The Abyssinian Campaign
How a railway specially constructed for the purpose may assist a military expedition in the prosecution of a "little war" in an uncivilised country, practically devoid of roads, and offering great physical difficulties, was shown on the occasion of the British Campaign in Abyssinia in 1867-68; though the circumstances under which the line in question was built were not in themselves creditable to the authorities concerned.
Sent to effect the release of the British prisoners whom King Theodore was keeping in captivity at Magdala, the expedition under Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) entered upon what was to be quite as much an engineering as a military exploit. Not only was Magdala 300 miles from Annesley Bay, the base of operations on the Red Sea, but it stood, as a hill fortress, on a plateau more than 9,000 feet above the sea-level. To reach it meant the construction of roads in three sections. The first, which, in parts, had to be cut in the mountain side, rose to a height of 7,400 feet in 63 miles; the second allowed of no more than a cart road, and the third and final stage was a mere mountain track where the only transport possible was that of mules or elephants.
When, in October, 1867, the advance Brigade landed at Zoulla, the port in Annesley Bay from which the advance inland was to be made, they took with them the materials for some tramway lines intended to connect two landing piers with the depôts it was proposed to establish a mile inland. In November these plans were altered in favour of a line of railway, twelve miles in length, from the landing-place to Koomayleh, at the entrance of the Soroo Pass, the route to be taken by the expedition on its journey to the Abyssinian highlands. All the necessary plant was to be supplied by the Government of Bombay, who also undertook to provide the labour; but it was the middle of January, 1868, before a real start could be made with the work.
Even then, as told by Lieut. Willans, R.E.,[37] who took part in the expedition, the progress made was extremely slow. The rails obtained from different railway companies in India were of five different patterns, of odd lengths, and varying in weight from 30 lb. to 65 lb. a yard. Some of them had been in use many years on the harbour works at Karachi, had been taken up and laid down several times, and had, also, been bent to fit sharp curves or cut to suit the original line. Some single-flanged rails had been fitted in the Government workshops at Bombay with fish-plates and bolts; but the holes in the plates and rails were not at uniform distances, and the bolts fitted the holes so tightly as to allow of no play. Then, when the rails arrived, no spikes came with them, and without spikes they could not be laid. When the spikes followed, it was found that the augurs for boring holes in the sleepers had been left at Bombay, to come on by another ship; though this particular difficulty was met by the artisans of the 23rd Punjab Pioneer Regiment making augurs for themselves.
If the rails gave much trouble—and even when they had been laid it was no unusual thing for them to break between two sleepers and throw the engine off the line—the locomotives and rolling stock caused still more.
Six locomotives were shipped from Bombay; but, owing to the great difficulty in landing and the labour involved in putting them together, only four were used. Of these, one was a tank engine which, although just turned out from the railway workshops at Bombay, required new driving wheels after it had been running a fortnight. Another came with worn-out boiler tubes, and these had to be replaced at Zoulla. The two others, tank engines with only four wheels each, had previously seen many years' service at Karachi. All the engines were very light, weighing with coal and water from 16 to 20 tons each. The best of them could do no more than draw fifteen small loaded trucks up an incline of one in sixty.
The sixty wagons sent were ordinary trolleys having no springs, no spring buffers and no grease boxes. Their axle-boxes were of cast iron, and wore out within a fortnight, owing to the driving sand. As the railway came into use, every truck was loaded to its fullest capacity, and the combination of this weight with the jarring and oscillation on a very rough line led either to the breaking of the coupling chains or to the coupling bars being pulled from the wagons at starting. When fresh coupling chains were asked for it was found that the boxes containing them had either been left behind at Bombay or were buried beneath several hundred tons of other supplies on board ship. At least forty per cent. of the trucks were either constantly under repair or had to be put aside as unfit for use. In May a number of open wagons with springs and spring buffers arrived from Bombay. Some of these were converted into passenger carriages.
Difficulties arose in other directions, besides.
The plant forwarded was adapted to the Indian standard gauge of 5 feet 6 inches, and was heavy and difficult to handle, especially under the troublesome conditions of landing. To-day, of course, a narrow-gauge railway, easily dealt with, would be employed in circumstances such as those of the Abyssinian expedition.
The Indian natives who had been sent in the first instance to construct the line were found unsuitable, and had to be replaced by gangs of Chinese picked up in Bombay. The latter worked well and gave no trouble.
The country through which the line was laid was timberless, if not, also, practically waterless. Wells had to be sunk for the water wanted for the locomotives and the working-parties.
The heat was excessive. The temperature at times was 180 degrees Fahr. in the sun. English navvies could not have made the line at all.
The two piers where the incoming vessels could alone be unloaded got so congested with traffic that it was only with the greatest trouble railway material could be landed.
Use began to be made of the line as soon as any of it was ready, and the traffic at the shore end at once became so heavy that it was difficult to get materials and supplies through to the construction parties at the other end. Officers, also, who should have been superintending the construction had to devote a good deal of time, instead, to details of operation, or to looking after the repairs of rolling stock.
In all these circumstances one cannot be surprised at the slow rate of progress made. One may, rather, wonder that the line got built at all. As it was, four months were spent on eleven miles of railway, or a total of twelve miles including sidings. There remained still another mile or so to be built when, at the end of April, news arrived that the object of the expedition had been attained, and that Magdala had fallen. It was then decided not to complete the line, but to devote all energies to preparing for the heavy traffic to be dealt with in the conveyance of troops, baggage and stores on the return journey.
From the middle of May to the middle of June the resources of the line were severely taxed; but a great improvement had been made in the working arrangements, and a railway which had involved so much trouble in the making was eventually found to be of great practical service. Lieutenant Willans says of it:—
The Abyssinian railway was a great success, if one may gauge it by the amount of assistance it gave to the expedition, by the celerity and dispatch with which, by its aid, stores were landed and brought up to the store sheds, and by the rapidity and ease with which the troops and their baggage were brought back and re-embarked at once....
As an auxiliary to the expedition, and as an additional means of transport, no one who had anything to do in connection with it can have doubted its extreme utility.
Faulty, therefore, as had been the conditions under which the line was constructed, the results nevertheless established definitely the principle that, in such campaigns as the one in Abyssinia, military railways might serve an extremely useful purpose in facilitating the transport of troops and supplies.
The Abyssinian experiences did, however, further show the desirability of any country likely to find itself in a position requiring the construction of military railways—as an aid to wars small or great—creating in advance an organisation designed to enable it, as far as possible, to meet promptly whatever emergency might arise, without the risk of having to deal with defective material, unsatisfactory labour, and administrative mismanagement.
The same lesson was to be enforced by other expeditions in which England has taken part, and, down to the period when improvements in our system—or lack of system—began to be effected, there was much scope for criticism as to the way in which military railways, designed to facilitate operations undertaken in countries having a lack of communications, had been either constructed or worked. Writing, in 1882, in the "Professional Papers" of the Royal Engineers (Chatham) on "Railways for Military Communication in the Field," Col. J. P. Maquay, R.E., observed in regard to what had been the experiences to that date:—
In most of the wars that England has undertaken during the past thirty years, attempts have been made to construct railways for the transport of stores and materials from the base of operations. This base must necessarily be on the sea coast for a country situated as England is. These railways have not been successful chiefly because, when war had broken out, such material was hastily got together as seemed most suitable to the occasion; and, further, the construction of these lines was not carried out on any system. It is not surprising, therefore, that our military railways were never completed in time to be of much use to the troops they were intended to serve.