for a further extension of the railway from Atbara to Khartoum, and
Khartoum North was reached on the last day of 1899. The construction
of a bridge over the Blue Nile subsequently allowed of trains running
direct into Khartoum.
To-day this same railway has been carried a distance of 430 miles south
of Khartoum. It continues along the Blue Nile to Sennah, where it turns
to the westward, crosses the White Nile at Kosti, and has its terminus
at El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan Province. What this means is that
an enormous expanse of territory has been opened up both to civilisation
and to commercial development.
Apart from the important gum trade of which El Obeid is the centre, the
Sudan is pre-eminently a pastoral country. The number of its cattle,
sheep and goats is estimated at "several millions"; it has thousands of
square miles available for cotton-growing, already carried on there for
centuries, and it has wide possibilities in other directions, besides;
though stock-raising and cotton cultivation should alone suffice to
ensure for the Sudan a future of great wealth and commercial importance.
Beyond the districts immediately served by the extension there are
others which are to be brought into touch with the railway, either
direct or via the Nile, by means of a "roads system" linking up towns
and villages with a number of highways extending to all the frontiers of
the Sudan. On these roads and highways motor traction will, it is hoped,
be gradually substituted for transport animals, the troubles caused by
the tsetse fly and other pests being thus avoided.
The scheme here in question is certainly an ambitious one, considering
that the Sudan covers an area of 1,000,000 square miles, and is equal
in extent to the whole of British India; but already the outlook is
most promising. For twelve years before its rescue from heathenism by
the British and Egyptian forces in 1898, Khartoum, which formerly had
a population of 50,000, was represented by the mass of ruins to which
it had been reduced by order of the Khalifa. To-day it is a large,
beautiful, and well-built city, possessed of a Governor-General's
palace, cathedrals, a mosque, schools, hospitals, hotels, broad streets,
public gardens, boulevards, imposing business premises, a good water
supply, electric light, tramways, ferries, and other essentials of a
capital city of the most progressive type. Khartoum itself has now about
30,000 inhabitants; in Khartoum North, on the other side of the Blue
Nile, there are 20,000, and in Omdurman 70,000, a total of 120,000 for
the three sister cities. Not only, also, have the natives, once living
under the terror of their oppressors, settled down to peaceful pursuits,
but many thousands of immigrants have come into the Sudan from West
Africa (a striking testimony of the confidence felt by native tribes
in the justice and security of British rule), while great expansion
has taken place in the commercial interests of the Sudan and more
especially in the export of cattle and sheep.
In the bringing about of these developments, affecting the peace and
prosperity of so huge a country and of so many millions of people,
the Sudan Military Railways have played a leading part. They rendered
possible, in the first instance, the conquest of the Sudan, and then
(save for the now abandoned line from Wady Halfa to Kerma) they became,
with their extensions and improvements, the system of "Sudan Government
Railways," having their branches to-day both from Atbara to Port Sudan
and Suakin, on the Red Sea, and from Abu Hamed to Kareima, on the south
side of the great Nile bend, whence there is free communication by water
to the third cataract at Kerma. Concurrently, also, with the carrying
out of the railway extension schemes, and in order to make greater
provision for the prospective increase of traffic, 460 miles of the line
north of Khartoum were relaid with 75-lb. rails, in place of the 50-lb.
rails originally used, and the whole of the track from Khartoum to El
Obeid was also laid with the heavier rails.
So we are enabled to regard military railways from still another point
of view--that, namely, in which they may develop into lines of permanent
communication and promote the blessings of peace and security no less
than afford unquestionable advantages in the prosecution of war. Other
examples of a similar kind might be offered from the history of British
rule in Africa; but the record of what has been accomplished in the
Sudan may suffice to establish the further claim here presented as to
the varied purposes that military railways may serve.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] See lecture by Capt. C. E. Luard, R.E., on "Field Railways and
their general application in war." Journal of the Royal United Service
Institution, vol. xvii, 1873.
[37] "The Abyssinian Railway." By Lieut. Willans, R.E. Papers on
Subjects Connected with the Duties of the Corps of Royal Engineers. New
Series. Vol. xviii. 1870.
[38] "The Construction of Military Railways during the Russo-Turkish
War of 1877-8." By Captain M. T. Sale, R.E. Journal of the Royal United
Service Institution, vol. xxiv, 1881. "De la Construction des Chemins de
Fer en temps de guerre. Lignes construites par l'armée russe pendant la
campagne 1877-78." Par M. P. Lessar, Ingénieur du Gouvernement russe.
Traduit du russe par M. L. Avril. Paris, 1879.
[39] "The Sudan Military Railway." By Lieut. M. Nathan, R.E.
"Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Occasional
Papers," vol. xi, 1885.
[40] In his dispatch of May 30, 1885, Sir Gerald Graham said concerning
these Volunteers: "Their services would have been of great value had
the campaign lasted longer. As it was the Volunteers worked well with
their comrades of the Royal Engineers.... It may be considered the first
experiment in associating the Volunteer force with a combatant branch of
the Regular Army on active service."
CHAPTER XVI
RAILWAYS IN THE BOER WAR
The South African campaign of 1899-1902 afforded to Great Britain and
to British Imperial interests their greatest, most instructive, and,
also, their most anxious experiences, down to that time, not only of
the services railways can render in the conduct of war, but of the
difficulties and complications which may result from their employment,
and especially from dependence on them for the purposes of military
transport; though, in the result, the services so rendered were a
material factor in the success by which the military operations carried
out by the British forces were crowned.
When the Boers declared war in October, 1899, the various railway
systems, working in direct communication with one another, in South
Africa, had a total length of 4,268 miles, namely, British South Africa,
3,267; the Transvaal, 918; the Orange Free State, 388; and in Portuguese
territory, 55. These railways consisted of single-track, narrow-gauge
lines (3 feet 6 inches), never designed for such heavy traffic as the
transport of an army and all its impedimenta would involve; but it was
obvious from the first that they must needs play a part of paramount
importance in the campaign. Independently of all that was involved in
the conveyance of troops, munitions, supplies, etc., from England to the
Cape, there was the consideration that from Cape Town, the principal
base of our forces, to Pretoria, their eventual objective, the distance
was 1,040 miles. From Port Elizabeth it was 740 miles, and from Durban
511 miles. Journeys such as these could be made only by rail, and
there was seen to be an imperative need, not only for the railways
themselves, but for an organisation which would, among other things,
superintend military rail-transport in order to ensure efficiency in
the movement of troops, stores, etc., and, also, provide for the speedy
repair or rebuilding of damaged lines as well as for the operation of
lines taken possession of in the captured territory.
In view of the uncertainty of events in the Transvaal, and as a
precautionary measure, the 8th (Railway) Company, Royal Engineers, was
sent out to the Cape in July, 1899; and when, subsequently, the dispatch
of an Army Corps was being arranged by the British Government, it was
decided to create a _Department of Military Railways_, of which Major
Girouard, R.E. (now Major-General Sir E. Percy C. Girouard, K.C.M.G.),
who had rendered such valuable services in connection with military
railways in the Sudan, and was then President of the Egyptian Railway
Administration, was put in charge as "Director of Railways for the South
African Field Force." A number of other Royal Engineer officers who had
had experience of railway work in India and other parts of the British
Empire were selected to serve as Assistant Directors or staff officers
in various capacities, and the 10th (Railway) Company, Royal Engineers,
with the 6th, 20th, 31st and 42nd Fortress Companies, were sent to join
the 8th (Railway) Company in the carrying out of railway work.
ORGANISATION AND CONTROL
The creation of this Department of Military Railways for South Africa
carried still further the development of those questions of organisation
and control which, as we have seen, had already raised important issues
in the United States, in Germany, and in France.
According to the official "History of the War in South Africa,
1899-1902," the Director and his staff were (1) to be the intermediaries
between the Army and the technical working administration of the
railway; (2) to see that the ordinary working of the railway was carried
on in such a manner as to ensure the greatest military efficiency;
and (3) to satisfy the demands of the Army on the railway without
disorganising the working of the railway system as a whole.
"In war," the official "History" further declares, "these services are
essential, for the officers of a civil railway administration cannot
discriminate between the demands of the various branches and departments
of the Army, or class them in the order of urgency." This is perfectly
true of the civil railway administration, and it is only what could be
expected of railwaymen who, while competent to discharge their ordinary
railway duties, might not be well versed in military matters, and ought
not to be left with the responsibility of deciding between the possibly
conflicting orders of different military commanders.
All the same, there was another side to the question; and this is dealt
with by Sir Percy Girouard in his "History of the Railways during the
War in South Africa," wherein he says, in regard to rail transport
conditions in time of war:--
Military commanders who have not previously studied the
working of a railway attempt to seize and work the portion of
line nearest to them, regardless of the remainder of the system.
They often look upon trucks as another form of commissariat
wagon which may be kept loaded for an indefinite period. They
expect trains to stop and off-load, or load, on the main line.
They like to have a number of trains ready, either loaded or
unloaded, in case they should be required. They are apt to
give orders for large entrainments and detrainments to be
carried out at any part of the line, regardless of the railway
facilities at that point, although perhaps a suitable place is
within reasonable distance. Frequently they have been known
to countermand their orders for entrainments, heedless of the
fact that, once arrangements have been made to concentrate
rolling stock on a certain place, it takes time to alter these
arrangements, and is sure to cause confusion. Many of them
expect railway accommodation for troops to be on a liberal
scale, and consider that there is no necessity, when close to a
railway, to make any effort to cut down baggage and stores....
Commandants of posts on the line, which are very often
placed at railway stations, are inclined to think that, because
they are called "station commandants," it means that they are
in charge of the railway station, and can give orders to railway
officials as to traffic and other matters....
Civil railway officials have been heard to say that attacks
by the enemy are not nearly so disturbing to traffic as the
arrival of a friendly General with his force.
It was under these circumstances that Sir Percy Girouard saw from the
first the necessity for having in South Africa, for the duration of
the war, a staff of officers whose business it would be, as he himself
defines their duties, (_a_) to keep the military commanders fully
informed of the capacity and possibilities of the railway, and to convey
their orders and requests to the civil railway staff; and (_b_) to
protect the civil railway administration from interference by military
commanders and commandants of posts; in fact, to act as intermediaries
between the army and the civil railway officials.
In arriving at this conclusion Sir Percy was especially impressed by
the rail transport experiences of France in her war with Prussia in
1870-1; and in his Report he gives a digest of Jacqmin's facts and
recommendations by way of further justifying the step that he himself
took. He thought it absolutely necessary that the staff of the Director
of Railways should be paramount on the railway, and that no officer
should be able to give any orders to railway staff officers or other
railway officials unless fighting was actually proceeding at that spot.
"This," he adds, "was the system adopted with great success by the
Germans, the want of which caused such chaos on the French railways, and
the correctness of which has been entirely established by the experience
of this war. It is not too much to say that, unless it had been adopted
in South Africa, the chaos would have been past belief."
The _Military Railway Controlling-Staff_ created, in accordance with
these principles and policy, to co-operate with the technical working
staff under the Director of Railways, was constituted as follows:--
I. An _Assistant-Director of Railways_ for Cape Colony, who was on
the staff both of the Director of Railways and on that of the General
Officer Commanding Lines of Communication, Cape Colony. His business
it was to co-operate with the General Traffic Manager of the Cape
Government Railway, in whose office he was given accommodation. In
this dual capacity it was his duty to inform both the General Officer
Commanding and the Director as to the traffic capacities of the
railways; to take the orders of the G.O.C. while advising him as to the
best method of carrying them out; to inform the railway officials what
was required, and, Sir Percy adds, in giving these details, "to protect
them from interference by unauthorised military officers." It was the
duty, also, of the Assistant-Director to see that proper regulations
were issued to the Army for (_a_) the efficient conduct of entrainments
and detrainments; (_b_) the forwarding of stores, and (_c_) the keeping
of financial accounts in respect to the use made of the lines for
military purposes. As between the General Officer Commanding and the
Chief Traffic Manager, the Assistant-Director of Railways was the sole
channel of communication.
II. Four _Deputy-Assistant-Directors_, undertaking similar duties over
particular sections of the railway system.
III. _Railway Staff Officers_, located at leading stations to
superintend all important movements, and constituting the only means of
communication between the Army and the stationmasters. The latter were
to take orders in respect to military requirements from no one else,
and were, in turn, to be protected by the railway staff officers from
interference with by other officers having no authority to give them
direct orders.
The defective step in the scheme, as originally planned, was in respect
to the railway staff officers, who, of all those constituting the
Military Railway Controlling Staff, were, under Army Regulations, on
the staff of officers commanding lines of communication and thus not
controlled by the Director of Railways. The officers in question, though
charged with the duty of looking after entrainments, detrainments, etc.,
were in no way to interfere with the railway staff in the shunting
or marshalling of trains or in regard to the traffic arrangements
generally. For this reason the framers of the Army Regulations had
assumed that there was no need for the railway staff officers to have
any knowledge of railway operation, or to be under the control of others
who did possess such knowledge.
After the annexation of the Orange Free State railways, the Chief
of the Staff agreed that the railway staff officers in that State
should be under the orders of the Director of Railways through his
Deputy-Assistant-Directors; and a like course was adopted shortly
afterwards in respect to the railway staff officers in Cape Colony. In
this way an undivided chain of responsibility was secured, affording
a much greater guarantee of efficiency alike in control and in actual
operation.
Concerning the Deputy-Assistant-Directors, Sir Percy Girouard says
they were found to be of great benefit to the railway officials, who
appreciated their work and laboured in hearty co-operation with them;
though they experienced difficulty in establishing their position with
the Generals and Staff officers, to whom the arrangement was an entire
novelty, and one they did not at first understand.
In the first instance the principle of military control applied
specially to the lines in Cape Colony, those in Natal being still
operated by the Natal Government Railway Department, with certain
assistance in the matter of repairs; though after eighteen months of
war, the military transport system first established in Cape Colony
became uniform throughout British South Africa.
TRANSPORT CONDITIONS
The need for the elaborate organisation thus brought into existence was
all the greater because of the difficulties by which those responsible
for the conduct of military transport were faced.
In November, 1899, considerable portions of the lines both in Cape
Colony and in Natal were in the possession of the Boers, so that, beyond
a certain distance, the British would have to fight for every mile
of railway before they could make use of it. After, also, regaining
possession of the lines on British territory controlled by the Boers,
they would require first to capture and then to operate those on the
enemy's territory; and in each case they would have to be prepared to
repair the damage the enemy would be certain to do to the lines in order
to prevent their use by the advancing forces. Meanwhile the traffic
must be kept open, as far as possible, for the conveyance of troops and
stores to the theatre of war and for the carrying out of such strategic
movements as the requirements of the military situation might render
necessary, adequate protection of the lines being meanwhile assured.
There were, in fact, occasions when the whole issue of the campaign
seemed to turn upon the question as to whether or not the British could
either secure possession of the railways or, alternatively, repair them
as fast, more or less, as the enemy could demolish them.
Although, again, so elaborate a system of organisation had been
arranged, there was much that required to be done to adapt it to the
conditions of African warfare. Initial mistakes had to be remedied;
old evils reappeared in new forms; regulations had to be made or
modified according to experiences gained; and, while there was at no
time any general failure of transport, there certainly were partial
failures. Not only was there an inadequate supply of trucks, partly
because of the considerable number in the Boer States at the time of
the declaration of war and partly because of the number locked up in
Kimberley and Mafeking, but trucks were kept loaded when they should
have been promptly unloaded and released for service elsewhere; lines
were seriously blocked at critical moments by these loaded trucks, while
chaos in certain large troop movements was only avoided owing to the
control of Cape Town facilities by the Director's staff and to the fact
that the Deputy-Assistant-Directors of Railways were enabled to have
special officers at all important points.
HOW THE SYSTEM WORKED
As regards the _operation of the railways_ during the war Sir Percy
Girouard says:--
Although not, perhaps, so much a matter of railway as of
general staff administration, a word should be said as to the
methods whereby the very limited resources of the single line of
railway communication were allotted to ensure an equal attention
to the requirements of the Army as a whole.
The allocation of railway facilities was reserved strictly
to the Chief of Staff, without whose order, in each case,
nothing could pass by rail towards the front. The number of
trains, or, more accurately, the number of trucks which could
be hauled daily in the "up" direction, being communicated by
the railway authorities to Lord Kitchener, he placed a number,
liable to vary from day to day, at the disposal of the supply
and remount departments, either generally for the maintenance of
their depôts or for specific traffic.
The number reserved for hospital, ordnance, engineer and
special stores was even more closely calculated, and the demands
of these departments had to be submitted for approval in the
utmost detail. All authorisations were passed to the railway
representatives at Headquarters, whose business it was to
notify when the total of such orders outstanding for dispatch
from the advanced base was exceeding the accommodation which
could be provided within a reasonable time under the scheme of
proportion in force for the time being. In such case the issue
of permits fell temporarily into abeyance, or the outstanding
list was revised to accord with the necessities of the moment.
No truck could be loaded and no troops dispatched by rail
without such authority, with the single exception of details
and small parties, who were invariably made to travel upon
the loaded supply trucks. Proposed troop movements by rail
requiring separate accommodation had to be carefully considered
in view of the supply traffic they would displace, and, when
time permitted, were generally made by road. It was this system
alone which co-ordinated the railway requirements of the various
departments and did so much to falsify previously accepted
figures as to the limits of the fighting force which could be
maintained by a single line of railway.
THE IMPERIAL MILITARY RAILWAYS
Following the questions which arose as to the working of railways on
British territory within the sphere of the military operations came
those concerning the _railways taken from the enemy_ in the Boer States,
and converted into a system of Imperial Military Railways for which the
Department also became responsible.
The occupation of Bloemfontein led to that place becoming the base of
supplies for an army of 35,000 men, likely to increase to 100,000, while
eventually the Imperial Military Railways included 1,130 miles of line.
Efficient operation thus became a matter of grave importance, and the
task to be accomplished was one of considerable magnitude, especially
considering that a staff for the working of the system had to be
created. In the traffic and locomotive departments alone no fewer than
3,000 white workers were needed.
Many of the employés of the Netherlands Railway Company were kept on,
even at the risk of their showing hostility to the British; but the
number who thus made themselves available was quite inadequate, even
if they could all have been trusted. The Cape Government Railways were
drawn on to the fullest possible extent for workers; the Railway and
the Fortress Companies of the Royal Engineers in South Africa were
employed in operating the lines; railwaymen in the Special Railway
Reserve in England were sent for, and, of the remaining posts, from
800 to 1,000 were filled--the approval of the Commander-in-Chief being
first obtained--by inviting soldiers and reservists serving in the Army
who had had experience of railway work in civil life to join the staff
of the Imperial Military Railways, pay at Royal Engineer rates being
guaranteed to them. Positions of the least importance were filled by
men who had had no previous railway experience at all. Railway staff
officers were also obtained mainly from among the troops; though many
even of these, being unfamiliar with the details of railway operation,
had to be taught their special duties before they could attempt to
discharge them.
On September 30, 1900, the staff employed on the Imperial Military
Railways comprised close on 18,000 officers and men. From the time these
railways were brought under the control of the British forces to August
31, 1900, they carried 177,000 passengers, 86,000 animals, and 520,000
tons of goods.
As the moral to be drawn from his experiences in having to create, under
circumstances of exceptional difficulty, a staff for the operation of
railways captured from the enemy, Sir Percy Girouard says:--
The South African campaign has fully shown the necessity of
having a number of traffic employés registered in peace time,
who are paid a small retaining fee which will render them liable
to be called out in case of war at home or abroad. The want of
this system forced the Director of Railways in South Africa to
employ a large number of men who had been employed by the enemy,
and who could not be relied on, and also to withdraw from the
fighting-line a large number of soldiers with railway experience
prior to enlistment; and he was compelled to work the railways
with this heterogeneous mass of individuals whose qualifications
were unknown. The amount of correspondence entailed over
conditions of service, pay, transfer, etc., of all these men,
coming from different parts of South Africa and from different
units, was tremendous. The registration system would also
arrange for the men on the railways being subject to Military
Law, the necessity for which has been clearly proved.
REPAIR OF RAILWAYS
Whilst all these arrangements in regard to operation and transport
were thus being perfected, the need had arisen for an equally complete
organisation in another direction, that, namely, of providing for the
_repair or restoration of railway lines_ damaged or destroyed by the
enemy.
Since the American Civil War the art of railway demolition had
made considerable advance by reason of the use for this purpose of
dynamite--an agency which was now to be employed very freely by the
Boers. With dynamite they easily blew up the bridges, or material
portions thereof; they destroyed the track for considerable distances
by the simple process of exploding dynamite cartridges under alternate
rail-joints; they wrecked culverts, pumps and water tanks, and they
effectively damaged locomotives which they had not time or opportunity
to remove. Then, among other things, they derailed engines and trucks
by means of mines; they caused obstructions by throwing down into the
railway cuttings boulders of up to two or three tons in weight; they cut
telegraph lines; they removed or smashed up instruments and batteries at
railway stations; they wrecked the stations; they burned many railway
trucks, or otherwise rendered them useless; they set fire to stacks of
fuel, and, when dynamite cartridges were not available, they deprived
the locomotives of their vital parts and tore up considerable lengths of
rails.
By December, 1899, it had become evident that the Railway Companies
and the Fortress Companies of the Royal Engineers, sent out to the
Cape and brought up to their fullest strength, would be unequal to the
requirements of the prospective situation. The Railway Corps thus formed
was, accordingly, augmented by a Railway Pioneer Regiment, composed of
miners, artisans and labourers who had been employed at Cape Town or
Johannesburg, volunteers from the ranks of the Army (preference being
given to those already possessed of experience in railway work), and
employés of the Orange Free State Railway. Some Field Railway Sections,
created to form the nucleus of a staff to take over the working of
railways in the enemy's country became construction parties, doing
repairs only, and having no control of traffic except at railhead. In
addition to all these, a large number of natives were engaged through
Native Labour Depôts opened at De Aar, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg,
the number so employed at any one time attaining a maximum of about
20,000.
It was in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal that the Boers
displayed their greatest activity in the way of railway destruction.
At Norval's Pont and Bethulie they broke down the bridges crossing the
Orange River, which divided Cape Colony from the Orange Free State.
Before leaving Bloemfontein (occupied by the British March 13, 1900),
they destroyed all the bridges and all the culverts on the railway in
their rear; they blew up miles of the permanent way, and they left the
railway itself an almost complete wreck. North of Bloemfontein they
pursued similar tactics along 180 miles of track, on which they wrecked
more or less completely no fewer than fifty bridges, including the one
over the Vaal River--a high structure with seven spans each of 130 feet.
No sooner, too, had the line been reopened as far as Johannesburg than
Commandant De Wet made a raid on it and undid all that the repairing
parties had done over a length of thirty miles. Speedily following the
re-establishing of rail communication with Pretoria, the Boers began
a fresh series of guerilla attacks on the lines both in the Transvaal
and in the Orange Free State; and they continued these attacks for
months--until, in fact, their power for doing further mischief had been
finally checked.
In carrying out repairs and reconstruction work of such vital importance
to the advance and security of the British forces, the policy adopted
by the Director of Railways was that of employing Royal Engineers to do
rapid temporary repairs--with a view to having a line of some sort made
available with the least possible delay--and leaving permanent or even
semi-permanent repairs to the Railway Pioneer Regiment. At convenient
sidings on the railways throughout the theatre of war _construction
trains_ were stationed in charge of permanent-way inspectors and
sections of Royal Engineers who had at their disposal, at each of such
sidings, a gang of men--whites and natives--varying in number from 300
to 1,000, according to circumstances. Infantry working-parties were also
obtained wherever possible.
Gangers began a patrol of the lines at dawn. Information as to any
break or alarm was communicated to the nearest military post and
telegraphed to the Deputy-Superintendent of Works, who thereupon ordered
the dispatch of a construction train to the scene of any reported or
prospective break without waiting for confirmation of the news received
or of the suspicions aroused.
This well-organised system operated to great advantage. At 2.30
a.m. on January 1, 1901, for instance, information reached the
Deputy-Superintendent of Works at Bloemfontein that a break of the line
had occurred at Wolvehoek, sixty-three miles distant. The construction
train was instantly dispatched, and the repairs were completed by 8
a.m. Rail communication with Johannesburg, notwithstanding the great
amount of destruction done by the Boers, was restored within eleven
days of the arrival of Lord Roberts at that place. It was restored to
Pretoria within sixteen days of the occupation thereof by our troops. On
the western side, where the enemy had been no less active than in the
Orange Free State, rail communication was reopened within thirteen days
of the relief of Mafeking.
In the official report on Field Transport in the South African War, it
is said in regard to the Railways Department:--
All temporary repairs in the Cape Colony, Transvaal, and
Orange River Colony were carried out, with a few exceptions,
by the military railway staff. Up to 31 October, 1900, these
temporary repairs included the restoration of seventy-five
bridges, ninety-four culverts, and 37 miles of line. A detail
of the general advance from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg, a
distance of 265 miles, will give some idea of the expedition
with which repairs were affected. The period during which the
advance was being made was from 3 May to 11 June, 1900, in which
space of time the following temporary repairs were executed:
Twenty-seven bridges, forty-one culverts, 10 miles of line,
including seven deviations, varying in length from 200 yards to
2 miles.
From 6 June to 15 November, 1900, the Imperial Military
Railways were more or less seriously damaged by the enemy on 115
occasions, but all such damages were promptly repaired, and did
not materially affect the working of the railways, except that
the running of trains after dark had to be suspended. During the
same period fully 60 per cent. of damaged bridges and culverts
were permanently or semi-permanently repaired.
Of _bridges_, over 200, with spans ranging from nine feet to 130 feet,
were destroyed wholly or in part during the progress of the war; but
even here the speedy restoration of traffic did not, as a rule, present
any very grave difficulty. The course generally adopted, as one suited
to South African conditions, was, not to start at once on the repair
of the damaged bridge, but, in order to meet the exigencies of the
moment, to construct a diversion or deviation line alongside, with small
low-level bridges on piers, built of sleepers and rails.[41] These
deviation lines offered great disadvantages by reason of their sharp
curves, their steep approaches and their liability to be washed away in
wet weather. The building even of temporary bridges across deep rivers
having a considerable volume of water also caused inevitable delays.
But the lines in question served their purpose until the reconstruction
of the damaged bridges--taken in hand as speedily as possible--could
be effected. Anticipating the needs for this more permanent work, the
Director of Railways had arranged before leaving England for a supply
of girders, similar to those in use in South Africa, to be sent out,
together with sufficient timber, of useful dimensions, to rebuild the
whole of the railway bridges in the Orange Free State, should it become
necessary so to do--as, in point of fact, it did. Of new rails he had
available, at one time, a total length of 300 miles.
By October, 1900, the makeshift repairs completed on all the lines
taken from the enemy were being gradually converted into permanent or
semi-permanent reconstruction by the Works Department of the Imperial
Military Railways; but the continuous guerilla raids of the enemy still
made it impossible to run trains by night. These conditions led to a
resort to the system of _blockhouses_ which, first constructed for the
defence of railway bridges in Natal during the advance for the relief
of Ladysmith, and used extensively when Lord Roberts marched from
Bloemfontein into the Transvaal, leaving a long track of railway lines
behind him, were subsequently so far extended that the whole of the
railway lines in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony were provided
with them.[42] So well did they answer the purpose that by April, 1901,
the worst of the trouble involved in maintaining railway communications
was over, although another year was to elapse before peace was restored.
MILITARY TRAFFIC
An especially remarkable achievement with which, under the various
conditions here narrated, the Department of Military Railways is to be
credited was in connection with the concentration of the force with
which Lord Roberts marched from the Modder River to Bloemfontein. The
movement began on January 21, 1900, by which time the repairs of the
lines had been completed, and within three weeks no fewer than 20,000
men, 13,590 horses and over 24,000 tons of stores had been conveyed over
a single line of railway.
Taking the sum total of the military traffic carried on the Cape
Government and the Natal Government Railways respectively during the war
period, we get the following substantial figures:--
Cape Government Railways, from October 1, 1899, to March 31,
1901:--Officers, men, and other passengers, 1,247,000; supplies, etc.,
1,058,000 tons; horses and other live stock, 540,321, besides many
wagons and guns.
Natal Government Railways:--Officers, men, prisoners of war, sick and
wounded, women and children (including Boer refugees), natives and
Indians, 522,186; baggage and stores, supplies, hay, forage, etc.,
861,000 tons; ammunition, 9,784 boxes; guns, 454; vehicles, 6,430;
pontoons, 48; traction engines, 84; horses and other live stock, 399,000.
MISCELLANEOUS SERVICES
The figures here given as to the military traffic carried do not
represent the full extent of the work that was done by the South African
railways during the course of the war. One must also take into account
the wide variety of subsidiary services rendered, and these are the
more deserving of attention because they show, more than had, perhaps,
been the case in any previous war, that railways can afford valuable
aid in the conduct of a campaign apart from the achievement of their
fundamental purpose in the transport of men and matériel.
If we look atthe list of services rendered by the Natal Government
Railways we find that the Railway Department--in addition to the
transport work represented by the above figures--adapted six armoured
trains; prepared special carriages for the 6 in. and 4·7 in. guns;
adapted and equipped three hospital trains, withdrawing for this
purpose fully a quarter of the most serviceable carriage stock from
the ordinary traffic; wired and lamped the hospitals at four different
centres, supplying them, also, with electric current; mounted the
electric search-light apparatus with engine, dynamo, etc.; supplied
30,000 troops at Colenso with water; found the plant and fuel at
Ladysmith for condensing water from the Klip River for 20,000 persons
during the four months' siege; allotted and arranged a portion of the
goods-shed as the Base Medical Stores at Durban, and fitted up vans to
follow the army with reserve medical supplies.
The Department's Engineering Staff speedily restored, or temporarily
provided--either on the Natal system or along 100 miles of the Transvaal
railways, when these passed under control of the British forces--72
bridges and culverts, varying in length from 10 to 600 feet; 32
different portions of permanent way; and many water tanks, etc. The
Engineering Staff also effected in seven days a clearance through the
Lang's Nek Tunnel, blown in by the Boers, and constructed several miles
of new lines, sidings and deviations.
The Natal Railway Pioneer Staff advanced with General Buller and worked
the Netherlands Railway as far as Greylingstad, 100 miles beyond
Charlestown (the point of traffic exchange with the Transvaal system),
until the line was taken over by the Imperial authorities on August 15,
1900.
"For nearly six months, up to the relief of Ladysmith," says Mr. C. W.
Francis Harrison, from whose official work on "Natal"[43] these details
are mainly taken, "the Natal lines were robbed of about 40 per cent. of
their total mileage and a quantity of their stock. On the clearance of
the enemy from Natal and the south-eastern portion of the Transvaal,
large supply depôts were formed at Newcastle, Volksrust, Standerton and
intermediate points; and on the joining of the two main portions of the
British army at Heidelberg, the greater portion of the stores for the
forces was conveyed via Natal; and this continued unceasingly until the
termination of hostilities."
ARMOURED TRAINS
It was, again, in the South African war that armoured trains underwent
their greatest development--down to that time--for the purposes alike
of line protection and of attack on the enemy, although their real
usefulness and the conditions necessary to their efficient operation
were not established until after certain early experiences which had
tended to throw doubts upon their efficiency, and had even led to their
being regarded as of little or no account for the purposes of war.
In view of prospective requirements, five armoured trains had been
constructed in advance in the locomotive shops at Cape Town and another
at Natal. Others were put together shortly afterwards; but one of the
Cape trains was wrecked by the Boers the first night of the war, and
two of the Natal trains were locked up in Ladysmith. The remainder
were employed on scouting expeditions during the earlier phases of the
war. Their use not being then rightly understood, they were often sent
considerable distances without any support, with the result that one of
the Natal trains was destroyed by the Boers at Chieveley, on November
15, 1899, and the Cape trains had several narrow escapes of sharing the
same fate.
On the occupation of Bloemfontein by the British, more armoured trains
were constructed at the railway workshops there, and eventually the
number available was increased to a fleet of twenty. Under an improved
system of control and operation, and converted, by the addition of guns,
into what were virtually batteries on wheels, the trains came to be
regarded as offering possibilities of much practical usefulness.
In a lecture on "Railways in War," delivered by him at the Royal
Engineers' Institute, Chatham, and reported in the "Royal Engineers
Journal" for July, 1905, Sir Percy Girouard, said:--
The South African War at one time threatened to produce
a siege, that of Pretoria, where fairly modern forts with
modern armaments were known to exist. At the same time the
enemy at Modder River were giving us some trouble with their
heavy artillery. The Navy came to our rescue with heavy B.L.
guns mounted on wheels. With a view to trying the use of the
railway itself, it was pointed out that the railway department
had both the shops and the goodwill to mount heavy guns, if
required. This offer was approved, and in a few weeks the two
heaviest siege guns ever seen in the field were made ready.
The carriages, designed by the combined wit of the machinery
officers and the Chief Locomotive Superintendent of the Cape
Government Railway, were most creditable achievements, old
engine and tender frames being used as a foundation. The guns
mounted were a 6-inch B.L., and no less a monster than a 9·2
inch B.L. The 6-inch went into action at Modder River. It
was deemed unsafe to fix it at an angle of more than sixteen
degrees to either side of the centre line of the railway; but
by placing it on a so-called firing curve a wider field of fire
was secured. The gun behaved exceedingly well in every way; and
later on it was fired at right angles to the railway, without
any damage either to itself or to the line.
The 9·2-inch gun gave good results in its trials, but, although it was
run up to Pretoria on its truck, there was no opportunity of firing it
on the enemy.
Sir Percy says in his "History" that--
The experiments demonstrated the possibility of big guns
being used in siege operations without any difficulty, the only
limit to the size of the gun being the weight which the railway
bridges will stand.
Apart from the powers of usefulness offered by these batteries on
wheels, there arose, in the early days of the war, the further question
whether the usefulness of armoured trains proper might not be marred as
the result of a defective system of control.
At the outset the trains were placed entirely under the orders of
officers commanding sections of the line; but the arrangement was found
unsatisfactory as the trains were constantly being rushed out regardless
of Traffic Department regulations, and sometimes without even a "line
clear" message. Having, also, the trains at their disposal, as they
considered officers commanding sections of the line often made use of
them to inspect posts between stations, other traffic being stopped
while the inspections were being made. On one occasion, when a large mob
of cattle was being sent to Pretoria and there were no mounted troops
available to convoy them, the expedient was resorted to of employing an
armoured train for the purpose. The train had to adapt its speed to the
rate of progress of the cattle alongside, and such was the interference
with other traffic that the entire length of railway on the Delagoa
main line was blocked until the cattle had reached their destination.
In fact, instead of assisting traffic by preventing the enemy from
interrupting it, the armoured trains caused, Sir Percy Girouard
declares, "more interruptions than the enemy themselves."
With a view both to meet these particular difficulties and to ensure
a better use of the trains, there was appointed an Assistant-Director
of Armoured Trains who was placed on the staff both of the
Commander-in-Chief and of the Director of Railways and had under his
control all the armoured trains in South Africa. Captain H. C. Nanton,
R.E., the officer so appointed, had practical acquaintance alike with
railway requirements and regulations and with armoured trains. In touch
with Headquarters, and kept informed as to which portions of the line
were most threatened by the enemy, it became his duty to order where
the trains should be sent. Once despatched to a particular section of
the line, an armoured train was to be under the control of the General
or other officer commanding that section. The Assistant-Director
had power to remove it, however, if he thought it was more urgently
required elsewhere. It was his duty, also, to work in harmony with
the officers in question; but they, in turn, were not to use as a
private conveyance the train sent to them, and they were not to alter
its garrison or equipment, or to give orders to the officer in charge
which were contrary to the spirit of the general instructions. The
Assistant-Director was himself required to instruct officers in command
of the trains as to the proper tactics to adopt, the best methods
of patrolling, etc., and to see that they "worked in harmony with
the railway officials, and were an assistance and not a hindrance to
traffic."
These improved conditions led to a recognised system for the employment
of armoured trains, the purposes and duties of which were eventually
defined as follows[44]:--
1. In conjunction with columns in the field, to intercept the enemy whom
the columns were driving on to the line.
2. To act on the flank of a column or line of columns, the train being
well advanced so as to prevent the enemy breaking to that flank.
3. To reinforce stations and camps on the railway which were threatened
by the enemy.
4. To escort ordinary traffic trains.
5. To reconnoitre.
6. To patrol by day and night.
7. To protect traffic routes generally.
The garrison of an armoured train consisted of an Infantry escort and
Royal Artillery and Royal Engineer detachments. The R.E. detachment
consisted of one N.C.O. and six sappers skilled in railway repairing
work and in re-setting derailed engines and trucks; two telegraph
linesmen; one telegraph clerk; two engine-drivers and two firemen.
When the train was engaged, all counted as effective rifles with the
exception of the driver and firemen on the footplate, and even they
carried rifles in their engine cab for use against an enemy endeavouring
to gain possession of the engine.
Responsibility for the efficiency of the garrisons was placed upon the
Assistant-Director of Armoured Trains. Whenever, also, a concentration
of the trains had been decided upon, he was to attach himself to one of
them, and take charge of the concerted action of the whole.
In reference to the operation of the trains Captain M. H. Grant
writes[45]:--
It was important that the officer commanding the train
should be a man of judgment and strong nerve. He was often
called upon to act on his own responsibility. His strong
armament and defences enabled him to attack superior forces.
Yet his vulnerable points were many. He had ever to be alert
that the enemy did not cut the line behind him. In addition
to his visible foes and the constant risks of traffic in war
time, he had to contend with skilfully-used automatic and
observation mines, and had to keep his head even amid the roar
which followed the passage of his leading truck over a charge
of dynamite, and then to deal with the attack which almost
certainly ensued. Officers, therefore, had to be chosen from
men of no common stamp. The danger from contact mines was to
a certain extent obviated by a standing order that each train
should propel a heavily-loaded bogie truck. Such trucks had
low sides and ends; they in no way obstructed the view, or
fire, from the trains; and they performed the double purpose of
exploding contact mines and carrying the railway and telegraph
materials. The necessity for this propelled unoccupied bogie was
exemplified on several occasions.
As regards their protection of the railway lines, the armoured trains
rendered an invaluable service, and this was especially the case when
the blockhouse system had been fully developed, and when, concurrently
therewith, the enemy's artillery became scarce. In recording this
opinion, Sir Percy Girouard further observes:--"There is no doubt, also,
that the enemy disliked them intensely, and the presence of an armoured
train had a great moral effect."
In addition to the organisation and running of these armoured trains,
there was included in every ordinary train, as far as possible, a
special gun-truck on which was a pedestal-mounted Q. F. gun, under the
charge of an escort. The trains also carried a machine gun at each end,
arranged with a lateral sweep, to allow the fires to cross on either
side of the train at a distance of from fifty to eighty yards. In
addition to this, armour plates were hung on each side of the driver's
cab, and the first train run each morning had two or three trucks in
front of the engine as a precaution against any mine that might have
been laid over-night.
AMBULANCE AND HOSPITAL TRAINS
Supplementing the references already made on pp. 95-6 to the employment
of ambulance and hospital trains in the South African War, it may here
be stated that three out of the seven adapted from rolling stock already
in use on the Cape or the Natal Government lines had been prepared in
advance of the outbreak of hostilities, namely, two at the Cape and one
in Natal, and these three were, consequently, available for immediate
use.
"In Cape Colony," as stated in "_The Times_ History of the War in South
Africa," "the two hospital trains that had been prepared in September
were manned by a complete _personnel_ from England, and were kept in
constant touch with Lord Methuen's advance. In most cases they were
run up almost into the firing line, and during the actions at Belmont,
Graspan, Modder River and Magersfontein, they relieved the force of its
sick and wounded in an incredibly short time, conveying some to De Aar
and Orange River, and others to the general hospitals at Cape Town." The
services thus rendered by the hospital trains were greatly facilitated
by the fact that during the first three months of the war the fighting
was almost entirely on or alongside the railways. It was, therefore,
possible to arrange for a speedy evacuation of wounded from the field
hospitals.
The same two trains, after working along the line of communication in
Cape Colony, reached Bloemfontein early in April, 1900; and here they
were of great use in helping to remove the sufferers from the enteric
fever which was filling up, not only all the hospitals, but every other
available building, as well, and finally attained, by the end of May, a
maximum of 4,000 cases. Unable to meet all requirements arising under
these exceptional conditions, the two hospital trains were supplemented
by a number of locally-prepared or ordinary trains, made available for
the transport either of sick or of convalescents.
In regard to Natal, "_The Times_ History" says that of all the medical
arrangements made in connection with the war, "those during Sir Redvers
Buller's operations in Natal presented the most satisfactory features."
The line of communication with the base was short, and it was amply
supplied with hospital trains. In addition to the one that had been
formed before the outbreak of hostilities, a second and similar
train was prepared in November, 1889. The hospital train, "Princess
Christian," constructed in England at a cost of £14,000, mainly raised
by Her Royal Highness--with a handsome contribution from the town of
Windsor--reached Cape Town early in February, 1900. It was sent on in
sections to Durban, where it was put together in the Natal Government
Railway workshops. Under the charge of Sir John Furley, who had also
supervised its reconstruction, the train was the first to cross the
temporary trestle bridge provided to take the place of the one across
the Tugela, at Colenso, which had been destroyed by the Boers, and it
was, also, the first train to enter Ladysmith (March 18, 1900) after the
siege. Between this time and September 5, 1901, it made 108 journeys,
mainly on the Natal side and on the Pretoria-Koomati Poort line; it ran
a total of 42,000 miles, and it carried (in addition to the medical and
nursing staff) 321 officers and 7,208 non-commissioned officers and men,
a total of 7,529 sick and wounded, of whom only three died _en route_.
In June, 1901, the train was formally presented by the Central Red Cross
Committee to the Secretary of State for War as a complete hospital
train unit for the use of the military forces in South Africa; but, on
the assumption, apparently, that no further use for its services as a
hospital train was likely to arise, it was subsequently dismantled.
As showing the extent of the work done by the other hospital trains
during the course of the war, it may be added that No. 2 ran 114,539
miles, in 226 trips, between November 22, 1898, and the end of August,
1902, conveying 471 officers and 10,325 non-commissioned officers and
men, a total of 10,796, of whom only seven died _en route_.
TRANSVAAL RAILWAYS AND THE WAR
To the foregoing account of the British use of railways for military
purposes during the course of the South African War it may be of
interest to add a few notes giving the experiences of the Boers, as
detailed in a statement on "The Netherlands South African Railway
Company and the Transvaal War," drawn up at Pretoria, in April, 1900, by
the Secretary of the Company, Mr. Th. Steinnetz, and published in _De
Ingenieur_ of July 14 and 21, 1900.[46]
Under the terms of the concession granted to the Netherlands South
African Railway Company (otherwise the Nederland Zuid Afrikaansche
Spoorweg Maatschappij) by the Government of the Transvaal Republic,
the latter were, in the event either of war or of danger of war, to
have complete control alike over the railway and over everything--and
everybody--necessary for its use, subject to certain undertakings
as to the payment of compensation to concessionaires. By virtue of
these powers the Executive Raad issued a decree on September 13,
1899, establishing Government control over the lines, and stating
further:--"With the view of ensuring that proper use can be made of
the railway, the whole of the _personnel_ of the company are ...
commandeered to do duty on the railways in the functions they now
occupy, and they are placed under the orders of the Commandant-General
and the war officers indicated by him, or of other officials." The
Government, in effect, took possession of all the lines, rolling stock,
workshops and other properties of the railway company for the purposes
of military transport, and they assumed control over the staff in order
to ensure the working, not only of the company's own lines, but, also,
of the lines in such portions of British territory as might be occupied
by the forces of the Republic.
Against the possibility of an immediate invasion of the
Transvaal--"about which," says the statement, "there was much anxiety
on account of the armoured trains, which the English advertised so
loudly"--precautions were taken by preparing for demolition some of the
bridges on the south-eastern section of the company's lines. Guards
were, also, stationed at bridges and other important points throughout
the Transvaal in order to protect them against attack or interference by
"the great number of Anglophiles" assumed to be still in the Republic;
but the statement seems to suggest that, as shown by the small number
of attempts made in this direction, the British rather neglected their
opportunities.
In regard to the transport of Transvaal troops, difficulties arose at
the outset owing to the absence of data, even of the vaguest character,
as to the numbers of burghers, horses and wagons it would be necessary
to convey by train. Consequently, no military time-tables could be
drawn up, and the traffic demands were met as best they could be when
they were made. No more, however, than eleven trains a day, in each
direction, could be run on the south-eastern branch--a single-track
line, with stations and crossing places about one hour's journey apart.
Concerning the amount of traffic carried, Mr. Steinnetz says:--
The total military traffic to the frontier was not so great
as one would expect, in spite of only a portion of the burghers
having taken up arms. From various districts the commandos
marched mounted, with ox-wagons, to the place of assembly, as
had been the custom in the past, although the use of the railway
would have saved time and trouble to both horses and men. Yet
it was not the first time that the Transvaalers had had the
opportunity of learning the use of railways in warfare. At the
time of the Jameson Raid and the Magato Campaign full use had
been made of them.
Among the railway bridges which the Boers had prepared for destruction,
in case of need, was an iron one of 116 ft. span, the blowing up of
which would have checked the anticipated British invasion of the
Transvaal via Lang's Nek; but the concentration of the British forces
at Dundee and Ladysmith allowed the Boers to enter Natal without
resistance; and they took over, in sections, the working of the Natal
railway in proportion as they advanced. At various stations in northern
Natal long platforms had been specially constructed by the British,
and other arrangements made, to permit of large movements of troops
and especially the detraining of cavalry. These improvements, says Mr.
Steinnetz, came in very handy for the Federal Army. The _personnel_
of the lines had "retired in a great hurry," without attempting any
demolitions or doing any damage to the lines beyond what could be easily
repaired. The Lang's Nek tunnel was "wholly untouched." Mr. Steinnetz
continues:--
The Boers themselves, however, through fear of being
surprised by armoured trains, and for other reasons, gave
the breakdown gangs more work to do. The telegraph line was
destroyed by them for long distances, the track was broken up
and two bridges were damaged. In order to obstruct the retreat
of General Yule from Dundee a bridge of two 30-foot spans on
the Dundee branch line was blown up by the Irish Brigade with
a dynamite charge in the central pier. The damage done was not
very great and was easily repaired. The same ineffective measure
was applied with greater success to a similar bridge over a
small spruit near Waschbank. But even here the repair was not
difficult.
These admissions as to the ease with which the work of destruction
could, as a rule, readily be put right again are in full accord with
Sir Percy Girouard's report, in dealing with the same subject. It is
only fair to accept, in turn, the assertion made by Mr. Steinnetz that
the damage which the British did to certain of the railway bridges was
"speedily repaired."
Some of the later destruction work carried out by the Boers was of
a more serious character. The blowing up of the Tugela bridge at
Colenso--a structure consisting of five iron lattice girder spans of
100 ft. each on masonry piles--was entrusted by the Boer military
authorities to an inspector of the railway company who had served in the
Dutch engineers. It was accomplished by the simultaneous detonation of
forty dynamite charges all connected by leads to a Siemens and Halske
"exploder," the bridge being "thoroughly demolished." In the destruction
of the three-span bridge over the Orange River at Norval's Pont the
charge employed consisted of about three and a half chests of dynamite,
or 198 lbs. Concerning the general destruction of bridges by which the
Boers sought to check pursuit after their abandonment of the siege of
Ladysmith, Mr. Steinnitz says:--"There was no lack of explosives, and no
need to spare them."
The central workshops of the Netherlands Company were made use of by the
Government for the repair of guns, rifles, wagons, etc., and for the
manufacture of war material. Four complete ambulance trains were also
fitted up there for the use of wounded burghers.
All the traffic on the lines was done on Government orders, and all
expenses were charged to them. No private traffic at all was carried.
There were, consequently, no railway receipts, and the railway company
had no responsibility.
DEVELOPMENT OF RAIL POWER
In one way or another the South African War of 1899-1902 was concerned
in many of the most complicated of the problems that arise in connection
with the use of railways for military purposes.[47]
In various ways, also, it advanced to a still further stage the whole
question of the nature and possibilities of rail-power in war.
It confirmed under especially remarkable conditions a fact which
the American War of Secession had already established, namely, that
even single lines of railway, passing through country occupied by or
belonging to the enemy, may allow of campaigns being conducted at
such distances from the base of supplies as, but for this means of
communication, would render war impracticable.
It offered further evidence as to the possibility, in favourable
circumstances, of employing railways for the carrying out of important
tactical movements.
It re-established the essential need of organisation for the attainment
of efficiency in military transport and especially in so far as such
organisation deals with questions of control and co-ordination of the
military and the technical elements.
It placed on a recognised and clearly defined basis the uses of armoured
trains and the best methods to be adopted for their construction and
operation.
It showed still more clearly, perhaps, than any previous war had done,
the useful and beneficent purposes served by ambulance and hospital
trains, whether constructed for the purpose or adapted from existing
railway stock.
It proved that, however apparently insecure a line of rail communication
may be, and however active and destructive the attacks made on it by
a pertinacious enemy, yet, with a strong and well-organised force of
Railway Troops following close on the advancing army, and supplemented
by an efficient system of line-protection, repairs and reconstruction
can be carried out with such speed that comparatively little material
delay will be caused, the final result of the campaign will not
necessarily be affected, and the value of rail-power as an instrument of
war will suffer no actual reduction.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] In Vol. II of the "Detailed History of the Railways in the South
African War" (Chatham: Royal Engineers Institute, 1904), there is
a series of 45 full-page photographs of damaged bridges and of the
low-level deviations constructed to take their place.
[42] For a description of these blockhouses, see vol. iii, pp. 125-6, of
the "History of the Corps of the Royal Engineers," by Col. Sir Chas. M.
Watson. Royal Engineers Institute, Chatham, 1915.
[43] "Natal: An Illustrated Official Railway Guide and Handbook."
Compiled and edited by C. W. Francis Harrison. Published by Authority.
London, 1903.
[44] "History of the War in South Africa, 1899-1902. Compiled by
Direction of His Majesty's Government." Vol. IV, Appendix 10: "Notes on
the Military Railway System in South Africa." London, 1910.
[45] Official "History," Vol. IV, Appendix 10.
[46] For English translation, see "Journal of the Royal United Service
Institution," January, 1902.
[47] In the preface of his standard work on "Military Railways," Major
W. D. Connor, of the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, says:
"On the military side I refer to the reports of Colonel Sir E. P. C.
Girouard, K.C.M.G., R.E., of the British Army, whose work in Egypt and
South Africa has set a high standard for any engineer who in future may
be required to meet and solve railway problems in the theatre of war.
These reports give the solution of many points as worked out in the
field, and confirm the main lessons to be learned from the history of
the military railways in our Civil War." (See "Bibliography.")
CHAPTER XVII
THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 was a test not so much of the military
strength of the two combatants as of their respective means of
communication and concentration.
From Moscow to Port Arthur the distance is 5,300 miles, and, save for
the sea journey via the Baltic, the North Sea, the Atlantic and the
Indian Ocean, the Russians were dependent for the transport of their
troops and stores to Manchuria on such very inadequate railways as they
then controlled. Japan, on the other hand, was able to rely on her fleet
and her considerably developed mercantile marine; and, as soon as she
had paralysed the Russian fleet and established her own command of the
sea--as she did within two days of the outbreak of hostilities--she
could land her forces whenever she chose at almost any convenient point
on the sea-board of the theatre of war.
The situation recalled, somewhat, the still worse position in which
Russia had found herself at the time of the Crimean War when, in the
absence of any rail facilities at all, her troops had to march, and
their supplies and munitions had to be conveyed, hundreds of miles over
dreary steppes--"huge columns that had quitted the far north and east of
the interior dwindling to a few broken-down Battalions before they came
in sight of Sebastopol"--whereas the allies could send their troops all
the way to the Crimea by sea.
While there are many other causes which, rightly or wrongly, have been
regarded as contributing to the defeat of Russia by Japan--included
therein being personal shortcomings of the Russian officers; mistakes
made by them in strategy and tactics; defects in the Russian military
system, and the half-hearted interest of the Russian nation in the
struggle--the really decisive factors in the situation were the
transport deficiencies of the Siberian and Manchurian railways.
The construction of a _Trans-Siberian Railway_ as a great strategic
line stretching across Asia, facilitating the development of a vast
territory, and, above all, calculated to foster the realisation of
Russia's aims in the Far East, first came under discussion about the
year 1860. It was made the subject of an exhaustive study by a Committee
of Ministers in 1875, but it was not until 1891 that the first sod was
turned.
Military and political considerations being paramount, such energy was
shown in the work of construction that by 1896 the western section
had been carried through Irkutsk to Lake Baikal and from the eastern
shores thereof to Strietensk, while the eastern section--known as the
Usuri Railway--had been made through Russia's Maritime Province from
Vladivostok to Khabarovsk. The original design was that the line should
be constructed on Russian territory all the way to Vladivostok; but
this meant that from Strietensk it would have to follow the great bend
made to the north by the Amur, the southern boundary of Russia, and the
Russian Government thought it desirable to secure a more direct route.
Towards the end of 1896, in return for the great services which she
considered she had rendered to China in the war between that country and
Japan, Russia obtained the concession for a railway which, starting from
Chita, Trans-Baikalia, about 200 miles west of Strietensk, would pass
through Manchuria to Vladivostok, avoiding the great bend of the Amur,
though still offering the disadvantage that one important section of the
through route would not be on Russian territory. Under a contract made
between the Chinese Government and the Russo-Chinese Bank, a _Chinese
Eastern Railway Company_ was formed to build and operate the line thus
conceded; but the arrangements made were carried out through the Russian
Minister of Finance, and the line was directly dependent on the Russian
State.
Russia's occupation of Port Arthur in March, 1898, led, in the spring
of the following year, to the further construction being begun of a
southern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway from Harbin, a station on
the Chita-Vladivostok line, to the extremity of the Liao-tung peninsula.
It was these two railways, the Trans-Siberian and the Chinese Eastern,
terminating at Vladivostok in the one direction and at Port Arthur in
the other, which came into special consideration in the war of 1904-5.
It was on the Trans-Siberian line, more especially, that Russia was
mainly dependent (as the German official report on the war points out)
not only for the concentration and maintenance of her army but even for
the raising and organisation of most of its units.
When the Trans-Siberian was first built, the desire to avoid undue
expenditure on a line which must necessarily involve a huge expenditure,
with little or no prospect of yielding a return sufficient for the
payment of interest thereon, led to the adoption of an economy which was
to hamper very materially the transport capacity of the railway. Only a
single line of rails was allowed for; a limit was placed on the breadth
of the embankments; the curves were greater than considerations of speed
and safety should have permitted; the gradients were either dangerously
varied or so excessive that divisions of the trains were necessary;
the rails used were of no greater weight than from 42 lbs. to 47 lbs.
per yard, and they were badly laid, even then; the bridges across the
smaller streams were made of wood only; the crossing-places and the
railway stations were few and far between, while all the secondary
constructions were provided on what was almost the cheapest possible
scale.
These conditions necessitated the limitation of the traffic, when the
line was first opened, to the running of three trains a day in each
direction. The length of the trains was restricted to sixty axles. It
was thus impossible to meet the demands even of the ordinary traffic
in peace time, apart altogether from any question as to military
requirements in time of war. No sooner, therefore, were the main
portions of the line ready, in 1898, than there was set aside, for
a railway which was already to cost over £350,000,000, a further sum
of £9,130,000 for relaying those portions of the line with a better
quality of rails and sleepers, the reconstruction of sections dangerous
to traffic, the provision of more stations and more rolling stock, and
other improvements. It was expected that this additional work would be
completed by 1904, by which time the line was to be equal to the running
of thirteen pairs of trains daily.
Reporting on the condition of the Russian railways in 1900 (at which
date the Eastern Chinese line was still unfinished), General Kuropatkin,
then War Minister, afterwards Commander-in-Chief in Manchuria, did not
hesitate to declare that it was still impossible for them to cope with
heavy traffic.
Relations between Russia and Japan became strained towards the end of
1903, though the Government of the former country were desirous that any
outbreak of hostilities should be avoided until they were better able
to undertake them. In his account of "The Russian Army and the Japanese
War" General Kuropatkin says concerning the position at this period:--
Our unreadiness was only too plain, and it seemed at that
time that we should be able, with two or three years' steady
work, so to strengthen our position in the Far East, and improve
the railway, the fleet, the land forces, and the fortresses of
Port Arthur and Vladivostok that Japan would have small chance
of success against us.
Regarding war as inevitable, and disinclined to give Russia an
opportunity of first strengthening her position in the directions here
suggested, Japan broke off diplomatic relations with Russia on February
6, 1904, this being the immediate prelude to the hostilities that
followed.
In anticipation of a possible rupture, Russia had already despatched
reinforcements and stores to the Far East by sea; but the rupture,
when it did come, found her quite unprepared to send further large
reinforcements by land, while her forces in the Far East were scattered
over the vast area extending from Lake Baikal to Vladivostok, and from
Port Arthur to Nikolaievsk. No orders for mobilisation had been issued;
the army was in the midst of rearmament and reorganisation, and the
unreadiness of the railways had prevented the drawing up of time-tables
for the concentration of the troops. Ten days after the outbreak of war
the Russian Government issued a statement in which they said:--
The distance of the territory now attacked and the desire of
the Tsar to maintain peace were the causes of the impossibility
of preparations for war being made a long time in advance.
Not only, too, was the seat of war 5,000 miles away, and not only was
a single-track ill-equipped line of railway the only practicable means
of sending troops and war material there by land, but an exceptionally
great obstacle to traffic had to be met owing to the interruption of
rail communication by Lake Baikal.
Having a length of 380 miles, a breadth ranging from eighteen miles to
fifty-six miles, a mean depth of 850 feet (with a maximum, in parts, of
no less than 4,500 ft.), and a total area of over 13,000 square miles,
_Lake Baikal_ ranks, next to the great lakes of the United States and
Central Africa, as the largest fresh-water lake in the world; though it
should, in reality, be regarded less as a lake than as a great inland
sea. As it happened, also, this vast expanse of water stood in the
direct line of route of the Trans-Siberian railway, and the crossing of
it by the Russian reinforcements going to the Far East constituted a
seriously defective link in the chain of communication.
At an elevation of 1,360 feet above sea level, the lake is subject
alike to severe gales, to heavy fogs, and to frosts so intense that in
mid-winter the water may be frozen to a depth of ten feet. From the end
of April to the end of December troops and travellers arriving by rail
at one side of the lake crossed to the other by passenger steamers.
Goods wagons were taken over by ferry-boats which, also, acted as
ice-breakers early and late in the winter season, so long as the passage
could be kept open. When, in the winter, the ice was strong enough
to bear, traffic was conducted by transport sledges; but when there
was sufficient ice to stop the ferry-boats, though not sufficient to
permit of the sledges being used--conditions which generally prevailed
for about six weeks in the year--the traffic had to be discontinued
altogether.
The question will naturally be asked,--Why had not the constructors of
the line avoided these disadvantages by carrying it round the lake? The
reply is that this had not been done, prior to the outbreak of war,
owing to the formidable nature of the work involved from an engineering
point of view.
Lake Baikal is bordered, on the south--the route a Circum-Baikal line
would have to take--by mountains which rise sheer up from the water's
edge to a height of, in places, no less than 4,600 ft. Across the
mountains, along the rocky shores, and over the intervening valleys the
railway would require to be carried for a distance of 160 miles in order
to link up the two sections then divided by the lake. The difficulties
of the work were likely to be as great as the cost would certainly be
enormous, compared with that of the remainder of the Trans-Siberian
railway. So it was that when the war broke out there were still 112
miles of the Circum-Baikal line to be constructed.
So it was, also, that, pending the completion of this line round the
lake, Russia's reinforcements from Europe for the Far East had to
cross the lake itself; and the outbreak of hostilities in the month of
February placed Russia at an especially great disadvantage in regard to
transport.
The combined ferry-steamers and ice-breakers had made their final
journey for the winter on January 27, and at first the only way in
which the troops could cross the ice was by marching or by sledge.
After a day's rest at Irkutsk, they were brought by train to Baikal
station, at the lake side, arriving there at about four o'clock in
the morning in order that they could complete the journey to Tanchoi
station, on the other side of the lake--a distance of about twenty-five
miles--in the day. The track was marked out by posts, supplemented by
lanterns at night, and it was kept in order by gangs of labourers.
Small bridges were placed over cracks in the ice. Shelters, in
telephonic communication with one another, were provided at four-mile
distances alike for the purpose of rest and for the distribution of food
prepared by regimental field kitchens; but the principal meal of the
day was taken at a more substantial half-way house, where the cooking
arrangements were on a more elaborate scale and better accommodation
was provided. Around the half-way house at night petroleum flares were
burned, so that it could be seen a long way off. In foggy weather, or
during snow storms, bells were rung at all the shelters. Inasmuch as the
temperature fell, at times, to 22 deg., Fahr., below zero, the provision
of these rest-houses must have been greatly appreciated. Baggage was
taken across in sledges, the normal supply of which had been increased
by an additional 3,000. Some of the troops also made the journey by this
form of conveyance, four men being seated in each sledge. The batteries
crossed with their own horses.
As soon as the ice attained a thickness of about 4½ ft., the expedient
was adopted of laying a pair of rails along it in order, more
especially, that the additional engines and railway wagons urgently
needed on the lines east of the lake could be taken across. The
rails were laid on sleepers of exceptional length, the weight being
thus distributed over a greater surface of ice; but, even with this
precaution, it was no easy matter to keep the line in working order
owing to the extreme cold, to storms, to the occasional ice movements
and cracks, or to the effect of earthquake shocks in destroying lengths
of line, sections of which sometimes required to be relaid almost as
soon as they had been put down. The line was begun on February 10 and
completed by the 29th of the same month. Between March 1 and March 26
there were taken across the lake, by this means, sixty-five dismantled
locomotives (rebuilt on arrival on the eastern side), twenty-five
railway carriages, and 2,313 goods wagons. Transport was provided by
horses, the number so used being about 1,000.
Constructed to serve an exclusively military purpose, this
twenty-five-mile line across Lake Baikal may certainly be regarded as
a "military railway," while as a military ice-railway it holds a unique
position in the history of warfare.
When, owing to the advancing season, the ice on the lake could no longer
be trusted to bear either railway trucks or sledges, and when navigation
was again open, dependence had to be placed on the ferry services. There
were, however, only two vessels available for the transfer of railway
trucks across the lake, and each of these, accommodating twenty-seven
trucks at a time, could make no more than three return crossings in the
twenty-four hours.
Only in one way could an improvement be effected in these obviously
inadequate facilities for getting an army to Manchuria, and that was in
carrying the railway round the southern end of the lake, thus avoiding
the delay caused by the hitherto unavoidable transshipment and crossing,
and ensuring a continuous rail journey. The need for this _Circum-Baikal
link_ had, in fact, become urgent, and the work was pushed on with the
greatest vigour.
Mention has already been made of the engineering difficulties which the
construction of the line involved. These will be better understood if
it is added that the 160-mile link passes through thirty-four tunnels,
having an aggregate length of over six miles; that it is carried across
valleys, or open spaces, on two hundred bridges, and that numerous
cuttings and many large culverts had also to be provided. The total
cost worked out at no less than £52,000 per mile--probably the largest
sum per mile ever spent on a railway designed, in the first instance,
to serve a distinctly military purpose, and exceeding by £35,000 the
average cost per mile, down to that date, of the entire system of
Russian railways. Delays occurred, also, through strikes and other
causes, and, in the result, it was not until September 25, 1904--more
than seven months after the outbreak of war--that the line was ready for
use, and that an interruption of the rail journey by the crossing of
Lake Baikal became no longer necessary.
Meanwhile, an inadequate supply of engines and rolling stock had been
a serious hindrance to traffic alike on the Trans-Baikal section of
the Siberian line and on the Eastern Chinese lines. The locomotives and
wagons taken across Lake Baikal either on the ice-railway or on the
ferry boats had served a useful purpose, but six months elapsed before
the Eastern Chinese lines could be worked to their full efficiency.
There were other directions, as well, in which _traffic hindrances_
arose. The freezing, down to the very bottom, of the rivers between
the eastern side of Lake Baikal and Harbin (Manchuria) was a cause of
serious difficulty in the early part of the year in getting water even
for such locomotives as were available. In the western Siberian section
the supply of water was impaired by the great percentage of salt in the
streams. In Manchuria the fuel reserve was inadequate; soldiers were
the only reliable portion of the subordinate railway staff; the railway
workshops were poorly equipped; there were not nearly enough engine
depôts; large supplies of rails, fish-plates, sleepers and ballast were
needed, and much work had to be done in the construction of additional
sidings, etc. All these shortcomings required to be made good whilst
the war was in actual progress, though for the transport of most of the
necessary materials and appliances there was only a single-track line of
railway already overtaxed for the conveyance of troops, munitions and
supplies.
The _number of trains_ that could be run was extremely limited. The
capacity of the line of communication as a whole was fixed by that
of the Eastern Chinese Railway between Chita and Harbin; and after
three months of war it was still possible to run from west to east in
each twenty-four hours no more than three military trains (conveying
troops, supplies, stores and remounts), one light mail train, and, when
necessary, one ambulance train; though these conditions were improved
later on.
The _speed_ at which the trains ran--allowing for necessary stops in
stations or at crossing places on the line--ranged from five to eleven
miles an hour, with seven miles an hour as a good average. For the
journey from Warsaw to Mukden the military trains took forty days,
including one day's rest for the troops at the end of every 600 or 700
miles. In April and May the journey from Wirballen, on the frontier
of Russia and Germany, to Liao-yang, situate between Mukden and Port
Arthur, took fifty days--an average speed of five and a quarter miles
per hour.
What with the transport and other difficulties that arose, it was not
for three months after the outbreak of hostilities that the Russian
troops in the Ear East received reinforcements. It was not until after
seven months of war that the three Army Corps sent from European Russia
to join the field army were all concentrated in Manchuria.
Under these conditions the Japanese, free to send their own armies by
sea to the theatre of war, and able to concentrate them with far greater
speed, had all the initial advantage. The Russian reinforcements arrived
in driblets, and they were either cut off as they came or, as regards,
at least, the fighting from May 14 to October 14, provided only 21,000
men to replace 100,000 killed, wounded or sick; whereas the Japanese
were able to maintain a continuous flow of reinforcements to make good
their own casualties.
General Kuropatkin is of opinion that if the Russians had been able
to command better transport from the outset the whole course of the
campaign would have been changed. He thinks that even a single extra
through troop train per day would have made a material difference, while
the running, from the start, of six trains a day would, he believes,
have secured for Russia alike the initiative and the victory. Referring
to the Siberian and Eastern Chinese Railways he says:--
If these lines had been more efficient, we could have
brought up our troops more rapidly, and, as things turned out,
150,000 men concentrated at first would have been of far more
value to us than the 300,000 who were gradually assembled during
nine months, only to be sacrificed in detail.... If we had had a
better railway and had been able to mass at Liao-yang the number
specified, we should undoubtedly have won the day in spite of
our mistakes.
Kuropatkin himself certainly did all he could to improve the transport
conditions. In a statement he submitted to the Tsar on March 7, 1904,
he declared that of all urgently pressing questions that of bettering
the railway communication between Russia and Siberia was the most
important; and he added:--"It must, therefore, be taken up at once, in
spite of the enormous cost. The money expended will not be wasted; it
will, on the contrary, be in the highest sense productive inasmuch as it
will shorten the duration of the war."
On the Trans-Baikal section six new stations were added, and additional
crossing places to facilitate the passing of trains were provided
elsewhere, so that by May some additional trains per day could be
run. In June orders were given by the Government for the execution of
extensive works designed to increase the capacity of the Siberian and
Eastern Chinese main lines to seven trains per day in each direction,
and that of the southern branch to twelve per day. The cost of these
improvements was estimated at £4,400,000.
In November, 1904, Kuropatkin submitted to the Tsar a recommendation
that the lines should be at once doubled throughout their whole length.
The reinforcements, he declared, were even then still coming in
driblets. "Supplies despatched in the spring are still on the Siberian
side. Waterproofs sent for the summer will arrive when we want fur
coats; fur coats will come to hand when waterproofs are wanted."
There was need, also, to provide stores of provisions for the troops. So
long as the army was a comparatively small one it could depend mainly on
local resources. In proportion as it increased in size it became more
and more dependent on supplies from European Russia; but the collection
of a sufficiency for a single month meant the running of five extra
trains a day for a like period. Even when ample supplies were available
at one point, weakness and inefficiency in the transport arrangements
might lead to the troops elsewhere suffering privations which should be
avoided.
Whether for financial or other reasons, the Russian Government did not
adopt the idea of converting the single track of the railway system
into double track; but the improvements made in the traffic facilities
(including the provision of sixty-nine additional places for the passing
of trains) were such that by the time peace was concluded, on September
5, 1905, the Russians had ten, or even twelve pairs of full-length
trains running in the twenty-four hours, as compared with the two per
day which could alone be run six months before the outbreak of war and
the three per day which were running nine months later. The capacity of
the lines had been increased practically fourfold; though the general
situation remained such as to evoke the following comment from the
writer of the official German account of the war[48]:--
In spite of the efforts made to improve the line, the
connection of the Russian forces in East Asia with their home
country was, and remained, an unreliable and uncertain factor
in the calculations of Army Headquarters. No measures, were
they ever so energetic, could be designed to remove this
uncertainty, and it was only gradually, as the Manchurian Army
itself increased and concentrated, and as the railway works
advanced, that greater freedom of action was assured to the
Commander-in-Chief; but even then the army as a whole, with all
its wants and supplies, remained dependent on the Siberian and
Eastern Chinese Railways.
What the railways did was to enable the Russians to collect at the
theatre of war, by the time the war itself came to an end, an army of
1,000,000 men--of whom two-thirds had not yet been under fire--together
with machine-guns, howitzers, shells, small-arm ammunition, field
railways, wireless telegraphy, supplies, and technical stores of all
kinds. Kuropatkin says of this achievement:--
The War Department had, with the co-operation of other
departments, successfully accomplished a most colossal task.
What single authority would have admitted a few years ago the
possibility of concentrating an army of a million men 5,400
miles away from its base of supply and equipment by means of a
poorly-constructed single-line railway? Wonders were effected;
but it was too late. Affairs in the interior of Russia for which
the War Department could not be held responsible were the cause
of the war being brought to an end at a time when decisive
military operations should really have only just been beginning.
Russia, in fact, agreed to make peace at a time when the prospect of her
being able to secure a victory was greater than it had been at any time
during the earlier phases of the war; but the Japanese failed to attain
all they had hoped for, the primary causes of such failure, in spite
of their repeated victories, being, as told in the British "Official
History" of the war, that "Port Arthur held out longer than had been
expected, and the Trans-Siberian Railway enabled Russia to place more
men in the field than had been thought possible."[49]
Thus, in respect to rail-power, at least, Russia still achieved a
remarkable feat in her transport of an army so great a distance by a
single-track line of railway. Such an achievement was unexampled, while,
although Fate was against the ultimate success of her efforts, Russia
provided the world with a fresh object lesson as to what might have
been done, in a campaign waged more than 5,000 miles from the base of
supplies, if only the line of rail communication had been equal from the
first to the demands it was called upon to meet.
Apart from this main consideration, there were some other phases of the
Russo-Japanese War which are of interest from the point of view of the
present study.
The _Field railways_, mentioned on the previous page, constituted a
network of, altogether, 250 miles of narrow-gauge railways built and
operated by the Russian troops--either alone or with the help of Chinese
labourers--and designed to act as subsidiary arteries of the broad-gauge
Eastern Chinese Railway by (1) providing for the transport therefrom of
troops and supplies to the front; (2) conveying guns and munitions to
the siege batteries, and (3) bringing back the sick and wounded. Horses,
ponies and mules were employed for traction purposes. Each of the three
Russian armies in the field had its own group of narrow-gauge lines,
and the lines themselves served a most useful purpose in a country of
primitive roads and inadequate local means of transport.
In one instance a broad-gauge branch line was built inland, during the
course of the war, from the Eastern Chinese Railway for a distance of
twenty-five miles. A depôt was set up at its terminus, and thence the
supplies were conveyed to the troops by a series of narrow-gauge lines
extending to every part of that particular section of the theatre of war.
Construction of the narrow-gauge line serving the Second Army, and
extending nineteen miles from a point on the Eastern Chinese Railway
near to Port Arthur, necessitated the provision of six bridges and three
embankments. Three lines, the building of which was begun in January,
1905, were siege lines specially designed to serve the positions taken
up at Liao-yang; but all three were abandoned on the evacuation of
Mukden, early in March. It was, however, subsequent to the retreat from
Mukden that the greatest degree of energy in constructing narrow-gauge
lines was shown by the Russians. In addition to the 250 miles brought
into use, there was still another 100 miles completed; but these could
not be operated owing to the inadequate supply of wagons--a supply
reduced still further through seizures made by the Japanese.
During the course of the war the traffic carried on these military
narrow-gauge lines included over 58,000 tons of provisions, stores,
etc., 75,132 sick and wounded, and 24,786 other troops.[50]
For the carrying out of all this construction work, and, also, for the
operation of the Manchurian and Ussuri railways, Russia had twenty-four
companies of _Railway Troops_, the total force of which was estimated
at 11,431. In the first part of the war she relied upon her six East
Siberian Railway Battalions. As the work increased other Battalions were
brought from European Russia.
The Japanese were not well provided with Railway Troops; but they were
none the less active in endeavouring to destroy the Russian lines of
communication, on which so much depended. For instance, the railway
to Port Arthur was cut by them near Wa-fang-tien at 11 p.m. on May 6.
The Russians repaired the line, and by May 10 a further train-load of
ammunition was sent over it into Port Arthur. Three days later the
Japanese cut the line at another point, and from that time Port Arthur
was isolated.
As regards the _operation_ of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese Railways,
Colonel W. H. H. Waters says:--[51]
Taking the railway as a whole, from Chelyabinsk, which is
the western terminus of the Siberian portion, to Mukden, a
distance of close upon 4,000 miles, it has worked better than I
expected; but the one great fault connected with it has been,
and is, the incapacity of Russian railwaymen, civil or military,
to handle heavy station traffic properly. If Russia were to pay
a British or American goods-yard foreman, say from Nine Elms
station, a salary, no matter how high, and let him import his
own staff of assistants, the improvement of the Asiatic lines in
question would be remarkable.
Then, again, Captain C. E. Vickers, R.E., writing on "The Siberian
Railway in War," in the issue of "The Royal Engineers Journal" (Chatham)
for August, 1905, points to the need which was developed for the
_control_ of the railway during war by a separate staff, as distinct
from the staffs concerned in arranging operations, distributing supplies
and munitions, and other military duties.
Whether due to the personal incapacity spoken of by the one authority
here quoted, or to the lack of a separate organisation alluded to by the
other, the fact remains that the operation of the Siberian and Eastern
Chinese lines did give rise to a degree of confusion that must have
greatly increased the difficulties of the position in which the Russians
were placed.
When, for example, in September, 1904, reservists were urgently
wanted at Mukden after the retreat from Liao-yang, the traffic was so
mismanaged that it took the troops seven days to do the 337 miles from
Harbin--an average speed of two miles per hour. On December 5, Harbin
Junction was so blocked in all directions by trains which could neither
move in nor go out that traffic had to be suspended for twelve hours
until the entanglement was set right. Still further, after the fall of
Port Arthur, on January 2, 1905, and the augmentation of the Japanese
forces by Nogi's army, the arrival of reinforcements then so greatly
needed by the Russians was delayed for over one month to allow of the
forwarding of a quantity of stores which had accumulated on the line.
Some, at least, of the difficulties and delays experienced in operation
were undoubtedly due to developments of that _interference by individual
officers_ with the working of the railways of which we have already had
striking examples in the case of the American War of Secession and the
Franco-German War of 1870-71. Colonel Waters writes on this subject:--
It is interesting to note how the working of the line was
interfered with by those who should have been the first to see
that no extraneous calls were made upon it when the organisation
of the army and the strengthening of Port Arthur were of vital
importance.
The chief of the Viceroy's Staff was the intermediary
between Admiral Alexeiev and General Kuropatkin, the former
being at Mukden and the latter at Liao-yang, thirty-seven miles
distant. Frequent conferences took place between Kuropatkin
and this officer, who always used to come in a special train
to Liao-yang. This necessitated the line being kept clear for
indefinite periods of time and dislocated all the other traffic
arrangements, as the then chief of the railways himself declared.
In the first days of May, 1904, the Viceroy and the Grand
Duke Boris were at Port Arthur, and wished to leave it before
they should be cut off. I heard that they actually took three
special trains to quit Port Arthur, namely, one for each of
them, and one for their baggage and stores. This entirely upset
the troop train, supply and ammunition services, at a time,
too, when the scarcity of heavy gun munition in the fortress was
such that, within a week, Kuropatkin called for volunteers to
run a train-load through, which was done a few hours only before
the place was definitely invested.
There were, throughout 1904, plenty of other instances
of special trains being run for, and siding accommodation
occupied by, various individuals, so that the organisation and
maintenance of the army was considerably hampered thereby.
These experiences simply confirm the wisdom of the action which other
countries had already taken (1) to ensure the efficient operation of
railways in time of war by staffs comprising the military and the
technical elements in combination, and (2) to prevent the interference
of the former in the details of the actual working by the latter.
Russia was, in fact, distinctly behind Western nations in these respects
in 1904-5, and the need for placing her military transport system on a
sounder basis was among the many lessons she learnt--and acted upon--as
the result of her experiences in the war with Japan.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] "The Russo-Japanese War. The Ya-Lu. Prepared in the Historical
Section of the German General Staff." Authorized Translation by Karl von
Donat. London, 1908.
[49] "Official History of the Russo-Japanese War." Prepared by the
Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. London, 1910.
[50] "Construction et exploitation des chemins de fer à traction animale
sur le théâtre de la guerre de 1904-5 en Mandchourie." _Revue du Genie
Militaire_, Avril, Mai, Juin, 1909. Paris.
[51] "The Russo-Japanese War. Reports from British Officers attached to
the Japanese and Russians Forces in the Field." Vol. III. General Report
[dated March, 1905] by Col. W. H. H. Waters. London, 1908.
CHAPTER XVIII
STRATEGICAL RAILWAYS: GERMANY
Between "strategical" and "military" railways there are certain
fundamental differences, just as there are, also, between both of them
and ordinary commercial railways.
While designed partly, mainly, or, it may be, exclusively, to serve
military purposes, strategical railways, unlike military railways
proper, form part of the ordinary railway system of the country in which
they are built. They approximate to commercial lines in construction,
equipment and operation, and they are worked in connection with them
for the ordinary purposes of trade and travel; though in their case any
considerations as to whether the traffic they carry is remunerative
does not arise, provided only that they are capable of fulfilling
their real purpose--that, namely, of ensuring such military transports
as may, sooner or later, be required of them. It is possible that in
times of peace the amount of actual traffic passing over them will
be comparatively small, if not even practically _nil_, and that many
years may elapse before the special facilities they must necessarily
offer,--such as extensive siding accommodation and long platforms for
the loading and unloading of troop trains--are likely to be employed to
the fullest extent; but they nevertheless form an integral part both
of the railway system and of the military system of the country, and,
having been constructed, they are, at least, available for military
purposes whenever wanted.
One must, however, again bear in mind that a railway built to meet
the ordinary requirements of trade and travel does not become a
"strategical" any more than a "military" railway simply because, in
time of war, it is used, to whatever extent, for the conveyance of
troops, supplies or war material. The essential factor in each instance
is, not the use that is made of the line, but the particular, or, at
least, the main object it has been built to serve. Just, also, as a
commercial line remains a commercial line notwithstanding its use for
military traffic, so, in turn, a strategical line remains a strategical
line whatever the amount of civilian traffic it may carry in time of
peace.
Yet while the distinction thus drawn between general railways and
strategical railways is abundantly warranted, the increase of the former
may still have an important bearing on the operation of the latter
because of the improvement of transport facilities in the interior,
and because of the greater amount of rolling stock which will be made
available for war purposes. "From a military point of view," said von
Moltke in the Prussian Herrenhaus on March 26, 1876, "every railway is
welcome, and two are still more welcome than one"; and he developed
this idea in a further speech on December 17, 1879, when, in declaring
that the ownership and operation of the leading Prussian railways was
desirable from a military standpoint, he said:--[52]
Railways have become, in our time, one of the most essential
instruments for the conduct of war. The transport of large
bodies of troops to a given point is an extremely complicated
and comprehensive piece of work, to which continuous attention
must be paid. Every fresh railway junction makes a difference,
while, although we may not want to make use of every railway
line that has been constructed, we may still want to make use of
the whole of the rolling stock that is available.
Another important distinction between military and strategical railways
is that whereas the building of the former will be governed primarily
by military requirements, that of the latter may be fundamentally due
to considerations of State policy. Strategical railways are wanted
to serve the purposes of national defence or, alternatively, of
national expansion. They are especially provided to ensure the speedy
concentration of troops on the frontier, whether to resist invasion by
a neighbouring country or to facilitate the invasion either of that
country or, it may be, of territory on the other side thereof. The fact
that they have been built may, in some cases, even further the interests
of peace, should the increased means they offer for military transports
render the country concerned a more formidable antagonist than it
might otherwise be, and influence the policy of other States or lands
accordingly.
In tropical dependencies the building of railways as a practical proof
of "effective occupation" is often regarded as preferable to military
conquest, being likely, in most cases, to answer the same purpose while
offering many other advantages, besides. In West Africa there are not
only railways of this class but others that have, in addition, been
designed as a precautionary measure against a not impossible invasion,
at some future date, by Mohammedan tribes from North Central Africa. All
such lines as these belong to the strategical type, though they may,
also, serve an important part in furthering the economic development of
the territories concerned.
Strategical railways, whether designed for defensive or aggressive
purposes, may, in turn, be divided into two main groups, (1) those that
constitute a network of lines; and (2) single or individual lines for
short or long distances.
A network of strategical railways is generally found in direct
association with frontiers. Single or individual strategical lines fall
into various groups including (1) short lines or branches running out
to some point on or near to a frontier; (2) single lines carried for
long distances, and, possibly, crossing entire continents; (3) circular
or short lines, connecting different railway systems with one another,
in order to facilitate the movement of troops during mobilisation or
concentration or for defensive purposes in the event of invasion; (4)
lines passing round cities or large towns in order to avoid delay of
troop trains; and (5) lines for coast defence.
The ideal conditions for a network of strategical railways was already
a subject of discussion in Germany in 1842, when Pönitz brought
forward his proposal that that country should provide herself with
such a system. There were, he said, theorists who designed, on paper,
strategical railways which, starting from a common centre, radiated in
straight lines to different points on the frontier and were connected
with one another by parallel or intersecting lines of railway on the
principle of a geometrical design, or, he might have added, of a
spider's web. Pönitz admitted the excellence of the idea, suggesting
that if there were, indeed, a group of lines to the frontier connected
by cross lines allowing of a complete interchange of traffic, the enemy
would never know at what point a sudden advance in force might not be
made, while the linking up of the entire system would greatly facilitate
working.
In practice, however, as he proceeded to point out, this ideal system
could not be fully adopted, partly because the planning of railways is
influenced by the configuration of the country, which may not permit
of geometrical designs for iron roads; and partly because the trunk
lines of national systems of rail communication had already been laid
by private enterprise on the principle of catering for the social and
economic needs of the community and of returning interest on capital
expenditure, rather than of serving military or political purposes.
In the proposals which Pönitz himself advanced for providing Germany
with a complete network of strategical lines he sought to combine, as
far as possible, the commercial and the military principle; though the
subsequent predominance, in most countries, of the economic element in
regard to railways in general strengthened the force of his contention
that an ideal system was not necessarily a practicable one. The
suggested geometrical design was, nevertheless, not lost sight of,
and it continued to be regarded as the plan that should, at least, be
followed in respect to strategical railways, as far as circumstances
would permit.
Dealing with this particular subject in his "Geschichte und System
der Eisenbahnbenutzung im Kriege" (Leipzig, 1896), Dr. Josef Joesten
included the following among the conditions which, theoretically
and practically, should enable a railway system to respond to the
necessities of war:--
1. To each of the strategical fronts of the national territory there
should be the largest possible number of railway lines, all independent
the one of the other.
2. The converging lines terminating at the bases of concentration, and
more especially those leading to the coast or to great navigable rivers,
should be crossed by numerous transverse lines in order to allow of the
rapid passing of troops from any one of the lines of concentration to
any other.
3. Positions or localities having a recognised strategical value should
be selected as the places where the two types of lines should cross, and
these intersection points, when they are near to the frontier, should
themselves be protected by fortifications serving as _points d'appui_
for movements of advance or retirement.
It is possible that, if the building of railways in Germany had been
left entirely to the State from the outset, these principles would have
been generally followed there; but in Prussia the private lines taken
over as the result of the policy of nationalisation adopted by that
country--the total length of those acquired since 1872 being now nearly
10,000 miles--had been originally constructed to serve, not strategic,
but economic purposes, and, more especially, the industrial interests
of Westphalia and the Rhineland, the Government having been left by
private enterprise to provide, not alone the strategical lines, but,
also, the lines that were wanted to serve the less promising economic
requirements, of Eastern Prussia. To say, therefore, as some writers
have done, that the Prussian--if not the German--railways as a whole
have been designed to serve military purposes is erroneous. It is none
the less true that the adoption of the principle of State ownership
conferred alike on Prussia and on other German States a great advantage
in enabling them both to build strategical lines as, ostensibly, part
of the ordinary railway system and to adapt existing lines to military
purposes so far as conditions allowed and occasion might require.
In these circumstances any close adherence to ideal systems has, indeed,
not been practicable; yet the activity shown in Germany in providing
either new or adapted strategical lines of railway has been beyond all
question.
Such activity has been especially manifest since the Franco-German war
of 1870-1. It is, indeed, the case that during the last twenty-five
years there have been constant representations by Prussian trading
interests that the railways in Westphalia and Rhineland, numerous
as they might appear to be, were unequal to the industrial needs
of those districts. The reasons for these conditions were that the
Administration, eager to secure railway "profits," had neglected to
provide adequately for improvements, widenings and extensions of
line, and for additions to rolling stock. No one, however, is likely
to suggest that Prussia has shown any lack of enterprise in the
construction of strategical lines which would enable her to concentrate
great masses of troops on her frontiers with the utmost dispatch. "The
rivalry between neighbouring States," writes von der Goltz in "The
Conduct of War," "has had the effect of causing perfectly new lines
to be constructed solely for military reasons. Strategical railways
constitute a special feature of our time"; and in no country has this
fact been recognised more clearly, and acted upon more thoroughly, than
in Germany.
It would, nevertheless, be a mistake to attempt to form a reliable
estimate of the situation, from a strategical point of view, on the
basis of the ordinary German railway maps, and certain reproductions
thereof recently offered in the English Press have been wholly
misleading. Not only may these maps be hopelessly out of date--one, for
instance, that was published in a military journal in the autumn of 1914
contained none of the strategical lines built by Prussia since 1900
for troop movements in the direction of Belgium--but they invariably
draw no distinction between State-owned lines which do come into
consideration in regard to military transports and agricultural or other
lines--including many narrow-gauge ones--which serve local purposes
only and are still owned by private companies, the State not having
thought it necessary in the general interest to take them over.
A more accurate idea of the real bearings of German railways on the
military and strategical situation can be gathered from the large map
("Kartenbeilage I") which accompanies the "Bericht" presented to the
Kaiser, in 1911, by the Prussian Minister of Public Works under the
title of "Die Verwaltung der öffentlichen Arbeiten in Preussen, 1900 bis
1910." On this map a clear distinction is drawn between State-owned and
company-owned lines, while difference in colouring shows the additions
made to the State system during the decade either by construction of new
lines or by State acquisition of existing lines.
One especially noticeable feature brought out by this map is the fact
that, in addition to the innumerable railway lines built either to the
frontiers or establishing intercommunication and exchange of traffic
between those lines themselves, there is an almost unbroken series
running parallel to the coasts of _Pomerania_ and _East Prussia_, and
thence southward all along and close to the frontiers of Russia and
Russian Poland. In this way troops can be moved, not only by different
routes _to_ many points along the Baltic coast or the Russian frontier,
but, also, _from_ one of these coastal or frontier points direct to
another, as may be desired.
The strategical significance of this arrangement is sufficiently
obvious; but any possible doubt as to the purpose aimed at is removed
by some observations thereon made by Joesten, who further says in his
"Geschichte und System der Eisenbahnbenutzung im Kriege":--
If it is true that, generally speaking, the best
railways for general purposes constitute excellent lines of
communication for armies, it is no less true that good, or
very good, strategical lines cannot, and ought not to, in all
cases constitute good commercial lines. In support of this
assertion one can refer to the immense extent of railway lines
on the coasts of Pomerania. These lines, which are of the
first importance from a strategical point of view, have only
a moderate value from a commercial standpoint, considering
that they do not connect the interior of the country with any
district providing goods or passenger traffic on a material
scale, and only provide means of communication between
localities having identical needs.
What is thus admitted in regard to the coastal railways of Pomerania
applies no less to many, if not to most, of the frontier lines in East
Prussia, West Prussia and Silesia.
Not only, again, is the number of German lines going to the frontiers,
and no farther, out of all proportion to the number of those providing
for international communication, but the map on which these observations
are based shows that between 1900 and 1910 there were added to the
Prussian State system many lines which (1) established additional
transverse links between those already going to the Russian frontier,
(2) provided alternative routes thereto, or (3) supplemented the
lines which skirt the frontier, a few miles inland, by branches going
therefrom to strategic points actually on the frontier itself.