If, however, at the beginning, the troops got to the station three hours before there was any need, other occasions were to arise when they kept trains waiting three or four hours before they themselves were ready to start.
Then, in Germany the concentration of the troops at some safe point in the interior, and their transport thence by rail to the frontier in complete units, took place as separate and distinct operations. In France the two movements were conducted simultaneously; and this, in itself, was a prolific source of confusion and disorganisation on the railways. The troops came to the stations on a peace footing and in various strengths. One regiment might have only one-third the strength of another despatched earlier the same day or on the previous day, although the railway company would have provided the same number of vehicles for both. There was thus a choice of evils as between removing two-thirds of the carriages (a procedure which time or the station arrangements did not always permit); sending the train away only partially loaded; or filling up the available space either with men belonging to other corps or with such supplies as might be available at the moment. Some trains did leave nearly empty, but it was the last mentioned of the three courses that was generally adopted. Men of different arms—Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery; mobilised troops, reservists, and individuals, separated, it might be, from their own officers and not willing to show themselves amenable to the discipline of other officers—were thus transported at the same time as, possibly, a miscellaneous collection of horses, material and commissariat supplies. Other trains, again, went away so overcrowded that they could not accommodate all the men who should have gone by them, many being left behind in consequence.
Confusion and delays at the railway stations during the entraining of the troops were rendered the more complete because the railway staffs failed to get an adequate degree of support from the military authorities. According to one of the articles in those regulations of 1855 which were still in force, "officers were responsible for the prescribed movements in connection with the entraining, and should personally co-operate in ensuring observance of the regulations referring thereto"; but, according to Baron Ernouf, ("Histoire des Chemins de Fer Français pendant la Guerre Franco-Prussienne,") there were officers who refused absolutely to concern themselves with the entraining of their men at the Est station in Paris, declaring that this was a matter to be looked after by the railway officials with the help of subordinate officers, if they wanted it.
Under such conditions as these, officers in charge of troops got hopelessly separated from their men, who themselves might have been sent off with no knowledge of their proper destination. One General telegraphed to Paris on July 21:—"Have arrived at Belfort. Not found my Brigade. Not found General of Division. What should I do? Don't know where my Regiments are." As for the men, it was not many days before the stations en route to the front were occupied by a floating mass of "lost" soldiers, who pretended to be looking for their corps but too often found it much pleasanter to remain in the station buffets, and there enjoy the hospitality of local patriots. Such proportions did this evil assume that in August, 1870, the railway station at Reims had to be protected against a mob of from 4,000 to 5,000 "lost" ones, who wanted to plunder the wagons containing supplies for the front.
Confusion, again, was made still worse confounded by the multiplicity of orders—too often contradictory or impossible to carry out—which bombarded the railway officials, and must have driven them at times almost to distraction. Orders came direct from anybody and everybody possessed of the slightest degree of military authority. They came from the Ministry of War, the General Staff, and the Administrative Staff; from the Quartermaster-General's Department and the Commissariat; from officers and non-commissioned officers of Infantry, Artillery and Engineers; while each individual invariably gave his orders based on the range of his own particular sphere, or the convenience of his own particular troops, without any regard for the situation as a whole, for what might be wanted in other spheres, or for whether or not it was physically possible for the railway staffs to do at all what was asked of them, even if they were not being overwhelmed with those other orders, besides. Commanding officers of different corps especially distinguished themselves by presenting to the railway managements claims for priority in the despatch of Infantry, Artillery or supplies, as the case might be, threatening them with grave consequences if, in each instance, they did not yield such priority at once, though leaving them to meet an obviously impracticable position as best they could. Then it might happen that when all the necessary arrangements—involving much interference with other traffic—had been made, another order would come countermanding the first one, or postponing the execution of it until a later occasion.
As though, again, the orders from all these independent military authorities were not sufficient, the railways were further worried by local authorities who wanted special trains for some such service as the conveyance of detachments of garde mobile a distance of ten or twelve miles to an instruction camp so that the men would not have to march by road. There were even demands from certain of the local authorities that they should be allowed to use railway wagons as barracks for troops.
M. Jacqmin, general manager of the Chemin de Fer de l'Est, relates in his book, "Les Chemins de Fer Pendant la Guerre de 1870-71," that at the moment when the Compagnie de l'Est was providing for the transport of Bourbacki's forces, and preparing for the revictualling of Paris, the préfet of the Rhone demanded the use of railway wagons in which to house the garde nationale mobilised on the plain of Vénissieux, on the left bank of the Rhone, there having been a delay in the delivery of the material for barracks. The company refused the request, and they had with the departmental authorities a lively controversy which was only settled by the decision of the Bordeaux Government that those authorities were in the wrong.
Typical of the general conditions, as they prevailed not only in Paris but elsewhere in France, were the circumstances under which the Nineteenth Army Corps, of 32,000 men, 3,000 horses and 300 guns, was sent from Cherbourg to Alençon. The troops were late in arriving at the station; the officers neglected to look after the men; the men refused to travel in goods trucks; orders and counter-orders succeeded one another in rapid succession; two or three hours were required for the despatch of each train, and delays occurred which must have disorganised the traffic all along the line.
Great as the confusion undoubtedly was at the points of despatch, it was far surpassed by that which prevailed at stations to which trains were sent regardless of any consideration as to whether or not they could be unloaded there with such despatch as to avoid congestion. No transfer stations—constituting the points beyond which only the supplies wanted for immediate or early use at the extreme front should be taken, the remainder being forwarded as wanted—had been arranged, and the consignors, military or civil, had assumed that all supplies should be sent in bulk to places as near to the troops as possible. There were, consequently, many stations close to the frontier where the rails leading to them were occupied for miles together by loaded wagons, the number of which was being constantly added to by fresh arrivals. Many of these wagons were, in fact, used as magazines or storehouses on wheels. The same was, also, being done to a certain extent on the German lines, though with this difference—that whereas in Germany there were at the railway stations route commandants whose duty it was to enforce the prompt unloading of wagons, in France there was no corresponding authority. It suited the officers or the military department concerned to keep the supplies in the wagons until they were wanted; and this arrangement may have appeared an especially desirable one from their point of view because if the army moved forward—or backward—the supplies could be more readily moved with it if they were still in the wagons.
For these various reasons, there were officers who gave the most stringent orders that the wagons were not to be unloaded until their contents were actually required. It was evidently a matter of no concern to them that the wagons they were detaining might be wanted elsewhere, and that, for lack of them, other troops might be experiencing a shortage in their own supplies.