Those who live in the vicinity of any important military centre must be well aware of the damaging effect that heavy military traffic has upon the roads, even if well-constructed, in view of the inevitable nature of the traffic. When plying on country roads never intended for such use, the transport motors themselves will soon break up the road surface. These considerations serve to show that the liability to breakdown is much greater in military than in civilian transport, and coupled with this is the certainty that the facilities for conveniently carrying out repairs and overhauls must necessarily be extremely limited. The transport columns are supported at their base by travelling workshops manned by skilled mechanics and containing small selections of those tools likely to be of the most general service. The equipment of these workshops must be reduced to a minimum in order to secure their portability, and it is highly important, if possible, to prevent jobs coming in which cannot be satisfactorily tackled with the machinery at the disposal of the mechanical staff.
It will thus be seen that everything points to the extreme inadvisability of depending upon motor transport and supply columns formed of a miscellaneous collection of vehicles of all types, all makes and all ages. Looking at the other side of the question, the ideal conditions are reached when every vehicle of the column is identical and represents the very best make and type, and when all the drivers are thoroughly acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of this particular type of vehicle, and the mechanics responsible for repairs equally experienced as regards every feature of the mechanism of the machines.
To secure something approaching true standardisation in a fleet of transport vehicles, either one or two alternative methods may be adopted. The first and most obvious is that of direct purchase by Government. At the moment of writing, this system is being extensively adopted in Great Britain, and doubtless also in all other belligerent countries in which it has been possible to keep suitable motor manufacturing works in operation. Such steps are, however, being taken, in order to meet a great emergency which has arisen before alternative schemes have had time fully to mature. The establishment of an army in time of peace is very much less than it is in war time, and in time of war an army must be far more self-supporting than it is in time of peace, when considerable quantities of supplies can be brought regularly by civilian contractors to depôts where the troops are stationed, and the military authorities require only to secure the distribution of such supplies in detail. In time of war the whole of the supplies must be delivered in bulk to a very limited number of points, and from that time onwards the military authorities must be responsible for what may be described as their wholesale as well as their retail distribution.
Added to this are a number of other considerations, as, for example, the fact that when on active service the scale of rations of the men is increased, and supplies of warlike stores are rapidly expended and have to be perpetually renewed. It is clear, then, that if the method of direct purchase alone is depended upon, either the supply of motor vehicles will be immensely greater than the useful requirement in times of peace, or else facilities must be created for increasing their supply instantaneously when mobilisation occurs, or the organisation of new armies becomes essential.
Now, as in the present instance, it is possible after a war has begun to provide for a steady and considerable supply of transport motors to be handed over to the military authorities week by week, provided always that the process of manufacturing is not seriously interfered with either by the propinquity of military operations, or by the need of drafting men in excessive numbers from the works to the active forces. In our own case, it is quite within the bounds of possibility to produce motors for the transport columns of new armies just as rapidly as it is possible to make the personnel of those new armies effective. This fact, however, does not cover the difficulty occasioned by the necessary increase in transport facilities for the standing army directly war breaks out. It has been suggested that the difficulty might be overcome if the War Department were to purchase large numbers of suitable motor lorries, and to employ the greater part of them in time of peace for the carriage of general goods. This scheme has the advantage that it not only provides the necessary fleet, but simultaneously trains the necessary drivers; nevertheless, it has the grave drawback that profitable employment of the kind required could not be found unless the Government were to enter into serious competition with haulage and delivery companies. It has been proposed also that numbers of suitable motors might be used normally in the service of the Post Office, and transferred on emergency to the War Department, but this again is open to objection. The Post Office fleets would have to be renewed hurriedly and under difficulties, and a certain amount of disorganisation would almost certainly result. Furthermore, the number of vehicles which could be usefully kept in service by the postal authorities is small compared with the increased military requirements occasioned by the outbreak of war.
We may take it, then, that the principle of maintaining in the possession of the War Department in time of peace sufficient motor vehicles to fill the whole of the needs in time of war is unworkable except at enormous cost, since the majority of the vehicles could be put to no useful work and would merely deteriorate and become obsolete and, therefore, comparatively speaking, valueless were they to stand idle. The whole of such a fleet would have to be replaced every three or four years, and if this were not done an enemy equipped with more modern vehicles would possess a marked advantage, since—though the motor industry has now assumed enormous proportions—it is still so young that progress in design is by no means stationary.
We now come to the question of whether it is possible to maintain in time of peace only the number of vehicles actually required, and to fill up the requirement in excess of this number as promptly as possible, but nevertheless with some delay, when war breaks out. On this point, Captain A. E. Davidson, R.E., a former Secretary of the Mechanical Transport Committee of the War Office, has given the following very definite opinion in a paper read by him at the Imperial Motor Transport Conference, in his official capacity as representative of the War Department:
“Emphasis must be laid on the necessity for obtaining the transport immediately. The army which can mobilise in the shortest space of time gains an immense advantage by being able to take the initiative before the opposing armies are prepared, and the army which mobilises most rapidly will be able to gain a decisive advantage. This question has now been so carefully worked out in detail that the complete mobilisation of an army can be arranged for within a period that is reckoned in hours.”
“The Autocar” photograph.
A FRENCH MOTOR WORKSHOP, ESPECIALLY EQUIPPED FOR THE SERVICE OF THE FLYING CORPS.