These light railways provided an efficient – and often the only – link between railheads and the front line, and the contrast in their exploitation by the three main participants on the Western Front highlighted a deeper difference in the combatants’ respective attitudes towards the war. The Germans had anticipated that field railways would be extremely useful, and the French had made some preparations and rapidly expanded their stock of narrow-gauge material once the war started. The British, however, had rejected the idea of building any such light railways because, they argued, they would serve no purpose in a war of movement. Even before the war, when the British High Command had been told of a German stockpile of military light-railway equipment by many authoritative visitors, including senior field officers, the view of Whitehall had not been changed. The official report on transport on the Western Front confirms this: ‘For the first two years of the war, the British transport arrangements were dominated by the idea that the war would soon revert to one of movement, that it was useless to embark on any large scheme which might be left far in the rear and become valueless before it had materialised and become of use. For two years, the British relied on Mechanical Transport which proved inadequate when masses of troops and great numbers of heavy guns were crowded into a limited area.’28 This suggests that the British opposition to light railways was part of a wider hostility to rail because it was perceived as so inflexible. The British Army consequently put a lot more energy than either the Germans or the French into mechanizing road transport during the course of the war.
Meanwhile the French, although hampered by the fact that much of their manufacturing capability was in areas now occupied by the Germans, started stockpiling material for light railways as soon as the trenches were dug. The advantage of light railways was that in the conditions of the front line they were more flexible and efficient than any other form of transport, as the official report later explained: ‘The use of light railways was mainly due to the difficulties of road maintenance. With the coming of trench warfare, the roads from the constant traffic of heavy lorries suffered severely, especially in bad weather, the horsed transport owing to shell fire and the bad roads was unable to reach troops in the trenches, and supplies had to be transported over the last stage of their journey from the railhead to the trenches by manual labour.’29 Railheads had to be at least seven miles behind the front line to be safe from enemy fire and there were only two ways of carrying supplies through this gap, men or mules, neither of which were particularly suitable as both required an extraordinary amount of effort and manpower.
Carrying supplies through the last few miles from the railhead was not only onerous but could be deadly. The rural French roads, never designed for military traffic, rapidly degenerated into rutted tracks under the weight of carts, lorries and horse-drawn artillery. Large sections of the army were diverted from their military roles into road maintenance but it was never enough, especially in the autumn and winter. Once the roads ran out it was worse: ‘Beyond the roads lay a nightmare quagmire of pulverised fields, ruined ditches and flooded shell-holes, threaded by temporary duckboard tracks and communications trenches. Through this muddy wasteland every single item needed by the troops – food, water, clothing, medical supplies, tools, timber, barbed wire, mortars, machine guns, rifles, ammunition and yet more ammunition – had to be carried on the backs of men and horses. Thousands of men died as they wandered off the tracks into flooded shell craters, or tripped and fell in the waterlogged trenches and were trampled by the men behind, or were picked off by artillery fire.’30
The track for light railways could be laid very easily with little ballast needed to support it and the equipment could be lifted up and used elsewhere if the front line moved, which is why they were sometimes called ‘portable’ railways. In fact the advantages of using these railways between railheads and the front line had become clear to many British troops on the ground for some time after they saw the French operating them and there were all kinds of remarkable experiments: one division near Ypres laid wooden rails to deaden the sound, with the pointwork protected with metal sheets cut from biscuit tins. Haulage on these early British lines was principally by manpower although occasionally mules were used, and in a couple of cases strange petrol-driven machines fashioned from cars and any other available material were put on the crude rails. The French had not gone into the war with sufficient light-railway equipment but cottoned on faster than the British to their benefits. Shocked by the supply difficulties encountered in the first winter, they laid networks in the rear of most of their army positions and placed large orders for new material both in Britain and in America.
Gradually, two types of these narrow-gauge railways developed. The first, broadly, ran from railheads to depots near the front line and were normally hauled by petrol and petrol-electric tractors or steam engines; the second, often of an even smaller gauge than 60cm, were far cruder affairs, generally called tramways and invariably using men or mules for traction. In some parts of the battlefield, the light railways reached almost the front line, whereas, in others, transfer to the crude tramways was needed. The two systems were supposed to be kept independent of each other because the tramways were built to much lower specifications and were not able to take the weight of the locomotives or even most of the wagons running on the light-railway system. Later in the war, though, at some points the two were linked because rolling stock and supplies were accumulating at the transfer point, which was often in sight of the enemy, but connecting them sometimes resulted in derailments as heavier types of vehicle were allowed onto the fragile tramways.
Only after the success of the early experiments by officers on the ground with these temporary light-railway tracks did the top brass consider the worth of these light railways. As W. J. K. Davies, their historian, so aptly put it, ‘there are, alas, none so blind as those who will not see, and the reports made no impact on British military thinking’.31 Despite the obvious necessity for these networks and the success of these experiments on the front line, it was not until September 1915 that the British HQ gave any official support to their introduction and it was only in February of the following year that the idea was fully endorsed. The takeover by the British of a French sector with three full-scale 60cm light railways finally convinced the military commanders of the usefulness of this innovation and led to the creation of a Directorate of Light Railways. It was not, though, until a few months later that the failure of the Somme offensive resulted in a U-turn by the army generals, when it became apparent that not only were light railways crucial during static periods but they were also vital during attacks when troops were moving forward into enemy territory.
Since the light railways ran at slow speeds, and required frequent repair, they were of necessity short, mostly between five and fifteen miles long. With a greater length much of the capacity of the line would have been taken up with the maintenance needs of the railway itself. Petrol tractors were the more useful means of traction, since they made less noise and could function more safely near enemy lines than the steam engines, which were noisy and too visible. Even the trains on the longer light railways were on occasion hauled by men or mules and contemporary accounts suggest the animals did not always take easily to the task. According to one driver, who recalls that his wagons were usually pulled by teams of six mules, ‘you can imagine what it was like at night, pitch dark, getting smothered with mud kicked up by the hind legs of the mule, straining your eyes continually at the rope in case it slackened and you were unable to stop the truck before it ran over the mule’s legs; this in the army was a worse crime than killing a man because mules cost money!’32
The great advantage of these toytown railways was the ease of repair and their flexibility. It was a simple job to replace tracks damaged by shelling or to reroute a line which ran through an area that became impassable. According to one account, derailments were so frequent that on the lines nearest the front ‘it was not unusual to have three or fo
ur [derailments] in one section in one night’.33 Mostly, however, these mishaps presented little problem, solved by a bit of manhandling from any passing soldiers, or left for the next day, when manpower could be found. It was this adaptability that allowed these tiny railways to reach areas which would be unthinkable for standard-gauge trains to enter and made them increasingly indispensable. The system may seem crude but in the latter stages of the war light railways played an enormous part in the line of communication
Most traffic ran at night with, at best, a tiny light, and, since there was no signalling or timetable, trains were controlled from telephone posts next to the line. The train crew consisted of a driver and a guard who operated the wagon brakes, with the addition of a fireman on steam trains. Virtually all the lines were single track and if two trains in opposite directions met, the decision as to which would reverse to the nearest siding or loop was decided by the relative obduracy of the drivers. Usually trains were operated on the tramway line-of-sight principle with each driver being responsible for driving his train so that it did not collide with the one in front. It was not only goods that were transported on these lines. Wherever possible, men moving to and from the front were carried on the railways, saving them hours of plodding through the mud. As Hamilton recalls, ‘nothing better illustrates the universal role of railways in World War One than the pictures of troops and supplies being moved up through shell-scarred country along one of these light railways’.34 Even large guns, often straddling more than one wagon, were carried and towards the end of the war these railways were also used to support field guns, which were mounted on light railways and moved after firing off a few shells, denying the enemy the opportunity to respond.
Despite their size, these little trains had a heavy workload, as described by a Captain W. S. Burge, who was in charge of the 31st Light Railway Company, based in Arras until the German offensive of March 1918. Between 100 and 150 trains were sent out each night: ‘During the day the traffic for the night was organised, and after dusk it went in a swarm of small trains, sometimes in convoys, sometimes in single truck units. They had no lights, no signals but just crept out on crazy little rails weighing only 15lb per yard [about a sixth of the weight of track on standard-gauge railways] and with a gauge of only 60cm. On this line, laid mostly on mud and light metal sleepers, our little army of trains set forth at an average speed of six to eight miles per hour, with ten tons of ammo or material in each truck.’35 Breakdowns and derailments were quickly dealt with: teams of men ‘trained in the gentle art of lifting a loco out of a shell-hole in thirty minutes with not even a sky-hook to pull them, were sent out at a moment’s notice wherever needed’.36 Ultimately, according to Westwood, ‘all the belligerents, even the Germans, made greater use of narrow-gauge field railways than they had expected. Partly this was because of the static character of the war, but partly because these railways had an increasing range of uses.’37
The crude nature of the light railways, however, was at times a severe disadvantage as they needed constant repair and disruptive derailments were frequent. They could carry a maximum of 30 tons and, consequently, for each standard-gauge train delivering to a transfer station, ten narrow-gauge ones were required. And, of course, they were slow. Not all the problems were the fault of the railways. Since the routes of these railways were laid on the most even available ground and the roads were so poor or often non-existent, their tracks tended to be used by everything from marching troops and pack mules to cars and even tanks, none of which was conducive to smooth running. Consequently, a remarkable fifth of traffic on the light railways consisted of the transportation of material for maintaining and building them. Probably nothing summed up their lack of sophistication and the improvised nature of their operation more than the fact that drivers often resorted to finding water for their steam locomotives from the nearest shell hole because of the lack of any consistent supply. Another example of improvisation on these light railways was the use of Ford Model T cars mounted on a rail chassis. The idea according to legend came from a Miss Bowen Cooke, the daughter of Charles Bowen Cooke, the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & North Western Railway, while listening to an officer on leave in Paris complaining about the inadequacy of front-line transport. The sparky girl apparently suggested a vehicle that could be used for both road and rail, and the idea was taken up by her father, whose works in Crewe produced no fewer than 132 of these strange vehicles. Unfortunately, though, according to the historian of the light railways, they proved something of a failure because ‘a chronic lack of adhesion sadly reduced the tractors’ usefulness’. Nevertheless, they must have made a handsome sight – and an entertaining distraction for the troops.
For the crew, operating the little trains might not have been as dangerous as fighting on the front but it was still perilous and difficult, as described by Captain Burge: ‘Every tractor driver or guard when they set out went on a very real adventure with no body of men to “carry them through” – they were launched on their own with the full knowledge that anything might happen at any moment, but whatever did happen they nearly always delivered the goods one way or other.’38
The more efficient delivery of men and matériel to the front occasioned by these light railways did nothing to relieve the strain on standard-gauge French railways, which, towards the end of 1915, were showing signs of being unable to cope with the workload. The huge increase in passenger numbers and freight being carried compared to peacetime had to be handled by a greatly reduced workforce since many men had left to serve in the forces. The rolling stock of wagons and, especially, locomotives, over half of which dated back to the nineteenth century, was deteriorating, too. Trains were being cancelled and the civilian traffic was hit particularly hard since military trains took precedence. Yet many of the non-military services were equally important, carrying food and basic supplies to the population, as well as soldiers on leave to and from their home towns, and consequently the cancellation of all civilian services was not an option. By the beginning of 1916 the situation on the railways had reached crisis point, with even the military traffic beginning to suffer from shortage of wagons and delays caused by overcrowding, and it began to cause severe anxiety to the military leaders.
The two major battles of 1916, Verdun and the Somme, highlighted the crucial position of the supply chain, and in particular the role of the railways for the war’s outcome. The battle of Verdun, which started in February 1916 and lasted for much of that year, was not only the longest battle of the First World War but also one of the bloodiest in the history of warfare and, according to A. J. P. Taylor, ‘the most senseless episode in a war not distinguished for sense anywhere’.39 The Germans, led by the Crown Prince, who took personal control of the attack, became increasingly convinced that the capture of Verdun would signal their ultimate victory.
Legend has it that it was the lorry, using a network of small country roads, that saved the day at Verdun. In fact, railways played an equally important, and probably decisive, role in the logistical operation. It was actually the perceived weakness of the French line of communication to Verdun which had convinced the Germans to focus their attack there rather than on Belfort, which was probably a more vulnerable and easier target. Verdun, which had a historically strategic position on the Meuse river, was a salient cut off on three sides without effective railway communications and the Germans were convinced that it would be a trap into which they could strike a fatal blow against the French Army. There was the added incentive, too, of Verdun’s symbolic significance as it had been the last fortress town to fall to the Prussians in 1871. The fortresses – there were several other hilltop forts in the area – themselves had more emblematic than strategic value as they were seen as being irrelevant to modern warfare, although they had been reinforced with huge amounts of concrete in the 1900s to resist all but the heaviest shells.
Verdun’s eight-mile-long front, established in 1914, was, indeed, served by a precarious supply route.
The railway line from the south into the town had been severed at Saint-Mihiel by the original German occupation while the other route from Paris was impassable because the tracks were within range of the enemy’s guns. That left a small metre-gauge railway, the Chemin de Fer Meusien, which ran from the standard-gauge railhead at Bar Le Duc, and the parallel road, which was little more than a series of country lanes, a route départmentale rather than a route nationale, through to Verdun, seventy-five miles away. The strategy of attacking Verdun, therefore, was based on the notion that the German attackers, well served by railways, would be able to take over the French positions because their defenders would soon run out of supplies, particularly artillery shells. The Germans, though, had reckoned without Maréchal Philippe Pétain,40 the commander of the French forces, who had realized as soon as the attack on Verdun was launched that the battle would be won or lost on the basis of logistics, and had, too, underestimated the value of the little Meusien railway. Pétain ensured that the road was kept in good condition by creating a special unit of 8,500 men and 300 officers to maintain it. To keep the Verdun front supplied, therefore, 3,000 trucks travelled daily in each direction along this meandering unpaved route of crushed stone, a frequency of one every fifteen seconds, which meant that soldiers using it had to march on the side in single file. Any truck that broke down was simply pushed off the road into a ditch to ensure there were no major hold-ups. After the war it was dubbed La Voie Sacrée by a novelist but the drivers struggling with the terrible conditions called it more prosaically La Route, probably with the odd adjectival curse thrown in.
Engines of War Page 22