The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914

While the original purpose of railways was to promote the arts of peace, the wide scope of their possibilities in the direction, also, of furthering the arts of war began to be...

Such were the conditions under which the War of Secession in the United States was fought that without the help of railways it could hardly have been fought at all.

One of the earliest and most obvious criticisms advanced against the use of railways in war was based on the vulnerability of the iron road. The destruction of a bridge, the tea...

Curtailment of the efficiency of railways during war may be due to friend no less than to foe; and there have been occasions when, of the two, it is the friend who has caused th...

The liability of railway lines to interruption or destruction--whether by bodies of cavalry sent across the frontier for that purpose, and aiming at damage on a large scale; by...

In the earlier controversies as to the use of railways in war, attention was almost entirely concentrated on questions relating to the movement of large masses of troops, the sa...

In the issue of the now defunct London periodical, _Once a Week_, for August 13, 1859, there was published an article on "English Railway Artillery: A Cheap Defence against Inva...

According to statistics which have been compiled in relation to wars alike in ancient and in modern times, for every ten men among the armies in the field who have died from wou...

The greater the experience gained of the application of rail-power in practice, and the closer the study devoted to its possibilities, in theory, the more obvious it became that...

In no country in the world was the desirability of preparing in time of peace for military rail-transport in time of war recognised earlier than in Germany. In none has the prac...

The innovation introduced into modern warfare by the Federal Government of the United States, in the organisation on a comprehensive scale of a Construction Corps for the combin...

When France went to war with Germany in 1870-71, her military rail-transport was still governed by regulations which, adopted as far back as 1851 and 1855, related only to such...

While, on the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war, Germany began, as we have seen in Chapter X., to improve her own system of military rail-transport, with a view to remedying...

The difference between the geographical conditions of the British Isles and those of the principal countries on the Continent of Europe led to the systematic organisation of rai...

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 Engin...

the German Army would be performed by a special section of the General Staff; though some of these duties it took over from the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, reducing the fu...

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 South African campaign of 1899-1902 afforded to Great Britain and to British Imperial interests their greatest, most instructive, and, also, their most anxious experiences,...

From Moscow to Port Arthur the distance is 5,300 miles, and, save for the sea journey via the Baltic, the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, the Russians were depende...

While designed partly, mainly, or, it may be, exclusively, to serve military purposes, strategical railways, unlike military railways proper, form part of the ordinary railway s...

Strategical railways in South-West Africa were built by Germany as a means towards the achievement of her designs on British South Africa; but these, in turn, were only part of...

Just as avowedly strategical lines in Africa were to lead the way to the creation of a German African Empire, so, in turn, was that system of economic-political-strategical line...

As will have been gathered from the preceding chapters, a prolonged period of consideration, preparation and application in many different countries throughout the world, prior...

different systems or sections, in order (_a_) that the locomotives and rolling stock on any one line can be used for military transport on any other; (_b_) that mobilisation, co...

sidings, with provision of, or the possibility of providing speedily, all such facilities as may be needed for the prompt and efficient handling of military transports whenever...

of the following principles:--(_a_) That, while the railway is an instrument capable of rendering great and even incalculable services in the conduct of war, the working of it i...

iii. Study of all movements of troops, etc., likely to be necessary on the outbreak of war; the preparation of special time-tables for the running of troop trains, etc., and the...

Railways are "inferior to ships in power of simultaneously transporting heavy loads" (Von der Goltz). For this reason an overland route to India could never compete, in respect...

[Gives a detailed account of the evolution, in the Civil War, of the hospital train in vogue to-day. A copy of the work will be found in the British Museum Library. Pressmark: 7...