Page:Fred Arthur McKenzie - British Railways and the War (1917).djvu/10



RITISH railways have played a great and splendid part in the war. Working with depleted staffs under war conditions, they have enabled England to move millions of men and millions of tons of munitions with the utmost rapidity and with an entire absence of confusion. They have met to the full every demand. They have sent their trained workers to the colours by the many score of thousands. They have torn up their lines and given their locomotives and rolling stock for the service of the Army in France. Sinking ancient rivalries, they have come together, working as one for the common good. The Government took control of the lines when hostilities began, but Government control merely provided the agency through which the railwaymen themselves rallied to employ their resources as an effective instrument of war.

The British and German railway organisations before the war presented a striking contrast. German railways were almost wholly State owned. Many of them were built primarily for purposes not of commerce, but of strategy. To the German Great General Staff the railway was one of the foundations of national war preparation. The railway staffs were selected from the Army, and were virtually managed as a branch of