Blue Shirt and Khaki: A Comparison

by James F. J. Archibald

The old and the new military bridge at Modder River.

The maintenance of the rail communication between the base of supplies at Cape Town and the head of the army was the most difficult problem that the British were called upon to solve during the South African War; and there was nothing more essential to the successful operations of the troops than the freedom of this line. It was the main artery from the heart, through which the life-blood of the army flowed, and to check it, even for a few hours, meant suffering and hardship to the troops at the rail terminus, while to break it for a week or more would have caused ruin to all plans of offensive campaign.

The guard to protect this communication must be strong enough at every point to repel any attempt to destroy the line; and to maintain this guard means the constant use of thousands of troops who may never hear a shot fired, but who are more essential to the success of the campaign than the soldiers who are doing the actual fighting. If this vigilance should be relaxed for an hour, one of their enemies could do enough damage with a single stick of dynamite to embarrass the troops very seriously, perhaps cause a wreckage that would take a hundred men a day to repair, even if it were merely on the ordinary line; but if they should get at a bridge the damage could not be repaired in a week.

As the burghers retreated before the British advance they destroyed all the bridges on the lines of retreat in a most effectual manner by the use of high explosives, in many cases leaving hardly one stone above another. On the line from Cape Town to Pretoria the spans over the Orange, Riet, Modder, Vet, Vaal, and Zand rivers, besides many others, were destroyed, so that it took weeks to repair them; and in all cases the British were compelled to build deviations of the line going around the banks of the rivers, and by gradual descent into the bed of the river and then up the opposite bank. Nearly all the river beds of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal are very deep, with perpendicular sides. Their depth is so great that it is quite impossible to cross at any point except by the railway bridges and the regular fords and drifts. One may ride almost to the edge of the river before realizing that there is a stream in the vicinity. The laborious difficulty of spanning these deep gorge-like river cuts makes it necessary that a large body of troops be detailed to guard each bridge or line deviation. The railways must be maintained or the advance must withdraw.

Defense of a line of communication in the Transvaal.

There is a striking contrast between the methods of our government and that of the various European powers in the treatment of practical problems regarding the mobilization of troops in time of peace. There is not a state of the Old World so small as to be without its manœuvres, and as the great agency the railroad facilities are carefully studied. It has been a huge military oversight on the part of our government to fail to provide for an occasional mobilization of troops, and for their operation in the field as one body. We have never had an army of sufficient size to warrant any such manœuvres with the regular force alone, but the National Guard regiments should be included in this sort of work just as the militia regiments of England are every year made a part of the Aldershot manœuvres. It has been argued that our distances are too great to justify such an extensive plan of peaceful operations, but that very reason should be the incentive to our government to appropriate sufficient funds to carry on the work. It would be a simple matter indeed were the operations of our forces confined to as small a territory as those of England, France, or Germany; but when the sudden call of troops means a mobilization from many quarters and a journey of several days, to leave the problem to the last moment before solving it is indeed a perilous hazard and one that is incredibly irrational.

In France and Germany every goods carriage is marked on the outside, showing the exact number of men or horses that it will accommodate for military transportation; every division of the railroad accounts each day to the Minister of War for the number of cars on the tracks that may be used for military purposes. Such minuteness would be, of course, an unnecessary extreme for this country; but we do need a practical relation existing between the War Department and the railroads, by which the brains, as well as the stock, of the various systems might be drafted at any hour into strict military accountability. Moreover, we need a national instruction for the National Guard. The States should give to the War Department authority to mobilize and temporarily control their militia in time of peace; and then the Department should be provided with means to mobilize both State and Federal troops of a certain territory, making the territory as large as possible, so that the number of regiments would be sufficient to be of use in the instruction regarding transportation. Such a mobilization would be of most signal value, even though the encampment lasted only the briefest time, as it would enable the officers to become accustomed to rail transportation.

Just before the war with Spain the First United States Infantry was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco; and when war seemed inevitable, that regiment was ordered to Tampa. It was the first body of troops to be moved, and although no great haste was necessary, there was considerable difficulty in getting the command properly entrained. This was due to no fault of the field officers; they knew what should be done, but the staff department did not understand the necessary office work which it entailed. When the men were finally put on board, they found themselves in tourist day-coaches, without any sleeping accommodations, although they were to cross the continent. The time occupied by the journey was longer than necessary, because it was necessary to stop twice a day long enough to give the men an opportunity to cook rations. A portable cooking outfit, to be used in an ordinary baggage or freight car, should be supplied to each regiment; most of the stops could then be avoided, the trip be made in nearly half the time, and the comfort of the men would be greatly increased.

Just such an apparatus was attached to a troop and hospital train upon which I made the journey from Pretoria to Cape Town, and it was quite a successful arrangement, although it was merely an improvised one. That was a journey of six to eight days at that time, and as every delay meant a certain block in the traffic, stoppages were out of the question; but with this rolling kitchen those on the train were supplied with hot rations. The floor of the car was covered with thin sheet iron or zinc, to prevent the car from catching fire, a large water tank was fitted in one end, and next to it was a water boiler of considerable capacity. The stove was an ordinary house range made fast, and if, owing to the motion of the train, it was not a complete success, it is another illustration of the value of preparedness before the very moment of need arrives.