PROTECTION OF RAILWAYS IN WAR
The liability of railway lines to interruption or destruction--whether
by bodies of cavalry sent across the frontier for that purpose, and
aiming at damage on a large scale; by smaller raiding parties operating
in the rear of an advancing army; or by individuals acting on their own
account in a hostile country--rendered necessary from an early date
in the railway era the adoption of protective measures of a type and
character varying according to circumstances; while these, in turn,
introduced some further new features into modern warfare.
Under the orders given by General McDowell for the guarding of railways
in the Department of the Rappahannock, in the _American Civil War_,
twelve sentinels were posted along each mile of track; block-houses were
constructed at each bridge, at cross-roads, and at intervals along the
track; pickets were thrown forward at various points; bushes and trees
were cleared away from alongside the line, and the men at each post had
flags and lanterns for signalling. General Sherman took similar measures
to guard his rail communications between Nashville and Atlanta.
Precautions such as these were directed mainly against the enemy in the
field; but an early example was to be afforded of how a civil population
may either concern themselves or be concerned against their will in the
maintenance of rail communication for military purposes. This position
is well shown in the following proclamation, issued July 30, 1863, by
Major-General G. G. Meade from the head-quarters of the Army of the
Potomac at a time when attempts to throw troop trains off the railway
lines were a matter of daily occurrence:--
The numerous depredations committed by citizens or rebel
soldiers in disguise, harboured and concealed by citizens, along
the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and within our lines, call
for prompt and exemplary punishment. Under the instructions of
the Government, therefore, every citizen against whom there is
sufficient evidence of his having engaged in these practices
will be arrested and confined for punishment, or put beyond the
lines.
The people within ten miles of the railroad are notified
that they will be held responsible, in their persons and
property, for any injury done to the road, trains, depôts or
stations by citizens, guerillas or persons in disguise; and
in case of such injury they will be impressed as labourers to
repair all damages.
If these measures should not stop such depredations, it will
become the unpleasant duty of the undersigned, in the execution
of his instructions, to direct that the entire inhabitants of
the district of country along the railroad be put across the
lines, and their property taken for Government uses.
On the Manassas Gap Railway General Auger further sought to protect
Federal army trains against guerilla attacks by placing in a conspicuous
position in each of such trains some of the leading Confederates
residing within Union lines, so that, should any accident happen to the
train, they would run the risk of being among the victims.
In the _Austro-Prussian War of 1866_ the principle of punishing
the civil population for attacks on the railway lines underwent a
further development. Captain Webber says in reference to the line
through Turnau, Prague and Pardubitz to Brünn[8]: "The Prussians
were fortunate in being able to preserve the line intact from injury
by the inhabitants, partly by the number and strength of the guards
posted along it, and partly from the terror of reprisals which they
had inspired." Captain Webber suggests that, in the face of an active
enemy, and in a country where the population was hostile, it would
have been impossible to depend on the railway as a principal line of
communication; but the significance of his expression, "the terror of
reprisals," as denoting the policy adopted by Prussia so far back as
1866, will not be lost on those who are only too well acquainted with
more recent developments of the same policy by the same country.
The number of men per mile required for guarding a line of rail
communication is declared by Captain John Bigelow, in his "Principles of
Strategy" (Philadelphia, 1894), to be exceedingly variable, depending
as it does upon the tactical features of the country and the temper of
the inhabitants. According, he says, to the estimate of the Germans for
the conditions of European warfare, the number will average about 1,000
men for every stretch of fifteen miles. At this rate an army sixty miles
from its base requires about 4,000 men for the protection of each line
of communication.
With the help of figures such as these one may, perhaps, understand
the more readily how it is that a Commander-in-Chief, of merciless
disposition, and wanting to retain the active services of every soldier
he possibly can in the interests of an early and successful advance
will, by spreading a feeling of "terror" among the civil population,
seek to reduce to as low a figure as circumstances will permit
the number of men he must leave behind to guard his lines of rail
communication.
These considerations will be found to apply with the greater force
when it is remembered that in the _Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71_ the
Prussians had to adopt an especially elaborate system for safeguarding
their lines of communication with Germany during the time they occupied
French territory. At each railway station they placed a guard formed of
detachments of the Landwehr, while small detachments were stationed in
towns and villages in the neighbourhood. In each signal-box a detachment
of troops was stationed, and the whole line of railway was patrolled
from posts established along it at distances of every three or four
miles. Altogether, the Germans are said to have employed, on over 2,000
miles of French railway lines controlled by them, as many as 100,000
troops for protective purposes only; and even then the _franc-tireurs_
were able to cause many interruptions.
Under a Prussian regulation dated May 2, 1867, it was laid down that
after the restoration of any lines taken possession of in an enemy's
territory, notice should be given that in the event of any further
damage being done to the railway, the locality would be subject to a
fine of at least 500 thalers, the belongings of the inhabitants would be
liable to seizure, and the local authorities might be arrested.
As a further precautionary measure in the war of 1870-71, the Germans
took a hint from the example of the Union Generals in the American Civil
War by compelling a leading citizen of the district passed through to
ride on the engine of each train run by them on French soil. In defence
of this practice, the German General Staff say in their handbook on "The
Usages of War"[9]:--
Since the lives of peaceable inhabitants were, without any
fault on their part, thereby exposed to grave danger, every
writer outside Germany has stigmatised this measure as contrary
to the law of nations and as unjustified towards the inhabitants
of the country. As against this unfavourable criticism it must
be pointed out that this measure, which was also recognised on
the German side as harsh and cruel, was only resorted to after
declarations and instructions of the occupying authorities had
proved ineffective, and that in the particular circumstances
it was the only method which promised to be effective against
the doubtless unauthorised, indeed the criminal, behaviour of
a fanatical population. Herein lies its justification under
the laws of war, but still more in the fact that it proved
completely successful, and that wherever citizens were thus
carried on the trains ... the security of traffic was assured.
Writing under date December 16, 1870, Busch offered the following
justification for the course adopted:--
They were taken, not to serve as a hindrance to French
heroism, but as a precaution against treacherous crime. The
railway does not carry merely soldiers, ammunition and other
war material against which it may be allowable to use violent
measures; it also conveys a great number of wounded, doctors,
hospital attendants, and other perfectly harmless persons. Is a
peasant or _franc-tireur_ to be allowed to endanger hundreds of
those lives by removing a rail or laying a stone upon the line?
Let the French see that the security of the railway trains is no
longer threatened and the journeys made by those hostages will
be merely outings, or our people may even be able to forgo such
precautionary measures.
In the _South African War_, Field-Marshal Earl Roberts issued at
Pretoria, on June 19, 1900, a proclamation one section of which
authorised the placing of leading men among the Boers on the locomotives
of the trains run by the British on the occupied territory; but this
particular section was withdrawn eight days afterwards.
The English view of the practice in question is thus defined in the
official "Manual of Military Law" (Chap. XIV, "The Laws and Usages of
War," par. 463):--
Such measures expose the lives of inhabitants, not only
to the illegitimate acts of train wrecking by private enemy
individuals, but also to the lawful operations of raiding
parties of the armed forces of the belligerent, and cannot,
therefore, be considered a commendable practice.
To guard against the attacks made on the railway lines in the Orange
Free State and the Transvaal during the British occupation, entrenched
posts were placed at every bridge exceeding a 30-feet span; constant
patrolling was maintained between these posts; and the block-houses
introduced (in 1901) by Lord Kitchener were erected along all the
railway lines, at distances of about 2,000 yards. Each block-house,
also, was garrisoned by about ten men, and each was surrounded by wire
entanglements which, together with various kinds of alarm fences, were
also placed between the block-houses themselves in order both to impede
the approach of the enemy and to warn the garrison thereof.
_Block-houses_ are to-day regarded as one of the chief means of
protecting railways against attacks. Their construction and equipment
are dealt with by Major W. D. Connor, of the Corps of Engineers, U.S.A.,
in "Military Railways" (Professional Papers, No. 32, Corps of Engineers,
U.S. Army, Washington, 1910).
Supplementary to the adoption of this block-house system, in time of
war, is the practice followed in various Continental countries, in
time of peace, of building _permanent fortresses_, in solid masonry,
alongside railway bridges crossing important rivers. In some instances
the fortress is so constructed that the railway lines pass through the
centre of it. Not only, as a rule, are these fortresses extremely solid
and substantial, but they may be provided with bomb-proof covers and
be stocked with a sufficient supply of provisions to be able to stand,
if necessary, a fairly prolonged siege. One can assume, also, that the
garrison would have under its control facilities arranged in advance for
the destruction of the bridge, as a last resort, in case of need.
The theory is that such fortresses and their garrisons should be of
especial advantage, on the outbreak of war, in checking any sudden
invasion and allowing time for the completion of defensive measures.
Their construction in connection with all the principal railway bridges
crossing the Rhine was especially favoured in Prussia after the war of
1870-1.
Similar fortresses, or "interrupting forts," as the Germans call them,
are also built for the protection of important tunnels, junctions,
locomotive and carriage works, etc.
Another method adopted for the safeguarding of railway lines in war is
the use of _armoured trains_; though in practice these are also employed
for the purposes of independent attacks on the enemy, apart altogether
from any question of ensuring the safety of rail communication.[10]
For the _protection of locomotives and rolling stock_, and to prevent
not only their capture but their use by the enemy, the most efficacious
method to adopt is, of course, that of removing them to some locality
where the enemy is not likely to come.
When, in 1866, Austria saw that she could not hold back the Prussian
invader, she took off into Hungary no fewer than 1,000 locomotives and
16,000 wagons from the railways in Bohemia and Saxony. Similar tactics
were adopted by the Boers as against ourselves in the war in South
Africa. On the British troops crossing into the Orange Free State,
from Cape Colony, they found that the retreating enemy had withdrawn
all their rolling stock, as well as all their staffs from the railway
stations, leaving behind only a more or less damaged line of railway.
Subsequently, when the forces occupied Pretoria, they certainly did find
there sixteen locomotives and 400 trucks; but the station books showed
that in the previous forty-eight hours no fewer than seventy trains,
many of them drawn by two engines, had been sent east in the direction
of Delagoa Bay.
When it is not practicable to withdraw locomotives and rolling stock
which it is desired the enemy shall not be able to use, the obvious
alternative is that measures should be taken either to remove vital
parts or to ensure their destruction. Certain of the methods adopted
during the Civil War in America were especially efficacious in attaining
the latter result. In some instances trains were started running and
then--driver and fireman leaping off the engine--were left to go into
a river, or to fall through a broken viaduct. In other instances two
trains, after having had a good supply of explosives put in them, would
be allowed to dash into one another at full speed. Many locomotives
had their boilers burst, and wagons were set on fire after having been
filled up with combustibles.
Still another method which has been adopted with a view to preventing
an enemy from using the railways he might succeed in capturing is that
of constructing them with a _different gauge_. The standard gauge of
the main-line railways in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark,
Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Roumania and Turkey (like that,
also, of railways in Great Britain, Canada and the United States), is
4ft. 8½in., allowing trains to pass readily from one country to the
other with the same rolling stock; but the gauge of the Russian railways
is 5ft., necessitating a transshipment from one train to another when
the frontier is reached. Similar conditions are found in Spain and
Portugal, where the standard gauge is 5ft. 6in.[11]
Russia adopted her broader gauge so that, in case of invasion, the
invader should not be able to run his rolling-stock over her lines, as
Germany, for instance, would be able to do in the case of the railways
of Belgium and France. Thus far, therefore, Russia strengthened her
position from the point of view of defence; but she weakened it as
regards attack, since if she should herself want, either to become the
invader or to send troop trains over neighbouring territory to some
point beyond, she would be at a disadvantage. In the Russo-Turkish War
of 1877-78, when the Russian forces passed through Roumania on their way
to Turkey, the difference in gauge between the Russian and the Roumanian
railways caused great delay and inconvenience by reason of the necessary
transfer of troops, stores, guns, ammunition, torpedo boats, etc., at
the frontier.
It should, also, be remembered that the reduction of a broad gauge to a
narrow one is a much simpler matter, from an engineering point of view,
than the widening of a narrower gauge into a broad one. In the former
case the existing sleepers, bridges, tunnels, platforms, etc., would
still serve their purpose. In the latter case fresh sleepers might have
to be laid, bridges and tunnels widened or enlarged, and platforms and
stations altered, use of the broader-gauge rolling stock thus involving
an almost complete reconstruction of the railway lines. To this extent,
therefore, the balance of advantage would seem to be against the country
having the broader gauge. The conclusion may, at least, be formed that
such a country is far more bent on protecting her own territory than on
invading that of her neighbours.
The course adopted by Germany for overcoming the difficulty which, in
the event of her seeking to invade Russia, the difference of railway
gauge in that country would present, will be told in Chapter XVIII.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] "Notes on the Campaign in Bohemia in 1866." By Capt. Webber, R.E.
Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, N.S., vol. xvi. Woolwich, 1868.
[9] "The German War Book. Being the Usages of War on Land"; issued by
the Great General Staff of the German Army. London, 1915.
[10] The subject of armoured trains will be dealt with more fully in
Chapters VII and XVI.
[11] See "Field Service Pocket Book, 1914," pp. 151-2.