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.