The American Historical Review/Volume 23/Reviews of Books/The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833–1914
The latest of Pratt's works on the character and development of railway transportation, in presenting an historical survey of the scientific utilization of the modern railway for purposes of war and conquest, is a very timely book. The tremendous task of all of the European belligerents in concentrating unparalleled numbers of troops, in providing vast armies with supplies and munitions of well-nigh limitless quantity, in maintaining lines of communication of unprecedented length and difficulty, in removing from the zones of war hundreds of thousands of prisoners and as many wounded men of varying degrees of disability, in protecting their systems of transport against the newer weapons of this war, particularly against the aggressive manoeuvres of alert air fleets, and more especially, the marvellous flexibility of the German war machine in maintaining an active resistance and a vigorous offensive on a multiple of fronts, have emphasized as never before the fact that railway transportation plays as indispensable a role in the successful prosecution of modern warfare as it does in the peaceful development of modern industrial society. But while The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest is timely, it differs from most of the war books of the past three years in at least two important respects: first, it consists very largely in a presentation of facts, and not merely in a formulation of opinions; and secondly, it makes no attempt to carry the investigation beyond the outbreak of the World War in 1914. The purpose of the work is to describe in detail the policies and practices in the utilization of rail-power for military purposes that had been developed up to that time, to indicate the nature and possibilities of this factor in warfare as it was "imposed upon mankind in 1914, to undergo a development and an application on a wider, more impressive, and more terrible scale than the world had ever seen before".
The title of Mr. Pratt's book is fairly indicative of its scope and character. Its viewpoint is uniformly historical. It emphasizes the rise of the various aspects of rail-power, the continuous historic evolution of railway transportation for a period of eighty years (1833–1914), in all the leading countries of the world and under the stress of all the important military combats of modern times, as an instrument of warfare. The earliest proposals for utilizing the railways for military purposes were made in Germany in 1833, but
the American Civil War was practically the beginning of things as regards the scientific use of railways for war, and … many of the problems connected therewith were either started in the United States or were actually worked out there, precedents being established and examples being set which the rest of the world had simply to follow, adapt or perfect.
Accordingly, considerable space is devoted to a discussion of the use of railways in the Civil War. Moreover, in dealing with such special problems as the establishment of a distinct military organization for railway destruction and restoration, the adjustment of railway control between the military and technical (railway) elements, the development of special devices for the protection of railways, the utilization of armored trains and railway ambulance transport, attention is repeatedly directed to the fact that the initial steps in all these matters, and substantial progress in some of them, must be traced to our Civil War. The development of rail-power is further exemplified by a detailed account of the use of railroads in the Franco-Prussian War, the Boer War, and the Russo-Japanese War, and special treatment is accorded to the employment of "military railways" in various campaigns, and to the nature of the German strategical railways.
As illustrations of the European policy of preparedness for war in time of peace, applied to the problem of rail-power, there is presented a detailed description of the development and present character of the organization of the transportation systems of Germany, France, and England, for military purposes. It is interesting to note that Germany's campaign for the organization of rail-power dates from the early thirties, but received especial impetus from the experience of our Civil War and the War of 1870–1871, at which time "the alleged perfection of Germany's arrangements … is merely one of the fictions of history"; that the effective application of French effort in this direction followed the disastrous results of the Franco-Prussian War; and that the beginning of England's preparation "was the direct outcome of the conditions of semi-panic" developed there in 1859 by the prospect of an early French invasion.
Two chapters deal with the building and control of so-called "economic-political-strategical" railways, as a means of conquest, without the necessary accompaniment of war. The first describes the development of German strategical railways in Southwest Africa, directly as a means of dominating British South Africa, and ultimately for the purpose of transforming the whole of Africa into a German-African Empire, "possibly more valuable and more brilliant than even the Indian Empire". The second of these chapters describes the German designs on Asiatic Turkey, through the instrumentality of the Bagdad Railway, "designed to ensure the establishment of a German Middle-Asian Empire, bringing under German control the entire region from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, and providing convenient stepping-off places from which an advance might be made on Egypt in the one direction and India in the other". These two chapters are among the most interesting in the book, but they deal too largely with political rather than military matters. They involve primarily questions of German aspiration in the field of Weltpolitik. National motives and national ambitions are analyzed and appraised. While the author's conclusions are based on authentic data and are not in disagreement with dominant opinion at the present time, all of the pertinent evidence will not become available until the veil is lifted at the end of the World War. This task must be left for the future historian.
The subject-matter of the book, in so far as it is limited to the rise of rail-power for direct military purposes, may logically be treated from three distinct aspects: the military functions of rail-power; the organization essential for effective performance of these functions; and the historical development of both the functions and organization of rail-power at various times and places since this "new factor" in warfare was recognized. From such an analysis, it is believed, would emerge a more distinct picture of the nature and significance of the railroad as an element in modern warfare than can be gathered from the author's uniform and largely exclusive adoption of the historical method. And if it be urged that the author's task was primarily an historical one, answer may still be made that a preliminary and distinct analysis of the problems of function and organization would make more vital and intelligible the exposition of historical development. The present treatment is unduly discursive, and in parts fragmentary. While the general presentation is comprehensive and accurate, the material is insufficiently digested and co-ordinated. As a result, the reader's impressions are somewhat blurred; and the book serves more adequately as a storehouse of specialized facts in military history than as a finished study of the significance of these facts. In gathering this material, however, and in subjecting it to partial analysis, Mr. Pratt has rendered a valuable service. He has brought together, from a large number and variety of sources, primary and secondary, a mass of material that throws light upon the past military history of the leading nations, and which will serve as a substantial starting-point for the future study of a very important aspect of the present world struggle. This book constitutes the most comprehensive general treatment yet available of the rise of rail-power as an instrument of warfare.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1969, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 54 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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