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

by Edwin A. Pratt

No sooner had the war come to an end than the work of remedying the defects which had been developed was taken in hand by the Minister of War and the Great General Staff. Following the creation, on October 1, 1871, of a Railway Battalion on a permanent basis came, on July 20, 1872, a new Regulation cancelling the one of May 2, 1867, which had been in operation during the war, and substituting a new basis of organisation in its place.

While retaining the principle of a Central Commission in Berlin, the scheme of 1872 relieved the route authorities of all responsibility for rail transport as well as for railway restoration and operation at the theatre of war, transferring to a new military department all the duties falling under these heads, with the further advantage that such department would be able to control the railways in time of war independently of the civil authorities, and without the disadvantages hitherto resulting from the need to deal, in regard to railway questions, with nine separate Ministries of Commerce and about fifty different railway companies. At the same time the principle of co-ordination was to be maintained by the appointment of an Inspector-General of Railways and Lines of Communication who, in each of these departments, would control a far more efficient organisation than had previously existed, and, also, as director-in-chief, would constitute a central authority and an intermediary between the services concerned and the head of the Great General Staff, under whose direction he would himself act.

Another important feature of the new Regulation was that a distinction was now drawn between (1) railways on or near to the theatre of war which could not be worked by their ordinary staffs, and must needs pass under military operation, with a paramount military control; and (2) "home" or other railways, in the rear of the fighting, which might carry ordinary traffic—except so far as the lines were wanted for military purposes—and might still be worked by their own staffs, but in the operation of which there should be a military element in time of war in order to facilitate the transport of troops and military necessaries.

Various other Regulations, and notably a series in 1878 and 1888, followed that of 1872, and eventually the whole scheme of organisation, with its additions and modifications, seeking to provide for every possible contingency, became extremely complicated. Of the multifarious instructions, provisions and orders which had been compiled, some applied to peace only, some to war only, and some to both peace and war; some to "home" railways and some to railways at the seat of war; some to military men and some to railway men, and so on. As an elaborate piece of machinery the organisation was more comprehensive and more complete than ever; but the fear arose that there had again been a failure to take the human element sufficiently into account. Of those in the military and the railway service who should have applied themselves in time of peace to a study of the elaborate and extremely involved provisions which would apply in time of war, comparatively few, it was found, were disposed to devote themselves to so uninviting a task.

So there was issued, on January 18, 1899, still another new Regulation which repealed some of the earlier ones and aimed at amplifying, condensing, rearranging and facilitating reference to the provisions remaining in force, in order that the whole scheme should be made clearer, simpler and easier to grasp. These results were fully attained, and, though still subject to the final test of a great war, such as that which broke out in 1914, the German Regulation of 1899 might certainly be considered a masterpiece of organisation as prepared in time of peace. One especially useful purpose it served was that of defining clearly the duties, responsibilities, and spheres of action of all the authorities, civil or military, concerned in the control and operation of railways for military purposes.

The various Regulations here in question have been supplemented from time to time by Field Service Regulations, the first series of which, issued under date May 23, 1887, was designed to take the place of the Ordinances of 1861 relating to the movement by rail of great bodies of troops. These Field Service Regulations of 1887 constituted an epoch in the military history of Germany. They were regarded at the time as offering a resumé of the most advanced ideas of Moltke, if not, also, as the crowning glory of military organisation in the reign of William I; and they certainly exercised a powerful influence on German military literature. They were, further, the starting-point of a prolonged series of similar Regulations, all amending, modifying, adding to, or abbreviating their predecessors. These changes led to the issue, on January 1, 1900, of a new edition, based on the exhaustive studies of a Commission of fourteen members; and still later revisions resulted in the publication of a further series on March 22, 1908.[23]

Here, then, we get still further evidence of the keenness with which Germany has followed up, in times of peace, her preparations for war, while the Field Service Regulations, no less than the other Regulations already detailed, show the important place that military rail-transport holds in the view of those responsible in Germany for the making of these arrangements. "Railways," it is declared in the Regulations of 1908, "exercise a decisive influence on the whole conduct of a war. They are of the greatest importance for mobilising and concentrating the army, and for maintaining it in a state of efficiency, and they enable portions of it to be transported from one place to another during the operations." What the Field Service Regulations do is to present in concentrated and compact form the working details, in respect to field service requirements, of those other and fuller Regulations which cover the whole ground of military transport in general.

Taking these various sources of information, the nature of the organisation that Germany has thus effected as the result of so many years of study and experience may be summarised as follows:—

In time of peace the authorities entrusted with the task of ensuring, by their preparations in advance, the success of the whole system of military rail-transport include (1) the Minister of War; the Prussian Chief of the General Staff of the Army; the members of the Railway Section of the Great General Staff, the Line Commissions and the Station Commissions; authorities concerned in the forwarding, transport and receiving of supplies, and representatives of the Commissariat department; and (2) the Imperial Chancellor, the Imperial Railway Bureau, the Imperial Administration of Posts and Telegraphs, and the various railway administrations.