In the present war the supply of munitions of all kinds is of such great importance that we have thought proper to devote a special chapter to this subject.
1. Sketch of the railroad organization. According to instructions from General Headquarters the services at the rear forward the required ammunition to the “distributing stations” of the different armies. There is one of these for each army, provided with the necessary sidings and yards where all the men and materials coming from the rear are sorted, and distributed further ahead throughout the “terminal zone” (zone d’étapes) or “war zone.” This zone extends from the distributing station to the front of the army it supplies. The stations within the zone at the rail-heads, just behind the front, are the “war terminals” (stations têtes d’étapes de guerre).
From this brief sketch of the railroad organization that feeds the front, we pass to a consideration of the war-freight which it carries.
2. Organization of the munition parks. At the rear of every army there is a “Main Artillery Park,” located at a point of easy communication with the distributing station and the front beyond. Military railways connect it with the “Army-Park Depots” farther on, which in turn are similarly connected with the “Army-Corps Parks,” and the latter with “Divisional Parks.” The military railways thus spread out fan-wise from the various bases to the front, through distributing-point after distributing-point.
During the transportation of the munitions from the interior of the country to the front, the different kinds of projectiles are never mixed together. There are munition trains for heavy guns, others for field guns.
The munitions are transported by rail in the following way. The 75 and 105 shells travel in wooden cases, from which they are removed only to be placed in the supply wagons that carry them directly to the batteries.
The shells for the big guns are transported in bulk. They are filled with explosive, but the fulminate is not attached.
The powder lots for all sizes travel in copper cases, to guard against all risks of accidental explosion. The distributing station sends the ammunition trains to the Main Parks, where they are shunted on to sidings.
These trains are afterwards distributed to the advance posts of the Army Parks, where, according to circumstances, they are unloaded to form reserves of munitions, or redistributed to the Army-Corps Parks.
Most of the time, when the parks of the front are demanding fresh supplies, those trains are not unloaded at the Army Parks, but sent on to the Army-Corps Parks.