Читать книгу The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914 - Edwin A. Pratt - Страница 3

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While the original purpose of railways was to promote the arts of peace, the wide scope of their possibilities in the direction, also, of furthering the arts of war began to be realised at a very early date after their success in the former capacity had been assured in Great Britain.

Already the canal system had introduced an innovation which greatly impressed the British public. In December, 1806, a considerable body of troops went by barge on the Paddington Canal from London to Liverpool, en route for Dublin, relays of fresh horses for the canal boats being provided at all the stages in order to facilitate the transport; and in referring to this event The Times of December 19, 1806, remarked:—"By this mode of conveyance the men will be only seven days in reaching Liverpool, and with comparatively little fatigue, as it would take them above fourteen days to march that distance."

But when, on the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in 1830, a British regiment was conveyed thereon, in two hours, a journey of thirty-four miles, which they would have required two days to accomplish on foot, far-seeing men became still more impressed, and began to realise that there had, indeed, been introduced a new factor destined to exercise a powerful influence on the future conduct of war.

The geographical position of the United Kingdom led, in those early days, to greater importance being attached to the conveniences of railways as a means of transport than to their actual strategical and tactical advantages; and the issue by the War Office, in 1846, of a "Regulation Relative to the Conveyance of Her Majesty's Forces, their Baggage and Stores, by Rail," may have appeared to meet the requirements of the immediate situation, so far as this country was concerned.

On the Continent of Europe, however, the rivalry of nations divided from one another only by a more or less uncertain or varying frontier, and still powerfully influenced by the recollection of recent conflicts, resulted in much greater attention being paid to the possibilities of the new development.

The first definite proposals for the use of railways for strategical purposes were advanced, as early as 1833, by Friedrich Wilhelm Harkort, a Westphalian worthy who came to be better known in his native land as "Der alte Harkort." A participant in the Napoleonic wars, he had subsequently shown great energy and enterprise in the development of steam engines, hydraulic presses, iron-making, and other important industries in Germany; he had been the first writer in that country to give an account—as he did in 1825—of the progress England was making in respect to railways and steamships; and he had, in 1826, placed a working model of a railway in the garden of the Elberfeld Museum. These various efforts he followed up, in 1833, by bringing forward in the Westphalian Landtag a scheme for the building of a railway to connect the Weser and the Lippe. Later in the same year he published "Die Eisenbahn von Minden nach Köln," in which he laid special stress on the value to Germany of the proposed line from a military point of view. With the help of such a railway, he argued, it would be possible to concentrate large bodies of troops at a given point much more speedily than if they marched by road; he made calculations as to what the actual saving in time, as well as in physical strain, would be in transporting Prussian troops from various specified centres to others; and he proceeded:—

Let us suppose that we had a railway and a telegraph line on the right bank of the Rhine, from Mainz to Wesel. Any crossing of the Rhine by the French would then scarcely be possible, since we should be able to bring a strong defensive force on the spot before the attempt could be developed.

These things may appear very strange to-day; yet in the womb of the future there slumbers the seed of great developments in railways, the results of which it is, as yet, quite beyond our powers to foresee.

Harkort's proposals gave rise to much vigorous controversy in Germany. The official classes condemned as "nonsensical fancies" his ideas, not only as to the usefulness of railways for the conveyance of troops, but, also, as to the utility of railways for any practical purposes whatever; and contemporary newspapers and periodicals, in turn, made him the butt of their ridicule.

The pros and cons of the use of railways for military purposes were, none the less, actively discussed in numerous pamphlets and treatises. Just as, in France, General Rumigny, adjutant to Louis-Philippe, had already foreshadowed the possibility of a sudden invasion by a German army reaching the frontier by rail, so, also, in Germany, in the words of one writer at this period, "anxious spirits shudder at the thought that, some fine spring morning, a hundred thousand Frenchmen, thirsting for war, will suddenly invade our peaceful valleys at bird-like speed, thanks to the new means of locomotion, and begin their old game (das alte Spiel) over again." On the other hand there were military sceptics—such as the author of a pamphlet "Uber die Militärische Benutzung der Eisenbahnen" (Berlin, 1836)—who, basing their calculations on locomotive performances up to that date, asserted that, although the railway might be of service in the conveyance of supplies, guns and ammunition, it would be of no advantage in the transport of troops. These, they declared, would get to their destination sooner if they marched.[1]

The most noticeable of the various publications issued in Germany at this period was a book by Carl Eduard Pönitz ("Pz."), which appeared at Adorf, Saxony, in 1842, under the title of "Die Eisenbahnen als militärische Operationslinien betrachtet, und durch Beispiele erlaütert." The writer of this remarkable book (of which a second edition was issued in 1853) gave a comprehensive survey of the whole situation in regard to railways and war, so far as the subject could be dealt with in the light of railway developments and of actual experiences of troop movements by rail down to that time; and he argued strongly in favour of the advantages to be derived from the employment of railways for military purposes. He even suggested that, in the event of an inadequate supply of locomotives, or of operations having to be conducted in a mountainous country where locomotives could not be used for heavy traffic, the troops might still use their own horses to draw the coaches and wagons along the railway lines, so that the men would arrive fresh and fit for immediate fighting at the end of their journey.

Describing railways as the most powerful vehicle for the advancement of "Kultur" since the invention of printing, Pönitz showed how Belgium and Saxony were the two countries which had taken the initiative in railway construction on the Continent of Europe; and his references to the former country are especially deserving of being recalled, in view of recent events. He pointed to the good example which had been set by the "far-sighted and energetic" King of the Belgians, and continued:—

Although, in a land torn asunder by revolutionary factions, many wounds were still bleeding; and although the newly-created kingdom was threatened by foes within and without and could organise means of resistance only with great difficulty, there was, nevertheless, taken in hand a scheme for the construction of a network of railways designed to extend over the entire country, while at the present moment the greater part of that scheme has, in fact, been carried out. In this way King Leopold has raised up for himself a memorial the full value and significance of which may, perhaps, be appreciated only by generations yet to come.

While Belgium was thus shown to have been setting a good example, the only railways which Prussia then had in actual operation (apart from the Berlin-Stettin and the Berlin-Breslau lines, which had been begun, and others which had been projected) were the Berlin-Potsdam and the Berlin-Magdeburg-Leipzig lines; though Saxony had the Leipzig-Dresden line, and Bavaria the Nüremberg-Fürth and the Munich-Augsburg lines. Pönitz, however, excused the backwardness of Prussia on the ground that if her Government had refused, for a long time, to sanction various projected railways, or had imposed heavy obligations in regard to them, such action was due, not to prejudice, but to "a wise foresight"—meaning, presumably, that Prussia was waiting to profit by the experience that other countries were gaining at their own cost.

Having dealt with all the arguments he could advance in favour of the general principle of employing railways for military purposes, Pönitz proceeded to elaborate a scheme for the construction of a network of strategical lines serving the whole of Germany, though intended, more especially, to protect her frontiers against attack by either France or Russia. Without, he said, being in the secrets of international politics, he thought he might safely presume that Germany's only fear of attack was from one of these two directions; and, although the relations of the Great Powers of Europe were then peaceful, a continuance of those conditions could not, of course, be guaranteed. So, he proceeded—

We have to look to these two fronts; and, if we want to avoid the risk of heavy losses at the outset, we needs must—also at the outset—be prepared to meet the enemy there with an overwhelming force. Every one knows that the strength of an army is multiplied by movements which are rapid in themselves and allow of the troops arriving at the end of their journey without fatigue.

In a powerful appeal—based on motives alike of patriotism, of national defence and of economic advantage—that his fellow-countrymen should support the scheme he thus put forward, Pönitz once more pointed to Belgium, saying:—

The youngest of all the European States has given us an example of what can be done by intelligence and good will. The network of Belgian railways will be of as much advantage in advancing the industries of that country as it will be in facilitating the defence of the land against attack by France. It will increase alike Belgium's prosperity and Belgium's security. And we Germans, who place so high a value on our intelligence, and are scarcely yet inclined to recognise the political independence of the Belgian people, shall we remain so blind as not to see what is needed for our own safety?

Pönitz could not, of course, anticipate in 1842 that the time would come when his country, acting to the full on the advice he was then giving, would have her strategic railways, not only to the French and the Russian, but, also, to the Belgian frontier, and would use those in the last-mentioned direction to crush remorselessly the little nation concerning which he himself was using words of such generous sympathy and approbation.

The ideas and proposals put forward by Pönitz (of whose work a French translation, under the title of "Essai sur les Chemins de Fer, considérés commes lignes d'opérations militaires," was published by L. A. Unger in Paris, in 1844) did much to stimulate the discussion of the general question, while the military authorities of Germany were moved to make investigations into it on their own account, there being issued in Berlin, about 1848 or 1850, a "Survey of the Traffic and Equipment of German and of neighbouring foreign Railways for military purposes, based on information collected by the Great General Staff."[2]

In France, also, there were those who, quite early in the days of the new means of transport, predicted the important service it was likely to render for the purposes of war no less than for those of peace.

General Lamarque declared in the French Chamber of Deputies in 1832, or 1833, that the strategical use of railways would lead to "a revolution in military science as great as that which had been brought about by the use of gunpowder."

At the sitting of the Chamber on May 25, 1833, M. de Bérigny, in urging the "incontestable" importance of railways, said:—

From the point of view of national defence, what advantages do they not present! An army, with all its material, could, in a few days, be transported from the north to the south, from the east to the west, of France. If a country could thus speedily carry considerable masses of troops to any given point on its frontiers, would it not become invincible, and would it not, also, be in a position to effect great economies in its military expenditure?

In a further debate on June 8, 1837, M. Dufaure declared that railways had a greater mission to fulfil than that of offering facilities to industry or than that of conferring benefits on private interests. Was it a matter of no account, he asked, that they should be able in one night to send troops to all the frontiers of France, from Paris to the banks of the Rhine, from Lyons to the foot of the Alps, with an assurance of their arriving fresh and ready for combat?

Then, in 1842, M. Marschall, advocating the construction of a line from Paris to Strasburg, predicted that any new invasion of France by Germany would most probably be attempted between Metz and Strasburg. He further said:—

It is there that the German Confederation is converging a formidable system of railways from Cologne, Mayence and Mannheim.... Twenty-four hours will suffice for our neighbours to concentrate on the Rhine the forces of Prussia, Austria and the Confederation, and on the morrow an army of 400,000 men could invade our territory by that breach of forty leagues between Thionville and Lauterburg, which are the outposts of Strasburg and Metz. Three months later, the reserve system organised in Prussia and in some of the other German States would allow of a second Army being sent of equal force to the other. The title of "aggressive lines" given by our neighbours to these railways leave us with no room for doubt as to their intentions. Studies for an expedition against Paris by way of Lorraine and Champagne can hardly be regarded as indicative of a sentiment of fraternity.

France, however, had no inclination at that time to build railways designed to serve military purposes, whether from the point of view of aggression or even from that of national defence; so that in a letter to his brother Ludwig, written April 13, 1844, von Moltke, then a member of the General Staff of the Fourth Army Corps of the Prussian Army, declared that whilst Germany was building railways, the French Chamber was only discussing them. This was so far the case that when, later on, Germany had nearly 3,300 miles of railway France was operating only a little over 1,000 miles.

Apart from the experiences, on quite a small scale, which had been obtained on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the earliest example of what railways could do in the transport of large bodies of troops was afforded in 1846, when Prussia's Sixth Army Corps—consisting of over 12,000 men, together with horses, guns, road vehicles and ammunition—was moved by rail, upon two lines, to Cracow. In 1849 a Russian corps of 30,000 men, with all its equipment, was taken by rail from its cantonments in Poland to Göding, Moravia, whence it effected a junction with the Austrian army. There was, also, a certain movement of German troops by rail to Schleswig-Holstein in the troubles of 1848-50; but of greater importance than these other instances was the transport of an Austrian army of 75,000 men, 8,000 horses and 1,000 vehicles from Vienna and Hungary to the Silesian frontier in the early winter of 1850.

It is true that, owing to the combined disadvantages of single-line railways, inadequate staff and rolling stock, unfavourable weather, lack of previous preparations and of transport regulations, and delays from various unforeseen causes, no fewer than twenty-six days were occupied in the transport, although the journey was one of only about 150 miles. It was, also, admitted that the troops could have marched the distance in the same time. All the same, as told by Regierungsrat Wernekke,[3] the movement of so large a body of troops by rail at all was regarded as especially instructive. It was the cause of greater attention being paid to the use of railways for military purposes, while it further led (1) to the drawing up, in May, 1851, of a scheme for the construction throughout the Austrian monarchy of railways from the special point of view of strategical requirements; and (2) to a reorganisation of the methods hitherto adopted for the transport of troops by rail, the result being that the next considerable movement in Austria—in the year 1853—was conducted with "unprecedented regularity and efficiency," and this, also, without any cessation of the ordinary traffic of the lines concerned.

In 1851 a further striking object lesson of the usefulness of railways was afforded by the moving of a division of 14,500 men, with nearly 2,000 horses, 48 guns and 464 vehicles, from Cracow to Hradish, a distance of 187 miles, in two days. Reckoning that a large column of troops, with all its impedimenta, would march twelve miles per day, and allowing for one day's rest in seven, the movement would, in this instance, have occupied fifteen days by road instead of two days by rail.

It was in the Italian campaign of 1859 that railways first played a conspicuous part in actual warfare, both strategically and tactically. "In this campaign," said Major Millar, R.A., V.C., of the Topographical Staff, in two lectures delivered by him at the Royal United Service Institution in 1861[4]—

Railways assisted the ordinary means of locomotion hitherto employed by armies. By them thousands of men were carried daily through France to Toulon, Marseilles, or the foot of Mont Cenis; by them troops were hastened up to the very fields of battle; and by them injured men were brought swiftly back to the hospitals, still groaning in the first agony of their wounds. Moreover, the railway cuttings, embankments and bridges presented features of importance equal or superior to the ordinary accidents of the ground, and the possession of which was hotly contested. If you go to Magenta you will see, close to the railway platform on which you alight, an excavation full of rough mounds and simple black crosses, erected to mark the resting-places of many hundred men who fell in the great fight. This first employment of railways in close connection with vast military operations would alone be enough to give a distinction to this campaign in military history.

The French railways, especially, attained a remarkable degree of success. In eighty-six days—from April 19 to July 15—they transported an aggregate of 604,000 men and over 129,000 horses, including nearly 228,000 men and 37,000 horses sent to Culox, Marseilles, Toulon, Grenoble and Aix by lines in the south-east. The greatest movements took place during the ten days from April 20 to April 30, when the Paris-Lyons Company, without interrupting the ordinary traffic, conveyed an average per day of 8,421 men and 512 horses. On April 25, a maximum of 12,138 men and 655 horses was attained. During the eighty-six days there were run on the lines of the same company a total of 2,636 trains, including 253 military specials. It was estimated that the 75,966 men and 4,469 horses transported by rail from Paris to the Mediterranean or to the frontiers of the Kingdom of Sardinia between April 20 and April 30 would have taken sixty days to make the journey by road. In effect, the rate of transit by rail was six times greater than the rate of progress by marching would have been, and this, again, was about double as fast as the best achievement recorded up to that time on the German railways. The Chasseurs de Vincennes are described as leaving the station at Turin full of vigour and activity, and with none of the fatigue or the reduction in numbers which would have occurred had they made the journey by road.

As against, however, the advantage thus gained by the quicker transport of the French troops to the seat of war, due to the successful manner in which the railways were operated, there had to be set some serious defects in administrative organisation. When the men got to the end of their rail journey there was a more or less prolonged waiting for the food and other necessaries which were to follow. There were grave deficiencies, also, in the dispatch of the subsequent supplies. On June 25, the day after the defeat of the Austrians, the French troops had no provisions at all for twenty-four hours, except some biscuits which were so mouldy that no one could eat them. Their horses, also, were without fodder. In these circumstances it was impossible to follow up the Austrians in their retreat beyond the Mincio.

Thus the efficiency of the French railways was to a large extent negatived by the inefficiency of the military administration; and in these respects France had a foretaste, in 1859, of experiences to be repeated on a much graver scale in the Franco-German War of 1870-71.

As regards the Austrians, they improved but little on their admittedly poor performance in 1850, in spite of the lessons they appeared to have learned as the result of their experiences on that occasion. Government and railways were alike unprepared. Little or no real attempt at organisation in time of peace had been made, and, in the result, trains were delayed or blocked, and stations got choked with masses of supplies which could not be forwarded. At Vienna there was such a deficiency of rolling stock—accelerated by great delays in the return of empties—that many of the troop trains for the South could not be made up until the last moment. Even then the average number of men they conveyed did not exceed about 360. At Laibach there was much congestion because troops had to wait there for instructions as to their actual destination. Other delays occurred because, owing to the heavy gradients of the Semmering Pass, each train had to be divided into three sections before it could proceed. Between, again, Innsbruck and Bozen the railway was still incomplete, and the First Corps (about 40,000 men and 10,000 horses) had to march between these two points on their journey from Prague to Verona. Notwithstanding this fact, it was estimated that they covered in fourteen days a journey which would have taken sixty-four days if they had marched all the way. From Vienna to Lombardy the Third Army Corps (20,000 men, 5,500 horses, with guns, ammunition and 300 wagons) was carried by rail in fourteen days, the rate of progress attained being four and a half times greater than by road marching, though still inferior by one and a half times to what the French troop-trains had accomplished.

On both sides important reinforcements were brought up at critical periods during the progress of the war. Referring to the attacks by the allies on Casteggio and Montebello, Count Gyulai, the Austrian General, wrote:—"The enemy soon displayed a superior force, which was continually increased by arrivals from the railway"; and the special correspondent of The Times, writing from Pavia on May 21, 1859, said:—

From the heights of Montebello the Austrians beheld a novelty in the art of war. Train after train arrived by railway from Voghera, each train disgorging its hundreds of armed men and immediately hastening back for more. In vain Count Stadion endeavoured to crush the force behind him before it could be increased enough to overpower him.

Then, also, the good use made of the railways by the allies in carrying out their important flanking movement against the Austrians at Vercelli gave further evidence of the fact that rail-power was a new force which could be employed, not alone for the earlier concentration of troops at the seat of war, but, also, in support of strategic developments on the battle-field itself. Commenting on this fact the Spectateur Militaire said, in its issue for September, 1869:—

Les chemins de fer ont joué un rôle immense dans cette concentration. C'est la première fois que, dans l'histoire militaire, ils servent d'une manière aussi merveilleuse et entrent dans les combinaisons stratégiques.

While these observations were fully warranted by the results accomplished in regard to concentration, reinforcements and tactical movements by rail, the campaign also brought out more clearly than ever before the need, if railways were to fulfil their greatest possible measure of utility in time of war, of working out in advance all important details likely to arise in connection with the movement of troops, instead—as in the case of the Austrians, at least—of neglecting any serious attempt at organisation until the need arose for immediate action.

From all these various points of view the Italian campaign of 1859 marked a further important stage in the early development of that new factor which the employment of railways for the purposes of warfare represented; though far greater results in the same direction were to be brought about, shortly afterwards, by the American Civil War of 1861-65. Not only does the real development of rail-power as a new arm in war date therefrom, but the War of Secession was to establish in a pre-eminent degree (1) the possibility, through the use of railways, of carrying on operations at a considerable distance from the base of supplies; (2) the need of a special organisation to deal alike with restoration of railway lines destroyed by the enemy and with the interruption, in turn, of the enemy's own communications; and (3) the difficulties that may arise as between the military element and the technical (railway) element in regard to the control and operation of railways during war. To each of these subjects it is proposed to devote a separate chapter.