Engines of War

by Christian Wolmar

  Remarkably, though, even the Second World War was essentially decided during the period of attrition between Russia and Germany rather than during the phases of movement. Operation Barbarossa demonstrated that railways were, even in the middle of the twentieth century, still the key component of military logistics. The Germans would undoubtedly have fared better if their troops had arrived after a train journey rather than having to march several hundred miles through hostile countryside. They may well have been able to capture Leningrad or Moscow before the winter set in, enabling them to retain the initiative that was lost in the snow of the winter of 1941, thereby greatly prolonging the war. Nevertheless, ultimately, even with a series of rail lines to support them, the Germans would probably have been overcome by the sheer scale of their task, as had been all invaders of Russia before them. Oddly, too, they were defeated when the Russians made use of an unexpected means of transport: the ski.

  Even if it is difficult to pin down precisely the influence of the railways on outcomes of the various conflicts during the age of the railway war, it is impossible not to recognize the way in which they became an integral part of warfare. The railways formed an extraordinary backdrop to war for more than a hundred years, most notably, of course, in the most devastating of the railway conflicts, the First World War. The images are striking, searing even, and have never left us. The troop trains covered with patriotic slogans early in the war but later filled with soldiers sat rather more quietly, having become more aware of the realities of fighting; the endless freight trains carrying war material through the night to overworked railheads, where countless men worked round the clock to make sense of the chaos of supplying fronts whose appetite for ammunition, food, equipment and home comforts was insatiable; the tiny light railways which appeared to be nothing more than slightly expanded versions of Hornby Dublo trains housed in countless attics but which proved to be essential in keeping those fronts supplied; the railway tracks twisted at impossible angles by the destructive forces of war and yet which were put back with remarkable speed through almost superhuman effort; the spick and span hospital trains waiting behind the front before an attack, with an aura of antiseptic cleanliness that can almost be sniffed from those staged photographs of matronly nurses who knew that within hours they would be toiling among the dead and the maimed soldiers, and which then, remarkably, could remove these broken men hundreds of miles out of further harm’s way in a matter of hours; the express trains carrying generals and their staff to urgent assignments overriding every other train; and even bearded King George V, sitting next to a general on the front of a tiny four-seater carriage of a 60cm railway visiting a forest being cut down for duckboards; and so much more.

  During a period of around a hundred years, trains and railways were inseparable from war. And rightly so. Without them, as we have seen countless times, industrial-scale warfare would have been impossible. This darker side of the history of railways is in danger of being forgotten. Railways have brought us so much. As demonstrated in my previous book,15 Blood, Iron & Gold, they were the agents of modernization, spreading industrialization and transforming the way people lived more radically than any other invention before or since. Yet, as this book highlights on almost every page, this wonderful invention, which brought the world cheap and easy transport for the first time, was also responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Industrial-scale warfare, and therefore industrial-scale carnage, would not have been possible without the iron road.

  That role has now all but ended because ultimately railways proved too inflexible to maintain their usefulness for military purposes in a motorized age. Railways need an expensive and heavy infrastructure to support them – track, stations, sidings, signalling, locomotives, carriages and so on – and yet they cannot go where there are no tracks. It was inevitable that eventually motorized transport would take over, but it took a long time because the advantages of railways in transporting large quantities of both freight and people remained unparalleled, which is why they still thrive today. With the demise of mass industrial-scale warfare, they are no longer required for military purposes. Much blood was spilt on the tracks but, thankfully, railways will never again be called upon to be the engines of war.

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  This is, I’m afraid, a pitifully short bibliography for two reasons. First, I do not feel able to provide a reading list on each of the wars covered as I am not qualified to do so. I have used various standard textbooks but I see no reason why I should select those from all the vast literature available. I have often said that there are railway books on every conceivable subject, however obscure, but military history is a subject that is probably covered in even greater detail and I do not want to make any attempt at selecting the wheat from the chaff. One exception. I had to consult various books by Winston Churchill and they are a revelation. The great politician and consummate actor was a fantastic journalist, too, and his books are wonderfully accessible, written in a modern easy style. I have quoted extensively from The River War on the Sudan military expedition, but his accounts of the Boer War and of course the Second World War are equally compelling.

  The second reason for the shortness of the list is that there have been very few books covering the subject of railways in wars and many of those that have been published are merely accounts of a particular experience, which, while mildly interesting, offer little to the general reader. I have, therefore, left out such books and only included those that I found really useful or instructive. There may well, of course, be books I have entirely missed in my research, so do send any recommendations which can be included in future editions and there is certainly scope for scholars to carry out more research in this field.

  I have only found two general books on the railways and war: Ernest Carter’s Railways in Wartime (Frederick Muller, 1964), which is fairly basic though it has a few good anecdotes, and the much more useful and comprehensive Railways at War by John Westwood (Osprey, 1980). The masterpiece in this field, however, though not confined to the railways, is Martin van Creveld’s Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge University Press, 1977), which is a truly original work analysing war from a logistical point of view. The other major work written, though, during the First World War, is Edwin Pratt’s The Rise of Rail Power in War and Conquest (P. S. King & Son, 1915, but available online at http://www.archive.org/stream/riseofrailpoweri00pratiala#page/n5/mode/2up). It is a classic, with lots of detailed information, but obviously written in the rather ponderous style of the age.

  There are two books mainly containing illustrations, but with some useful text, by D. Bishop and K. Davis, Railways at War before 1918 and Railways at War after 1917.

  There are few books covering specific wars and railways. On the Crimean, Brian Cooke’s Grand Crimean Central Railway: The Railway That Won a War (Cavalier House, 1997) tells the story of the railway’s construction succinctly, while there is a substantial mention of the line in the Life and Labours of Mr Brassey by Arthur Helps (originally published in 1872 and reprinted by Tempus Books in 2006). On the American Civil War, The Northern Railroads in the Civil War, 1861- 1865 (originally published in 1952 but reprinted in 1999 by Indiana University Press) tells the story from the Federal point of view, and has some useful economic analysis.

  The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry by Allan Mitchell (Berghahn Books, 2000), is a brilliant and thorough analysis of the performance of the railways in both the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War. If only the other wars in this book had been blessed with similar coverage…

  Oddly, the Russo-Japanese War, one of the more obscure wars covered in this book, is the subject of a detailed and incisive analysis of the role of the railways in Railways and the Russo-Japanese War: Transporting War by Felix Patrikeeff and Harold Shukman (Routledge Military Studies, 2007).

  Britain’s Railways in World War 1 by J. A. B. Hamilton (George Allen & Unwin, 1967), a veteran himself, actua
lly covers some of his experiences in France. There are three mainly picture books on the light railways in the First World War: two volumes by Keith Taylorson, Narrow Gauge at War 1 and 2 (Plateway Press, 1987 and 1996), and T. R. Heritage, Narrow Gauge at War: The Light Track from Arras (Plateway Press, 1999), but all have some useful text. Murray MacLean’s Farming and Forestry on the Western Front, 1915-1919 (Old Pond, 2004) is worth a mention simply for the wonderful pictures.

  David Wragg’s Wartime on the Railways is principally about railways in Britain during the Second World War (Sutton, 2006). While Alfred C. Mierzejewski’s The Collapse of the German War Economy 1944-5 (Chapel Hill 1988) focusses, as its title implies, on the overall German economy, it emphasizes throughout the importance of the Reichsbahn to the war effort. The prolific railway writer P. M. Kalla-Bishop covers his own experiences as well as providing some general information in Locomotives at War (Bradford Barton, 1980). Dr Robert Hardie’s The Burma-Siam Railway (Quadrant, 1983) is a harrowing account of his experience as a prisoner of war building the line.

  Finally, Steven J. Zaloga, Armored Trains (Osprey, 2008), covers the history of armoured trains, with lots of wonderful pictures, but the text, though fascinating, is a bit short.

  NOTES

  Preface

  1 www.skylighters.org/redball

  ONE: War Before Railways

  1 See my previous book, Blood, Iron & Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World, Atlantic Books, 2009, for many further examples.

  2 Allan Mitchell, The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry, Berghahn Books, 2000, p. 31.

  3 Jeremy Black, War: A Short History, Continuum, 2009, p. 16.

  4 Ibid., p. 51.

  5 There was the odd exception, such as the huge caravans that worked the silk road between China and the Middle East.

  6 Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 6.

  7 Ibid.

  8 Ibid., p. 9.

  9 Ibid., p. 35.

  10 Ibid., p. 25.

  11 Ibid., p. 37.

  12 David A. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Modern Warfare, Bloomsbury, 2007, p. 195.

  13 Van Creveld, Supplying War, p. 74.

  TWO: The Railways Called into Action

  1 Actually, at the time this consisted of two railways, the Grand Junction and the London & Birmingham, necessitating a change of train in Birmingham.

  2 Quoted in John Westwood, Railways at War, Osprey, 1980, p. 6.

  3 Quoted in ibid.

  4 Ibid., p. 8.

  5 Quoted in Edwin A. Pratt, The Rise of Rail Power in War and Conquest, P. S. King & Son, 1915, p. 6.

  6 Armand Mattelart, The Invention of Communication, University of Minnesota Press, 1996, p. 199.

  7 Quoted in Pratt, The Rise of Rail Power, p. 8.

  8 Quoted in Westwood, Railways at War, p. 45.

  9 The word comes from the French passe partout, the language of the Russian elite.

  10 Westwood, Railways at War, p. 13.

  11 Pratt, The Rise of Rail Power, p. 8.

  12 Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 82.

  13 Quoted in Alexis Troubetzkoy, The Crimean War, Robinson, 2006, p. 210.

  14 Anthony Burton, The Railway Empire, John Murray, 1994, p. 76.

  15 Brian Cooke, The Grand Crimean Central Railway, Cavalier House, 1997, p. 144.

  16 Quoted in Burton, The Railway Empire, p. 78.

  17 Quoted in Cooke, The Grand Crimean Central Railway, p. 35.

  18 Quoted in Burton, The Railway Empire, p. 79.

  19 Confusingly, until 1854, there was both a Secretary of State for War and a Secretary of State at War.

  20 Quoted in Burton, The Railway Empire, p. 82.

  21 Cooke, The Grand Crimean Central Railway, p. 89.

  22 Ibid.

  23 Ibid., p. 144.

  24 Ibid.

  25 Quoted in Sir Arthur Helps, Life and Labours of Mr Brassey, Evelyn, Adams & Mackay, originally published 1872, republished 1969, p. 217.

  26 William Russell, The Times, quoted in Cooke, The Grand Crimean Central Railway, p. 41.

  27 Ibid., p. 73.

  28 Sardinia had by then united with Piedmont.

  29 Allan Mitchell, The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry, Berghahn Books, 2000, p. 80.

  30 Ibid.

  THREE: Slavery Loses Out to the Iron Road

  1 Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, Penguin Books, 2006, p. 82.

  2 The term railroad is used throughout this chapter and throughout the book whenever I refer to a specifically American line, as that is the way railways are always referred to in the United States.

  3 The Charleston & Hamburg also ran its first trains that year, but the Baltimore & Ohio was a far more significant line.

  4 James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, Penguin Books, 1990, p. 13.

  5 There were in fact earlier versions of the song and they were adapted to include Harper’s Ferry later.

  6 Over a half of these died from disease and accidents. However, this total does not include an unknown number of civilian deaths.

  7 Quoted in John Westwood, Railways at War, Osprey, 1980, p. 38.

  8 Ibid., p 29.

  9 Two years later there would be a second battle at the same place and, just to add to the potential confusion, it was called the Battle of Manassas by the South.

  10 There are claims that this is the world’s first military railway but of course that accolade goes to the Balaklava line.

  11 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 527.

  12 Thomas Weber, The Northern Railroads in the Civil War, 1861-1865, Indiana University Press, 1999 (originally published 1952), p. 141.

  13 Quoted in Ibid., p. 142.

  14 Quoted in Ibid., p. 144.

  15 Weber, The Northern Railroads, p .181.

  16 Westwood, Railways at War, p. 19.

  17 Ibid., p. 25.

  18 Ibid., p. 21.

  19 Ibid., p. 24.

  20 Ibid., p. 27.

  21 John F. Stover, American Railroads, University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 61.

  22 Quoted in Weber, The Northern Railroads, p. 199.

  23 Ibid., p. 200.

  24 Westwood, Railways at War, p. 47.

  25 Edwin A. Pratt, The Rise of Rail Power in War and Conquest, P. S. King & Son, 1915, p. 36.

  26 Quoted in Weber, The Northern Railroads, p. 156.

  27 Quoted in ibid., p. 43.

  28 Ibid., p. 27.

  29 Westwood, Railways at War, p. 40.

  30 Sanitary Commission bulletin quoted in Weber, The Northern Railroads, p. 225.

  31 Steven J. Zaloga, Armored Trains, Osprey, 2008, p. 5.

  32 Christopher R. Gabel, ‘Railroad Generalship: Foundations of Civil War Strategy’, Command and General Staff College, available online at http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/download/csipubs/gabel4.pdf

  33 Ibid.

  34 Ibid.

  35 Quoted in Weber, The Northern Railroads, p. 3.

  FOUR: Lessons Not Learnt

  1 Both the German Confederation and Austria fought against the Danes, hence the nomenclature.

  2 Called Schleswig and Holstein at the time and ruled by the King of Denmark in a separate capacity from the rest of the Denmark.

  3 Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, Penguin Books, 2006, p. 92.

  4 Allan Mitchell, The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry, Berghahn Books, 2000, p. 63.

  5 Quoted in ibid., p. 63.

  6 ‘Army’ here is used in the military sense, denoting a separate force led by a general consisting of anything up to 200,000 men, with countries normally having more than one army.

  7 Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, Cambridge University Pre
ss, 1977, p. 83.

  8 Mitchell, The Great Train Race , p. 64.

  9 Now Sadowa in the Czech Republic and the battle is sometimes known by that name.

  10 Brian Bond, War and Society in Europe 1870-1970, Sutton Publishing, 1998, p. 14.

  11 Mitchell, The Great Train Race, p. 64.

  12 Quoted in van Creveld, Supplying War, p. 85.

  13 Ibid., p. 85.

  14 John Westwood, Railways at War, Osprey, 1980, p. 57.

  15 Quoted in van Creveld, Supplying War, p. 85.

  16 Ibid., p. 85.

  17 Mitchell, The Great Train Race, p. 81.

  18 Quoted in Westwood, Railways at War, p. 59.

  19 Die Kriegeführung unter Benützung der Eisenbahnen (‘The performance of the railways under war conditions’).

  20 Van Creveld, Supplying War, p. 106.

  21 Mitchell, The Great Train Race, p. 81.

  22 Ibid., p. 65.

  23 Westwood, Railways at War, p. 59.

  24 A company normally consists of around 250 men, a regiment around 2,000.

  25 Quoted in Westwood, Railways at War, p. 72.

  26 Captain Charles Edward Luard, ‘Field railways and their general application to war’, Journal of the Royal Services Institute, 1874, p. 12.