Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1909 — The Railroad in War. [ARTICLE]

The Railroad in War.

Battles are of very secondary importance in modern warfare, says the Sunset Magazine. The rattle of fire and the booming of guns is the spectacular side of this greatest of all games, and to the fighting-line is given all the glory. But battles and bullets are really of very small importance, and are very secondary to the railroad in a campaign. Kitchener of Khartoum conquered the Soudan with a railroad. His bullets merely helped him to build it, in sweeping back the hordes of fanatical dervishes as the advance guard of laborers might clear the sage-brush for a desert line. Division after div’rion of troops have been thrown into the great wastes up the Nile towards Omdurman, only to be temporarily successful and finally driven back. This great African problem was not solved until the railroad built by Kitchener and his men, In khaki made the British occupation a permanency. Once that railroad was laid and guarded the force fighting at rail head was able to hold Its own against any contingency. The greatest problem of militarism of Europe is that of the mobilization of the greatest armies. Every military power on ttie Continent has its plan written down to the letter, so that with a single word of command the wheels of a great railway system are set humming with activity as they work out the plans long prearranged in bringing their great armies into striking position. The mobilization of these great armies of Europe Is but the systematized work of train dispatchers.