The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914

by Edwin A. Pratt

As for the conditions at the other end, it not unfrequently happened that even though the supply-trains might go to stations where the facilities for unloading them were ample, the Commissariat or other officers in charge would follow the example already being set in France by regarding loaded railway trucks as convenient movable magazines which should not be unloaded until their contents were really wanted. This was done regardless of the fact alike that the trucks thus kept standing on the lines impeded the traffic and that they were urgently wanted to meet the shortage of trucks elsewhere. But for the stringent action taken to check it, the evil due to this use of railway trucks for storage purposes would have assumed even graver proportions than was actually the case. Defective, also, as the German arrangements in this respect undoubtedly were, they still did not attain to the same degree of inefficiency as was the case in France.

All the same, the general result of these various conditions was that serious difficulties were experienced on the German no less than on the French railways. No sooner had the concentration of the Prussian troops been completed than provisions and stores were sent after them in such volume that a hopeless block, extending to Cologne in one direction and Frankfort in the other, was speedily produced on the lines along the left bank of the Rhine, while the feeding of the troops was brought to a temporary standstill. The combined efforts of the Prussian Executive Commission, of the Minister of Commerce and of the Line Commissions failed for a time to overcome the conditions of chaos and confusion thus brought about, and on August 11, 1870, instructions had to be given that thenceforward supplies were to be forwarded only on the express order of the Intendant-General or of an Inspector-General of Communications. Yet on September 5 there were standing, on five different lines, a total of no fewer than 2,322 loaded wagons, containing 16,830 tons of provisions for the Second Army, or sufficient to keep it supplied for a period of twenty-six days. Such blocks on the German lines—though not always on so great a scale—were of frequent occurrence throughout the war.

Trouble arose, also, in getting provisions from the railway to the troops by reason either of the inadequate number of road vehicles or because of the use of these for the conveyance of ammunition or for other purposes, instead. Thus the Inspector-General of the First Army started with 2,000 road vehicles; but on October 17 the total number still at his disposal was only twenty. The position became still worse as the retreating French destroyed the lines behind them, increasing the difficulties of the invaders in maintaining their communications with the Fatherland.

While the food supplies for the German troops were thus blocking the railway lines—or, alternatively, were going bad on account either of the heated conditions of the closed wagons or of exposure to the weather after unloading—many of the German troops were suffering severe privations from lack of adequate nourishment; and they would have suffered still more but for the provision-trains or stores of supplies seized from the French at Metz, Forbach, Verdun, Dôle, Le Hans, and elsewhere. If, indeed, the French had only refrained from rushing their own supplies to the extreme front in excessive quantities, or if they had destroyed those they could not remove in time, the invaders would, on various occasions, have found themselves in a condition bordering on starvation. Even as it was, they were often reduced to the necessity of dependence on their "iron" rations.

Difficulty was especially experienced in feeding the army of occupation during the investment of Paris. The supplies received by train from Germany were equal to scarcely one half of the actual requirements; a resort to "requisitions" on the French territory occupied yielded inadequate results; and the making of a regular daily money-allowance to officers and men, so that they could purchase their own supplies in the open market or otherwise, was, at first, far from satisfactory. It was, in fact, only owing to the most strenuous effort on the part of the responsible officers, both during the investment of Paris and in earlier phases of the war, that the German troops were often saved from actual want.[21]

The main reasons for the defects and shortcomings thus developed in a scheme on which so much care and preparation had been bestowed were (1) that, while based on fundamentally sound principles, the scheme in its actual application threw too great a strain on the department of the Inspector-General of Communications, which, as we have seen, was expected to look after, not only rail transport, but route marching, telegraphs, postal arrangements, and a great variety of other things besides; (2) that, owing to the larger number of Army Corps, it was no longer possible, as had been done in 1866, to place a separate line of railway at the disposal of each, so as to allow the said department to superintend the traffic on the basis of its own organisation; and (3) the absence of a central administration specially designed (a) to act as an intermediary and to ensure co-operation and mutual working between the various Line Commissions and, also, between the individuals and administrations, both military and civil, engaged in the conduct of rail-transport; and (b) to control the traffic as a whole, avoiding difficulties, blocks and delays assuring a prompt and efficient distribution of supplies, and guaranteeing the utilisation of rolling stock to the best advantage.

With a view to overcoming, as far as possible, the trouble due to the wide extent and the great variety of duties falling on the department of the Inspector-General of Communications, it was arranged, during the latter part of the war, to relieve that department of all responsibility for the railway services and to transfer the control and direction of these to the Executive Commission established at the Royal Head-quarters. In this way it was hoped to utilise the rail-transport facilities to greater advantage, to decrease the risk of collisions and delays, and, through a central organisation, to distribute the transport demands more equally among the various railways concerned. By means of these provisional modifications in the original scheme a better system of operation was obtained during the remainder of the war. But the complete reorganisation that was really necessary was then impracticable, and much friction in the working of the railway services was still experienced, partly because this needful reorganisation could not be carried out, and partly because of the conflicting orders coming from different authorities, each of whom, under the conditions then existing, was perfectly within his right in giving them.[22]

The difficulties due to the attempts to rush supplies in excessive quantities direct to the fighting-line, or as near thereto as possible, were also met, to a certain extent, during the course of the war, by the setting up of additional railway magazines or depôts where the forwarding of necessaries could be better controlled; but it was not until the end of 1870 that any approach to regularity in supplying the wants of the German forces was finally secured.