CHAPTER VII.

The Railroad in Modern War

Railways are undoubtedly one of the most important factors in the wars of to-day, and after some campaigning my first idea of war is a railroad for a guide. Day after day the advancing columns follow the broken iron pathway with the twisted rails and wrecked bridges as signs on the trail they are following. At the same time the retreating force rolls comfortably along in well-working trains, blowing up everything behind them as soon as they are ready to evacuate a position.

After returning from South Africa I spent much time reading in the London press of the various engagements that I had seen, or had learned about from those who had seen them. Nearly every despatch said that “the enemy was completely demoralized,” or “the enemy retreated in wild confusion.” As a matter of fact, there was at no time any confusion whatever on the part of the Boers, and the retreats were the most orderly and methodical affairs that can be imagined. If there was no railway for use, the men merely mounted their horses and rode away as though there were no really pressing reason for their going and that any time would do. Even when the British advance was within striking distance, the same calmness was displayed. When there was a railway communication, which was generally the case, trains were brought up, and the burghers entrained their mounts and their guns; and when everything was ready, they pulled out to the next place selected for a stand. The women occupied the first-class carriages, and if they did not fill the seats, the men shared them; but the men did not seem to feel much preference between a passenger carriage and an open truck. It was always an orderly, good-natured crowd, which apparently, except for the Mauser slung across every shoulder, might have been returning from a county fair.

The retreat from Pretoria was possibly an exception, as there was then great excitement throughout the city; but even in this case the agitation was among the people of the city, and not among the fighting men. They continued in their usual quiet, indifferent manner, while many of the non-combatants were almost panic-stricken. The commandoes preferring to make the retreat towards Middleburg by rail gathered at the station and attended to the entraining of their mounts as though it were a matter of no importance whether they got away or not; and yet at that time it was thought that the British were but a few miles away.

To be able to control the railway means everything to an army, especially when it is operating in a hostile territory. All things must be sacrificed to protect and maintain the line so as to allow the safe transit of trains; and to that problem the British were compelled to devote most of their attention; the burghers sought chiefly to destroy their plans, as they were not of sufficient force to control any great portion of the railways.

The defense of railroads did not enter into the Spanish-American War on either side, as the territory covered by the operations in Cuba was too small for them to be of vital importance; but owing to the vast territory under military operation in South Africa they have been a factor of prime importance. If the Boer commanders had had less respect for property, and had destroyed every piece of rolling stock that they could not use, they would have been more successful; but instead of that they usually abandoned it all, and allowed the enemy to take it, enabling him in every case to use it immediately for the transportation of supplies and troops. A torch would have prevented this many times, and would have been the proper and legitimate method to be used; but, thinking of the loss to some of their own people, they allowed the British to take everything. Some commandants even argued against blowing up the bridges. The Spaniards knew the value of the fire-brand at Daiquiri, for when General Shafter’s army was preparing to land and begin the advance on Santiago, the invaders on the transports saw the thick smoke of the burning buildings curling skywards; and when we landed, about two hours later, we found the station and engine-house a mass of smoking embers, surrounding the burned ruins of every engine at that end of the line. Had the Boers shown more inclination to do as the Spaniards did in this instance, they would have been far better off, and would not have left miles of railroad and thousands of pieces of rolling stock with which their enemies operated against them.

The maintenance of the rail communication between the base of supplies at Cape Town and the head of the army was the most difficult problem that the British were called upon to solve during the South African War; and there was nothing more essential to the successful operations of the troops than the freedom of this line. It was the main artery from the heart, through which the life-blood of the army flowed, and to check it, even for a few hours, meant suffering and hardship to the troops at the rail terminus, while to break it for a week or more would have caused ruin to all plans of offensive campaign.

The guard to protect this communication must be strong enough at every point to repel any attempt to destroy the line; and to maintain this guard means the constant use of thousands of troops who may never hear a shot fired, but who are more essential to the success of the campaign than the soldiers who are doing the actual fighting. If this vigilance should be relaxed for an hour, one of their enemies could do enough damage with a single stick of dynamite to embarrass the troops very seriously, perhaps cause a wreckage that would take a hundred men a day to repair, even if it were merely on the ordinary line; but if they should get at a bridge the damage could not be repaired in a week.

As the burghers retreated before the British advance they destroyed all the bridges on the lines of retreat in a most effectual manner by the use of high explosives, in many cases leaving hardly one stone above another. On the line from Cape Town to Pretoria the spans over the Orange, Riet, Modder, Vet, Vaal, and Zand rivers, besides many others, were destroyed, so that it took weeks to repair them; and in all cases the British were compelled to build deviations of the line going around the banks of the rivers, and by gradual descent into the bed of the river and then up the opposite bank. Nearly all the river beds of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal are very deep, with perpendicular sides. Their depth is so great that it is quite impossible to cross at any point except by the railway bridges and the regular fords and drifts. One may ride almost to the edge of the river before realizing that there is a stream in the vicinity. The laborious difficulty of spanning these deep gorge-like river cuts makes it necessary that a large body of troops be detailed to guard each bridge or line deviation. The railways must be maintained or the advance must withdraw.

There is a striking contrast between the methods of our government and that of the various European powers in the treatment of practical problems regarding the mobilization of troops in time of peace. There is not a state of the Old World so small as to be without its manœuvres, and as the great agency the railroad facilities are carefully studied. It has been a huge military oversight on the part of our government to fail to provide for an occasional mobilization of troops, and for their operation in the field as one body. We have never had an army of sufficient size to warrant any such manœuvres with the regular force alone, but the National Guard regiments should be included in this sort of work just as the militia regiments of England are every year made a part of the Aldershot manœuvres. It has been argued that our distances are too great to justify such an extensive plan of peaceful operations, but that very reason should be the incentive to our government to appropriate sufficient funds to carry on the work. It would be a simple matter indeed were the operations of our forces confined to as small a territory as those of England, France, or Germany; but when the sudden call of troops means a mobilization from many quarters and a journey of several days, to leave the problem to the last moment before solving it is indeed a perilous hazard and one that is incredibly irrational.

In France and Germany every goods carriage is marked on the outside, showing the exact number of men or horses that it will accommodate for military transportation; every division of the railroad accounts each day to the Minister of War for the number of cars on the tracks that may be used for military purposes. Such minuteness would be, of course, an unnecessary extreme for this country; but we do need a practical relation existing between the War Department and the railroads, by which the brains, as well as the stock, of the various systems might be drafted at any hour into strict military accountability. Moreover, we need a national instruction for the National Guard. The States should give to the War Department authority to mobilize and temporarily control their militia in time of peace; and then the Department should be provided with means to mobilize both State and Federal troops of a certain territory, making the territory as large as possible, so that the number of regiments would be sufficient to be of use in the instruction regarding transportation. Such a mobilization would be of most signal value, even though the encampment lasted only the briefest time, as it would enable the officers to become accustomed to rail transportation.

Just before the war with Spain the First United States Infantry was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco; and when war seemed inevitable, that regiment was ordered to Tampa. It was the first body of troops to be moved, and although no great haste was necessary, there was considerable difficulty in getting the command properly entrained. This was due to no fault of the field officers; they knew what should be done, but the staff department did not understand the necessary office work which it entailed. When the men were finally put on board, they found themselves in tourist day-coaches, without any sleeping accommodations, although they were to cross the continent. The time occupied by the journey was longer than necessary, because it was necessary to stop twice a day long enough to give the men an opportunity to cook rations. A portable cooking outfit, to be used in an ordinary baggage or freight car, should be supplied to each regiment; most of the stops could then be avoided, the trip be made in nearly half the time, and the comfort of the men would be greatly increased.

Just such an apparatus was attached to a troop and hospital train upon which I made the journey from Pretoria to Cape Town, and it was quite a successful arrangement, although it was merely an improvised one. That was a journey of six to eight days at that time, and as every delay meant a certain block in the traffic, stoppages were out of the question; but with this rolling kitchen those on the train were supplied with hot rations. The floor of the car was covered with thin sheet iron or zinc, to prevent the car from catching fire, a large water tank was fitted in one end, and next to it was a water boiler of considerable capacity. The stove was an ordinary house range made fast, and if, owing to the motion of the train, it was not a complete success, it is another illustration of the value of preparedness before the very moment of need arrives.

The carrying capacity of our railroads far exceeds that of England or of any other European country; our cars are larger and our engines more powerful. With better facilities at command, the problem is simple, but we need practice in the work. The War Department already knows how many cars each railroad carries, how many may be used for military purposes, and just how many men and horses they will accommodate; but a military use of some of them should be made occasionally as an essential manœuvre. The regular officers know at least the ordinary management of trains for soldiers, but that cannot be said of the officers of the militia which is to be used in time of war, and they should be fully instructed in these matters in time of peace.

Armored trains are little better than amusing until the inside of them is spattered with the blood of good men sacrificed to a theory. Then the amusement ends and the court of inquiry begins. The character of the country in South Africa is all that could be desired for the use of armored trains, especially in the Orange Free State, where the great veldt makes a low horizon on all sides, and the level country is broken only by an occasional kopje rising unexpectedly from the great plain. An advance can be made with as much safety over this country as any that could be chosen, and yet an armored train did not succeed at any time to an extent that would make it advisable to continue its use.

Several of these trains were fitted out in Cape Town and at other points, and none lacked anything in construction which could make them a success. They consisted of an engine and two open trucks, one in front and one behind, all very heavily armored with sheet steel or iron, and in some cases hung with chains and heavy ropes as an extra protection. The trucks were loopholed for small arms, and each train carried one or more machine guns. The vitals of each engine were as well protected as was possible, and the entire machine was painted either khaki or battle-ship gray. As long as it was safely guarded at Cape Town it was a remarkable invention; but when it attempted an advance towards the enemy’s country, the trouble began. The keenest watch failed to discover a trace of any foe, and mile after mile of track they put in their rear without discovering a living being until they concluded to retire. Back they went until suddenly they came to a broken bit of track, a rail removed, by which the train was brought to a sudden halt. Then from hidden foemen poured a storm of shot and shell. There were but two alternatives, death or surrender.

All that is required to capture the invading train is thus to allow it to pass quietly on, then to remove a single rail or to place some ordinary obstruction on the track, and wait for its return. A few instances have occurred where the armored train has escaped when flanked by columns of troops, but as a rule it has proved thus far a useless and dangerous experiment, usually resulting in the death or capture of all on board.

No features of the campaign are more interesting than the attempts to cut the lines of communication or to blow up a bridge or a culvert, and one of the most daring deeds of the South African War was done by Major Burnham, the Californian who acted as chief scout on Lord Roberts’s staff.

Major Burnham received his training in the Apache country in the Southwest from those Indians who are masters of the world in following a trail or informing themselves as to the whereabouts of their enemies. Twice was Burnham captured by the Boers and twice he made his escape. In both cases he was wounded, the last time seriously. He worked night and day for the army with which he had cast his lot, and when he was ready to leave for home, he came away with a letter from the field marshal, written with his own hand, in which he stated that Major Burnham had done him greater service than any other one man in South Africa.

When the advance of the British forces came within striking distance of Pretoria, Lord Roberts found it necessary to have the line cut just east of the town in order to prevent the retreat towards Middleburg by rail. Burnham started to do it, taking with him a small patrol of men for assistance. They made a wide detour to avoid meeting any of the commandoes, which were now moving in the same direction. All went well with him until he had gone half way around and was about to turn to the north to find the culvert which he intended to destroy, when he suddenly met a large commando coming directly towards his party. A running fight followed, in which his horse was hit, throwing him heavily, and he was seriously injured. The rest of the party escaped, but he was made a prisoner, and not being able to walk, he was put into a wagon under a guard of four men, two riding in front and two behind. The vehicle was one of the large trek-wagons, drawn by a span of sixteen oxen and driven by a Kaffir boy, who divided his time between the front seat of the wagon and walking beside the span. Major Burnham had made up his mind to escape at all hazards, and so until night he lay in the wagon making plans. The moon was almost full, and the night was so bright that the difficulties of an attempt to escape were greatly increased. During the early part of the night the Kaffir driver kept his position on the front seat, thus preventing any experiments by the captive. He was just considering an attack on the black boy when something went wrong with one of the leaders, and the boy jumped down to remedy it. Seizing the opportunity thus afforded, Major Burnham climbed out over the seat, down on the disselboom or tongue of the wagon, on which he stretched himself flat between the oxen of the first span, swung himself under the disselboom, dropped into the road, and allowed the wagon to pass over his body. As soon as it had passed he rolled quickly over and over into the ditch, and lay perfectly quiet while the rear guard passed by, wholly unconscious that their prisoner had escaped. The khaki uniform which Major Burnham wore made this little bit of strategy possible, for had he been in dark clothes his body would probably have been seen by the guard, who rode along within twenty-five feet of him.

As soon as the two Boer soldiers had passed to a distance which allowed no chance of discovery, the Californian picked his way up through the rocks to the side of an adjacent kopje, where he remained hidden for some hours. For a well man to have accomplished this feat would perhaps have been a simple matter, although it took a daring mind to conceive it; but for a man in Major Burnham’s condition to go through the mental strain and physical torture of such an escape was a remarkable performance, and it received its proper praise from both Briton and Boer. There is no man living who so admires true courage and pluck, or who so despises a coward, as does this hardy farmer-fighter; nor does he bear resentment towards a man who, like Major Burnham, fought only for the love of war.

After spending several hours among the rocks, without food or water, and in the bitterly cold night air of an African winter, the scout began to drag himself towards the railroad to accomplish the task he had first set out to do. Strangely enough, when he was captured he was not searched, and he still carried in his tunic a dynamite cartridge ready for use. During the entire campaign Major Burnham never carried arms of any sort, and when he was taken, his captors, not seeing any weapons about him, probably thought that he had nothing about him of a dangerous character. For more than two miles he dragged himself over the rocky veldt until he finally reached the railroad, along which he crawled until he found a culvert. Upon this he placed the cartridge, with a fuse of a sufficient length to allow him to crawl to a place of safety. He destroyed the line, and accomplished the task he undertook, although it nearly cost him his life. He was picked up by a British patrol late that afternoon, almost dead from exposure and the effects of his wound, and was taken to the hospital, where he was confined for a fortnight before he could even walk.

This achievement is one of many performed by this same brave American during the war. Major Burnham is without doubt an exceedingly clever man on the trail; he does not know fear, and his one idea is to accomplish his end. But that does not entirely indicate the reason for his high place in the confidence of Lord Roberts; it rather comes from the fact that Englishmen know nothing of the wonderful arts of the men of the plains; and when a man is able to tell them the number of cattle in a herd, and the number of men guarding it, or the number of men in a commando, and the condition of their horses, merely by examining the ground over which they have passed, they consider it little short of a miracle. Neither the officer nor the private soldier has had any of the training of the latent faculties which is so thorough among the officers and men of our army.

The value of a stick of dynamite is sometimes more precious than that of gold in war. As the Transvaal is a mining country, great quantities of this explosive were easily obtained, and, accordingly, despite the heavy guard, the line of communication was often broken; in fact, so frequently was the railroad destroyed that Lord Roberts was heavily embarrassed during his first month in Pretoria for provision and forage for his troops. Hardly a day passed without the line being cut at some point. Finally, in the hope of preventing further interruption of his railroad line, Lord Roberts issued the following proclamation, the terms of which were about as cruel as could be devised:

PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, small parties of raiders have recently been doing wanton damage to public property in the Orange River Colony and South African Republic by destroying railway bridges and culverts, and cutting the telegraph wires; and, whereas, such damage cannot be done without the knowledge and connivance of the neighboring inhabitants and the principal civil residents in the districts concerned;

Now, therefore, I, Frederick Sleigh, Baron Roberts of Kandahar and Waterford, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C., Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s Troops in South Africa, warn the said inhabitants and principal civil residents that, whenever public property is destroyed or injured in the manner specified above, they will be held responsible for aiding and abetting the offenders. The houses in the vicinity of the place where the damage is done will be burnt, and the principal civil residents will be made prisoners of war.

ROBERTS, F. M.

A few days later it was followed by another proclamation, even more harsh:

PROCLAMATION.

Referring to my proclamation dated Pretoria, 16th June, 1900, I, Frederick Sleigh, Baron Roberts of Kandahar and Waterford, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C., Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s Troops in South Africa, do hereby declare, proclaim, and make known that, should any damage be done to any of the lines of railway, or to any of the railway bridges, culverts, or buildings, or to any telegraph lines or other railway or public property in the Orange River Colony, or in that portion of the South African Republic for the time being within the sphere of my military operations, the following punishment will be inflicted:

1. The principal residents of the towns and district will be held, jointly and severally, responsible for the amount of damage done in their district.

2. In addition to the payment of the damage above mentioned, a penalty depending upon the circumstances of each case, but which in no event will be less than a sum of 2s. 6d. per morgen on the area of each farm, will be levied and recovered from each burgher of the district in which the damage is done, in respect of the land owned or occupied by him in such district. Furthermore, all receipts for goods requisitioned in such district on behalf of the military authorities will be cancelled, and no payment whatsoever will be made in respect of the same.

3. As a further precautionary measure, the Director of Military Railways has been authorized to order that one or more of the residents, who will be selected by him from each district, shall from time to time personally accompany the trains while travelling through their district.

4. The houses and farms in the vicinity of the place where the damage is done will be destroyed, and the residents of the neighborhood dealt with under martial law.

5. The military authorities will render every facility to the principal residents to enable them to communicate the purport of this proclamation to the other residents in their district, so that all persons may become fully cognizant of the responsibility resting upon them.

(Signed) ROBERTS, F. M., Commander-in-Chief, South Africa.

I say these proclamations were cruel, because they struck the innocent for the doings of the guilty. War is essentially merciless, but these orders made it unnecessarily infernal. The reason given for the burning of farms near where the line was cut was that such work could not have been done without the knowledge of those who lived in the vicinity; but that reason was wholly untrue, for in some cases farms were burned and destroyed several miles away from the railroad--in fact, not even in sight. How could it be expected that the occupants of a farm several miles away could know what was going on while they slept? I know of cases where the same damage has been done to the railroad under the very noses of British sentries put there to prevent it, and yet Lord Roberts assumed that the occupants of the farmhouses must know all that went on for miles about. On the majority of the farms there were only women. They and hundreds of other innocent people who had no hand in the railway destruction, although their hearts were undoubtedly with the cause, were made homeless by the torch.

The drastic measures taken by the British have reacted against them. One of the principal obstacles in the way of ending the war has been that the homes and farms of the greater number of the burghers in the field were destroyed, and there was nothing left for them to do but to fight. Outside of this wholesale burning, the British policy has, in most instances, been very liberal indeed towards the residents of the territory occupied; they have in most cases paid high prices in cash for everything that was needed for the use of the military, and the people have not been annoyed any more than was absolutely necessary for the good of the operations of the army; but these two orders stagger belief. They were not mere threats, but were actually carried out to the letter, and are still in operation. The one most damaging blow that a force inferior in strength can strike is at the enemy’s line of communication; therefore, so long as the fighting goes on, the railway will be broken as often as possible. More homes will be burned and more men will be forced into the field; few farms will be left undestroyed, and the country is likely to be left desolate of inhabitants.

Thus it is that the railroad plays such an important part in the war of to-day. The railroad reconquered the Soudan, and will eventually conquer the entire continent of Africa. It is working down from the north and up from the south, slowly but surely throwing out its network of iron, from which nothing can escape. It has reclaimed the great territory of Siberia as it did our Western plains. It is the mightiest engine of civilization in peace; it is the very vitals of an army in war.