarkable degree of success. In eighty-six days--from April 19 to July 15--they transported an aggregate of 604,000 men and over 129,000 horses, including nearly 228,000 men and 37,000 horses sent to Culox, Marseilles, Toulon, Grenoble and Aix by lines in the south-east. The greatest movements took place during the ten days from April 20 to April 30, when the Paris-Lyons Company, without interrupting the ordinary traffic, conveyed an average per day of 8,421 men and 512 horses. On April 25, a maximum of 12,138 men and 655 horses was attained. During the eighty-six days there were run on the lines of the same company a total of 2,636 trains, including 253 military specials. It was estimated that the 75,966 men and 4,469 horses transported by rail from Paris to the Mediterranean or to the frontiers of the Kingdom of Sardinia between April 20 and April 30 would have taken sixty days to make the journey by road. In effect, the rate of transit by rail was six times greater than the rate of progress by marching would have been, and this, again, was about double as fast as the best achievement recorded up to that time on the German railways. The Chasseurs de Vincennes are described as leaving the station at Turin full of vigour and activity, and with none of the fatigue or the reduction in numbers which would have occurred had they made the journey by road.

As against, however, the advantage thus gained by the quicker transport of the French troops to the seat of war, due to the successful manner in which the railways were operated, there had to be set some serious defects in administrative organisation. When the men got to the end of their rail journey there was a more or less prolonged waiting for the food and other necessaries which were to follow. There were grave deficiencies, also, in the dispatch of the subsequent supplies. On June 25, the day after the defeat of the Austrians, the French troops had no provisions at all for twenty-four hours, except some biscuits which were so mouldy that no one could eat them. Their horses, also, were without fodder. In these circumstances it was impossible to follow up the Austrians in their retreat beyond the Mincio.

Thus the efficiency of the French railways was to a large extent negatived by the inefficiency of the military administration; and in these respects France had a foretaste, in 1859, of experiences to be repeated on a much graver scale in the Franco-German War of 1870-71.

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