CHAPTER XVI

_HORSELESS VEHICLES, ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE (continued)_

MOTOR-CARS IN WARFARE

The question of mechanical traction in war is of the gravest importance, the increasing size of armies and the large area they cover when in action, necessitating the employment of some form of haulage other than that of railways or horses.

For bringing up guns and their ammunition at a critical moment automobiles are of the greatest value. At the Motor-car Reliability Trials last autumn there was present a military officer of considerable experience who was much impressed with the possibilities of the motor in battle. If, he argued, sixty cars could run down from London to the South Coast easily in three hours carrying an average of four passengers each, the same number of horseless vehicles could convey sixty machine-guns to Brighton in a similar time. A corps of these might, he said, have proved extremely handy in the late South African campaign. To illustrate this, he pointed out that quick-firing guns carried on automobiles might possibly have ended the Boer War after the action of Poplar Grove. He was present on that occasion, and could speak with authority. All the enemy had been routed out of their far-reaching trenches and were in full flight. Then was the time to push home the attack, but cavalry and infantry were thoroughly done up by the great flanking movement and were unable to follow up their advantage. In full sight of our army, the Boers scuttled away along the plain with only a few desultory shells fired after them. “Now,” said the officer, “if we had only possessed a few automobiles with guns on that occasion we should have scored very heavily. The veldt was level enough for the purpose. A big victory at that critical moment might have thoroughly demoralised the Boers, already much disheartened by Cronje’s defeat a short time before at Paardeberg, and so caused them to surrender without much ado.”

No doubt the gallant soldier took rather a sanguine view of the situation; but of one thing he might have been certain, viz., that at that time neither an unenterprising War Office, nor a Colonial Department capable of requisitioning ordinary infantry from Australia to act against the wily mounted Boer, would for one moment have thought of sending motor-cars out for the purpose he suggests!

Not only for light artillery, but for heavy guns, motors can now be used in warfare, and Lord Roberts had a road-train constructed for South Africa sufficiently armoured to withstand rifle-fire, and powerful enough to draw a couple of heavy guns with their crews and ammunition, the motive power being steam.

In the prosaic work of conveying stores, motor-tractors with lorries are fast becoming integral parts of our complicated war-system, and the report of the trials held at Aldershot in December, 1901, is decidedly in favour of their employment on a large scale. The tests were severe, and included two days’ running (with full loads) of thirty miles a day, and a march of 197 miles (also with full loads) in six consecutive, days on roads both hard and soft, and even over boggy ground, the gradients being various, and in places very stiff. The first prize was awarded to the Thorneycroft Steam Waggon Company, but although the committee believed that these steam lorries were serviceable and useful for the present, they were much struck with the great possibilities of machines burning heavy oil. Their observations were as follows:--

“Compared with horse-draught, these trials have shown that self-propelled lorries can transport five tons of stores at about six miles an hour over very considerable distances on hilly, average English roads under winter conditions. The load transported by each single lorry (five tons) if carried in horse-waggons of service pattern would overload three G.S. waggons, requiring twelve draught horses, besides riding horses, whose pace would not ordinarily exceed three miles an hour. Moreover, the marching of 197 miles in six consecutive days would not have been accomplished by horses even at that speed without the assistance of spare horses.”

To this report appeared the following appendix of considerable importance:--

“The committee, in carrying out the tests, travelled in motor-cars, and as a result of their experience they remark, ‘The committee desire to bring to special notice the incidental demonstration afforded by these trials of the great possibilities for staff work, and for work in connection with the command of long transport trains, of the motor-car. No vehicles drawn by horses could have possibly covered the distances or kept up the speeds required; portions of the roads, sometimes miles in length, had to be traversed and retraversed several times, and at speeds beyond the capabilities of horse-flesh. Riding horses would have been knocked up to an extent necessitating large relays. The staff officer, moreover, instead of being fatigued, is always comparatively fresh at the end of the day.’”

No wonder that the Army, from the Commander-in-Chief downwards, is quickly becoming devoted to motoring. The quantity of work that can be got through by means of the automobile is a revelation to those who have been used to travelling by means of horses.

During the Crimean War, Boydell’s traction machine was used to haul open trucks on the road and across country. Its engine, the “Hercules,” was fitted with a curious arrangement, which, by means of rails attached in six sections to the wheels, enabled it to lay down and take up its own track as it went along.

In the South African campaign the military traction engines did some excellent work, and, as they rolled over the plains, startled the Kaffirs out of their senses at the unwonted sight of what they probably thought was some new and monstrous form of rhinoceros.

It has yet to be decided what is the best motive power for lorry cars in warfare, both oil and steam motors having, as compared with those driven by electricity, the disadvantage that the machinery moves by a series of shocks. Doubtless the ideal power would be one that acted evenly. The electric motor is superior to all others in the regularity of its action, and its steering is most readily effected. All that is wanted to adapt electric traction to military purposes is a perfected storage battery, and the day may not be far distant when extensive use will be made of light accumulators capable of being safely carried and of being recharged as readily as a steam engine can be supplied with fuel.

MOTORS IN AGRICULTURE

In England the use of steam for agricultural machinery has hitherto been confined to the purpose of ploughing and threshing. But coal in some districts is dear, and farmers are beginning to find that oil engines are more economical, there being no loss of fuel in the sudden stopping of work during wet weather; but petrol has a nasty trick of not vaporising readily when it is frosty, and here electricity steps in with an admirable _force-motif_.

With a dependable electro-motor, the farmer may work his self-binder all day long in the harvest-field, and at-night send it up to market with produce. Moreover, the motor may help to plough and harrow in the winter, and when there is no work to be done it costs nothing, having--unlike the horse--no stomach to fill.

In fact, the successful adaptation of the motor to farming may solve the ever-present labour problem, and do much to resuscitate the agricultural industry, while fruit and vegetable growers may find it invaluable, making them independent of high railway rates and bad train service. But, although the application of the automobile to agriculture is only in the experimental stage, it cannot be doubted that, in some shape or other, it will come to the cornfield, the orchard, and the market garden, while the modern farmer will welcome it gladly.

Probably it will begin, as was suggested by Mr. Rider Haggard before the Norfolk Chamber of Agriculture at Norwich, in the shape of an agricultural post. His plan was to enlarge the present system of parcel-post so that one hundred packages, each of 100 lbs. in weight, should be carried in the same way as parcels of only 10 lbs., and that produce of any sort, such as a crate of apples, the carcase of a sheep, a basket of flowers, etc., should be delivered the next morning to whatever part of England the goods were consigned.

MERCANTILE MOTORS

The prosaic use of motors is increasing rapidly. In our streets are frequently seen steam or petrol lorries for the heavy goods of brewers, stone-merchants, builders, contractors, engineers, asphalt-paving companies, etc.; substantial vans for wholesale manufacturing houses and great establishments, such as Bryant and May’s, Maple’s, Harrod’s, Whiteley’s, and Barker’s; lighter vehicles for smaller tradesmen, carts for county council and borough council work; a few fire-engines and ambulance waggons; while in the country any number of motors are used by shopkeepers to deliver their goods for miles around.

In fact, the mercantile use of motors has grown so much, that before long we may even see “Black Maria” delivering and picking up its daily quantum of _détenus_ through the medium of stored-up electricity.

We must just glance at the subject of motor-bicycles, driven by petrol and “sparked” by electricity. They are beginning to be much used for getting about quickly, for trailers, and as sporting machines for “breaking the record.” In September last year, at the Crystal Palace, some extraordinary results were obtained by them in the matter of speed, one of them covering no less than fifty miles in an hour and eight minutes!

Sir Martin Conway’s opinion, humorously delivered this year to the Society of Arts, respecting “stupid cyclists” and motor-cycles, is worth recording. He said that the first thing on which he desired knowledge concerning motor-cycles was how he was to fall off, as he fell off every machine on wheels some time or other; next, how long it would take a man to understand the parts in a motor-cycle, or whether they were hopelessly removed from the range of the ordinary stupid person; then, how the thing vibrated; and, finally, which of them did not break down. He said that he had been told that the pleasure with a motor-car was considerable when it went, and the annoyance even more considerable when it did not go.

Motors are everywhere, and are used for every purpose. There are motors in the Equatorial Free States of the Congo, where there is no energetic policeman, stop-watch in hand, to time the “driver” and summon him; and one day--who knows?--there may be motor-cars in use at the North Pole.

The motor has even been the indirect cause of political upheavings, for it is said that the revolution in Morocco came to a head because the fanatical tribal allies of the Pretender resisted, amongst other European articles, the introduction of automobiles into the country, and opposed their use by the enlightened emperor, as too progressive, and not in accordance with the Mussulman faith.

Meals are sent out in motor-vans by the London Distributing Kitchen Company from its well-equipped premises near the Army and Navy Stores, the breakfasts, luncheons, and dinners being placed in air-tight baskets in aluminium receptacles. In Manchester, for some time past, “meals by motor” have been an accomplished fact, and most popular and lucrative the scheme has proved.

Motoring has its romantic side. For instance, in France--the birthplace of the automobile--abduction by motor has been initiated, and our lively neighbours may possibly contemplate the revival of that mediæval custom of wedlock by force. This young lady, however, seems to have been a not unwilling party to the transaction.

Going to school by motor has also been made practicable across the Channel. For some months the Ecole Lacordaire, in Paris, has been running a Serpollet steam omnibus, which collects the pupils and conveys them to and from the school. The day’s run gives a total of sixty miles. Monsieur Serpollet has lately carried out an interesting test with the vehicle. He made a run of sixty miles with twelve passengers, and the cost for petrol was 1_s._ 2_d._ per passenger, or rather more than four miles for a penny. The omnibus averaged eighteen miles an hour.[8]