FOOTNOTES:
[8] "Notes on the Campaign in Bohemia in 1866." By Capt. Webber, R.E. Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, N.S., vol. xvi. Woolwich, 1868.
[9] "The German War Book. Being the Usages of War on Land"; issued by the Great General Staff of the German Army. London, 1915.
[10] The subject of armoured trains will be dealt with more fully in Chapters VII and XVI.
[11] See "Field Service Pocket Book, 1914," pp. 151-2.
CHAPTER VI
Troops and Supplies
In the earlier controversies as to the use of railways in war, attention was almost entirely concentrated on questions relating to the movement of large masses of troops, the saving of time to be effected, and the strategic advantages to be gained. These considerations quickly passed from the theoretical to the practical, and when the results attained were put against such facts as, for instance, the one that in 1805 Napoleon's Grand Army of 200,000 men took forty-two days to march the 700 kilometres (435 miles) between Ulm on the Danube and the French camp at Boulogne, there was no longer any possibility of doubt as to the services that railways might render from these particular points of view.
Quicker transport was, however, only one consideration. There was the further important detail that the movement of troops by rail would bring them to their point of concentration, not only sooner, but in more complete numbers, than if they had to endure the fatigues of prolonged marches by road.
According to German authorities, the falling-out of infantry and cavalry when marching along good roads under conditions of well-maintained discipline and adequate food supplies averages three per cent. in cool and dry weather, and six per cent. in hot or wet weather; while in unfavourable conditions as regards roads, weather and supplies, the diminution may be enormous. When, in the autumn of 1799, Suvóroff made his famous march over the St. Gothard, he lost, in eleven days, no fewer than 10,000 men owing to the hardships of the journey. In his invasion of Russia, in 1812, Napoleon's losses in men who succumbed to the fatigues and trials they experienced on the road were out of all proportion to the casualties due to actual fighting. It was, too, a saying of Blücher's that "he feared night marches worse than the enemy."
An English authority, Lieut.-Col. R. Home, C.B., R.E., wrote in a paper on "The Organisation of the Communications, including Railways," published in Vol XIX. of the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution (1875):—
If an army of moderate size, say 50,000 men, simply marches one hundred miles without firing one shot or seeing an enemy the number of sick to be got rid of is very great.
Experience has shown that in a good climate, with abundant food, easy marches, and fair weather, the waste from ordinary causes in a ten days' march of such a force would be between 2,000 and 2,500 men, while the number of galled, footsore or worn-out horses would also be very large. A few wet days or a sharp engagement would raise the number of both very considerably. An inefficient man or horse at the front is a positive disadvantage.
Another equally important detail relates to the provision of supplies for the troops and animals thus transported by rail both more quickly and with less fatigue.
In all ages the feeding of his troops in an enemy's country has been one of the gravest problems a military commander has had to solve; and though, in some instances, vast armies have succeeded in drawing sufficient support from the land they have invaded, there have been others in which an army intending to "live upon the country" has failed to get the food it needed, and has had its numbers depleted to the extent of thousands as the result of sheer starvation. This was the experience of Darius, King of Persia, who, in 513 B.C., crossed the Bosporus, on a bridge of boats, with an army of 700,000, followed the retreating Scythians, and lost 80,000 of his men in wild steppes where no means existed for feeding them. When, also, Alexander the Great was withdrawing from India, in 325 B.C., two-thirds of his force died on the desert plains of Beluchistan from thirst or hunger. Lack of the supplies from which he found himself entirely cut off was, again, a main cause of the disaster that overtook Napoleon in his Russian campaign. Even fertile or comparatively fertile lands, satisfying the needs of their inhabitants in time of peace, may fail to afford provisions for an invading army, either because of the great number of the latter or because the retreating population have destroyed the food supplies they could not take with them into the interior whether for their own sustenance or with a view to starving the invaders.
Should the invading army succeed in "living on the country," the effect of leaving the troops to their own resources, in the way of collecting food, may still be not only subversive of discipline but of strategic disadvantage through their being scattered on marauding expeditions at a time when, possibly, it would be preferable to keep them concentrated.
General Friron, chief of the staff of Marshal Masséna, wrote concerning Napoleon's campaign in Portugal:—
The day the soldier became convinced that, for the future, he would have to depend on himself, discipline disappeared from the ranks of the army. The officer became powerless in the presence of want; he was no longer disposed to reprimand the soldier who brought him the nourishment essential to his existence, and who shared with him, in brotherly goodwill, a prey which may have cost him incalculable dangers and fatigues.
The extent to which a combination of physical fatigue and shortness of supplies in an inhospitable country may interfere with the efficiency of an army is well shown by Thiers ("Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire") in regard to the conditions at the very outset of Napoleon's Russian campaign. The French troops arriving on the Niemen—at which point they were merely on the frontiers of Russia—were already overcome by the long marches they had made. They had no bread, no salt, and no spirits; their craving for food could no longer be satisfied by meat without salt and meal mixed with water. The horses, too, were out of condition for want of proper food. Behind the army a great number of soldiers dropped out of the ranks and had lost their way, while the few people they met in a scantily-populated district could speak nothing but Polish, which the wearied and famished men were unable to understand. Yet, under the conditions of former days, it was by troops thus exhausted by marches of hundreds of miles, done on, possibly, a starvation diet, that battles involving the severest strain on human energy were fought.
When "living on the country" is no longer practicable, the only alternative for an army is, of course, that of sending supplies after it for the feeding of the troops; but when, or where, this has had to be done by means of ordinary road services, it has involved—together with the transport of artillery, ammunition and stores—(1) the employment of an enormous number of vehicles and animals, greatly complicating the movements of the army; and (2) a limitation of the distance within which a campaign can be waged by an army depending entirely on its own resources.
The latter of these conditions was the direct consequence of the former; and the reason for this was shown by General W. T. Sherman in an article contributed by him to the Century Magazine for February, 1888 (pp. 595-6), in the course of which he says:—
According to the Duke of Wellington, an army moves upon its belly, not upon its legs; and no army dependent on wagons can operate more than a hundred miles from its base because the teams going and returning consume the contents of their wagons, leaving little or nothing for the maintenance of men and animals at the front who are fully employed in fighting.
There was, again, the risk when food supplies followed the army by road either of perishables going bad en route, owing to the time taken in their transport by wagon, or of their suffering deterioration as the result of exposure to weather, the consequence in either case being a diminution in the amount of provisions available for feeding the army.
All these various conditions have been changed by the railway, the use of which for the purposes of war has, in regard to the forwarding of supplies, introduced innovations which are quite as important as those relating to the movement of troops—if, indeed, the former advantages are not of even greater importance than the latter.
Thanks to the railway, an army can now draw its supplies from the whole of the interior of the home country—provided that the lines of communication can be kept open; and, with the help not only of regular rail services but of stores and magazines en route those supplies can be forwarded to railhead in just such quantities as they may be wanted. Under these conditions the feeding of an army in the field should be assured regardless alike of the possible scanty resources of the country in which it is engaged and of its own distance from the base of supplies.
CHAPTER VII
Armoured Trains
In the issue of the now defunct London periodical, Once a Week, for August 13, 1859, there was published an article on "English Railway Artillery: A Cheap Defence against Invasion," in which it was said, among other things:—
We have hitherto regarded the rail merely as a vehicle of transport, to carry materials which are not to be set in work till off the rails. If we look at the rail as part of an instrument of warfare, we shall be startled at the enormous means we have at hand, instantly available, from mercantile purposes, to convert to engines of war.
The writer was William Bridges Adams (1797-1872), an authority on railways who had grown up with them, had introduced into their operation many inventions and improvements (including the fish-joint still used for connecting rails), and was the author of various books and papers on railways, transport, and other subjects. His new idea, as set forth in the article in question, was specially directed to the utilisation of railways for defending the shores of Great Britain against an invader; and in developing this idea he was, also, as far as can be traced, the first to suggest the employment of armoured trains.
The immediate reason alike for the writing of the article and for the making of the suggestion was that in 1859 Great Britain appeared to be faced by the prospect of invasion by France,—a prospect which, in view of the then admittedly defective condition of the national defences, led to the creation of the Volunteer Corps, to the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the question of coast defence, and to suggestions being put forward by many different authorities as to what should be done. Among those suggestions was one by the writer in question for supplementing any system of coast defence that might be adopted by the mounting of guns on railway trucks protected by armour, such trucks being moved from point to point along the coast railways to meet, as far as possible, the needs of the military situation.
Heavy artillery, wrote Adams, though the most formidable implement of modern warfare, had the disadvantage of requiring many horses to draw it. So the problem arose as to how the horses could be dispensed with. This could best be done, he thought, by putting artillery on "our true line of defence,—our rails," and having it drawn, or propelled, by a locomotive. "Mount," he said, "a gun of twenty tons weight on a railway truck, with a circular traversing platform, and capable of throwing a shot or shell weighing one hundred to one and a half a distance of five miles. A truck on eight wheels would carry this very easily, and there would be no recoil." Such a battery would be "practically a moving fortress," and, used on the coast railways, which he regarded as constituting lines of defence, would be "the cheapest of all possible fortresses—absolutely a continuous fortress along the whole coast." Communication with coast railways at all strategical points should, however, be facilitated by the placing of rails along the ordinary highways. After giving some technical details as to the construction alike of coast railways and road tramways, he proceeded:—
With these roads communicating with the railroads, the whole railway system becomes applicable to military purposes.
The railway system is so especially adapted for defence, and so little adapted to invaders, that it should become at once a matter of experiment how best to adapt Armstrong or other guns to its uses. The process of fitting the engines with shot-proof walls to protect the drivers against riflemen would be very easy.... Nothing but artillery could damage the engines or moving batteries, and artillery could not get near them if it were desirable to keep out of the way.
One gun transportable would do the work of ten which are fixtures in forts, and there would be no men to take prisoners, for no forts would be captured.
The more this system is thought of the more the conviction will grow that it is the simplest mode of rendering the country impenetrable to invaders at a comparatively trifling cost.
It will be seen that the scheme here proposed included three separate propositions—(1) the use of railways, as "engines of war," for coast defence; (2) the mounting of Armstrong or other guns on railway trucks from which they could be discharged for the purposes of such defence; and (3) the providing of the engines with "shot-proof walls" for the protection of the drivers. A similar protection for the men operating the guns on the trucks was not then, apparently, considered necessary; but we have here what was clearly the germ of the "armoured train."
Among the other suggestions advanced on the same occasion were some for the employment of railways in general for strategical purposes, and more especially for the defence of London; and here, again, the employment of armoured trains was advocated.
"A Staff Officer," writing in The Times of July 16, 1860, declared that the most efficacious and the most economical line of defence which London could have would be a circular railway forming a complete cordon around the Metropolis at a distance of fifteen miles from the centre, and having for its interior lines of operation the numerous railways already existing within that radius. On this circular railway there should be "Armstrong and Whitworth ordnance mounted on large iron-plated trucks" fitted with traversing platforms in the way already recommended by W. Bridges Adams, the trucks themselves, however, and not only the locomotives, being protected by "shot-proof shields." The circular railway was to be constructed primarily for strategical purposes; but during peace the line would be available for ordinary traffic, and in this way it could be made to yield at least some return on the capital expenditure.
The writer of this letter, Lieut. Arthur Walker, then an officer of the 79th Highlanders and the holder of a staff appointment at the School of Musketry, Fleetwood, followed up the subject by reading a paper on "Coast Railways and Railway Artillery" at a meeting of the Royal United Service Institution on January 30, 1865.[12] On this occasion he specially advocated the use of "moveable batteries" for coast defence in conjunction with railways constructed more or less within a short parallel distance of the entire coast line. Field artillery, he recommended, should be mounted on a truck the sides of which would be "encased in a cuirass of sufficient thickness," while the engine and tender would also be "protected by an iron cuirass, and placed between two cupolas for further protection." He considered that "to attempt to land in face of such an engine of war as this would be simply impossible." Moving batteries of this kind would be "the cheapest of all possible fortresses.... We have nothing to do but to improvise well-adapted gun-carriages for our rails." At the same meeting Mr. T. Wright, C.E., gave details of a proposed railway train battery for coast, frontier and inland defence which was designed to carry ten, twenty or forty guns or mortars.
Another early advocate of the use of railways as an actual instrument of warfare was Colonel E. R. Wethered, who, in 1872, wrote to the War Office suggesting that heavy ordnance should be mounted on wheeled carriages so constructed that they could be moved along any of the railways, from point to point. In this way the three-fold advantage would be gained of (1) utilising the railway system for purposes of national defence; (2) rendering possible a concentration of artillery with overwhelming force at any given spot, and, (3) by the use of these moveable carriages for the conveyance of the guns, exposing the men to less risk.
Colonel Wethered further communicated to The Times of May 25, 1877, a letter on "Portable Batteries" in which he declared that if, before an enemy could effect a landing, we were to provide the means of concentrating, with unerring certainty, on any given points of the coast, a crushing force of artillery, with guns of heavier calibre than even the warships of the invader could command, it would be impossible for the vessels of an invading force to approach near enough to effect the landing of their men. He continued:—
My proposal is to take the full advantage which our railway system, in connection with our insular position, affords, and provide powerful moveable batteries which can be sent fully equipped in fighting order direct by railway to any required point; and the recent experimental trials of the 81-ton gun have proved that the heaviest ordnance can be moved and fought on railway metals with considerable advantage.... In connection with our present main lines of railway, which probably would require strengthening at certain points, I would construct branch lines or sidings leading to every strategical point of our coast and into every fort, as far as possible, with requisite platforms.... These branch lines during peace would, doubtless, be of some small commercial value.... I would mount as many of our heaviest guns as practicable on railway gun carriages so that they could be moved by rail from one face of a front to another, and from one place to another.
He also recommended that guns thus mounted, fully equipped, and ready for use, should be kept at three large central depôts which might be utilised for the defence of London. At each of them he would station (1) Militia and Volunteer Artillery able not only to work the guns but to construct, repair or destroy railway lines, and (2) a locomotive corps specially trained in the working of traffic under war conditions.
By reading a paper at the Royal United Service Institution on April 24, 1891, on "The Use of Railways for Coast and Harbour Defence,"[13] Lieut. E. P. Girouard, R.E. (now Major-General Sir E. Percy C. Girouard, K.C.M.G.), made what was, at that time, an important contribution to a subject on which there was then still much to be learned. Sketching a detailed scheme comprising the employment of all the coastal railways for the purposes of national defence, he emphasised the value of Britain's "enormous railway power" as the strong point of her defensive position, whether regarded from the point of view of (1) railway mileage open as compared with the square mile of coastal area to be defended, or (2) the length of coast line compared with the railway mileage at or near that coast line, and, therefore, locally available for its defence. "Why," he asked, "should we not turn to account the enormous advantage which our great railway power gives us to concentrate every available gun at a threatened point in the right and the proper time, which the proper utilisation of our railways can and will do, thereby practically doubling or quadrupling our available gun power?"
Whilst the subject had thus been under discussion in the United Kingdom, America, in her Civil War of 1861-65, had set the rest of the world an example by actually introducing armoured-protected gun-carrying trucks into modern warfare.
Writing from Washington, under date August 29, 1862, to Colonel Herman Haupt, then Chief of Construction and Transportation in the Department of Rappahannock, Mr. P. H. Watson, Assistant-Secretary of War, said:—"An armour-clad car, bullet proof, and mounting a cannon, has arrived here and will be sent down to Alexandria." A later message, on the same date added:—"After you see the bullet-proof car, let me know what you think of it. I think you ought at once to have a locomotive protected by armour. Can you have the work done expeditiously and well at Alexandria, or shall I get it done at Philadelphia or Wilmington?" The car was duly received; but Haupt's comments in respect to it, as recorded in his "Reminiscences," show that he was not greatly impressed by the innovation. "P. H. Watson, Assistant-Secretary of War, sent me," he says, "an armour-clad, bullet-proof car, mounting a cannon. The kindness was appreciated, but the present was an elephant. I could not use it, and, being in the way, it was finally side-tracked on an old siding in Alexandria."
It would seem, however, that other armour-clad cars were brought into actual use during the course of the Civil War.
In the Railway Age Gazette (Chicago) for January 22, 1915, Mr. Frederick Hobart, associated editor of the New York Engineer and Mining Journal, writes, from personal knowledge, of two armoured cars which were in use in the Civil War. One of these, formed by heavy timbers built up on a flat car, was put together in the shops of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad Company at Newberne, N.C., in 1862, about two months after the city had been captured by the Burnside expedition. The armour consisted of old rails spiked on the outside of the planking composing the sides and front of the car. Along the sides there were slits for musketry fire, and at the front end there was a port hole covered with a shutter behind which a gun from one of the field batteries was mounted. The second car was similarly constructed, but was armed with a naval howitzer. The cars were run ahead of the engine, and were used in reconnoitring along the railroad line west of Newberne. Mr. Hobart adds that he was quite familiar with the cars, having assisted in the design and construction of both.
In the Century Magazine for September, 1887 (page 774), there is given an illustration ("from a photograph") of an armour-clad car described as "the Union Railroad Battery" which was, apparently, used in connection with the springing of the mine in front of Petersburg on July 30, 1864. The car is shown to have consisted of a low truck with, at one end, a sloping armour plate coming down almost to the rails, and having a hole through which the gun placed behind it on the truck could be fired. The sides of the truck were protected from the top of the sloping armour downwards, but the back was open. The car was, of course, designed to be pushed in front of the locomotive.
Mr. L. Lodian, also, contributed to the issue of the American periodical, Railway and Locomotive Engineering, for May, 1915, a communication, under the title of "The Origin of Armoured Railroad Cars Unquestionably the Product of the American Civil War," in which, claiming that "our own Civil War" originated those cars, he said:—
Attached is a picture of one in use on the old Philadelphia-Baltimore Railroad. The illustration appeared in Frank Leslie's illustrated periodical on May 18, 1864. No better proof could be furnished of the authenticity of the fact that such a car was in use at that time.... There appears to be no great variation even to-day in armoured car design from the initial effort of half a century ago. Pictures are appearing in numerous periodicals, at the period of writing, of those in use by the European belligerents, and in general appearance and outline they are about the same as the original, the chief variation in their use being that the war-going locomotive is also sheathed in armour, whereas that in use in the sixties was entirely unprotected, except in front, and then only by reason of the mailclad car being placed in front to do the fighting.
As against this suggestion, there is the undoubted fact that in the American Civil War the plan was adopted of having the locomotives of ordinary troop or supply trains protected by armour-plating as a precaution against attack when there was no armoured car in front of them. Writing to the Director of Military Railroads on October 8, 1862, Haupt said:—
I have been thinking over the subject of locomotives. It is one which, at the present time, and in view of the future requirements of the service, demands especial attention. Experience has shown that on engines men are targets for the enemy; the cabs where they are usually seated have been riddled by bullets, and they have only escaped by lying on the footboard. It will be necessary to inspire confidence in our men by placing iron cabins (bullet proof) upon all or nearly all our engines, and the necessity will increase as we penetrate further into the enemy's country.
Again, it is desirable that the smaller and more delicate portions of the apparatus should be better protected than at present, and I would be pleased if you would give to the plans, of which I spoke to you recently, a careful consideration. It seems to me that they are peculiarly well adapted to military service.
Haupt adds that "protected locomotives and bullet-proof cabs were soon after provided, as recommended"; and elsewhere in his "Reminiscences" he says, on the same subject:—
The bullet-proof cabs on locomotives were very useful—in fact, indispensable. I had a number of them made and put on engines, and they afforded protection to engineers and firemen against the fire from guerillas from the bushes that lined the road.
In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 guns mounted on four armour-plated trucks, fitted up in the workshops of the Orléans Company, under the supervision of M. Dupuy de Lorme, Engineer-in-Chief for Naval Construction, were taken into action on four occasions during the siege of Paris, namely, at Choisy-le-Roi, for the sortie preceding the one from Champigny; near Brie-sur-Marne, to support the Champigny sortie; at Le Bourget, for one of the attempts to recapture that position; and at La Malmaison, to support the Montretout sortie. The wagons were protected by a covering which consisted of five plates of wrought iron, each two-fifths of an inch thick, and giving, therefore, a total thickness of two inches. The two engines used were also protected by armour-plating. One or two of the wagons were struck by field-gun shells without, however, sustaining further damage than the denting of their plates. The engines escaped damage altogether. On going into action the armoured wagons were followed by another bullet-proof engine conveying a party of men with tools and materials to repair any interruption of the lines that might interfere with the return of the trains; but the only damage done was so slight that it was remedied in about a quarter of an hour.[14]
Further use was made of armoured trains in the Egyptian Campaign of 1882. One that was put together to assist in the defensive works at Alexandria is declared in the official history of the campaign[15] to have "proved most serviceable." Two of the trucks, fitted with iron plating and sand bags as a protecting cover, carried one Nordenfelt and two Gatling guns. A 9-pr. was also placed on one of the trucks, together with a crane by means of which it could be lowered out immediately. Other trucks, rendered bullet proof by sand bags and boiler-plating, and carrying a force of 200 bluejackets, with small arms, completed the fighting force. On July 28, the train took part in a reconnaissance sent out to ascertain the extent of the damage which had been done to the railway lines near Arabi's outpost. Shots were fired at the train by the enemy, but without effect. The reconnaissance was a complete success inasmuch as it enabled such repairs to be done to the railway as gave the use of a second line between Ramleh and Alexandria.
So useful had the train been found that it was now further improved by adding to it a 40-pr. on a truck protected by an iron mantlet. The locomotive was put in the middle of the train and was itself protected by sand bags and railway iron. Thus strengthened, the train went into action in the reconnaissance in force carried out from Alexandria on August 5, and "the most interesting incident of the engagement," according to the official account, "was the good service done by the 40-pr. from the armoured train."
Early in the morning of September 13 the train, consisting of five wagons, and having, on this occasion, one Krupp gun and one Gatling in addition to the 40-pr., was sent to support the attack on Tel el-Kebir. It was followed by another train having 350 yards of permanent-way materials, with all the necessary tools and appliances for the prompt carrying out of any repairs that might be necessary. Owing, however, to the hazy and uncertain light and to the ever-increasing clouds of smoke that hung over the battle-field, it was impossible to fire the 40-pr.
In the futile attempt made in 1885 to construct a railway from Suakin to Berber, in support of the Nile Expedition of 1884-85, resort was had to an armoured train for the purpose of protecting the line from the constant attacks to which it was subjected by the enemy. The train carried a 20-pr. B.L., which could be fired only either in prolongation of the line or at a slight angle from it.
At the Camp of Exercise in Delhi in January, 1886, some important experiments were carried out with a view to testing the practicability of firing guns at right angles to an ordinary line of railway, the result being to establish the fact that a 40-pr. R.B.L. could be fired with perfect safety broadside from (a) small empty wagons mounted on four wheels; (b) small empty wagons weighted up to four tons; and (c) empty eight-wheel bogies. These experiments were especially successful when account is taken of the fact that no attempt was made to reduce in any way the energy of recoil.
Other experiments, begun in 1885, were successfully conducted during a succession of years both by the French Government and by private firms in France in the transport and the firing of guns from railway trucks with a view to obtaining definite data on the subject, more especially in relation to firing at right angles to the line.
In Italy a distinguished officer raised the question in the Italian Parliament, in 1891, as to whether Sicily should not be defended by means of a coast railway and armoured trains.
Some experiments carried out at Newhaven, Sussex, in 1894, were the more interesting because the results attained were due to the combined efforts of Artillery Volunteers and of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company.
Under the Volunteer mobilization scheme of 1891 there were some 300 members of the 1st Sussex Artillery Volunteers to whom no special duties had been allotted, and there happened to be, at Shoreham, a 40-pr. Armstrong B.L. gun which was then serving no particular purpose. Inspired by these two facts, the Secretary of the Committee for National Defence suggested, in November, 1891, that negotiations should be opened with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company with a view to their mounting the 40-pr. on a specially prepared truck, designed to form part of an armoured train, experiments in firing the gun from the truck—in order to test the efficiency of this expedient for the purposes of coast defence—being afterwards carried out by the Artillery Volunteers whose services were available for the purpose.
On being approached, the directors of the railway company readily consented to the fitting up of the truck being carried out at their engineering and carriage works; they contributed towards the expenses, and members of their staff entered with great cordiality into the scheme, Mr. R. J. Billington, the locomotive superintendent, being the first to suggest the mounting of the gun on a turntable to be fixed on the truck,—a "bold departure," as it was regarded at the time, and one expected to produce excellent results. The railway staff were the more interested, also, in the proposed experiments because a large proportion of the members of the 1st Sussex Artillery Volunteers consisted of men employed at the Brighton Company's works.
In commenting upon these facts, Col. Charles Gervaise Boxall, the commanding officer, said in a paper on "The Armoured Train for Coast Defence," read by him at a meeting of officers and N.C.O.'s of the Brigade, held at Newhaven Fort, Sussex, on May 14, 1894:—
When one considers that a railway company is neither a philanthropic institution nor a patriotic society, the generous support given to this experiment by so powerful a body as the directors of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company is in itself some considerable evidence of the importance they themselves ascribe to this effort in the direction of the maintenance of coast defence and protection from invasion.
Preliminary experiments with the gun were conducted on May 5, 1894, and they conclusively showed, Col. Boxall said, "that the gun will require no traversing to correct variation caused by the recoil, while the muzzle of the gun can be directed to any part of its circumference by handspike traversing within half a minute." He was evidently proud of the results even of these preliminary trials. They were the first occasion on which a heavy gun had been fired broadside on the permanent way of an English railway, and the truck was the first armour-plated one on which a turntable, a recoil cylinder, and other inventions introduced had been employed. So, he further declared:—
We do confidently submit that, having proved that such a gun as this can be mounted so as to be transportable to any part of our railway system at a moment's notice, brought into action, and fired with accuracy either end on, broadside, or in any other direction, without danger of capsizing, and without injury to the permanent way, we have become pioneers of a new departure in artillery which must lead to results of the highest importance.
This was written prior to the full trials, which took place at Newhaven on May 19, 1894, in the presence of a distinguished company of military men and others. An account of the event will be found in The Times of May 21, 1894. The gun and its carriage are described as standing on a turntable platform pivoted on the centre of the truck, and revolving on a central "racer." The gun detachments were protected by a plating six feet high round three sides of the turntable, and the gun was fired through an aperture in the plating. Drawn by an ordinary locomotive, the truck on which the gun was mounted was accompanied by two carriages conveying the Volunteer Artillerymen who were to serve the gun. Several rounds were fired at a target some 2,500 yards distant, and "the armoured train passed through the searching and severe ordeal most successfully, the jar caused being so slight that a stone placed on the rails remained unmoved by the firing." The truck, it is further stated, had been provided with some cross girders which could be run out and supported on blocks in order to secure a broad base when the gun was fired at right angles to the line, and there was a further arrangement for connecting the truck to the rails by strong clips; but the truck remained sufficiently steady without any need for making use of these appliances.
Finally, as will be told more fully in Chapter XVI, the South African Campaign of 1899-1902 definitely established the usefulness of armoured trains as an "instrument of war," and led both to the creation of an efficient organisation for their employment on the most scientific and most practical lines and to the establishment of certain principles in regard to such important matters of detail as uses and purposes, administration, staff, armament, tactics, etc. Published in the "Detailed History of the Railways in the South African War" which was issued by the Royal Engineers' Institute, Chatham, in 1905, these principles were adopted in the United States with modifications to suit American conditions, and, so modified, are reproduced in Major William D. Connor's handbook on "Military Railways," forming No. 32 of the Professional Papers of the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army. An excellent treatment of the subject, from a technical point of view, will be found in a paper, by Capt. H. O. Nance, on "Armoured Trains," published, with photographs and drawings, in "Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers," Fourth Series, Vol. I., Paper 4 (Chatham, 1906).