Chapter XV: Military Railways

By the expression "military railways" is meant lines of railways which, as distinct from commercial lines serving public purposes, have been designed expressly for military use. The fact that any line forming part of the ordinary railway system of the country is employed for the conveyance of troops either direct to the theatre of war or to some port for embarkation therefrom does not constitute that line a "military" railway, in the strict sense of the term, whatever the extent of its use for military transport for the time being. Such line remains a commercial railway, all the same, and the application to it of the designation "military" is erroneous.

Military railways proper fall mainly into two groups--(1) "field" or "siege" railways, constructed on the theatre of war for moving heavy guns, platform materials, etc., to their position; conveying ammunition and supplies to siege batteries, magazines, advanced trenches or bombproofs; bringing up reinforcements rapidly in case of a sortie; conveying working-parties to and from their work; removing sick and wounded to the rear, and other kindred purposes, the loads being generally hauled by animals, by gasoline motor or by men; and (2) "supply" railways, specially constructed to convey troops, stores, etc., from the base to the front, in time of war, or from an ordinary main-line railway to a military camp or depôt in time of peace, where local lines of railway are not available for the purpose.

These two main groups include various types of railways coming under one or the other designation, and ranging from a very light portable tramway, put down at express speed to serve an emergency, and worked by small engines, mules or horses, to substantially built lines, of standard gauge, designed both to be worked by locomotives and to carry the largest possible number of troops or amount of freight.

In any case, the details of construction, equipment and operation of a military railway vary from those of a commercial railway since the one would be intended to serve only a specific and possibly temporary purpose, in the attainment of which the question of speed would be a secondary consideration, whereas the other would require to assume a permanent form, be capable of higher speeds, and afford adequate guarantee of safety for the public, by whom it would be used. The building, also, of a military railway may be, and generally is, carried out by a corps of Railway Troops to which are specially delegated the duties of laying, working, maintaining, repairing, restoring or destroying railways; and, provided the desired lines were built with sufficient dispatch, and answered the desired purpose, the military commanders who would alone be concerned might well be satisfied.

In many different ways the resort to military railways, whatever their particular type, has greatly extended the range of advantages to be gained from the application of rail-power to war. A full record of all that has been accomplished in this direction could hardly be attempted here; but a few typical examples of what has been done in this direction--though not always with conspicuous success--may be offered.

THE CRIMEAN WAR

The earliest instance of a purely military railway being constructed to serve the purpose of a campaign occurred in the Crimean War; and, although the line then made would to-day be regarded as little more than an especially inefficient apology for a railway, it was looked upon at the time as a remarkable innovation in warfare. It further established a precedent destined to be widely followed in later years.

Between the camp of the allies at Sebastopol and their base of supplies at Balaklava the distance was only seven or eight miles; yet in the winter of 1854-55 the fatigue parties sent for rations, clothing, fuel, huts, ammunition and other necessaries were frequently no less than twelve hours in doing the return journey. The reason was that during the greater part of that time they were floundering in a sea of mud. The soil of the Crimea is clay impregnated with salt, and, under the combined influence of climatic conditions and heavy traffic, the route between camp and base had been converted into a perfect quagmire. Horses, mules and carts were, at first, alone available for transport purposes; but, although plenty of animals were to be obtained in the surrounding country, only a limited number could be employed by reason of the lack of forage, a totally inadequate supply having been sent out from England. As for the animals that were used, their sufferings, as the result of those terrible journeys, their own shortage of food, and the effect of the intense cold on their half-starved bodies, were terrible. "In the rear of each Division," says General Sir Edward Hamley, in "The War in the Crimea," "a scanty group of miserable ponies and mules, whose backs never knew what it was to be quit of the saddle, shivered, and starved, and daily died." They died, also, on every journey to or from the base. The toil of going through the quagmire even for their own forage, or of bringing it back when they had got it, was too great for them, and the whole line of route was marked by their remains.

As for the troops, they experienced great hardships owing to the inadequate supplies of provisions and fuel at the camp, although there might be plenty of both at the base. Apart from the physical conditions of the roads, or apologies for roads, between the two points, the campaign was begun without transport arrangements of any kind whatever. A transport corps formed for the British Army in 1799, under the title of the Royal Wagon Train, had been disbanded in 1833, and, whether from motives of economy or because the need for war preparations in time of peace was not sufficiently appreciated, no other corps had been created to take its place. Hence the troops sent to the Crimea were required, at the outset, to look after the transport themselves, and in many instances they even had to do the work of mules and horses. It was not until January 24, 1855, that a Land Transport Corps, composed of volunteers from various arms of the service, was raised by Royal Warrant and began to provide for a defect in the military organisation which had, in the meantime, involved the allies, and especially the British, in severe privations owing to the frequent shortage of supplies. The original intention to establish a depôt at head-quarters before Sebastopol had had to be abandoned because of the hopelessness of any attempt to get a sufficient surplus of provisions to form a store.

Such were the conditions that the pioneer military railway was designed to remedy. Built, at a very slow rate, by English contractors, who arrived at the Crimea with their men and material during the month of January, 1855, the line was a single-track one, with a 4 feet 8½ inch gauge. For the first two miles from Balaklava it was worked by a locomotive. Then the trucks were drawn up an incline, eight at a time, by a stationary engine. Six horses next drew two trucks at a time up another incline. After this came a fairly level piece of road, followed by two gullies where each wagon was detached in succession and made to run down one side of the gully and up the other by its own momentum. Then horses were again attached to the trucks and so drew them, finally, to the end of the line on the Upland.

Five locomotives, of from 12 to 18 tons weight, were provided, and there were about forty ordinary side-tip ballast wagons--all entirely unsuitable for use on a military railway.

At first the men belonging to the contractors' staff--navvies and others--were entrusted with the working of the line. The question had been raised as to whether their services should not be made use of in other directions, as well. On their being sent out from England the idea was entertained that they might construct trenches and batteries, in addition to building the railway, and there was a suggestion that they should, also, join the siege parties in the attack on Sebastopol. In order to test the question (as recorded by Major-General Whitworth Porter, in his "History of the Corps of Royal Engineers"), Sir John Burgoyne wrote to Mr. Beattie, principal engineer of the Railway Department, asking if he would approve of an invitation being given to the men to undergo such training as would qualify them to defend any position in which they might happen to be. In his answer Mr. Beattie wrote:--

The subject of your letter was very fully and anxiously
discussed in London before I left, and it was determined _not_
to arm the men. They were considered too valuable to be used as
soldiers, and were distinctly told that they would not be called
upon to fight.

Their value, however, did not stand the test it underwent when they were called on to work the railway they had built. They were found to be lacking in any sense of discipline; they repeatedly struck work when their services were most urgently needed, and they had to be got rid of accordingly. They were replaced by men from the Army Works Corps and the Land Transport Corps, then in operation in the Crimea, and the members of the new staff--constituting a disciplined force--worked admirably. Major Powell, who became traffic manager of the line in March, 1855, and chief superintendent in the following July, has said concerning them[36]:--

Many lost their lives in the execution of their duty. When
I required them to work night and day to throw forward supplies
for the great struggle--the capture of Sebastopol--several of
them remained seventy-two hours continuously at work.

The quantities of ammunition and stores which could be carried were below the requirements of the troops engaged in the siege operations; but during the last bombardment of Sebastopol--when the line was worked continuously, night and day, by a staff increased to about 1,000 men, of whom 400 were Turks--the transport effected rose from 200 tons a day, the limit attained under operation by the undisciplined navvies, to 700 tons. The line also did excellent work on the re-embarkment of the troops at the end of the campaign.

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

In the American War of Succession, the existing lines of railway were supplemented in various instances by "surface railroads," which consisted of rails and sleepers laid on the ordinary ground without any preparation of a proper road bed, yet serving a useful purpose, notwithstanding the rough and ready way in which they were put together.

THE ABYSSINIAN CAMPAIGN

How a railway specially constructed for the purpose may assist a military expedition in the prosecution of a "little war" in an uncivilised country, practically devoid of roads, and offering great physical difficulties, was shown on the occasion of the British Campaign in Abyssinia in 1867-68; though the circumstances under which the line in question was built were not in themselves creditable to the authorities concerned.

Sent to effect the release of the British prisoners whom King Theodore was keeping in captivity at Magdala, the expedition under Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) entered upon what was to be quite as much an engineering as a military exploit. Not only was Magdala 300 miles from Annesley Bay, the base of operations on the Red Sea, but it stood, as a hill fortress, on a plateau more than 9,000 feet above the sea-level. To reach it meant the construction of roads in three sections. The first, which, in parts, had to be cut in the mountain side, rose to a height of 7,400 feet in 63 miles; the second allowed of no more than a cart road, and the third and final stage was a mere mountain track where the only transport possible was that of mules or elephants.

When, in October, 1867, the advance Brigade landed at Zoulla, the port in Annesley Bay from which the advance inland was to be made, they took with them the materials for some tramway lines intended to connect two landing piers with the depôts it was proposed to establish a mile inland. In November these plans were altered in favour of a line of railway, twelve miles in length, from the landing-place to Koomayleh, at the entrance of the Soroo Pass, the route to be taken by the expedition on its journey to the Abyssinian highlands. All the necessary plant was to be supplied by the Government of Bombay, who also undertook to provide the labour; but it was the middle of January, 1868, before a real start could be made with the work.

Even then, as told by Lieut. Willans, R.E.,[37] who took part in the expedition, the progress made was extremely slow. The rails obtained from different railway companies in India were of five different patterns, of odd lengths, and varying in weight from 30 lb. to 65 lb. a yard. Some of them had been in use many years on the harbour works at Karachi, had been taken up and laid down several times, and had, also, been bent to fit sharp curves or cut to suit the original line. Some single-flanged rails had been fitted in the Government workshops at Bombay with fish-plates and bolts; but the holes in the plates and rails were not at uniform distances, and the bolts fitted the holes so tightly as to allow of no play. Then, when the rails arrived, no spikes came with them, and without spikes they could not be laid. When the spikes followed, it was found that the augurs for boring holes in the sleepers had been left at Bombay, to come on by another ship; though this particular difficulty was met by the artisans of the 23rd Punjab Pioneer Regiment making augurs for themselves.

If the rails gave much trouble--and even when they had been laid it was no unusual thing for them to break between two sleepers and throw the engine off the line--the locomotives and rolling stock caused still more.

Six locomotives were shipped from Bombay; but, owing to the great difficulty in landing and the labour involved in putting them together, only four were used. Of these, one was a tank engine which, although just turned out from the railway workshops at Bombay, required new driving wheels after it had been running a fortnight. Another came with worn-out boiler tubes, and these had to be replaced at Zoulla. The two others, tank engines with only four wheels each, had previously seen many years' service at Karachi. All the engines were very light, weighing with coal and water from 16 to 20 tons each. The best of them could do no more than draw fifteen small loaded trucks up an incline of one in sixty.

The sixty wagons sent were ordinary trolleys having no springs, no spring buffers and no grease boxes. Their axle-boxes were of cast iron, and wore out within a fortnight, owing to the driving sand. As the railway came into use, every truck was loaded to its fullest capacity, and the combination of this weight with the jarring and oscillation on a very rough line led either to the breaking of the coupling chains or to the coupling bars being pulled from the wagons at starting. When fresh coupling chains were asked for it was found that the boxes containing them had either been left behind at Bombay or were buried beneath several hundred tons of other supplies on board ship. At least forty per cent. of the trucks were either constantly under repair or had to be put aside as unfit for use. In May a number of open wagons with springs and spring buffers arrived from Bombay. Some of these were converted into passenger carriages.

Difficulties arose in other directions, besides.

The plant forwarded was adapted to the Indian standard gauge of 5 feet 6 inches, and was heavy and difficult to handle, especially under the troublesome conditions of landing. To-day, of course, a narrow-gauge railway, easily dealt with, would be employed in circumstances such as those of the Abyssinian expedition.

The Indian natives who had been sent in the first instance to construct the line were found unsuitable, and had to be replaced by gangs of Chinese picked up in Bombay. The latter worked well and gave no trouble.

The country through which the line was laid was timberless, if not, also, practically waterless. Wells had to be sunk for the water wanted for the locomotives and the working-parties.

The heat was excessive. The temperature at times was 180 degrees Fahr. in the sun. English navvies could not have made the line at all.

The two piers where the incoming vessels could alone be unloaded got so congested with traffic that it was only with the greatest trouble railway material could be landed.

Use began to be made of the line as soon as any of it was ready, and the traffic at the shore end at once became so heavy that it was difficult to get materials and supplies through to the construction parties at the other end. Officers, also, who should have been superintending the construction had to devote a good deal of time, instead, to details of operation, or to looking after the repairs of rolling stock.

In all these circumstances one cannot be surprised at the slow rate of progress made. One may, rather, wonder that the line got built at all. As it was, four months were spent on eleven miles of railway, or a total of twelve miles including sidings. There remained still another mile or so to be built when, at the end of April, news arrived that the object of the expedition had been attained, and that Magdala had fallen. It was then decided not to complete the line, but to devote all energies to preparing for the heavy traffic to be dealt with in the conveyance of troops, baggage and stores on the return journey.

From the middle of May to the middle of June the resources of the line were severely taxed; but a great improvement had been made in the working arrangements, and a railway which had involved so much trouble in the making was eventually found to be of great practical service. Lieutenant Willans says of it:--

The Abyssinian railway was a great success, if one may gauge
it by the amount of assistance it gave to the expedition, by
the celerity and dispatch with which, by its aid, stores were
landed and brought up to the store sheds, and by the rapidity
and ease with which the troops and their baggage were brought
back and re-embarked at once....

As an auxiliary to the expedition, and as an additional
means of transport, no one who had anything to do in connection
with it can have doubted its extreme utility.

Faulty, therefore, as had been the conditions under which the line was constructed, the results nevertheless established definitely the principle that, in such campaigns as the one in Abyssinia, military railways might serve an extremely useful purpose in facilitating the transport of troops and supplies.

The Abyssinian experiences did, however, further show the desirability of any country likely to find itself in a position requiring the construction of military railways--as an aid to wars small or great--creating in advance an organisation designed to enable it, as far as possible, to meet promptly whatever emergency might arise, without the risk of having to deal with defective material, unsatisfactory labour, and administrative mismanagement.

The same lesson was to be enforced by other expeditions in which England has taken part, and, down to the period when improvements in our system--or lack of system--began to be effected, there was much scope for criticism as to the way in which military railways, designed to facilitate operations undertaken in countries having a lack of communications, had been either constructed or worked. Writing, in 1882, in the "Professional Papers" of the Royal Engineers (Chatham) on "Railways for Military Communication in the Field," Col. J. P. Maquay, R.E., observed in regard to what had been the experiences to that date:--

In most of the wars that England has undertaken during
the past thirty years, attempts have been made to construct
railways for the transport of stores and materials from the base
of operations. This base must necessarily be on the sea coast
for a country situated as England is. These railways have not
been successful chiefly because, when war had broken out, such
material was hastily got together as seemed most suitable to
the occasion; and, further, the construction of these lines was
not carried out on any system. It is not surprising, therefore,
that our military railways were never completed in time to be
of much use to the troops they were intended to serve.

FRANCO-GERMAN WAR

In the Franco-German War of 1870-71 the Germans constructed two military railways--(1) a line, twenty-two miles in length, connecting Remilly, on the Saarbrück Railway, with Pont à Mousson, on the Metz-Frouard line; and (2) a loop line, three miles long, passing round the tunnel at Nanteuil, blown up by the French.

Special interest attached to these two lines inasmuch as they were the result of construction work done, not in anticipation of a war, or even immediately preceding hostilities, but during the course of an active campaign. In addition to this, they afforded an opportunity for showing what Prussia could do, under pressure, with the Construction Corps she had formed in order, among other things, to meet just such contingencies as those that now arose.

At the beginning of the war the Prussian General Staff had (according to Rüstow) assumed that Metz would offer a prolonged resistance, and that the defenders would be certain to make an attempt to interrupt the rail communication between Germany and her troops in the field. To meet the position which might thus be created, it was decided to build from Pont à Mousson to Remilly a field railway which, avoiding Metz, would link up at Remilly with the line proceeding thence to Saarbrück, and so ensure the maintenance of direct rail communication to and from Germany. On August 14, 1870, the day of the rearguard action at Borny, the survey and the levelling of the ground were begun, and three days later a start was made with the construction. Altogether some 4,200 men were employed on the work, namely, 400 belonging to two Field Railway Companies; 800 forming four Fortress Pioneer Companies, and about 3,000 miners from the colliery districts of Saarbrück who had been thrown out of work owing to the war and accepted employment on the railway. The building corps had at their disposal a park of 330 wagons and other vehicles, and patrol and requisition duties were performed for them by a squadron of Cavalry.

Notwithstanding that so considerable a force was available for the purpose, the work of building the twenty-two miles of railway took forty-eight days, the line not being ready for operation until October 4. This was in no way a great achievement, and it did not compare favourably with much that was done by the Federal Construction Corps employed in the American War of Secession. It is true that the irregularities of the ground were such as to render necessary numerous cuttings and embankments, and that two bridges and two viaducts had to be provided; but the cuttings were only about 3 feet deep, and the embankments were only 5 feet high, except near one of the viaducts, where they were 10 feet high. The viaducts and bridges were of timber, with spans of about 16 feet. The building of the line was, therefore, in no way a formidable undertaking, from an engineering point of view.

Not only, however, did it take over 4,000 men nearly fifty days to make twenty-two miles of line, but the work had been done in such a way that when the autumn rains came on the track settled in many places; traffic on the lines became very dangerous; one of the bridges was washed away by the floods, and almost as many men had to be put on to do repairs as had previously been employed for the construction. Traffic of a very moderate description--each locomotive drawing only four wagons at a time--was carried on for just twenty-six days, and then, happily for the engineers concerned, the developments in and around Metz rendered the line no longer necessary.

How the restoration of the traffic interrupted through the explosion of French mines in the tunnel at Nanteuil occupied from September 17 to November 22 has already been told on page 128.

RUSSO-TURKISH WAR

In the opinion of one English military critic, what short lines were made in the Franco-German War "were neither so speedily constructed nor so successful in result as to encourage the idea that lines of any length could be made during a campaign"; but a different impression is to be derived from the story of what was accomplished in the same direction in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.

Russia planned her campaign against Turkey in the hope and expectation that it would be short, sharp and decisive. She started her mobilisation in good time, that is to say, in November, 1876, although she did not declare war until April 24, 1877. Making the mistake, however, of despising her foe, she anticipated no serious opposition from the Turks, but expected, rather, to paralyse them by a rapid advance, have a triumphal march to Constantinople, secure the desired safeguards for the Christians in Turkey, and see the war over before the end of the summer.

One reason why Russia specially desired to bring the campaign to so early a conclusion lay in the deficient and precarious nature of the rail communication. Under a convention which had been agreed to with Rumania on April 16, 1877, Russia was to have a free passage for her troops through that country. She was, also, to have the use of the Rumanian railways and of all their transport facilities. But the only line then running through Rumania was one that went from Galatz, on the Russo-Rumanian frontier, to Bucharest, and thence (with a branch to Slatina) to Giurgevo, on the Danube, where it connected with a Bulgarian line from Rustchuk, on the south of the river, to Varna, the Turkish base of supplies on the Black Sea. Not only was the Rumanian railway system thus limited in extent, but the lines had been indifferently constructed, they were badly maintained, and they had an inadequate personnel together with an insufficiency both of rolling stock and of terminal facilities. Still further, the fact that the Russian railways had a broader gauge than the railways of Rumania (among other European countries) caused great delay in the transfer, at the frontier, from the one system to the other, not alone of 200,000 men, but of the 850 field and 400 siege guns, of the ammunition, and of much other material the troops required to take with them. The alternative to dependence on the railway was a resort to roads impassable in wet weather.

What really caused the Russian plans to miscarry, however, was the obstinate defence of Plevna by Osman Pasha, who took up his position there on July 19, subjected the Russians to successive repulses, and did not capitulate until December 10, the siege costing the Russians 55,000 men and the Rumanians 10,000.

When it was realised that the check at Plevna rendered certain a prolongation of the campaign, Russia set about the construction of a series of new lines of railway during the course of the war. The principal lines thus taken in hand were:--

1. A line in Russia, from Bender, on the Dniester, to Galatz, establishing direct communication between the Odessa railways and the Rumanian frontier, and affording improved facilities for the sending of reinforcements to the seat of war.

2. A line from Fratesti, on the Bucharest-Giurgevo Railway, to Simnitza, the point on the north bank of the Danube where, on the night of June 26-7, the Russians built the bridge which enabled them to cross the river.

3. A line from Sistova, on the south side of the Danube, to Tirnova (Bulgaria), situate about thirty miles south-east of Plevna, and about twenty-five north of the Shipka Pass.

Of these three lines the construction of the first, 189 miles in length, was begun at the end of July, 1877. The original intention was to build a railway to serve the purposes of the war only; but the conclusion that ulterior strategical and commercial purposes would alike be served by linking up Odessa with the Rumanian frontier led to the building of a railway likely to be of permanent usefulness. The line was a single-track one, with a sufficient number of stations and passing places to allow of the running of seven trains in each direction in the twenty-four hours. The construction, carried out by contract, involved the building of a number of timber bridges and the provision of several embankments, one of which was over three miles in length. Great difficulties were experienced in regard to labour, and especially by reason of the refusal of the men to work either on Sundays or on their numerous saints' days. Trains were, nevertheless, running on the line within 100 days of the construction being started, and this notwithstanding the fact that the number of actual working days had been only fifty-eight. Whereas, therefore, the Germans had, in 1870, with the help of a Construction Corps over 4,000 strong, taken forty-eight days to build twenty-two miles of railway between Pont à Mousson and Remilly, the Russians in 1877 built, by contract, 189 miles of railway in just over double the same period.

A railway from Fratesti to Simnitza had become indispensable inasmuch as the main line of communication for the Russian Army could not be continued for an indefinite period along the forty miles of defective roads--speedily worn out by the heavy traffic--which separated the Bucharest-Giurgevo line from the bridge built across the Danube. The only important earthwork necessary was an embankment a mile and a half long and fourteen feet high. The bridges to be provided included one of 420 feet and two of 210 feet each. In this instance the troubles experienced were due to the difficulty in getting the necessary materials for the work of construction owing partly to the existing Rumanian lines being blocked with military traffic, and partly to the state of the roads and to the use of all available draught horses for Army transport purposes. There could thus be no great celerity shown in construction, and the forty miles of railway, begun in the middle of September, were, in fact, not ready for working until the beginning of December.

Like difficulties were experienced, though to a still more acute degree, in regard to the Sistova-Tirnova line, the length of which was to be seventy-five miles; and here only the earthworks could be finished before the end of the campaign.

What, however, had been accomplished during the time the war was in progress was (1) the completion of 229 miles of new railway, and the making of the road-bed for another seventy-five miles, together with the carrying out of a number of minor railway works; (2) the acquisition, by purchase in different countries, of 120 locomotives and 2,150 wagons and trucks, all new, and (3) the provision of a steam railway ferry across the Danube.[38]

So the development of the rail-power principle in warfare was carried still further by this construction, during the course of the Russo-Turkish conflict, of a greater length of railways, designed for military use, than had ever been built under like conditions before. The world gained a fresh lesson as to the importance of the rôle played by railways in war, and it was offered, also, a striking example of what could be done in the way of rapidly providing them in a time of emergency.

On the other hand it had to be remembered that, of the three railways in question, the one which included 189 miles out of the total 229 miles built was constructed on Russian territory where there was no danger of interruption by the enemy, while the delays which occurred with the two other lines, owing to the congestion of traffic, under war conditions, on existing railways depended upon for the supply of materials, seemed to point (1) to the risk that might, from this cause, be run if the building of lines necessary or desirable in the interests of some prospective campaign were left until the outbreak of hostilities, and (2) to the wisdom of constructing all such lines, as far as necessary and practicable, in time of peace.

THE SUDAN

If we turn now to the Sudan, we gain examples of military railways which, designed for the purposes of war, and constructed, in part, during the progress of active hostilities, first rendered great services in facilitating the conquest of a vast area, and then developed into a system of Government railways operated, in turn, for the purposes of peace, and accomplishing results as conspicuously successful in the latter direction as they had previously done in the former.

During the time that Saïd Pasha was Viceroy of Egypt (1854-63) there was brought forward a scheme for the linking up of Egypt and the Sudan by means of a single line of railway from Cairo to Khartoum, with a branch to Massowa, on the Red Sea. It was an ambitious proposal, and, if it could have been carried into effect, the opening up of the Sudan to civilisation, by means of an iron road, might have altered the whole subsequent history of that much-suffering land. But the cost was regarded as prohibitive, and the scheme was abandoned for a time, to be revived, however, in a modified form in 1871, when Ismail Pasha was Khedive. It was then proposed that the line should start at Wady Halfa and be continued to Matemmeh (Shendy), situate about 100 miles north of Khartoum--a total distance of 558 miles. In 1875 a beginning was made with the building of this railway, which was to consist of a single line, with a gauge of 3 feet 6 inches, and was to be made with 50-lb. rails and 7-ft. sleepers; but when, in 1877, after an expenditure of about £400,000, the railway had been carried no farther than Sarras, thirty-three and a half miles from the starting-point, it was stopped for lack of funds.

In the autumn of 1884 the British expedition to Khartoum, where General Gordon was endeavouring to maintain his position against the Mahdi's followers, was resolved upon, and it was then decided to extend the Sudan Railway beyond the point already reached, at Sarras, in order to facilitate still further the journey of the troops along the valley of the Nile, which had been selected as the route of the expedition.

Platelaying for the extension was begun in September by a party of English and Egyptian infantry and native labourers, afterwards joined by the 4th Battalion Egyptian Army and the 8th (Railway) Company of the Royal Engineers. While, however, materials previously stored at Sarras were found to be still available, the trucks containing rails, etc., for the extension work had to be pushed by hand from Sarras to railhead owing to the absence of engines; sleepers were carried on the backs of camels, of which 300 were employed for the purpose, and the coolie work was entrusted to 700 native labourers, mainly old men and boys, most of whom had deserted by the end of October, when further platelaying was discontinued. By that time the extension works had reached the thirty-ninth mile, and the line from Sarras to this point was opened on December 4.

Following on the fall of Khartoum and the death of Gordon in January, 1885, came the decision to extend the line to Firket (103 miles), in view of a then projected further campaign in the autumn of that year. The extension was sanctioned towards the end of February; fifty-two miles of permanent way were ordered from England; 300 platelayers and railway mechanics were obtained from India, to supplement the construction forces already available; and on August 7 the extension was completed as far as Akasha (87 miles).

Meanwhile, however, there had been a change of policy which affected the whole situation. On the return of the expeditionary force to Korti (situate at the southern extremity of the great Nile bend), the whole of the country to the south thereof passed under the control of the Dervishes; and the British Government, reluctant at that time to enter on the formidable task of reconquest, decided that no further military operations should be taken in hand, and that the Sudan must be definitely abandoned. Orders were accordingly given by Lord Wolseley in May, 1885, for the withdrawal of the troops from all stations south of Dongola, which itself was abandoned on June 15, the retreat continuing as far as Akasha. Beyond this point, therefore, platelaying for the proposed railway extension was not carried, although the formation levels had been completed to Firket.

Subsequently the British retreat was continued to Wady Halfa, which then became the southern frontier of Egypt, the railway extension thence to Akasha, together with all posts to the south of Wady Halfa, being also abandoned.

Excellent service had, nevertheless, been rendered by the railway, as far as it was carried.

Operation of the line had been taken over by the 8th (Railway) Company, R.E., who, at the outset, had at their disposal only five more or less decrepit locomotives, fifty open trucks, five covered goods vans, and six brake vans. The troops were conveyed in the open trucks, and by the end of 1884 all the stores for the opening of the campaign had been passed up. During the course of 1885 additional locomotives and rolling stock were obtained from the Cape.

Summing up the work done on the Sudan Military Railway for the Nile Expedition of 1884-5, Lieut. M. Nathan, R.E.,[39] says that it included (1) the repair and maintenance of thirty-three and a half miles of existing railway; (2) the construction of fifty-three and a half miles of new line through a nearly waterless desert, with no means of distributing material except the line itself; (3) the transport, for the most part with limited and indifferent stock, of about 9,000 troops round the worst part of the second cataract when going up the river, and round nearly the whole of it when coming down; and (4) the carriage of 40,000 tons for an average distance of thirty-six and a half miles.

As against what had thus been achieved in the Nile Valley must be set a failure on the Red Sea.

When, on the fall of Khartoum in January, 1885, the British Government first decided on an extension of the Nile Valley Railway, they further resolved on the building of a military railway from Suakin to Berber, on the Nile, in order to have a second line of communication available for Lord Wolseley's Army; and an Anglo-Indian force was sent to Suakin, under the command of General Sir Gerald Graham, in order, first, to defeat the Dervishes in the Eastern Sudan, and then to protect the construction of the proposed railway. Such a line would obviously have been of great strategical value to a Nile expeditionary force; but the attempt to build it broke down owing, in part, to the defective nature of the organisation resorted to, though still more to the active opposition of the enemy.

Sir Andrew Clarke, Inspector-General of Fortifications, had from the first advocated that the line should be supplied and laid by the military engineering strength then available; but he was over-ruled, and the work was given to an English firm of contractors in the expectation, as Major-General Whitworth Porter tells, in volume two of the "History of the Corps of Royal Engineers," "that the necessary material would be supplied more readily, and in shorter time, through civilian agency." It was, however, decided to send the 10th (Railway) Company of Royal Engineers both to carry out some local works in the neighbourhood of Suakin and to assist the contractors in the longer undertaking; and this military element was strengthened, not only by a force of Indian coolies, but, also, by the addition of thirty-nine members of Engineer Volunteer Corps in England who had enlisted for the campaign, all having had experience in trades qualifying them for railway work.[40] There was thus practically a dual system, workable, in the opinion of Sir Andrew Clarke, "only by a species of compromise which was both unscientific and uneconomical."

As for interruptions by the Dervishes, these took the form of constant attacks both on the line under construction and on the workers. Several actions were fought, and at Tofrik, near Suakin, the British sustained a serious loss of life. Posts were erected as the work slowly progressed, and the bullet-proof train mentioned on page 76 was used for patrolling the line at night; but in face of all the difficulties experienced the work was definitely abandoned when only twenty miles of the intended railway had been completed. The troops were recalled in June, 1885, the railway material not used was brought back to England, and a line linking up Suakin (and Port Sudan) with Berber, via Atbara Junction, was not finally opened until 1906.

Reverting to the Nile Valley Railway, it is gratifying to be able to say that the success already spoken of as having been attained in this direction was but a prelude to still more important developments that were to follow.

To prevent the carrying out of schemes which the Dervishes were known to be preparing for an invasion of Egypt, the British Government decided, early in 1896, to allow Egypt to resume occupation of the country along the Nile Valley abandoned at the time of the withdrawal in 1885, and on March 12, 1896, Sir Herbert (now Earl) Kitchener, who had succeeded to the command of the Egyptian army in 1892, received instructions to advance to the south from Wady Halfa. Akasha, the point to which the Nile Valley Railway had been built, was occupied on March 20, the Dervishes retreating to Firket.

As a means towards realising the objects of the expedition, Sir Herbert Kitchener resolved to continue the railway along the Nile Valley to Kerma; but this meant the construction of practically a new railway, since the Dervishes had torn up over fifty of the eighty-seven miles of the original line between Wady Halfa and Akasha, burning the sleepers and twisting the rails, while the remainder of the line was in such a condition that it required relaying. The work of construction was entrusted to a staff of Royal Engineers operating under Lieut. (now Major-General Sir E. Percy C.) Girouard, and it was pushed forward with great energy, the line being urgently required for the forwarding of stores to the front, and especially so on account of the impediments to navigation along the Nile due to the cataracts.

With the help of the railway, so far as it had then been restored, Sir Herbert Kitchener concentrated a force of 9,000 men at Akasha, and early in June he made a successful advance on Firket. The Dervishes retired to Dongola; but it was thought prudent, before following them up, to await a further extension of the railway. This was completed as far as Kosha, 116 miles from Wady Halfa, by August 4, 1896. Three weeks later some heavy rains, lasting three days, were the cause of floods which, in a few hours, destroyed twelve miles of the newly-constructed line. The repairs were completed in about a week, but in the same month there was an outbreak of cholera which carried off a large number of the working staff.

Utilising the railway as far as Kosha, Sir Herbert Kitchener concentrated the whole of his force at Fereig, on the north of the Kaibar cataract, and from thence a further advance was made to Dongola, which place the Dervishes made no attempt to defend.

The immediate purpose of the expedition had thus been attained; but, in the meantime, a further campaign had been resolved upon for the purpose of breaking down the power of the Khalifa and effecting the conquest of Khartoum. To this end the railway was continued another hundred miles, from Kosha to Kerma, which point was reached in May, 1897. Some 216 miles of railway had thus been completed in about thirteen months, notwithstanding interruptions which had led to very little progress being made during five months of this period, and notwithstanding, also, the fact that construction work had to be carried on simultaneously with the transport of troops and stores so far as the line had been completed.

Before, however, Kerma was reached, Sir Herbert Kitchener instructed the staff of the Royal Engineers to make a survey of the Nubian Desert with a view to seeing whether or not it would be practicable to build an alternative line of railway across it from Wady Halfa direct to Abu Hamed (a distance of 232 miles), thus giving a direct route to Khartoum.

A survey carried out at the end of 1896 showed that the work was not likely to present any unsurmountable engineering difficulties, and that the absence of water could be overcome by the sinking of wells. The only doubtful point was whether construction could be carried through without interruption by a still active enemy.

It was seen that the proposed desert line was likely to be of far greater importance, both strategically and politically, than a continuation of the Wady Halfa-Kerma line round the remainder of the Nile bend. The cutting off of this bend altogether would confer a great advantage on the Expeditionary Force. It was thus resolved to build the line, to run the risk of attacks by the enemy, and to push construction forward with the greatest energy.

A start was made with the work on May 15, 1897, the staff which had been engaged on the Nile Valley line to Kerma returning to Wady Halfa in order to take the desert line in hand. By the end of July, 115 of the 232 miles of line had been completed, and Sir Herbert Kitchener, utilising the railway which had already been constructed to Kerma, then sent a force along the Nile Valley to effect the capture of Abu Hamed. This was accomplished on August 7, and the constructors of the desert line were thus enabled to resume their work with greater security and even accelerated speed. Abu Hamed was reached on October 31, 1897, the two extreme points of the great Nile bend being thus brought into communication by a direct line of railway. The construction of the 232 miles of track had been accomplished in five and a half months, notwithstanding the fact that the work was carried on during the hottest time of the year. An average length of a mile and a quarter of line was laid per day, while on one day in October a maximum of three and a quarter miles was attained. So well, too, had the work been done that trains carrying 200 tons of stores, drawn by engines weighing, without tender, fifty tons, were taken safely across the desert at a speed of twenty-five miles per hour.

From Abu Hamed the line was at once pushed on in the direction of Berber, and its value from a military point of view was speedily to be proved. Receiving information, towards the end of 1897, that the Dervishes were planning an attack on Berber, Sir Herbert Kitchener sent to Cairo for a Brigade of British troops to join with the Egyptian forces then at Berber in opposing this advance, and the Brigade arrived in January, 1898, having travelled by the desert railway not only to Abu Hamed, but to a point twenty miles farther south, which then constituted railhead. Early in March the Anglo-Egyptian Army was concentrated between Berber and the Atbara river, and the battle of Atbara, fought in the following month, led to the complete annihilation of the forces sent by the Khalifa to drive the Egyptians out of Berber.

There was known to be still an army of 50,000 men in Omdurman, at the command of the Khalifa; but it was considered desirable, before any further advance was made by the Anglo-Egyptian forces, to await not only the completion of the railway to the Atbara but the rise, also, of the Nile, so that the river would be available for the bringing up of steamers and gunboats to take part in the attack on Omdurman.

Once more, therefore, Lieut. Girouard and his staff had to make the most strenuous efforts, and these were again so successful that the line was carried to the Atbara early in July. It was of the greatest service in facilitating the concentration of an Anglo-Egyptian Army, 22,000 strong, at Wad Hamed, and the victory of Omdurman, on September 2, 1898--when 20,000 of the enemy were killed or wounded--followed by the occupation of Khartoum, meant the overthrow of the Mahdi, the final reconquest of the Sudan, and the gaining of a further great triumph in the cause of civilisation.

In the account of these events which he gives in volume three of the "History of the Corps of the Royal Engineers," Colonel Sir Charles M. Watson says concerning this ultimate outcome of a rebellion which had lasted, altogether, for a period of eighteen years:--

Lord Kitchener, of course, by the skill and determination
with which he conducted the operations to a successful
termination, deserves the principal credit for the happy
conclusion of the campaign. But it must not be forgotten that
a large part of the work was carried out by the officers of
the Royal Engineers, especially those who had charge of the
construction and maintenance of that railway without which, it
is fair to say, the campaign could not have been conducted at
all.

The final triumph was the more gratifying because, although the desert railway had contributed so materially thereto, dependence upon it had not been without an element of serious risk which cannot be told better than in the words of Lord Cromer, in his book on "Modern Egypt":--

The interval which elapsed between the occupation of Abu
Hamed and the final advance on Khartoum was a period of much
anxiety. Sir Herbert Kitchener's force depended entirely on
the desert railway for its supplies. I was rather haunted with
the idea that some European adventurer, of the type familiar
in India a century and more ago, might turn up at Khartoum and
advise the Dervishes to make frequent raids across the Nile
below Abu Hamed with a view to cutting the communication of the
Anglo-Egyptian force with Wady Halfa. This was unquestionably
the right military operation to have undertaken; neither, I
think, would it have been very difficult of accomplishment.
Fortunately the Dervishes ... failed to take advantage of the
opportunity presented to them. To myself it was a great relief
when the period of suspense was over. I do not think that the
somewhat perilous position in which Sir Herbert Kitchener's army
was undoubtedly placed for some time was at all realised by the
public in general.

Within about two months of the battle of Omdurman the plans were made for a further extension of the railway from Atbara to Khartoum, and Khartoum North was reached on the last day of 1899. The construction of a bridge over the Blue Nile subsequently allowed of trains running direct into Khartoum.

To-day this same railway has been carried a distance of 430 miles south of Khartoum. It continues along the Blue Nile to Sennah, where it turns to the westward, crosses the White Nile at Kosti, and has its terminus at El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan Province. What this means is that an enormous expanse of territory has been opened up both to civilisation and to commercial development.

Apart from the important gum trade of which El Obeid is the centre, the Sudan is pre-eminently a pastoral country. The number of its cattle, sheep and goats is estimated at "several millions"; it has thousands of square miles available for cotton-growing, already carried on there for centuries, and it has wide possibilities in other directions, besides; though stock-raising and cotton cultivation should alone suffice to ensure for the Sudan a future of great wealth and commercial importance.

Beyond the districts immediately served by the extension there are others which are to be brought into touch with the railway, either direct or via the Nile, by means of a "roads system" linking up towns and villages with a number of highways extending to all the frontiers of the Sudan. On these roads and highways motor traction will, it is hoped, be gradually substituted for transport animals, the troubles caused by the tsetse fly and other pests being thus avoided.

The scheme here in question is certainly an ambitious one, considering that the Sudan covers an area of 1,000,000 square miles, and is equal in extent to the whole of British India; but already the outlook is most promising. For twelve years before its rescue from heathenism by the British and Egyptian forces in 1898, Khartoum, which formerly had a population of 50,000, was represented by the mass of ruins to which it had been reduced by order of the Khalifa. To-day it is a large, beautiful, and well-built city, possessed of a Governor-General's palace, cathedrals, a mosque, schools, hospitals, hotels, broad streets, public gardens, boulevards, imposing business premises, a good water supply, electric light, tramways, ferries, and other essentials of a capital city of the most progressive type. Khartoum itself has now about 30,000 inhabitants; in Khartoum North, on the other side of the Blue Nile, there are 20,000, and in Omdurman 70,000, a total of 120,000 for the three sister cities. Not only, also, have the natives, once living under the terror of their oppressors, settled down to peaceful pursuits, but many thousands of immigrants have come into the Sudan from West Africa (a striking testimony of the confidence felt by native tribes in the justice and security of British rule), while great expansion has taken place in the commercial interests of the Sudan and more especially in the export of cattle and sheep.

In the bringing about of these developments, affecting the peace and prosperity of so huge a country and of so many millions of people, the Sudan Military Railways have played a leading part. They rendered possible, in the first instance, the conquest of the Sudan, and then (save for the now abandoned line from Wady Halfa to Kerma) they became, with their extensions and improvements, the system of "Sudan Government Railways," having their branches to-day both from Atbara to Port Sudan and Suakin, on the Red Sea, and from Abu Hamed to Kareima, on the south side of the great Nile bend, whence there is free communication by water to the third cataract at Kerma. Concurrently, also, with the carrying out of the railway extension schemes, and in order to make greater provision for the prospective increase of traffic, 460 miles of the line north of Khartoum were relaid with 75-lb. rails, in place of the 50-lb. rails originally used, and the whole of the track from Khartoum to El Obeid was also laid with the heavier rails.

So we are enabled to regard military railways from still another point of view--that, namely, in which they may develop into lines of permanent communication and promote the blessings of peace and security no less than afford unquestionable advantages in the prosecution of war. Other examples of a similar kind might be offered from the history of British rule in Africa; but the record of what has been accomplished in the Sudan may suffice to establish the further claim here presented as to the varied purposes that military railways may serve.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] See lecture by Capt. C. E. Luard, R.E., on "Field Railways and their general application in war." Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, vol. xvii, 1873.

[37] "The Abyssinian Railway." By Lieut. Willans, R.E. Papers on Subjects Connected with the Duties of the Corps of Royal Engineers. New Series. Vol. xviii. 1870.

[38] "The Construction of Military Railways during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8." By Captain M. T. Sale, R.E. Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, vol. xxiv, 1881. "De la Construction des Chemins de Fer en temps de guerre. Lignes construites par l'armée russe pendant la campagne 1877-78." Par M. P. Lessar, Ingénieur du Gouvernement russe. Traduit du russe par M. L. Avril. Paris, 1879.

[39] "The Sudan Military Railway." By Lieut. M. Nathan, R.E. "Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Occasional Papers," vol. xi, 1885.

[40] In his dispatch of May 30, 1885, Sir Gerald Graham said concerning these Volunteers: "Their services would have been of great value had the campaign lasted longer. As it was the Volunteers worked well with their comrades of the Royal Engineers.... It may be considered the first experiment in associating the Volunteer force with a combatant branch of the Regular Army on active service."