THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MILITARY MOTOR
The Opinions of German and British Military Experts--The Old and
New Methods of Transport and Supply--How Troops in the Field are
Fed.
Although we, in Great Britain, have developed the industrial
motor vehicle almost entirely with a view to the improvement of
communications in time of peace, various circumstances, which will
be referred to in more detail in a later chapter, have led other
countries to fasten their attention more firmly on to the application
of mechanical power to military needs. Very considerable sums of money
have been expended during the past five or six years with this end in
view, and such expenditure could only have been justified if a full
study of the probable course of a great war under modern conditions
had led to the conclusion that the motor is something more than an
accessory and convenience, but is rather one of the prime essentials of
success. In order to prove that this view is, in fact, held by those
who have devoted their whole time to the study of modern warfare, one
need go no further than the now famous or notorious book on _Germany
and the Next War_ by General F. von Bernhardi:
“In a future European war ‘masses’ will be employed to an extent
unprecedented in any previous one. Weapons will be used whose
deadliness will exceed all previous experience. More effective and
varied means of communication will be available than were known in
earlier wars. These three momentous factors will mark the war of
the future.”
From this statement it is clear that, even if only improvement in
means of communication is considered, the motor vehicle forms one of
the three greatest factors in moulding the course of modern warfare.
Railways have been available in many previous wars, and there can be
no doubt that the reference to more effective and varied means of
communication is occasioned almost entirely by the development of
motor vehicles suitable for use in the transport and supply columns.
Simultaneously, both of the other prime factors are affected by the
introduction of motor vehicles. Road motors can assist materially in
massing men rapidly at any desired point, and mechanical power is
absolutely essential for the transport of guns of enormous calibre, the
employment of which in the field is only in this way rendered possible.
Quoting again from the same authority we get an idea of the bearing of
our subject upon a military theory now universally accepted as true.
“The commander who can carry out all operations quicker than
the enemy, and can concentrate and employ greater masses in a
narrow space than they can, will always be in a position to
collect a numerically superior force in the decisive direction;
if he controls the more effective troops he will gain decisive
successes against one part of the hostile army, and will be able
to exploit them against other divisions of it before the enemy
can gain equivalent advantages in other parts of the field.... If
the assailant can advance in the decisive direction with superior
numbers, and can win the day, because the enemy cannot utilise
his numerical superiority, there is a possibility of an ultimate
victory over the arithmetically stronger army.”
Taking this statement in conjunction with the well-known German theory
that safety only lies in offensive warfare, we realise immediately the
incalculable importance of the introduction of any new system which
will give to large bodies of men the powers of more free and more rapid
movement. When armies are increased beyond certain numerical limits,
it becomes absolutely necessary for them to depend upon supplies
brought up regularly from the rear, and not upon the uncertainties of
living upon the country.
“Improved means of communication facilitate the handling and
feeding of large masses, but tie them down to railway systems and
main roads, and must, if they fail or break down in the course of
a campaign, aggravate the difficulties, because the troops were
accustomed to their use, and the commanders counted upon them.”
We have here a complete recognition of two most important points. The
first is, that the use of motors in the transport and supply columns,
if successfully carried on, represents an enormous advantage, which may
even allow ultimate victory to come to a numerically inferior army. In
the second place, we have the acknowledgment that any breakdown in the
service for which the motor vehicles are responsible, will be fatal to
success.
A military correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ has recently
emphasised the same point. He has pointed out that hitherto the massing
of an army of about a quarter of a million men has represented the
probable limit of possibilities, and that even then such numbers could
only be massed for a short period. The Russo-Japanese war, in which
larger numbers were engaged, has by no means disproved this theory,
since it partook of the nature of a siege rather than that of a field
campaign. At the present moment, the enormous numbers dealt with
envolve certain limitations in movement, the scope of which is dictated
by the distribution of railways and of roads. Without motor transport,
the rate of movement of huge armies would be necessarily very slow, the
radius of action from railhead would be small, and the daily movement
of the troops would be strictly circumscribed for more reasons than
one. The effect of the introduction of motor transport is somewhat
similar to that which would be obtained if the railway could, in a few
hours, be extended in any direction along any made road for a distance
of about forty or fifty miles. The delivery of supplies, as it were in
retail, to the troops must still be carried out by horse transport,
since motor lorries are not suitable for continuous use where made
roads do not exist. The comparatively slow movement of horsed vehicles
even now affects the rate of progress of an army. When huge bodies of
men are in motion, the depth from the front to the rear of the army is
very considerable, and at the end of the day the supplies have to be
brought up from the rear to the front in time to enable the whole force
to be fed.
[Illustration: PART OF BIG FLEET OF “ALBION” LORRIES PURCHASED BY THE
BRITISH WAR OFFICE.]
[Illustration: A GROUP OF BRITISH “BERNA” LORRIES TAKEN OVER BY THE WAR
DEPARTMENT.]
[Illustration: A FLEET OF “THORNYCROFT” LORRIES REQUISITIONED FOR
SERVICE.]
[Illustration: A FLEET OF “HALLFORD” LORRIES CALLED UP IMMEDIATELY ON
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR.]
The use of transport and supply motors does not amount merely to the
employment of a large number of these machines for miscellaneous
duties, but rather corresponds to bringing into existence a new link
in the chain of the main system of supply. The existence of railways
behind the army is assumed. At some safe point along the railway is
formed the base, and from this base stores are brought up to a point
known as “railhead,” This is the point where, for the time
being, military rail traffic ceases. It is evident that railhead is
a variable quantity, liable to move forward or backward from day to
day. The main accumulation of stores is at the base, and the stock at
railhead at any moment consists only of sufficient to meet one day’s
requirements. Before the introduction of motor transport, the whole
of the supplies from railhead had to be taken by horsed vehicle, and
subsequently distributed in the same way among the troops. Under the
new method, motor lorries carry the supplies up to a place called
“re-filling point,” which is a movable point situated from day to day
in the most convenient position possible to arrange, with a view to the
distribution of supplies by horsed vehicle to the army.
In the old system, the transport vehicles worked in _echelons_. The
first of these, with the baggage and supplies for a day, followed so
closely behind the troops as to be able to join them every night.
The next, half a day’s march behind, carried supplies sufficient to
replenish the first column daily. Further back again were other
_echelons_ carrying on the same scheme. This meant that the whole of
the roads for enormous distances behind the forces were encumbered
by transport. Between railhead and the army there were many links
involving endless possibilities of confusion, and consequently shortage
in supplies. Moreover, food came up to the troops very slowly from the
base, and it was impossible to supply a regular stock of fresh meat and
bread.
The advantage of the new system is based on the speed capacity of the
motor vehicle, a supplementary point being an enormous reduction in
the length of a column carrying a given quantity of supplies. It is,
however, the higher speed of the motor which has the greatest effect,
since it enables many columns to be replaced by one. In the words of
Colonel Paul: “One _echelon_ of mechanical transport can do the work
of five _echelons_ of horse transport, and one column will suffice to
connect the horse transport immediately behind the troops with the
railway.”
The result is to facilitate operations of troops up to a distance from
railhead represented by half of a full day’s work for the motors. The
simplest way of appreciating the result obtained is to take an actual
example. Under the new system, on, let us say, Tuesday evening, the
soldier at the front is provided with a hot meal of fresh meat, cooked
by the regimental travelling kitchens on the march. This food had been
handed over to the kitchens on Monday evening by the distributing
horsed vehicles, which had received it sometime during Monday at the
re-filling point a few miles back from the motor supply column, which
had left railhead perhaps 50 miles from the front in the small hours of
Monday morning. Previously, the supplies had been brought down by rail
from the base, and in this way the food which the soldiers are eating
on Tuesday night, was probably to be found in the neighbourhood of the
base on Sunday afternoon in the shape of live animals.
Working out the scheme from a rather different point of view, the
soldier on the Tuesday night is in possession of Wednesday’s supply
of bread and cheese, and an emergency ration of preserved meat in
case of any delays or breakdown in the transport service. The horsed
vehicles are at the time empty, and are returning to meet the motors
at re-filling point. The motors by this time are back at railhead
waiting for Wednesday’s supplies to be discharged from the railway
trains. At about three o’clock on Wednesday morning the motors will be
loaded and ready to start. Their speed capacity will enable them easily
to catch up with the distributing horsed vehicles before the end of
Wednesday’s march, and to tranship their supplies at re-filling point
for distribution on Wednesday evening.
The whole system is, in reality, very simple, and it enables large
armies in the field to be supplied daily with fresh meat and bread
instead of being dependent on food brought up slowly and in many
stages, and for that reason necessarily of a character less nutritious,
and much more liable in the long run to cause illness among the men.
At the same time, the big carrying capacity of the motor has served
to clear the roads behind the army of an enormous block of vehicles
essential in the past, but now no longer necessary. In connection with
this point, Colonel R. H. Ewart, D.S.O., representing the Indian Office
at the Imperial Motor Transport Conference of 1913, gave some very
interesting figures, which may be quoted as an extreme case:
“Up to 1910 the reports show that there were nearly
five-and-a-half million bullock carts in British India alone, and
in all our wars up to date, we have had to mobilise a very large
number of these carts for our line of communication work. We find
that when moving in large bodies, the utmost speed we can rely upon
is about one-and-a-half miles an hour. We have worked out that it
takes six bullock carts to move in eighty days what one 2-ton lorry
can transport in ten. The bullock carts take up twice the room on
the road for a given load, and in the matter of establishment--a
question which you will all realise in the time of war is a very
serious one--it takes thirty-five men, drivers, artificers and
supervisors to look after what one man could do with a lorry.”
From these figures it will be seen what an enormous saving is effected
by the use of motors, even if we only take the point of view of the
feeding, maintenance and payment of the men actually employed in the
transport columns themselves.
The impossibility of imposing upon horsed vehicles the necessity for
gaining fifty or even thirty miles in the course of a day, in order to
catch up by the evening with an advancing army after leaving railhead
in the morning, is perfectly obvious. The truth of the statement
already made that the use of motors for transport and supply work is
a necessity and not merely a convenience in modern warfare, is thus
made clear, and under the circumstances, readers who are perhaps more
attracted by the more showy, but less essential, uses of motors in
war, will understand that a consideration of the subject of this book
must necessarily be devoted very largely to the organisation and
_matériel_ of the supply columns.
The class of vehicle most commonly favoured for the work of feeding
troops in the field is the 3-ton petrol lorry, capable of covering
eighty or ninety miles in a day, and if need be of travelling under
fairly favourable conditions at twenty miles an hour. Behind very
mobile troops, such as cavalry, preference is sometimes given to
lighter lorries rated to carry 30 cwt. or 2 tons, and capable of
rather higher rates of speed and rather bigger daily mileages. Some
European Powers favour for general work lorries carrying 4 or 5 tons,
and in addition capable of drawing an extra 2 tons or so upon a
trailer. In every case, the internal combustion vehicle is preferred on
account of its independence upon frequent renewals of fuel and water
supplies. However, steam tractors are often used for various classes
of specially heavy work, as, for example, for drawing the travelling
workshops which have to be established at the movable base of the
supply columns at railhead.