Читать книгу The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914 - Edwin A. Pratt - Страница 10

Table of Contents

The liability of railway lines to interruption or destruction—whether by bodies of cavalry sent across the frontier for that purpose, and aiming at damage on a large scale; by smaller raiding parties operating in the rear of an advancing army; or by individuals acting on their own account in a hostile country—rendered necessary from an early date in the railway era the adoption of protective measures of a type and character varying according to circumstances; while these, in turn, introduced some further new features into modern warfare.

Under the orders given by General McDowell for the guarding of railways in the Department of the Rappahannock, in the American Civil War, twelve sentinels were posted along each mile of track; block-houses were constructed at each bridge, at cross-roads, and at intervals along the track; pickets were thrown forward at various points; bushes and trees were cleared away from alongside the line, and the men at each post had flags and lanterns for signalling. General Sherman took similar measures to guard his rail communications between Nashville and Atlanta.

Precautions such as these were directed mainly against the enemy in the field; but an early example was to be afforded of how a civil population may either concern themselves or be concerned against their will in the maintenance of rail communication for military purposes. This position is well shown in the following proclamation, issued July 30, 1863, by Major-General G. G. Meade from the head-quarters of the Army of the Potomac at a time when attempts to throw troop trains off the railway lines were a matter of daily occurrence:—

The numerous depredations committed by citizens or rebel soldiers in disguise, harboured and concealed by citizens, along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and within our lines, call for prompt and exemplary punishment. Under the instructions of the Government, therefore, every citizen against whom there is sufficient evidence of his having engaged in these practices will be arrested and confined for punishment, or put beyond the lines.

The people within ten miles of the railroad are notified that they will be held responsible, in their persons and property, for any injury done to the road, trains, depôts or stations by citizens, guerillas or persons in disguise; and in case of such injury they will be impressed as labourers to repair all damages.

If these measures should not stop such depredations, it will become the unpleasant duty of the undersigned, in the execution of his instructions, to direct that the entire inhabitants of the district of country along the railroad be put across the lines, and their property taken for Government uses.

On the Manassas Gap Railway General Auger further sought to protect Federal army trains against guerilla attacks by placing in a conspicuous position in each of such trains some of the leading Confederates residing within Union lines, so that, should any accident happen to the train, they would run the risk of being among the victims.

In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 the principle of punishing the civil population for attacks on the railway lines underwent a further development. Captain Webber says in reference to the line through Turnau, Prague and Pardubitz to Brünn[8]: "The Prussians were fortunate in being able to preserve the line intact from injury by the inhabitants, partly by the number and strength of the guards posted along it, and partly from the terror of reprisals which they had inspired." Captain Webber suggests that, in the face of an active enemy, and in a country where the population was hostile, it would have been impossible to depend on the railway as a principal line of communication; but the significance of his expression, "the terror of reprisals," as denoting the policy adopted by Prussia so far back as 1866, will not be lost on those who are only too well acquainted with more recent developments of the same policy by the same country.

The number of men per mile required for guarding a line of rail communication is declared by Captain John Bigelow, in his "Principles of Strategy" (Philadelphia, 1894), to be exceedingly variable, depending as it does upon the tactical features of the country and the temper of the inhabitants. According, he says, to the estimate of the Germans for the conditions of European warfare, the number will average about 1,000 men for every stretch of fifteen miles. At this rate an army sixty miles from its base requires about 4,000 men for the protection of each line of communication.

With the help of figures such as these one may, perhaps, understand the more readily how it is that a Commander-in-Chief, of merciless disposition, and wanting to retain the active services of every soldier he possibly can in the interests of an early and successful advance will, by spreading a feeling of "terror" among the civil population, seek to reduce to as low a figure as circumstances will permit the number of men he must leave behind to guard his lines of rail communication.

These considerations will be found to apply with the greater force when it is remembered that in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 the Prussians had to adopt an especially elaborate system for safeguarding their lines of communication with Germany during the time they occupied French territory. At each railway station they placed a guard formed of detachments of the Landwehr, while small detachments were stationed in towns and villages in the neighbourhood. In each signal-box a detachment of troops was stationed, and the whole line of railway was patrolled from posts established along it at distances of every three or four miles. Altogether, the Germans are said to have employed, on over 2,000 miles of French railway lines controlled by them, as many as 100,000 troops for protective purposes only; and even then the franc-tireurs were able to cause many interruptions.

Under a Prussian regulation dated May 2, 1867, it was laid down that after the restoration of any lines taken possession of in an enemy's territory, notice should be given that in the event of any further damage being done to the railway, the locality would be subject to a fine of at least 500 thalers, the belongings of the inhabitants would be liable to seizure, and the local authorities might be arrested.

As a further precautionary measure in the war of 1870-71, the Germans took a hint from the example of the Union Generals in the American Civil War by compelling a leading citizen of the district passed through to ride on the engine of each train run by them on French soil. In defence of this practice, the German General Staff say in their handbook on "The Usages of War"[9]:—

Since the lives of peaceable inhabitants were, without any fault on their part, thereby exposed to grave danger, every writer outside Germany has stigmatised this measure as contrary to the law of nations and as unjustified towards the inhabitants of the country. As against this unfavourable criticism it must be pointed out that this measure, which was also recognised on the German side as harsh and cruel, was only resorted to after declarations and instructions of the occupying authorities had proved ineffective, and that in the particular circumstances it was the only method which promised to be effective against the doubtless unauthorised, indeed the criminal, behaviour of a fanatical population. Herein lies its justification under the laws of war, but still more in the fact that it proved completely successful, and that wherever citizens were thus carried on the trains ... the security of traffic was assured.

Writing under date December 16, 1870, Busch offered the following justification for the course adopted:—

They were taken, not to serve as a hindrance to French heroism, but as a precaution against treacherous crime. The railway does not carry merely soldiers, ammunition and other war material against which it may be allowable to use violent measures; it also conveys a great number of wounded, doctors, hospital attendants, and other perfectly harmless persons. Is a peasant or franc-tireur to be allowed to endanger hundreds of those lives by removing a rail or laying a stone upon the line? Let the French see that the security of the railway trains is no longer threatened and the journeys made by those hostages will be merely outings, or our people may even be able to forgo such precautionary measures.

In the South African War, Field-Marshal Earl Roberts issued at Pretoria, on June 19, 1900, a proclamation one section of which authorised the placing of leading men among the Boers on the locomotives of the trains run by the British on the occupied territory; but this particular section was withdrawn eight days afterwards.

The English view of the practice in question is thus defined in the official "Manual of Military Law" (Chap. XIV, "The Laws and Usages of War," par. 463):—

Such measures expose the lives of inhabitants, not only to the illegitimate acts of train wrecking by private enemy individuals, but also to the lawful operations of raiding parties of the armed forces of the belligerent, and cannot, therefore, be considered a commendable practice.

To guard against the attacks made on the railway lines in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal during the British occupation, entrenched posts were placed at every bridge exceeding a 30-feet span; constant patrolling was maintained between these posts; and the block-houses introduced (in 1901) by Lord Kitchener were erected along all the railway lines, at distances of about 2,000 yards. Each block-house, also, was garrisoned by about ten men, and each was surrounded by wire entanglements which, together with various kinds of alarm fences, were also placed between the block-houses themselves in order both to impede the approach of the enemy and to warn the garrison thereof.

Block-houses are to-day regarded as one of the chief means of protecting railways against attacks. Their construction and equipment are dealt with by Major W. D. Connor, of the Corps of Engineers, U.S.A., in "Military Railways" (Professional Papers, No. 32, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, Washington, 1910).

Supplementary to the adoption of this block-house system, in time of war, is the practice followed in various Continental countries, in time of peace, of building permanent fortresses, in solid masonry, alongside railway bridges crossing important rivers. In some instances the fortress is so constructed that the railway lines pass through the centre of it. Not only, as a rule, are these fortresses extremely solid and substantial, but they may be provided with bomb-proof covers and be stocked with a sufficient supply of provisions to be able to stand, if necessary, a fairly prolonged siege. One can assume, also, that the garrison would have under its control facilities arranged in advance for the destruction of the bridge, as a last resort, in case of need.

The theory is that such fortresses and their garrisons should be of especial advantage, on the outbreak of war, in checking any sudden invasion and allowing time for the completion of defensive measures. Their construction in connection with all the principal railway bridges crossing the Rhine was especially favoured in Prussia after the war of 1870-1.

Similar fortresses, or "interrupting forts," as the Germans call them, are also built for the protection of important tunnels, junctions, locomotive and carriage works, etc.

Another method adopted for the safeguarding of railway lines in war is the use of armoured trains; though in practice these are also employed for the purposes of independent attacks on the enemy, apart altogether from any question of ensuring the safety of rail communication.[10]

For the protection of locomotives and rolling stock, and to prevent not only their capture but their use by the enemy, the most efficacious method to adopt is, of course, that of removing them to some locality where the enemy is not likely to come.

When, in 1866, Austria saw that she could not hold back the Prussian invader, she took off into Hungary no fewer than 1,000 locomotives and 16,000 wagons from the railways in Bohemia and Saxony. Similar tactics were adopted by the Boers as against ourselves in the war in South Africa. On the British troops crossing into the Orange Free State, from Cape Colony, they found that the retreating enemy had withdrawn all their rolling stock, as well as all their staffs from the railway stations, leaving behind only a more or less damaged line of railway. Subsequently, when the forces occupied Pretoria, they certainly did find there sixteen locomotives and 400 trucks; but the station books showed that in the previous forty-eight hours no fewer than seventy trains, many of them drawn by two engines, had been sent east in the direction of Delagoa Bay.

When it is not practicable to withdraw locomotives and rolling stock which it is desired the enemy shall not be able to use, the obvious alternative is that measures should be taken either to remove vital parts or to ensure their destruction. Certain of the methods adopted during the Civil War in America were especially efficacious in attaining the latter result. In some instances trains were started running and then—driver and fireman leaping off the engine—were left to go into a river, or to fall through a broken viaduct. In other instances two trains, after having had a good supply of explosives put in them, would be allowed to dash into one another at full speed. Many locomotives had their boilers burst, and wagons were set on fire after having been filled up with combustibles.

Still another method which has been adopted with a view to preventing an enemy from using the railways he might succeed in capturing is that of constructing them with a different gauge. The standard gauge of the main-line railways in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Roumania and Turkey (like that, also, of railways in Great Britain, Canada and the United States), is 4ft. 8½in., allowing trains to pass readily from one country to the other with the same rolling stock; but the gauge of the Russian railways is 5ft., necessitating a transshipment from one train to another when the frontier is reached. Similar conditions are found in Spain and Portugal, where the standard gauge is 5ft. 6in.[11]

Russia adopted her broader gauge so that, in case of invasion, the invader should not be able to run his rolling-stock over her lines, as Germany, for instance, would be able to do in the case of the railways of Belgium and France. Thus far, therefore, Russia strengthened her position from the point of view of defence; but she weakened it as regards attack, since if she should herself want, either to become the invader or to send troop trains over neighbouring territory to some point beyond, she would be at a disadvantage. In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, when the Russian forces passed through Roumania on their way to Turkey, the difference in gauge between the Russian and the Roumanian railways caused great delay and inconvenience by reason of the necessary transfer of troops, stores, guns, ammunition, torpedo boats, etc., at the frontier.

It should, also, be remembered that the reduction of a broad gauge to a narrow one is a much simpler matter, from an engineering point of view, than the widening of a narrower gauge into a broad one. In the former case the existing sleepers, bridges, tunnels, platforms, etc., would still serve their purpose. In the latter case fresh sleepers might have to be laid, bridges and tunnels widened or enlarged, and platforms and stations altered, use of the broader-gauge rolling stock thus involving an almost complete reconstruction of the railway lines. To this extent, therefore, the balance of advantage would seem to be against the country having the broader gauge. The conclusion may, at least, be formed that such a country is far more bent on protecting her own territory than on invading that of her neighbours.

The course adopted by Germany for overcoming the difficulty which, in the event of her seeking to invade Russia, the difference of railway gauge in that country would present, will be told in Chapter XVIII.