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    THE RISE OF RAIL-POWER
    IN WAR AND CONQUEST
    1833-1914




    THE
    RISE OF RAIL-POWER
    IN WAR AND CONQUEST
    1833-1914

    WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY

    BY
    EDWIN A. PRATT
    Author of "A History of Inland Transport,"
    "Railways and their Rates," etc.

    LONDON
    P. S. KING & SON, LTD.
    ORCHARD HOUSE
    WESTMINSTER
    1915




CONTENTS.


    CHAP.                                    PAGE

        I  A NEW FACTOR                         1
       II  RAILWAYS IN THE CIVIL WAR           14
      III  RAILWAY DESTRUCTION IN WAR          26
       IV  CONTROL OF RAILWAYS IN WAR          40
        V  PROTECTION OF RAILWAYS IN WAR       54
       VI  TROOPS AND SUPPLIES                 62
      VII  ARMOURED TRAINS                     67
     VIII  RAILWAY AMBULANCE TRANSPORT         81
       IX  PREPARATION IN PEACE FOR WAR        98
        X  ORGANISATION IN GERMANY            103
       XI  RAILWAY TROOPS IN GERMANY          122
      XII  FRANCE AND THE WAR OF 1870-71      138
     XIII  ORGANISATION IN FRANCE             149
      XIV  ORGANISATION IN ENGLAND            175
       XV  MILITARY RAILWAYS                  205
      XVI  RAILWAYS IN THE BOER WAR           232
     XVII  THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR             260
    XVIII  STRATEGICAL RAILWAYS: GERMANY      277
      XIX  A GERMAN-AFRICAN EMPIRE            296
       XX  DESIGNS ON ASIATIC TURKEY          331
      XXI  SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS            345

           APPENDIX
           INDIAN FRONTIER RAILWAYS           357
           THE DEFENCE OF AUSTRALIA           368

           BIBLIOGRAPHY                       376
           INDEX                              398




PREFATORY NOTE.


The extent to which railways are being used in the present War of the
Nations has taken quite by surprise a world whose military historians,
in their accounts of what armies have done or have failed to do on the
battle-field in the past, have too often disregarded such matters of
detail as to how the armies got there and the possible effect of good or
defective transport conditions, including the maintenance of supplies
and communications, on the whole course of a campaign.

In the gigantic struggle now proceeding, these matters of detail are
found to be of transcendant importance. The part which railways are
playing in the struggle has, indeed--in keeping with the magnitude of
the struggle itself--assumed proportions unexampled in history. Whilst
this is so it is, nevertheless, a remarkable fact that although much has
been said as to the conditions of military unpreparedness in which the
outbreak of hostilities in August, 1914, found the Allies, there has, so
far as I am aware, been no suggestion of any inability on the part of
the railways to meet, at once, from the very moment war was declared,
all the requirements of military transport. In this respect, indeed, the
organisation, the preparedness, and the efficiency throughout alike of
the British and of the French railways have been fully equal to those of
the German railways themselves.

As regards British conditions, especially, much interest attaches to
some remarks made by Sir Charles Owens, formerly General Manager of
the London and South Western Railway Company, in the course of an
address delivered by him to students of the London School of Economics
on October 12, 1914. He told how, some five or six years ago, he had
met at a social function the Secretary of State for War, who, after
dinner, took him aside and asked, "Do you think in any emergency which
might arise in this country the railways would be able to cope with it
adequately?" To this question Sir Charles replied, "I will stake my
reputation as a railway man that the country could not concentrate men
and materials half so fast as the railways could deal with them; but the
management of the railways must be left in the hands of railway men."
We have here an affirmation and a proviso. That the affirmation was
warranted has been abundantly proved by what the British railways have
accomplished in the emergency that has arisen. The special significance
of the proviso will be understood in the light of what I record in the
present work concerning the control of railways in war.

Taking the railways of all the countries, whether friends or foes,
concerned in the present World-War, and assuming, for the sake of
argument, that all, without exception, have accomplished marvels in the
way of military transport, one must, nevertheless, bear in mind two
important considerations:--

(1) That, apart from the huge proportions of the scale upon which,
in the aggregate, the railways are being required to serve military
purposes, the present conflict, in spite of its magnitude, has thus far
produced no absolutely new factor in the employment of railways for war
except as regards the use of air-craft for their destruction.

(2) That when hostilities were declared in August, 1914, the subject
of the employment of railways for the purposes of war had already been
under the consideration of railway and military experts in different
countries for no fewer than eighty years, during which period, and
as the result of vast study, much experience, and many blunders in
or between wars in various parts of the world