Immediately on the close of the war a mixed committee of Staff officers and railway authorities was appointed, under the supervision of von Moltke, to inquire what steps should be taken to organise the Prussian military transport services on such a basis as would avoid a repetition of the faults already experienced, and give a greater guarantee of efficiency on the occasion of the next war in which Prussia might be engaged. The desirability of making such preparations in time of peace doubtless appeared the greater in proportion as it became more and more evident that the trial of strength between Prussia and Austria would inevitably be followed by one between Prussia and France.
The scheme elaborated by the committee in question took the form of a Route Service Regulation which was approved by the King on May 2, 1867, and was, also, adopted by most of the other German States, but was kept secret until the time came for applying it in practice, as was done in the war of 1870-71.
The basis of the scheme was the creation of a system of Route Inspection ("Etappen Inspektion") constituting a department of the General Staff, and designed—
I. To watch over the replenishing of the operating army with men, horses, provisions, ammunition, and other military stores.
II. To see to the removal into the interior of the country of the sick and wounded, prisoners and trophies of war.
III. With the assistance of the troops appointed for the purpose and the Railway Field Corps, to maintain the line of communication, viz., railway, roads, bridges, telegraphs, and postal arrangements; to undertake the government of the hostile conquered provinces, and other duties.
The preparation of the necessary plans for the attainment of these objects was entrusted to a Central Commission composed, partly of officers connected with the General Staff and the Ministry of War, and partly of prominent functionaries on the staffs of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Public Works (then in supreme control over the railways), and of the Minister of the Interior. Two of its members—a Staff Officer and a railway expert from the Ministry of Commerce—formed an Executive Commission and exercised a general supervision over the arrangements for military transports; though on the removal of the Great Head-quarters from Berlin, the Executive Commission was to be succeeded by an Auxiliary Executive Commission, which would supervise the railways in the interior to be made use of for supplying the needs of the army.
In time of war the Central Commission was to be supplemented by Line Commissions formed by military officers and railway officers in combination, and operating each in a leading centre of railway traffic. Their function it would be—with the assistance of District Line Commissions—not only to communicate to the line or lines of railway in their district such orders as might be necessary for the transport of troops, guns, ammunition, horses, and supplies, but, also, to draw up or make the final arrangements in connection with the time-tables for the running of military trains; to fix the direction in which the trains would go; to decide at what stations the troops should stop for their meals or for their coffee; and, in fact, to arrange everything connected with the said transport down to—as it appeared at the time—the smallest details.
In the forwarding of supplies, each Army Corps was to have its own line of communication, separate and distinct from that of the other Army Corps, the object aimed at being that of avoiding the confusion and disorder which might result from the fact of several Army Corps using the same railway.
Each of such lines of communication would start from some large railway station forming a Point of Concentration ("Etappenanfangsort") for the collection and the dispatch therefrom of supplies for the Army Corps it would serve, or for the receipt and further distribution in the interior of persons or commodities coming back from the seat of war.