Figure 1.-- This photograph taken very early after the outbreak of World War I shows German troops preparing to leave for the front with a few relatives seeing them off. The European rail systems allowed the different countries to rapidly mobilize and get men and supplies to the front. 'Feldzug 1914' means 1914 fields trin, perhaps better translated s troop train. 'Stimmungsbild der Krieger' we are not entirely sure of, but means something like morale of the soldiers. The rail systems could get men and equipment to the front rapidly. Armies on the offensive very quickly encountered supply problems. Moving away from the estanlished railheads, the soldiers were on foot and dependent on horse-drawn carts and waggons for supplies. This began to change somewhat on the Allied side as American trucks reached the Allies who had also developed tanks. The Germans, however, changed little as regards logistics and battlefied motorization during the War. The use of trucks not only improved the delivery of men and material, but helped reduce the logistical burden created by the huge quantity of feed required by horses. This was a problem that the Germans had not solved even two decades later when they launched another devestatng war.
All the major World War combatantants had well developed rail systems. People and goods throughout Europe moved by rail. City streets might be paved, often by cobbelstones, road connections in the countryside, even between cities were often rudimentary. Goods between cities were moved by brail. Canals and rivers were of some importnce, but the primary mode of transport througout Europe was rail. This was also the case of the United States, although the internal combustion engine and the Model-T was just beginning to createc a demand for highways that had not yet taken place in Europe because so few Europeans owned cars. Britain, France, and Germany had the largest most efficient rail systems. Belgium had a compatable system for its size. Russia had a less developed rail system, although it was the only way of traveling ny distance in that vast country. These rail systems had very significant potential consequences--imcluding military ramifications. The Germans were more aware of this than any other country. The German Government involved itself in railroad develioment and route planning more than any other country. The rail systems in oher countries were almost entirely the result of commercial development and with commercial matters in mind. Germany in contrast designed its rail system with military considerations in mind. Railroads made possible the rapid movement of men, equipment, and supplies--a vital matter in military operations. This was never before possible with such speed and effiency. The rail systems were vital in military preparations before war began, both offensive and defensive preparations and the same was true once the war began. Rail transit delivered men and supplies to the front. And railroads could be used to stockpile and pre-position supplies and equipment in preparation for an offensive. But here is where the utility of he railroads ended. The rail roads could not follow men into battle and deliver the supplies as they advanced. Men had to advance on foot. And the supplies had to follow them, delivered by horse drawn waggons. This had limited the speed of military opertions for millennia. Men moved forward on foot and supplies followed in horse or oxen draw wagons. The railroads had speed up many aspects of warfare, but actual battlefield operations and logistics away from the rail head were not much different than centurues before. This began to change on the Allied side, largely thanks to the American delivery of trucks, but not the German side. And the Germans had still not sucessfully addressed the problem when they struck again in World War II. Incredibly, the invading German infabtryan would trvel to Lenningrad, Moscow, and Stlingrd on foot.
Austria Hungary
Britain
England was the first country to be heavily covered by railroads in part because England led Europe in the industrial revolution. England experienced a railroad building boom in the 1840s. Railroads faced many difficulties, including vested interests. Canal operators, turnpike trusts, and horse breeders opposed the railroad, but the effciency of moving goods over rails made the railroads impossible to resist. Falling prices for iron and improvements in machine tools were other factors. England by the 1850s possessed an extensive network of railways. Trains were transporting both people and goods 30-50 miles per hour--speeds unimaginable even a decade earlier. It was freight that became the mainstay of the railroads. The British Government in the 1850s intervened to regulate the railroads, creating monopolies to prevent chaotic building, but limiting prices. Even so, by World War I (1914-18) British railroads had developed problems--over capitalization, rising costs, and state regulation. British railroad construction was soon followed by construction on the continent, in many cases financed by British investors. British equipment and technicians also played an important role.
France
France began building a railway system combining private and public enterprise (1840s). The French like the Germans decided on a state-owned rail system--the Société nationale des chemins de fer français (French Railroad Company--SNCF). It became one of the finest rail systems in Europe. As in Germany, it was the primary means of commerce and individul transport. The French like the Germans had a state owned rail system. The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (French Railroad Company--SNCF) at the onset of World War I was one of the finest rail systems in Europe.
Germany
Britain led Europe in the devlopment of railroads, a critically important waspect of the Industrial Revolution. Early German railway construction was complicated by the many different states. There were a number of early commercial venturs. Generally Germans point to the Bavarian Ludwig Railway as e first German railway (1835). It was built by the Ludwig Railway Company in Nuremberg (Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in Nürnberg). Engineer Paul Camille von Denis played a prominent view. It introduced the new type of steam engine. The first official trip was a run from Nuremberg to Fürth after earlier test runs had been coducted (December 7, 1835). The German states lagged far behind Britain in industrialization at the time. They had to import the locomotive Adler from Britain. It was built by Stephenson and Co. in Newcastle upon Tyne. From this point the Germans begn to rapidly accelerate. In Britain and America building railways was mostly done by private comoanies with commercial iniatives. Germany was different. The Prussian military saw the military potential in a rail system, namely the rapid movement of troops and supplies. This was not the same in other coiuntries, namely because commercialk rail lines were few in number and did not necesarily go where the militaries wanted to move troops. The Prussuan Government got into raillroad building, proividing subsidies to ensure rail lines were built into areas that the military saw as strategic. The first important use of raillines occured (1860s). Rail transpoort played an important role in the Austro-Prussian War (1866). The other war in which railroads played an important role was the American Civil War (1861-65). In this case the rail lines were importat because they went vurtully everywhere in the North. America went oin to build the larget rail system in the world. The Germans developed the largest rail system n Europe. It would becme a centralized state system. The American rail system developed as a network consisting of a lrge numbers of relatively smll corporate lines, creating mny complictions and ineffcencies. German unuification occurred after the Franco-Prussian War (1871). Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who mastermined unification, advocated a unified state railway system. The German railway system develpped in the mid-19th century as regional systems in the various German states. Prussia developed the largest system. The government from the offset considered military factors as well as commercial matters. This is something that did not occur in America and Britain. The Prussian system thus was primarily built around military as well as industrial needs. The German rail system was state owned and managed by a German Government agency -- the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft (DRG usuallynoften DR for short). It was a commercial entrprise, only operated by the Government. The Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft (DRG usually DR for short) was the state-owned German National Railway. It was created after World War I from the regional railways of the individual states that had been united (1870). The DR is believed to have been the largest commercial enterprise in the capitalist world in the inter-War era. It was extensive, complex, and highly efficent. The old saw that the trains ran on time is an understatement.
Italy
Ottoman Empire
The Balkans were not strategically critical to Germany. There were some assetts such as natural resources, but relatively little industry. The Balkans provided the rail links to supply the Ottoman Empire with modern arms. The the Germans began courting the Ottomans since allowing the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia to lapse. There was one major resource for which the Balkans was crucial--oil. Coal had been the dominant energy source of the 19th century, fueling the steam engines that drove machinery, trains, and ships. It was key resource of the 19th century. Germany was resource poor. It had to import the major resources such as iron, copper cobalt, crome, tin, tungsten, rubber, cotton, and other materials neeed by its industry. Much of this was imported by maritime trade which was vulnerable to Royal Navy blockade. And with the lapse of the Reinsurance Treaty, now imports from Russia could be cut off. The one resource that Germany had in abundance was coal--meaning the main energy source was secure. This began to change after the turn-of-the 20th century. And far seeing officials preceived the coming change even earlier. A new energy source began to replace coal--oil. The Royal Navy guided by Fisher and Churchill began to replace its coal-fired funaces with oil fired turbines. There were many advantages to oil turbines. There was less smoke which could be easily spotted and ships had a greater range with oil and could be more quickly fueled. The increasing importnce of the gas-fueled intenal comustion engine all made oil the age of the future. But Germany had virtually no oil. The Ottoman Empire, however, did. The British had begun ro develop oil fields in Persia and it was clear that there was a substntial oil resource in Ottoman Mesopotamia. Thus the Germans began to think of a Berlin to Baghdad railway. The extension to Basra meant that oil could be be delivered to Germany that the Royal Navy could not interdict. Funding and engineering for the rail project was for the most part provided by German banks and companies. They built the Anatolian Railway (Anatolische Eisenbahn) connecting Constantinople, Ankara, and Konya in south central Anatolia, but far sjort of Baghdad (1890s). The Ottoman Empire also saw this as an important project, although oil was not a driving force. The Ottomans wanted to expand its shaky control over the Arabian Peninsula and to expand its influence across the Red Sea into the nominally Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt which was in fact a British Protectorate since the Urabi Revolt (1882). The Berlin to Baghdad Railway extending to Basra would have provided the Germans access to the eastern parts of their colonial empire, avoiding the British-French controlled Suez Canal. At the time World War I broke out, the railway was still 960 km (600 miles) short of Baghdad and even further short of Basra. Another serious problem was the Balkans. Serbia had expanded significantly and set astride the rail lines needed to connect German rail lines with the Ottoman rail system. Connections existed. The Orient Express was a long-distance passenger train service by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) (1883). Given tensions with Austria-Hungary and close relations with Russia, however, Serbia could be expected to cut rail links in an international crisis. The failure to complete the Berlin to Baghdad Railway adversely affected the German World war I effort. A lack of oil impaired the German war effort, restricting naval and air operations as well as the use of trucks and tank develooment. The last stretch to Baghdad was finally built in the late-1930s and the first train to travel from Istanbul to Baghdad departed in 1940. By this time, however, Mesopotamia and the oil fields were in the hands of the new Iraqi state and when Hitler and Stalin launched world war II the British managed to maintain their hold on the oilfields.
Russia had unique serious problems of its own. It as relatively land locked. Much of the country was covered by inhospitable Arctic Tundra and unlike many counties, the rivers could not be of much use. Most ran due south rather than east-west and thus could not be used to create a unified economic system. This could not have been more different than say the United States, another large country and in the 20th century a primary competitor. The invention of the railroads helped address a huge problem for Russia. This of course was true for other countries, but nowhere on the scale of Russia. The railroad solved the east-west problem. And notably, the longest rail journey in the world is the east-west oriented Trans-Siberian Railway. And the largely flat terrain of Russia was tailored made into solve Russia's transportation/communication problem. Notably even in the 20th century, Russia's major cities were not connected by improved roads. Something the Germans to their detriment only discovered when they invaded the Soviet Union. The Russian rail system led the country into the modern age. The development of steam locomotives began in Britain (1810s). It took two decades for the technology to reach Russia. The Cherepanovs were father and son inventors who built the first steam locomotive in Russia. The evenbexemplifues the difference between Russia and capitalist Britain. In Britain and Amrrica, these techological advances were commonly driven by market forces. In Russia, the first railway (Tsarskoye Selo Railway) was a toy for the Tsar (1837). By this time real economically valuable rail system was being built in Britain and launched in America. The system was built between Saint-Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo, 27 km long and linked the Imperial Palaces at Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk. 【Haywood, p. 1.】 Nothing more came of it. The next railroad in the TsaristEmoire was opened in Congress Poland (1845). It conncted Warsaw with the expanding Austrian rail system. This involved 328 km of track, using the standard European gauge (1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in). Russia would subsequently adopt broad gauge (1,524 mm or 5 ft). Thus the Polish systenm was , physically separated from other Russian railways. Britain at ffirst had a similar problem. Tsarist authorities created the Ministry of Communications (1842). It would manage the construction of Russia's second major railway line, the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway (1842-51). The railway linked the Imperial capital Saint-Petersburg and Moscow. The track gauge was 1,524 mm (5 ft) and this broad gage became the Russian standard gauge. Another major line was built from St. Petersburg to Warsaw (1853-62), creating the first rail connection with the rest of Europe. This began an era of substantial rail construction, especially in the 1860s and 90s. Tsar Alexander II gave the Ministry of Communications responsibility for the Department of Railways. Pavel Melnikov, Minister of Communications, played a key role in the expansion of the railway network throughout European Russia. This of course is where the vast mjority of the Tsaist Empire populastion was located. The Trans-Caspian railway connected the Russian rail system to the Capian Sea at Krasnovodsk. The Trans-Aral Railway extended the system into Kazakhstan (1906). Russia lost a war with Japan (1904-05). The Japanese victory was in part because of the inability to supply and support the Far Eastern Army. The Trans-Siberian Railway connecting European Russia to the Russian Far East was finally completed (1916). This connected with the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria. Eventually the southern branch connected with the Chinese rail systems. Tsar Nicholas took a specil interest in the rail system. He not only had a special train, but some special lines. Rail construction expanded, during World War I, but massive damage occurred as the Germns afvnced in to western areas of the Tsarist Empire, the area of the most dense rail connections.
Sources
Haywood, Richard. Russia Enters the Railway Age, 1842-1855 (1998).
