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).
FOOTNOTES:
[12] See the "Journal of the Royal United Service Institution" Vol. IX., pp. 221-31, 1865.
[13] "Journal of the Royal United Service Institution," Vol. XXXV., 1891.
[14] For detailed description, with diagrams, of the trains here in question, see "Armour-plated Railway Wagons used during the late Sieges of Paris," by Lieut. Fraser, R.E. Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, N.S., Vol. XX, 1872.