DEEDS OF A GREAT RAILWAY
A RECORD OF THE ENTERPRISE AND ACHIEVEMENTS
OF THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN
RAILWAY COMPANY DURING
THE GREAT WAR
By G. R. S. DARROCH
(CROIX DE GUERRE)
ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF MECHANICAL ENGINEER L. & N.W.R.
WITH A PREFACE BY
L. J. MAXSE
With Illustrations
"The Railway Executive Committee have
been too modest, the public do not know
what they achieved."—Engineering.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1920
All rights reserved
ERRATA.
Page 120, footnote, for said the Tsar, read said of the Tsar.
" 149, line 22, for Walschaerte valve appertaining, read Walschaerte valve gear appertaining.
" 162, line 23, for mileage of permanent available read mileage of permanent way available.
FOREWORD
"Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent," is a golden and an olden precept, one moreover that may, or may not, impel the aspiring rhetorician to beware the pitfalls which ever and anon threaten to ensnare his footsteps; and in compiling this little work the present Author has not been unmindful of at least two dilemmas with which he has felt himself to be faced; one, the danger of toying with that "little knowledge" which in the course of his professional duties he has been at pains—in fact could hardly fail—to acquire; the other, the debatable policy of presenting to a public, however indulgent, a subject of which, at the moment of writing, and in common with the majority of people, he is heartily tired, namely that of Munitions of War.
Prompted, however, by an ardent and innate love, dating from his earliest school-days, for railway-engines, trains, and everything appertaining thereto—a love, moreover, so compelling that at the romantic age of thirteen he applied for an engine-pass with which joyously to ride home for the holidays, and without which, owing to a polite but firm refusal, he suffered many a pang of disappointment—feeling, too, that railway enthusiasts, whether amateur or professional, cannot fail to evince a certain degree of interest in the truly amazing rôle enacted during the war by the locomotive departments of the great railway companies of the country, he has ventured to touch upon what may best, perhaps, be termed the "war effort" of the London and North-Western Railway, the premier British line, of which the locomotive G.H.Q. are, as is well known, to be found at Crewe.
In treating this subject, the Author has, as will be seen, refrained as far as possible from wearying the reader with interminable statistics, with technical dissertations descriptive of methods of manufacture, and other tedious prosaics. His aim has been rather to recall the hair-breadth escapes to which the nation was subjected; to show by means of various and authentic extracts from public utterances recorded in the Press of the day, and from recent publications, the necessities which arose contingent upon the trend of military operations and upon the arena of political pantomimes; and to illustrate the manner in which the London and North-Western Railway, predominant amongst the great railway and industrial enterprises of the British Isles, not only was able, but did, rise to the occasion, providing those sorely needed and essential "sinews" of war which were so largely instrumental in extricating the country from an extremely awkward predicament, as well as from a situation that was both ugly and menacing.
Gratia gratiam parit, but the Author regretfully feels that in the present instance he is debarred from showing, in any practical manner, his appreciation of the kindness of those who have assisted him in his task. Ingratitude is not infrequently held to be the "worst of vices," and undoubtedly "words are but empty thanks"; nevertheless the Author finds it a pleasure as well as a duty to acknowledge his deep sense of indebtedness to those members of the staff at Crewe Works for their spontaneous assistance in regard to information supplied.
He also takes this opportunity of tendering his sincere thanks to the following Editors for their kind permission to reproduce various extracts from the columns of their respective newspapers: The Editors of the Daily Mail, of the Morning Post, of the Pall Mall Gazette, of the Times, of Engineering, of the Engineer, of Modern Transport.
His best thanks are also due to the Managers of the following firms of Publishers, who have been good enough to allow reproductions of extracts from well-known books which, respectively, they have produced: Messrs. Blackwood, "An Airman's Outings," "Contact"; Messrs. Cassell, "The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916," Lord Jellicoe; Messrs. Constable, "1914," Lord French; Messrs. Flammarion, Paris, "Enseignements Psychologiques de la Guerre Européenne," M. Gustav Lebon; Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton, "Winged Warfare," Captain Bishop, V.C.; Messrs. Hutchinson, "My War Memories, 1914-1918," General Ludendorff.
He is equally indebted to Mr. C. J. Bowen-Cooke, C.B.E., for permission to reproduce extracts from his work "British Locomotives"; also to Mr. L. W. Horne, C.B.E., M.V.O., and his personal staff at Euston, who so kindly supplied statistics in regard to war-time traffic. Last, but not least, are due the Author's thanks to Mr. L. J. Maxse, Editor and Proprietor of the National Review, whose readiness to pen a few prefatory remarks is now most gratefully acknowledged.
Whilst in no way seeking to underrate the intelligence, or to disavow the knowledge, already possessed by those readers who may be sufficiently patient to bear with him, the Author would beg that at least they may not see cause to classify him with those who "wishing to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish."
Crewe, 1920.
PREFACE
The British cannot be accused, even by their bitterest critics, of blowing their own trumpet. Indeed, they fail in the opposite direction, and, as a general rule, carry their modesty to a point when it positively ceases to be a virtue, because it causes credit to go where it is not due. If we are unpopular as a nation—of which we are continually assured, though whether we are more disliked than other nations may be
The events of the Great War will gradually emerge in proper perspective, and things will then seem somewhat different to what they do to-day, when there is a certain and inevitable reaction which both enables pretenders to pose as saviours of Society, and encourages us to overlook much of which we may be legitimately proud because it has demonstrated afresh to a world that was forgetting it that the British are essentially a great people with a genius for everything appertaining to war, however lacking in the supreme art of making durable peace. In that day we shall want to know a great deal more than we do at present concerning the origin of a conflict which has been to some extent obscured by interested parties on both sides of the North Sea who have enveloped the palpitating pre-war crisis in a curtain of misrepresentation. It is common ground that Germany willed the war for which she was super-abundantly prepared, while Great Britain willed peace for which she was no less eager. Not for the first time in our history were we taken completely unawares—neither Government nor public having the faintest inkling of any impending storm, still less that civilisation was on the eve of a cataclysm of which it would feel the effects for more than one century.
As we look back on the Dark Ages of 1914, so graphically recalled by the author of this book, we can only marvel at our blindness and wonder how it could be that so many highly trained observers and experts on current events could entirely ignore a danger that, in the familiar French phrase, "leapt to the eyes." Of this strange phenomenon there has so far been no attempt at any explanation, no amende from those "great wise and eminent men"—not confined to any particular political party—whose business it should have been to see what stared them in the face, altogether apart from the fact that the Government of the day commanded that abundance of accurate inside information concerning international affairs, which, from generation to generation, is at the service of His Majesty's Ministers. It would be some consolation and compensation for all we have endured during this portentous period were there any guarantee that no such catastrophe could recur because the terrible lesson of 1914 to 1918 had been assimilated by Responsible Statesmen who ask so much from the Community that we are entitled to expect something from them in return.
If we cannot afford to forget the political aspect of that crisis, it is infinitely more agreeable to contemplate the miraculous manner in which "England the Unready" buckled to and transformed herself into the mighty machine whose hammer blows on every element ultimately turned the scale, and with the aid of Allies and Associates converted what at the outset looked like "World Power" for Germany into her "Downfall."
Of the part played by the Fighting Men we know a good deal, and the more we know the more we admire. Of the wonderful organisation largely improvised, that placed and kept vast forces in the field all over the world, we know next to nothing, partly because the more dramatic aspects of the war have naturally attracted the attention of its historians, partly because those with the necessary knowledge have been too busy re-converting the machine to pacific purposes to be able to write its war record.
In this attractive volume, Mr. Darroch, Assistant to the Chief Mechanical Engineer in the Locomotive Department of the London and North Western Railway Company at Crewe,—who has enjoyed the advantage of two full years' active service overseas,—tells us in so many words how our premier Railway Company "did its bit." Every factor in that great organisation was subordinated to the common object, and the Works at Crewe as urgency arose became a Munitions Department. It is a wonderful and stimulating story—made all the more interesting because the author continually bears in mind that it is part of a still larger whole and breaks what is entirely new ground to the vast majority of the reading public.
There is a desire in some quarters to banish the war as an evil dream—to bury its sacred memories, to forget all about it. If we followed this shallow advice, we should merely prove ourselves to be unworthy of the sublime sacrifice, thanks to which we escaped destruction, besides making a recurrence of danger inevitable. To our author, who is an enthusiast in his calling, this book has been a labour of love, and he has certainly made us all his debtors by this brilliant and entrancing chapter of the history of the London and North-Western.
L. J. MAXSE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE Foreword v Preface ix I. Being Mainly Historical 1 II. Armoured Trains 39 III. Mechanical Miscellanea 51 IV. The Graze-Fuse 75 V. Care of the Cartridge Case 83 VI. Gunnery and Projectiles (Rudimentary Notes and Notions) 93 VII. The Crewe Tractor 127 VIII. "Hullo! America"LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE C. J. Bowen-Cooke, Esq., C.B.E., Chief Mechanical Engineer, London and North-Western Railway Frontispiece Armoured Train 45 Various Types of Artificial Limbs 68 The Protector, or Mine-sweeping, Paravane 70 Gauges made at Crewe and used for the Manufacture of Graze-Fuses 78 Reversible Mechanical Tapping Machine for Fuse Caps Designed at Crewe 78 The Graze-Fuse, shewn in section 80 Rolling out Dents in 4·5-inch Fired Cartridge Case 89 "Patriot."—A Typical Example of the "Claughton" Class of 6´ 6´´, Six Wheels Coupled Express Passenger Engine with Superheated Boiler; Four h.p. Cylinders, 15-3/4´´ bore x 26´´ stroke; Boiler Pressure, 175 lbs. per sq. inch; Maximum Tractive Force, 24,130 lbs.; Weight of Engine and Tender in Working Order, 117 tons 99 6-inch Shell Manufacture in the New Fitting Shop, Crewe Works 112 A Crewe Tractor in Road Trim 130 A Crewe Tractor as Light-Railway Engine on Active Service 130 Limber Hooks: Illustrating Duplex Method of Drop Forging 145 Trunnion Brackets for 6-inch Howitzer Gun, Drop Forgings 145 The 4-ton Drop Hammer 148 Naval Gun weighing 68 tons. A Typical Instance of War-time Traffic 173 Breakdown Crane and Lifting Tackle for Shipping Small Goods Engines 178 An Overseas Locomotive Panel "Severely Wounded" 178 Type of Overhead Travelling Crane, Built at Crewe and Supplied to the Overseas "Rearward Services"DEEDS OF A GREAT RAILWAY
CHAPTER I
BEING MAINLY HISTORICAL
"England woke at last, like a giant, from her slumbers,
And she turned to swords her plough-shares, and her pruning hooks to spears,
While she called her sons and bade them
Be the men that God had made them,
Ere they fell away from manhood in the careless idle years."
Thus it was that on that fateful morning of August 5th, 1914, England awoke, awoke to find herself involved in a struggle, the magnitude of which even the most well-informed, the most highly placed in the land, failed utterly, in those early days, to conceive or to grasp; in death-grips with the most formidable and long-since-systematically prepared fighting machine ever organised in the history of the world by master-minds, ruthless and cunning, steeped in the science of war. England awoke, dazed, incredulous, unprepared; in fact, to quote the very words of the Premier, who, when Minister of Munitions, was addressing a meeting at Manchester in the summer of 1915, "We were the worst organised nation in the world for this war."
The worst organised nation! And this, in spite of repeated public utterances and threats coming direct to us from the world-aggressors, as to the import of which there never should, nor indeed could, have been any shadow of doubt.
"Neptune with the trident is a symbol for us that we have new tasks to fulfil ... that trident must be in our fist"; thus the German Emperor at Cologne in 1907. "Germany is strong, and when the hour strikes will know how to draw her sword"; Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, in the Reichstag, 1911. Or to burrow further back into the annals of the last century, one recalls a challenge, direct and unmistakable, from the pen of so prominent a leader of German public opinion as Professor Treitshke, "We have reckoned with France and Austria—the reckoning with England has yet to come; it will be the longest and the hardest."
The reckoning came, swiftly and with deadly purpose. Necessity knew no law, Belgian territory was violated, Paris was threatened, the Prussian spear pointing straight at the heart of France.
Unprepared, taken unawares, and, but for the sure shield of defence afforded by her Fleet, well-nigh negligible, England awoke.
Happily, the nation as a whole was sound; though hampered as it was by a Peace-at-any-price section of the Press, and honeycombed though it had become with the burrowings of the "yellow English," that "lecherous crew" who, naturalised or unnaturalised, like snakes in the grass, sought, once the hour had struck, to sell the country of their adoption, the man-in-the-street little knew, and probably never will know with any degree of accuracy, how near England came to "losing her honour, while Europe lost her life."
To reiterate all that was written at the time with the one object of keeping England out of the fray, of making her desert her friends, and of causing her, "after centuries of glorious life, to go down to her grave unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," is naturally beyond the scope of this necessarily brief résumé of the status quo ante. But, lest we forget, lest we relapse once again to our former and innate characteristics of sublime indifference and of complacent laissez-faire, heedless of that oft-repeated warning, "They will cheat you yet, those Junkers! Having won half the world by bloody murder, they are going to win the other half with tears in their eyes, crying for mercy,"1 a cursory glance through one or two of the more glaring and self-condemnatory essays at defection from the one true and only path consistent with the nation's honour and integrity, may not be held amiss.
Literæ scriptæ manent, and so he who runs may still read the remonstrance of a high dignitary of the Church, to wit, the Bishop of Lincoln, as set forth in the Daily News and Leader, August 3rd, 1914—"For England to join in this hideous war would be treason to civilisation, and disaster to our people"; or this reassuring sop from the Archbishop of York on November 21st, 1914—"I have a personal memory of the Emperor very sacred to me." The strange views of a leading daily newspaper are typical of the "Party of dishonour." In its columns in August, 1914, we read, "The question of the integrity of Belgium is one thing; its neutrality is quite another. We shall not easily be convinced ... that the sacrosanctity of Belgian soil from the passage of an invader is worth the sacrifice of so much that mattered so much more to Englishmen." "Cold feet" was an affliction from which the same journal was evidently suffering on the same date, for "from all parts of the kingdom we are hearing of businesses that are about to close down if Great Britain goes to war. It is going to be an appalling catastrophe." In this respect, too, the Parliamentary correspondent of the Daily Chronicle doubtless felt that the spilling of ink was likely to be more profitable than the shedding of blood, as evinced by his inspiring little contribution on August 3rd: "Whatever the outcome of the present tension, I believe the Cabinet have definitely decided not to send our Expeditionary Force abroad. Truth to tell, the issues which have precipitated the conflict which threatens to devastate the whole of Europe are not worth the bones of a single soldier." This policy of "scuttle" must ever remain as shameful as it is unintelligible to the ordinary self-respecting Britisher; but as to the nature of the plea put forward by the Daily News, August 4th, there can be no vestige of doubt: "If we remained neutral we should be, from the commercial point of view, in precisely the same position as the United States. We should be able to trade with all the belligerents (so far as the war allows of trade with them); we should be able to capture the bulk of their trade in neutral markets; we should keep our expenditure down; we should keep out of debt; we should have healthy finances."
It has been said that "each country and each epoch has the Press which it deserves"; but although God may have given us our Press just as He has given us our relations, at
On "Black Saturday" (August 1st, 1914) the position was literally "touch and go," as may be gathered from the following:—"Powerful City financiers, whom it was my duty to interview this Saturday (August 1st) on the financial situation, ended the Conference with an earnest hope that Britain would keep out of it" (Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an interview with Mr. Henry Beech Needham, Pearson's Magazine, March, 1915).
Clearly, international finance had all but succeeded in winning the day for the Fatherland. S.O.S. must assuredly have been the signal subconsciously sent out by the staunch little minority in the Asquith Cabinet; for when the tide was at its lowest ebb, when England's honour literally hung in the balance, and while Mr. Asquith was still waiting and wobbling, there came Mr. Bonar Law's memorable letter as voicing the opinion of the Government Opposition, and of which the plain, outspoken meaning may be said to have had the effect of definitely turning the scale:—"Dear Mr. Asquith, Lord Lansdowne and I feel it our duty to inform you that in our opinion, as well as in that of all the colleagues whom we have been able to consult, it would be fatal to the honour and security of the United Kingdom to hesitate in supporting France and Russia at the present juncture, and we offer our unhesitating support to the Government in any measures they may consider necessary for that object. Yours very truly, A. Bonar Law."
The tonic effect of this dose of stimulant was as immediate as it was invigorating, for "on Sunday (August 2nd)," as Sir Edward Grey announced the following day in the House of Commons (cp. the Times, August 4th, 1914), "I gave the French ambassador the assurance that if the German Fleet comes into the Channel or through the North Sea to undertake hostile operations against the French coasts or shipping, the British Fleet will give all the protection in its power." Further, although "we have not yet made an engagement to send the Expeditionary Force out of the country" we were not letting the grass grow under our feet, for "the mobilisation of the Fleet has taken place; that of the Army is taking place." All self-respecting Englishmen were able to breathe again; we were at least to be permitted to do our bare duty towards our neighbour; we could, in fact, once again look him in the face. But the Almighty indeed "moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform," and it needed the blatant blundering of the bullet-headed Boche, which throughout the prolonged agony has proved one of the greatest assets of the Entente cause, more often than not being instrumental in saving ourselves in spite of ourselves, finally to ensure that we fulfilled our treaty, as well as our moral, obligations. Our erstwhile "checker" of armament expenditure took very good care, subsequently, to remove the possibility of any doubt lingering on this score—"This I know is true.... I would not have been a party to a declaration of war, had Belgium not been invaded, and I think I can say the same thing for most, if not all, of my colleagues.... If Germany had been wise, she would not have set foot on Belgian soil. The Liberal Government then would not have intervened" (Mr. Lloyd George, in an interview with Mr. Harry Beech Needham, Pearson's Magazine, March, 1915).
Wednesday, August 6th, is a day that will remain "momentous in the history of all times," for owing to the incursion within Belgian territory of German troops "His Majesty's Government have declared to the German Government that a state of war exists between Great Britain and Germany as from 11 p.m. on August 4th" (cp. the Times, August 5th, 1914).
Thenceforth eyes became riveted on the North Sea, thoughts centred on Belgium. Liège, the first stumbling-block in the path of the invader, was holding at bay the oncoming enemy hordes, thousands of whom advancing in close formation were made blindly to bite the dust.
Eagerly the newspapers were bought up; every fresh message ticked off on the "tape" was greedily devoured. A French success in Alsace, a German submarine sunk, fighting on the Meuse and in the Vosges, Lorraine invaded by the French—these and other announcements, acting as apperitiffs to whet the appetite, added to the excitement of the hour. Pressure of public opinion had ousted Lord Haldane from the War Office; Kitchener, "with an inflexible will, a heart that never fails at the blackest moments, a spirit that time and again has been proved unconquerable," becoming Secretary of State for War. With the approval of His Majesty the King, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe assumed supreme command of the Home Fleets, Field-Marshal Sir John French was nominated to the command of the British Expeditionary Force. Yet as day succeeded day and little or nothing became visibly apparent, vainly on all hands, but with increasing persistence, was asked the question, "Why did not England move?" Why this inaction, this seeming hesitation? The Fleet had been as if swallowed up by the waters. All was silence everywhere. At midnight on August 12th we were at war with Austria, and although "the general attitude of the nation is what it ever has been in time of trial, sedate, sensible, and self-possessed," the Times of August 15th, anxious, no doubt, to ease the existing tension, openly commented on the fact that "all sorts of absurd and unfounded rumours have been circulated by light-headed and irresponsible individuals," throwing ridicule on "dire reports of mishaps suffered by the Allies, of German victories, of insurrections in the French capital, and even of heavy British casualties by land and sea." Three more days "petered out," however, before all doubts were dispelled, and these "dire reports" shown to be totally void and without foundation. On Tuesday, August 18th, or exactly a fortnight from the declaration of war, it was with mingled feelings of gratitude and of relief that we read in our morning paper, "The following statement was issued last night by the Press Bureau—'The Expeditionary Force, as detailed for foreign service, has been landed on French soil. The embarkation, transportation, and disembarkation of men and stores were alike carried through with the greatest possible precision, and without a single casualty.'"
Only those who had been intimately connected with, or actually concerned in, this the first move in the great drama were aware of the intense amount of activity that had been crowded into the breathless space of those two short weeks. The ordinary man-in-the-street, the strap-hanger, the lady in the stalls, the girl in the taxi, all were purposely kept in the dark; the great British Public knew nothing.
Those of us who happily foresaw the historical interest and value that must surely accrue in the years to come from the preservation of the newspapers of the day may yet ponder in reminiscent mood headlines and paragraphs, descriptive of events and portraying emotions, current and constraining, throughout those August days.
On August 18th, the Times, habitually dignified, lucid and exemplary, touches on the occasion in a vein deserving as it is decorous: "The veil is at last withdrawn from one of the most extraordinary feats in modern history—the dispatch of a large force of armed men across the sea in absolute secrecy. What the nation at large knew it knew only from scraps of gossip that filtered through the foreign Press. From its own Press, from its own Government, it learned nothing; and patiently, gladly, it maintained, of its own accord, the conspiracy of silence." It was true, in fact inevitable, that "every day for many days now mothers have been saying good-bye to sons,
Comparisons are odious, and it is obviously without any desire to detract from the laudable performances of others in the accomplishment of this, "one of the most extraordinary feats in modern history," that reference of a special character is here made to the singularly high state of efficiency obtaining on the great British railway companies, which alone rendered possible so remarkable an achievement as that of marshalling at a moment's notice, and dispatching, the many trains necessary for the conveyance to the different ports of embarkation within the United Kingdom of the four Divisions of all arms and one of Cavalry of which the original British Expeditionary Force was composed.
It is true that on the outbreak of war, the State, at least in name, assumed control of the railways, and this by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed in 1871 (34 and 35 Victoria, c. 86) "for the Regulation of the Regular and Auxiliary Forces of the Crown," section XVI. of which enacted that "When Her Majesty, by order in Council, declares that an emergency has arisen in which it is expedient for the public service that Her Majesty's Government should have control over the railroads of the United Kingdom, or any of them, the Secretary of State may, by warrant under his hand, empower any person or persons named in such warrant to take possession in the name or on behalf of Her Majesty of any railroad in the United Kingdom ... and the directors, officers, and servants of any such railroad shall obey the directions of the Secretary of State as to the user of such railroad ... for Her Majesty's service."
A previous "Act for the better Regulation of Railways, and for the Conveyance of Troops" (5 and 6 Victoriae 30th July, a.d., 1842, cap. LV. section XX.), similarly declares—"Be it enacted, 'That whenever it shall be necessary to move any of the Officers or Soldiers of Her Majesty's Forces of the Line, Ordnance Corps, Marines, Militia, or the Police Force, by any Railway, the Directors thereof shall and are hereby required to permit such Forces respectively with their Baggage, Stores, Arms, Ammunition, and other Necessaries and Things, to be conveyed at the usual Hours of starting, at such Prices or upon such Conditions as may from Time to Time be contracted for between the Secretary at War and such Railway Companies for the Conveyance of such Forces, on the Production of a Route or Order for the Conveyance signed by the proper Authorities."
Hence it will be seen that, always subject to the provisions of the National Defence Act of 1888 (51 and 52 Victoriae, c. 31), which simply ensured that naval and military requirements should take precedence over every other form of traffic on the railways whenever an Order for the embodiment of the Militia was in force, the actual working of the various departments of the different railway companies when war was declared remained, to all intents and purposes, identical with that prevailing in the piping times of peace, that is to say in the hands of the individual "directors, officers and servants" of the respective railways, with the result that in the absence of all attempt at interference on the part of official bureaucracy, "all went merry as a marriage-bell"; staffs worked day and night; confusion was conspicuous by its absence; smoothly, yet unrehearsed, proceeded the unparalleled programme, until the last man had been detrained, the last gun hauled aboard the transport lying in readiness at the quay; and in due course, as has already been mentioned, "the Contemptibles" were landed in France without a single casualty.
Whilst touching lightly upon the evident and praiseworthy preparedness and consequent ability of the great railway companies to deal with "the emergency" the moment it arose, it will perhaps not be uninteresting to inquire briefly into the circumstances dating back to the "fifties" of the last century from which were evolved and brought gradually to a state as nearly approaching perfection as is humanly possible the organisation necessary for the speedy and safe transport of troops by rail in time of war.
History ever repeats itself, and it has invariably been the case that the imminent peril of invasion rather than any grandiose scheme of foreign conquest has been the determining factor in arousing that martial spirit, so prone to lying dormant, but which, handed down to us by our forbears, undoubtedly exists in the fibre of every true-born Britisher, and which has assuredly been the means of raising England to her present pinnacle of greatness.
The three more obviously parallel instances in modern times of the manifestation of this trait so happily characteristic of the nation are to be found, first and foremost perhaps in connection with the present-day world conflict, when in response to the late Lord Kitchener's first appeal for recruits thousands flocked to the colours. Apposite indeed was the following brief insertion to be found in the personal column of the Times, August 26th, 1914: "'Flannelled fools at the wicket and muddied oafs at the goal' have now an opportunity of proving whether Mr. Kipling was wrong." They seized the opportunity in no uncertain manner; incontrovertibly they proved him wrong, "The first hundred thousand," or "Kitchener's mob" as they were affectionately termed, being speedily enrolled, and forming the nucleus of the immense armies which eventually took the field.
Analogous to this effort may be taken the crisis occurring in the middle of the last century, when, in the year 1858, out of what may best be described perhaps as a "storm in a tea-cup," there loomed the threat of invasion by our friends from across the Channel, resulting in a scare the immediate outcome of which was the formation of the Volunteer Force, which quickly reached a total of 150,000 men.
Although this particular crisis must be considered as bearing more directly on present-day matters of interest in view of the fact that the importance of steam-traction by rail relative to warlike operations commenced at that time to make itself felt, the extent to which the nation seemed likely to be imperilled was, nevertheless, scarcely to be compared with the danger that threatened during what may be termed the closing phase of the Napoleonic era, when in the year 1805 massed in camp at Boulogne was the flower of the French Army equipped with quantities of flat-bottomed boats ready for its conveyance across the Channel. To counter this formidable menace was mustered in England a force of 300,000 Volunteers, imbued with the same fervent ardour, the same spirit of intense patriotism and self-sacrifice that has ever been evinced by the country in her hour of peril. How the menace was in fact averted, and the last bid for world-domination by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte frustrated, is common knowledge, the memorable action off Cap Trafalgar determining once and for all the inviolability of England's shores. "England," exclaimed Pitt, "has saved herself by her courage; she will save Europe by her example."
The