Kindle Notes & Highlights
On 1 August 1914 the ASC comprised 498 officers and 5,933 other ranks; •by 1 August 1915 there were 5,224 officers and 156,190 other ranks; •by 1 August 1916 there were 6,144 officers and 236,585 other ranks; •by 1 August 1917 there were 9,195 officers and 314,552 other ranks;
by 1 August 1918 there were 10,477 officers and 314,693 other ranks; and •by 1 August 1919 the figures had been reduced to 5,9...
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Two-wheeled carts,
For heavy loads the army used four-wheeled wagons
it was usually better to employ the types of transport in common use in each location, as these will have evolved over the years to best suit the terrain.
General supply wagons were open-topped and their loads were kept dry (and secure from sticky fingers) with a tarpaulin. These wagons would carry all the necessities for living and fighting, including food and drink, tents, firewood, clothing and ammunition for both artillery and small arms.
Other horse-drawn vehicles in use were lighter limbered wagons, water carts and mobile kitchens, but all these required a reasonably levelled and surfaced road. Elsewhere pack animals were used. On the Western Front, these were horses and mules, with a few donkeys, although the latter could carry only small loads compared with the others.
The figures shown below are not specified as being horse-drawn, but from the context, and the fact that motorised lorries and railway rolling stock are listed separately, it is probable that these are all horse-drawn:
The average load for a pack mule is a little over 200lb, with all but 160lb of this being the pack saddle; larger mules can carry up to 320lb in total, smaller ones 120lb. They move at a speed of 2½–3½ miles per hour and can cover around 15–20 miles a day on good surfaces; a day’s journey in mountainous country with bad roads was 10–12 miles loaded, 15–16 miles unloaded.
Each type of pack animal needs its own type of saddle, and these also vary according to the load. Most pack animals were mules, which can carry about 200lb and know exactly what that weight feels like, often refusing to budge if the load is heavier.
The collar needs to be fitted to the individual horse by adjusting the padding, so they are not used in battlefield situations where the loss of a draught horse cannot be rectified simply by finding a spare horse. The other type is the breast harness, which is easily adaptable to any horse. As its name implies, it is a substantial item which fits round the horse’s breast, with straps to hold it in place over the neck just before the wither, and to connect it to the traces. In some cases, where the ‘driver’ rides, further straps may connect from the traces to a crupper. The harness is kept in
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Apart from their use to provide multiple horse power to a wagon, they are essential for moving artillery pieces which often have to change direction at speed. Bridles for draught horses were much the same as those for ridden horses, but with much longer reins.
As well as wagons to carry goods, horses were used to move artillery pieces until mechanical devices came into use during the course of the war. For the heavy guns, this usually meant vehicles fitted with caterpillar tracks.
The rough rule for the number of horses required for each gun says that the size of the ball dictates the number of horses: four-pounder guns needed four horses, six-pounders six and nine-pounders twelve. An artillery battery of six heavy guns could involve as many as 200 horses, as well as those for ammunition and supply wagons plus up to ten for the officers and support staff such as surgeons and farriers.
In the late nineteenth century, some estimates were made for transportation needs for a six-day period.
In addition, each division of the army had some transport under its own command, known as the divisional train, which carried stores and supplies, providing the main supply line to the brigades of artillery, infantry and other attached units. There were 364 ACS companies of this sort. The train moved with the division.
Another booklet on march discipline was issued in the First World War for ‘officers who have not as yet had any practical experience, so that when they are called upon to perform any of the duties mentioned, they will have some knowledge of what points require
special attention’. This suggests that the topic was not part of the general training for officers. Proper march discipline had two purposes: to ensure the well-being of the animals, and to avoid interference with other traffic.
The care of horses on the march was of prime importance, in particular the avoidance of unnecessary fatigue (dependant on the military situation at the time) by riders dismounting at short stops and walking with their horses on steep hills, up or down.
It was preferable that the distance should be covered fairly rapidly; too slow meant the weight was on the horse’s back for longer.
Rations and forage were carried with the column for the first night, but at least one spare wagon accompanied the column to carry hay, and there were also travelling kitchens, at a rate of four per battalion. These might have waterproof covers erected if needed, but in that case the cooking pots should be empty.
As early as 1914 the BEF used London buses (with internal combustion engines) in transport emergencies to span the gap between the railhead and the battlefield.
was finally decided that they were not suitable as ‘an officer’s mount’. Instead, they were mainly used for dispatch work and that was to become their main role during the war.
Omnibuses were used by the British Army to carry personnel, initially from towns and cities in the UK to the Western Front, and then for tactical movements of large numbers of troops within the theatre. They were also used to transport men from the front to their billets, and for this reason (among
Before August 1914 the War Office had only eighty mechanical vehicles. During the period from 9 August 1914 to 2 March 1919 the following numbers were sent to France:
It soon became obvious that the subsidised vehicles would not be enough, so the government took steps to control and increase the output of the vehicle manufacturers in the UK.
By this time petrol consumption had risen to more than 2,000,000 gallons per month and filling installations were started in France, with tank storage at Rouen and Calais with filling machinery and can and case manufacturies. In addition, 4-gallon cans were tried but found unsatisfactory.
Until 1917 all the petrol for home use was bought from the principal distributing firms, and in France from the Asiatic Petroleum Company, both amounting to 2,000,000 gallons of motor transport fuel and 600,000 gallons of aviation fuel per month. After this time most of the fuel came from America.
During the battle of the Somme, when the main road to Verdun was under German fire and the railway line could only carry a small amount of traffic, men and materiel had to be transported over the 45 miles from Bar le Duc to Verdun on the only main road. The volume of traffic moving daily along this road led the French to conclude that the only solution was to take over the road completely and treat it like a railway. The plan was to close a 45-mile stretch of the road to civilian traffic, dividing it into 7- or 8-mile sections, all connected by telephone. Each section would have a traffic
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down and a marche table like those used on railways was drawn up. Columns of lorries then entered the section according to a timetable, with their progress signalled ahead. Sidings were provided for relief lorries to pick up the loads of any lorries which broke down, and breakdown gangs were kept available to clear the road. Lorries were never unloaded on the main road but were diverted off it; to save time waiting for horse-drawn wagons to collect it, they discharged their loads into dumps for later collection.
If a lorry held twenty men, a battalion of 1,000 men needed a ‘stable’ of fifty lorries, plus some extras to replace break-downs.
There was a standing order that guns should not be hauled by lorry except in cases of great tactical necessity, and then the lorries must be driven very slowly and only on good roads.
When it first arrived in France in August 1914, the BEF had no control over the French railways or ports, having to use those which had been allocated to them. This became a problem as soon as the numbers of troops increased. There were 81,000 in August 1914, 269,711 by December 1914, and nearly 1,000,000 by the following December. This vast increase in troop numbers led to the splitting of the British Army into five new armies, the first two appearing in March 1915; by 1918 three more had been formed. There was also a sixth army,
Railways were the only feasible way to carry the bulk stores required. By 1918 each division of about 12,000 men needed about 1,000 tons of supplies every day. This was the equivalent of two fifty-truck trains, each of which could carry as much as 150 lorries. Problems began about 7 miles from the front, which was within the range of enemy artillery, so main supply dumps had to be established before this point was reached, partly because the gap could not be filled reasonably with horse-drawn transport, as horses could not maintain a daily round trip to and from the railheads. Mechanical
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Lack of forward planning meant train use tended to be ad hoc. Before the Somme offensive, between five and twelve ammunition trains per day had been sufficient, but after mid-1916 the number grew rapidly to between fortyfive and ninety. Many ammunition problems stemmed from the transportation system, which developed from the lower demands of 1914–1915 and the ‘daily usage’ restrictions. The increase in ammunition production encouraged field commanders to use more and demand more still. But Boulogne could handle only 2,000 tons per day, so sending 5,000 just led to queues of ships awaiting
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making and maintenance, quarrying, on the railways and at the base ports, plus forestry and various tactical jobs at the front. The total required for September 1916 was 64,500 men but in August there were only 52,000. The difficulty was in finding enough men to do this work without taking them from fighting units. Amongst the solutions proposed by the new works directorate was the use of women in clerical jobs in France and as cooks, and the use of prisoners of war.
At the end of 1916, when he found that the detailed work required in the role of Director General of Military Railways and Director General of Transport, not to mention oversight of docks, canals and roads, was consuming too much of his time, Geddes handed over much of the work of controlling the military railways to Sir W. Granet, previously the General Manager
Part of this reorganisation was intended to speed up the turnaround of supply vessels at ports. Some 1,000 tons per day were being landed at Havre and Calais, plus food, ammunition and engineers’ supplies. One branch of the Transportation Directorate was run by a Director of Docks. This was not entirely successful; rapid emptying of ships was considered more important than careful checking of goods arriving, and much had to be written off as losses in transit.
The make-up of the train was standardised (e.g one passenger coach, thirty covered trucks, seventeen flat trucks and two brake vans; no alteration of this make-up was allowed. These were called ‘type’ trains; a number of these type trains were always kept empty and ready for use at central locations.
Towards the end of 1916 the construction of light railways was under way. By September 1917 the weekly tonnage carried on them had increased to over 200,000 tonnes. Much of this was ammunition carried laterally from other lines close to the front (usually at 6,000 yards behind the front).
These included 610 locomotives, 547 tenders, 22 passenger carriages, 19,858 railway trucks, 921 brake vans, 394 covered vans, 213 bogie trucks and 333 ambulance carriages.
Although canals had long been seen as a useful way to move non-urgent goods and other slow traffic, in practice they were not. The barges only moved in day-time, but not if there was a severe frost or fog, or if heavy rain had raised the water-level, making it impossible for the barges to get under low bridges. They were, however, useful as floating stores for reserve supplies, and could even be used on occasion as pontoons for bridging. When air-raids started, canals and especially locks were a prime target. There was little to be done to protect them except for anti-aircraft guns, but there
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He pointed out that the French system was designed for large-scale campaigns in highly civilised countries, while the British system was based on experiences in what he politely termed ‘less civilised countries, where everything had to be got from a remote overseas base’, specifically in South Africa.
The worst deficiency of the British system, as laid down in the manual, was its lack of detail; for instance, whilst units were supposed to make
At this time the British ordnance department did not, as did the French, divide its stores of supplies into the relevant classes, merely dividing by provision,
At the beginning of the war the numbers and types of gun were quite small: 30 13-pounders, 324 18-pounders, 24 60-pounders (four per battery) and 108 4.5in howitzers. By 1918 these figures had increased to 5,037 guns in calibres ranging from 6-pounders to 60-pounders, and 3in to 14in howitzers.
By the end of 1918 the initial thirty-two heavy batteries and six siege batteries had increased to 117 and 401 respectively.
There were also some surplus naval guns which were mounted on train trucks to provide mobile long-range artillery. These included 9.2in, 12in and 14in guns; 12in guns could fire an 850lb shell 12 miles, and 14in guns 18 miles.
These artillery pieces used ammunition on a scale which Forbes described as ‘beggaring adjectives’. In the last three months
The shortage of ammunition often caused frantic activity.
