Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/46

 34 Sweden at that time; and I myself have met an enterprising man in Petrograd who made quite a fortune by importing horseshoes and nails from Sweden as personal luggage. Incidentally it may be mentioned that at the end of 1916 horseshoes became so scarce as to be only available for army horses; and the horses in the towns, despite the cobble stones and uneven roads, had to go without.

The smaller the number of serviceable locomotives and trucks, the greater the pressure on those which were left, and the greater the rate at which they fell into disrepair. It is impossible to give exact figures, but it is safe to say that just before the Revolution only a fraction of the original rolling-stock, including locomotives, was fit for use. It is worth noting that the breakdown of the railways on such an unprecedented scale, though characteristic of Russia's economic position and of the defects of the Tsarist administration, is, after all, not peculiar to Russia. A dislocation of the railways can be observed in all the belligerent countries. In France, for example, the shortage of railway materials would be felt most acutely were it not for the extensive supplies of rolling-stock, etc., from England.

This process of depreciation, the gradual wearing out of railway materials and the inability to replace worn-out parts, was thus the main cause of the breakdown of Russia's transport system. But the process was hastened by great losses of material due to the incompetence and mismanagement of the military authorities. Sometimes, for want of sidings, a great congestion on the railways leading to the front had to be relieved by the wholesale destruction of hundreds of waggons. And thousands more were dismantled and turned into winter quarters for the troops. Add to that, an enormous number of trucks and locomotives were abandoned to the enemy in the great retreat of 1915.

The process of attrition which was so marked on the railways took place in all the other industries, with this difference, that the Government made even less attempt