Early Tests of Steam Lorries—Lord Kitchener’s Views on Motors in the South African War—British W. D. Tractor Trials—The Carriage of Troops by Car—The Army Manœuvres of 1912—Recent Trials in England, France, and Germany.
Naturally, the motor vehicle could not be entrusted with work of the first importance in time of war without previously going through a period of encouragement and probation. Some fourteen years ago, motor cars and cycles began to be used in small numbers during military manœuvres in Great Britain and elsewhere.
In the French manœuvres of 1901, cars and motor tricycles were employed for transporting staff officers, and for scouting work. The motorists who lent the cars were entrusted with the duty of driving them, and were granted certain privileges on that account. Results were on the whole satisfactory.
In the same year, the British War Office, as a result of experience gained in South Africa, were encouraged to conduct trials of motor lorries. The entrants were five in number. Four of these were steam lorries, the makes represented being the Foden, Straker, and two types of Thornycroft. There was only one entrant of an internal combustion engined machine. This was a Milnes-Daimler modelled on the German Daimler cars, and having a four-cylinder engine rated at 25 h.p., with ignition by low-tension magneto. Fuel was supplied by pressure of the exhaust, and the car had a channel steel frame and large built-up steel wheels. Even at that comparatively early date, the Foden lorry was, in general appearance, very similar to the standard steam lorry of to-day. It was, of course, fitted with a locomotive-type boiler, this being a practice which has since been adopted by almost all manufacturers of this class of machine. The Thornycroft lorries had vertical boilers, and the one type was representative of standard practice, the other being rather a peculiar machine driven from the rear. The Foden and standard Thornycroft were most successful in carrying out the very arduous road tests imposed, which involved a large number of particularly steep hills. The Foden was by far the most economical in water and fuel. The trials ended by cross-country tests in the Long Valley at Aldershot, and during these the Foden was unfortunately driven by accident into a deep ditch, with the result that its front axle was broken. Consequently, the standard Thornycroft received the first award and the benefit of subsequent small orders from the War Department, although at the time there was a rather strong feeling that the Foden ought also to have been recognised.
It was not until about two years later that, in the publication of evidence given before the commission appointed to inquire into the conduct of the South African war, the opinion of Lord Kitchener on the utility of motor transport in its then state of development was made public. His views were expressed as follows:
“We had (in South Africa) about forty-five steam road transport trains. As a rule they did useful work, but questions of weather, roads, water and coal distinctly limited their employment as compared with animal transport, to which they can only be regarded as supplementary. The motor lorries sent to South Africa did well. Thornycrofts are the best. They will in the future be found superior to steam road trains as field transport.”
From this it will be seen that the main result of South African experience was to indicate the superiority of the comparatively light self-contained motor vehicle over the heavy traction engine.
In 1903, a considerable number of cars and cycles supplied by members of the Motor Volunteer Corps were used in the British manœuvres. The cars employed numbered forty-three, and averaged about 12 h.p. They were used mainly for staff work, and were very fairly effective. The attempts to use them for the carriage of searchlights were not very successful. Some thirty motor cycles were employed for carrying despatches, and behaved on the whole splendidly. Mr. J. F. Ochs, in describing, during a lecture at the Royal Automobile Club, the results obtained, made a somewhat prophetic statement in his remark that, “If Mr. Marconi could perfect his invention, how useful a car fitted with it would be.”
While the undoubted utility of motors for staff work and for scouting was recognised at least as a certainty of the future, progress in comparatively heavy military transport was for some years after this limited. The military authorities were averse to the use of petrol-driven cars, on account of the supposed danger of employing so inflammable a fuel. Efforts were made to use paraffin, but results were not particularly satisfactory. The Mechanical Transport Companies at Aldershot went on experimenting with and developing the use of steam vehicles, and particularly of steam tractors, which came to be regarded as, on the whole, more suitable for rough work than self-contained lorries. By 1906, the mechanical transport sections were in possession of adequate tractor-drawn workshops, to support the varied fleet of mechanical vehicles available for a variety of purposes, as well as the staff cars, a limited number of which had been purchased by the War Department.
Arrangements had also been made for giving the drivers and mechanics some theoretical as well as practical knowledge, and the movement had in fact formed itself into the nucleus of what it was then supposed would be required; namely, an organisation providing for military service a large number of 5-ton steam tractors, and a limited number of cars and motor cycles for staff and scouting duty.