Chapter VII: ,) and the appropriation, in 1860, of a loan of seven and a

half millions for the improvement of our coast defences and notably the fortifications of Portsmouth and Plymouth.

ENGINEER AND RAILWAY STAFF CORPS

Already in December, 1859, the necessity for some definite engineering instruction for Volunteers was being pointed out, and in January, 1860, the first corps of Volunteer Engineers was created, under the title of the 1st Middlesex Volunteer Engineers. Similar corps were formed in various parts of the country, and by 1867 the number of Volunteer Engineers enrolled was 6,580.

At the beginning of 1860 a further proposal was made for the formation of a body which, composed of eminent civil engineers, the general managers of leading lines of railway, and the principal railway contractors or other employers of labour, would undertake a variety of duties considered no less essential in the interests of national defence.

There was, in the first place, the question of the transport by rail alike of Volunteers and of the regular forces, either on the occasion of reviews or for the protection of our coasts against an invader. While it was evident that the railways could be efficiently worked only by their own officers, it was no less obvious that plans for the movement of large bodies of men, and especially of troops, with horses, guns, ammunition and stores, should be well considered and prepared long beforehand, and not left for the occasion or the emergency when the need for them would arise.

In the next place it was suggested that the engineering talent of the country should be made available for the purpose of supplementing the services of the Royal Engineers in carrying out various defensive works, such as the destruction of railway lines, bridges and roads, the throwing up of earthworks, or the flooding of the lowland districts, with a view to resisting the advance of a possible invader.

Finally the great contractors were to be brought into the combination so that they could provide the labour necessary for the execution of these defensive works under the direction of the civil engineers, who themselves would act under the direction of the military commanders.

Each of the three groups was to discharge the function for which it was specially adapted, while the co-ordination of the three, for the purpose of strengthening the country's powers of resisting invasion, was expected to add greatly to the value of the proposed organisation.

The author of this scheme was Mr. Charles Manby, F.R.S., (1804-1884,) a distinguished civil engineer who for nearly half a century was secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers and was closely associated with the leading civil engineers, contractors and railway interests of the country. He submitted his ideas to several members of the Council of his Institution, and though, at first, the scheme was not well received, he was subsequently so far encouraged that in August, 1860, he laid his plan before Mr. Sidney Herbert, then Minister at War in Lord Palmerston's second administration. Mr. Herbert expressed cordial approval of the project, giving the assurance, on behalf of the War Office, that an organisation on the basis suggested could not fail to be of public benefit; but Mr. Manby still met with difficulties alike from several members of the Council, who either offered direct opposition to the scheme or else gave unwilling consent to join, and, also, from the railway companies, who thought that arrangements for rail-transport might very well be left to themselves, and that there was no necessity for the suggested system so far as they, at least, were concerned.

In these circumstances Mr. Manby made, at first, very little progress; but he was unremitting in his efforts to demonstrate alike to civil engineers and to the railway companies the practical benefits from the point of view of public interests that would result from the organisation he advocated, and in 1864 he felt sufficiently encouraged to lay his views once more before the War Office. Earl de Grey, then in charge of that Department, thereupon instructed the Inspector-General of Volunteers, Colonel McMurdo, (afterwards General Sir W. M. McMurdo, C.B.,) to inquire into and report to him on the subject.

In the result there was created, in January, 1865, a body known as the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps, constituted, according to its rules, "for the purpose of directing the application of skilled labour and of railway transport to the purposes of national defence, and for preparing, in time of peace, a system on which such duties should be conducted." The Corps was to consist of officers only, and its members were to be civil engineers and contractors, officers of railway and dock companies, and, under special circumstances, Board of Trade Inspectors of Railways. Civil engineers of standing and experience who had directed the construction of the chief railways and other important works, general managers of railways and commercial docks, and Board of Trade Inspectors of Railways, were alone eligible for the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Other civil engineers and contractors connected chiefly with railway works, and, also, railway officers other than general managers, take the rank of Major. Col. McMurdo was appointed Honorary Colonel of the Corps on February 9, 1865.[29] As ultimately constituted, the corps consisted of an Honorary Colonel (now Maj.-Gen. D. A. Scott, C.V.O., C.B., D.S.C.), thirty Lieutenant-Colonels including a Commandant, (now Lieut.-Col. Sir William Forbes, general manager of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway) and twenty Majors.[30]

FUNCTIONS AND PURPOSES

That the Corps thus created was the direct outcome, first, of the Volunteer movement, and, through that movement, of the state of semi-panic into which the country had drifted in 1859, as the result both of the anticipations of invasion and the admitted weakness, at that time, of our national defences, has thus been clearly established. Writing in 1869, Major-General McMurdo, who had been raised to that rank in 1868, said in a pamphlet he issued under the title of "Rifle Volunteers for Field Service" that the Corps was "prepared to work, not for Volunteers alone, but for the entire defensive forces of the country."

In this same publication Major-General McMurdo gave an account of the functions and purposes the Corps had been designed to serve. Alluding first to the Volunteer movement, he showed how the railway carriage must both carry and shelter the Volunteer when moving from one part of the country to another; and he proceeded:--

I will ask you to look attentively for a moment at a
Bradshaw's railway map, and you will see that throughout the
network of rails that overspreads the land none of the meshes,
so to speak, in any vital parts of the country, exceed fifteen
miles across, from rail to rail; but as the eye approaches the
Metropolis, or any of the commercial centres, these meshes are
diminished to about one-half the area of the others.

He then dealt with the operations which the movement of troops along these lines of railway would involve, and continued:--

The railway schemes for the accomplishment of such delicate
operations would emanate from the Council of the Engineer and
Railway Staff Corps....

During peace the railway branch of this body is employed in
working out hypothetical plans of campaign, in the development
of which they manipulate in theory the entire rolling-stock
and railway resources of the country, elaborated by special
time-tables and technical reports.

The share taken by the civil engineers is not confined to
providing merely for the class of railway works contingent on
war, whether of construction, demolition, or of reconstruction,
but in supplying the military engineers with information, advice
and labour. No one, for example, can be more familiar with the
features and character of a district than the engineer who has
constructed a line of railway through it. No one is so well able
to point out the results of _letting in_ that which he had been
so often employed in _keeping out_, viz., the inundations of the
sea. None better acquainted with the existing distribution of
labour power throughout the country, and of the means by which
it could be concentrated upon given points, for the construction
of works of defence. All these elements, in short, by which
the gigantic resources of our country may be safely wielded
for her defence, are now being silently considered and woven
into strategical schemes of operations by these eminent and
patriotic men, the value of whose voluntary services will not be
fully comprehended or appreciated till the day comes when the
discomfiture of the invader shall be accomplished through their
instrumentality.

The same distinguished authority wrote concerning the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps in an article on "Volunteers" which he contributed to the "Encyclopædia Britannica" (ninth edition):--

The ready labour power of this useful Corps is estimated
at from 12,000 to 20,000 navvies, with tools, barrows and
commissariat complete. It has already performed important
service in tabulating, and printing at great private cost,
complete time-tables and special reports for six general
concentrations against possible invasion. A special return
was also prepared by the Corps (the first of its kind) of the
entire rolling stock of all the railways in Great Britain.
This important work--which is corrected and republished
annually--shows where the requisite number of carriages of every
description can be obtained for the composition of troop trains.

In the official catalogue of books in the War Office Library there is an item which reads:--"Time Tables for Special Troop Trains, etc. Compiled by the Railway Companies. 311 pp. 8vo. London, 1866." This, presumably, refers to the first of the complete time tables mentioned in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" article as having been compiled by the Corps. It is evident, from the date given, that the Corps must have got quickly to work after its formation in 1865.

At one time there was an expectation that the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps would develop into a body exercising still wider and more responsible duties than those already mentioned. On this point we have the testimony of the late Sir George Findlay, formerly general manager of the London and North-Western Railway Company, and himself a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Corps.

Col. J. S. Rothwell had written some articles[31] in which, while admitting their practically unlimited resources, he questioned the ability of the British railways, at a few hours notice, to transport to any part of our coasts which might be the scene of a hostile invasion a sufficient body of troops to dispute the advance of an army upon London, and he further suggested that the whole question was one which had not yet received the mature consideration it deserved. Col. Rothwell said, in the course of what he wrote:--

Though the actual working of our railways must be left in
the hands of the proper railway officials, it does not follow
that the planning of the arrangements for the military traffic
should also be entrusted to them exclusively. This, however,
appears to be contemplated, as, under existing circumstances,
such arrangements would rest with the members of a body called
the "Volunteer Engineer and Railway Staff Corps."... Though the
efficiency of these gentlemen in their own sphere is undeniable,
it appears open to question whether they are likely to have
sufficient leisure personally to work out the details of a
large concentration of troops by rail, and whether the special
requirements of military transport will be fully appreciated by
them, or by the subordinates whom they presumably will employ.

Much, he argued, required to be done before the country could be considered ready to meet a possible invader; and he concluded:--

If the invasion of England is to be regarded as an event
which is within the bounds of possibility, it is surely not
unreasonable to ask that those precautionary measures which
require time for their elaboration shall be thoroughly worked
out before there is any risk of our wanting to employ them. The
organisation for the conveyance of our troops by railway is such
a measure.

To these criticisms Sir George Findlay replied in an article "On the Use of Railways in the United Kingdom for the Conveyance of Troops," published in the _United Service Magazine_ for April, 1892. The complete network of railways covering these islands, admirably equipped and efficiently worked as they were, would, he declared, be found equal to any part they might be called upon to play in a scheme of national defence. As regarded the attention already paid to the question he said:--

The War Office, so far from having in any way neglected
the subject, have devoted considerable attention to it, and a
complete scheme for the working of our railways for transport
purposes in time of war has been elaborated, and would at once
be put in operation, if ever the emergency arose.

Passing on to describe the composition and duties of the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps, he spoke of its members as meeting in council at their headquarters to discuss from time to time details of railway organisation and other matters delegated to their consideration, afterwards reporting their conclusions to the War Office; and he went on to say that for the operation of the railways, under State control, on any occasion of national energy or danger--

A draft scheme has been prepared, has been worked out in
detail, and would, in all probability, be adopted and put in
operation if, unhappily, the necessity should ever arise.

This scheme in its main features provides that, at such
time as we are contemplating, the principal railway officials
in Great Britain and Ireland would at once become, for the
time being, the officers of the State, and in addition to the
general managers of the leading railways, who are officers of
the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps, military rank
of some kind would be conferred upon the engineers, locomotive
superintendents, chief passenger superintendents and goods
managers of the principal railway companies, as well as on the
managers of the principal Irish railways.

The railways of the country would be divided into sections,
and for each section there would be a committee composed
of the general managers of the railways included in the
section, together with the principal engineers, locomotive
superintendents and other chief officers. The railways would
be worked and controlled for military purposes by these
committees of sections, each committee having as its president a
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff
Corps, who would be directly responsible for providing transport
for troops and stores over the section of which his committee
had charge, while if the operation to be carried out required
the co-operation of one or more sections of the railways, the
committees of those sections would act in unison. In such a
case the Quartermaster-General's requisition for the service to
be performed would be made upon the president of the section
embracing the point of departure, that officer and his committee
taking the initiative and arranging with the other committees
for the performance of the service.

For each section, or group, of railways, a military officer
of rank would be appointed, with full power to arrange for
food, forage and water for the troops and horses _en route_,
and having at his disposal a sufficient number of soldiers or
labourers to assist in loading and unloading baggage, stores,
etc., at the points of entrainment and detrainment within his
section. He would also be able to command the services of the
Royal or Volunteer Engineers to assist in the erection of
temporary platforms or landings, or the laying down of temporary
rails, and would be instructed to co-operate with, and assist
in every way, the committee of section having charge of his
district, but not in any way to attempt to interfere with the
working of the line or the movement of the trains or traffic.

The number of sections into which the railways were to be divided for the purposes of this scheme was nine. After defining the various areas, Sir George continued:--

It is contemplated that during any such period of crisis as
we are now discussing, the Council of the Engineer and Railway
Volunteer Staff Corps would be sitting _en permanence_ at its
headquarters, and, with a full knowledge of the nature and
extent of the operations to be carried out, would have power to
regulate the supply and distribution of rolling stock throughout
the area affected, all the vehicles in the country being, for
the time being, treated as a common stock.

This is a mere outline of the scheme, with the further
details of which it is not necessary to trouble the reader,
though probably enough has been said to show that the subject,
far from having been neglected, as Colonel Rothwell appears to
assume, has been carefully studied and thought out.

Had the scheme in question been matured and adopted on the lines here stated, a still greater degree of importance would have been attached to the position and proceedings of a Corps then--and still--almost unknown to the world at large, since its chief function was to carry out investigations at the request of the authorities, and prepare reports, statements and statistics which have invariably got no further than the War Office and the Horse Guards, where, alone, the value of the services rendered has been fully understood and appreciated. The scheme was, however, allowed to drop, the policy eventually adopted being based, preferably, (1) on the railways of Great Britain being operated in war time as one group instead of in a series of groups or sections; and (2) on such operation being entrusted to a body specially created for the purpose; though prior to the adoption of the latter course there was to be a fresh development in another direction.

THE WAR RAILWAY COUNCIL

While the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps remained, down to 1896, the only organised body which (apart from the individual railway companies) Government departments could consult as to the technical working and traffic facilities of the railways, from the point of view of military transport, it was thought desirable, in the year mentioned, to supplement that Corps by a smaller body known at first as the "Army Railway Council" and afterwards as the "War Railway Council."

Designed to act in a purely advisory capacity, without assuming any administrative or executive functions, this Council was eventually constituted as follows:--The Deputy Quartermaster-General (president); six railway managers, who represented the British railway companies and might or might not already be members of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps; one Board of Trade Inspector of Railways; two members (not being railway managers) of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps; the Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-General; one mobilisation officer; two Naval officers; and one officer of the Royal Engineers, with a representative of the Quartermaster-General's Department as secretary.

The Council approximated closely to the "Commission Militaire Superieure des Chemins de Fer" in France, of which an account has been given in