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.")