"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afarDrag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;Or, on wide-waving wings expanded, bearThe flying chariot through the field of air!"
"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afarDrag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;Or, on wide-waving wings expanded, bearThe flying chariot through the field of air!"
"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or, on wide-waving wings expanded, bear
The flying chariot through the field of air!"
Evidently the "Jules Verne" of his day, Erasmus Darwin was physician as well as poet; his ideas, so we are told, were indeed "original and contain the germs of important truths," to which may, in some measure, be attributed thegenius of his grandson, the famous Charles R. Darwin, discoverer of natural selection.
It is true the petrol engine has latterly proved its more ready adaptability to the purpose of road locomotion and of aviation, but the fact remains that steam to this day eminently preserves her predominance in the world of ocean and railway travel.
Seldom does one find the evolution of any one particular branch of scientific endeavour traced in so alluring as well as instructive a manner as proves to be the case, when, taking down from the nearest bookshelf that delightful little volume "British Locomotives," one pursues the author, Mr. C. J. Bowen-Cooke (now C.B.E. and Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North-Western Railway), with never-abating interest through his treatise on the early history of the modern railway engine. He tells us that "the first self-moving locomotive engine of which there is any authenticated record was made by a Frenchman named Nicholas Charles Cugnot, in the year 1769. It was termed a 'land-carriage,' and was designed to run on ordinary roads." Although we learn that "there are no particulars extant of this, the very first locomotive," this same Cugnot designed and constructed two years later, a larger engine, "which is still preserved in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers at Paris." The French are a people ever prone to looking further than their noses, hence the fact that the French Government not unnaturally "took some interest in this notion of a steam land-carriage,and voted a sum of money towards its construction, with the idea that such a machine might prove useful for military purposes." Man proposes, but God disposes, and as luck would have it the vehicle seemed fore-ordained to end its brief career somewhat ingloriously, for after it "had been tried two or three times it overturned in the streets of Paris, and was then locked up in the Arsenal." A lapse of ten or a dozen years supervened before England began looking to her laurels, but "in 1784 Watt took out a patent for a steam-carriage, of which the boiler was to be of wood or thin metal, to be secured by hoops or otherwise to prevent its bursting from the pressure of steam"! It was not long, however, ere the steam road carriage was superseded by a locomotive designed to run on rails, of which the earliest "broods," embracing such "spifflicating" species as the Puffing Billies, Rockets, Planets, etc., and "hatched" from the brains of eminent men such as Stephenson and Trevithick, were necessarily original and quaint to a degree. It is, unfortunately, impossible here to do more than skim the copious wealth of interesting data through which Mr. Bowen-Cooke so admirably pilots us, and which evidently he has spared no pains to collect; suffice it to add that the succeeding years bear unfailing witness to that intense earnestness which, sustaining the early locomotive pioneers unwearying in their well-doing, was so largely instrumental in the attainment of that perfection of which we, their beneficiaries, now in our own season reap the benefit.
It was not until the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, when the directors of that line offered "a premium of £500 for the most improved locomotive engine," that any real tendency towards modern design and external appearance began to make itself apparent. The stimulus afforded by this offer, however, was rousing in effect, engines becoming gradually larger and more or less powerful, until in the year 1858 Mr. Ramsbottom designed and built for the London and North-Western Railway Company at Crewe an express passenger engine known familiarly as the "seven foot six," in that its single pair of driving wheels measured 7 feet 6 inches in diameter. Bearing the name of "Lady of the Lake" (for, whilst sacrificing perhaps a certain amount of power for speed, it was "certainly one of the prettiest engines ever built"), this engine and others of the same "class" remained in the service of the London and North-Western Railway until quite recently, thus forming a link between the earth-shaking events of the present day and that period of anxious calm, when the scare (to which reference has previously been made) became the occasion in 1858 for centring public opinion on the possibilities of, and the advantages likely to accrue from, transport by rail in time of war.
The Crimean struggle of 1855 had done little enough to enhance England's military prestige, only to be followed, two years later, by the nightmare horrors of the Mutiny.
Throughout the first and second PalmerstonMinistries, the reading of the European barometer remained at "stormy," and an attempt in 1858 to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon III., which was believed to have had its origin in England, served as a prelude to the "blowing-off" of a considerable volume of steam, especially when a year later, the war between France and Austria having terminated and the kingdom of Italy being created, the French people found themselves free to devote their then bellicose attentions, as had so frequently been their misguided and regrettable wont, to our insular selves. It is, however, an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the very fact that the tone, particularly of the military party in France, was violent and aggressive to a degree, had the salutary effect of serving as a mirror in which was accurately reflected our own deplorable unpreparedness for war.
Commenting on the situation, the writer of a leading article in theTimesof April 19th, 1859, openly deplores the fact that "the Englishman of the present day has forgotten the use of arms"; not merely this, but "the practice of football or of vying with the toughest waterman on the Thames is of little service to young men when their country is in danger."
Mercifully enough, perhaps, the pernicious sensationalism of the cinema, and the vacant thrills afforded by the scenic railway, were magic lures unknown in those mid-Victorian days, manly and open-air forms of sport already being considered sufficiently derogatory to the inculcationwithin the minds of the younger generation of that fitting sense of duty, of self-sacrifice, and subservience to discipline.
The opinion was further expressed that "there can be only one true defence of a nation like ours—a large and permanent volunteer force supported by the spirit and patriotism of our young men, and gradually indoctrinating the country with military knowledge," the article concluding with this ominous reminder—"We are the only people in the world who have not such a force in one form or another."
"Si vis pacem, para bellum" was the obvious corollary drawn by all sober-minded people and seriously inclined members of the community, and on the 13th of May, 1859, theTimeshad "the high gratification of announcing that this necessity (that of home defence) is now recognised by the Government," for "in another portion of our columns will be found a circular addressed by General Peel to the Queen's Lieutenants of counties sanctioning the formation of Volunteer Rifle Corps." At the same time the war in Italy was made to serve the purpose of bringing out in full relief the importance of steam as a novel factor in strategical operations, for we further read (cp. theTimes, May 13th, 1859) that "steam—an agency unknown in former contests—renders all operations infinitely more practicable.... Railroads can bring troops to the frontier from all quarters of the kingdom.... It is in steam transport, in fact, that we discover the chief novelty of the war."
Thenceforward matters began to assume practical shape, and in the following year 1860, on September 15th, we come across a reference to the Volunteer movement "which has so signal a success as to produce a costless disciplined army of 150,000 marksmen," springing from "a unanimous feeling of the necessity of preparing for defence." Conspicuous amongst this "costless disciplined army" figure the 1st Middlesex (South Kensington) Engineer Volunteers, "numbering now," as we find, on October 23rd, 1860, "over 500 members," and "daily increasing in strength is making rapid progress in its drills, etc." The 1st Middlesex was evidently the original corps of Engineer Volunteers to be formed, and thus became the precursor of other and similar corps which sprang into being in other parts of the country; a fine example of which (although entirely distinct in that it was the sole Engineer Corps to embody railway engineers) was later to become apparent in the 2nd Cheshire Engineers (Railway) Volunteers.
Formed in January, 1887, the battalion was recruited entirely from amongst the employés of the London and North-Western Railway, comprising firemen, cleaners, boilermakers and riveters, fitters, smiths, platelayers, shunters, and pointsmen. The nominal strength of the establishment was six companies of 100 men each, but in addition 245 men enlisted as a matter of form in the Royal Engineers for one day and were placed in the First Class ArmyReserve for six years, forming the Royal Engineer Railway Reserve, and being liable for service at any time. During the South African War 285 officers and men saw service at the front, and the military authorities were not slow to appreciate the invaluable aid rendered by this picked body of men. On the inception of Lord Haldane's scheme of Territorials in 1908, the battalion was embodied therein, and continued as such until March, 1912, when for some inexplicable reason it was finally disbanded.
How valuable an asset from the professional point of view were deemed, originally, these Engineer Corps, may be gathered from theTimesof November 23rd, 1860, which congratulates the 1st Middlesex, as being the parent corps, on having been "most successful in obtaining skilled workmen of the class from which are drawn the Royal Engineers. Every member of the corps goes through a course of military engineering in field works, pontooning, etc.," with the result that the Volunteer Engineers "will therefore form a valuable adjunct to the Royal Engineers in the event of their being called into the field."
The ball once started rolling, it was not unnaturally deemed advisable to form some central and representative body of control, and theTimesof January 10th, 1865, gives an account of an "interesting ceremony of presenting prizes to the successful competitors of rifle practice of the Queen's Westminster (22nd Middlesex) Rifle Volunteers," when ColonelMcMurdo, then Inspector-General of the Volunteer Forces, "who was received with loud and long-continued applause," in the course of a speech referred to the formation of a new corps, "a most important one both for the Volunteer Force and the Regular Army. He would tell the objects of this corps," which would consist of 30 Lieutenant-Colonels, and would enlist other members down to the rank of sergeants:—"In order that the Volunteers and the Army of England should be able to move in large masses from one part of the country to another they would have to depend upon railways. In all the wars of late years—as in the Italian war, the war in Denmark, and in the American war—the railway had been brought into service, to move armies rapidly from place to place, and this new corps, which at present consisted of the most eminent railway engineers and general managers of the great lines, had the task of bringing into a unity of action the whole system of railways of Great Britain; so that if war should visit England, which God forbid, this country would be placed on an equality with countries whose Governments possessed the advantage—if advantage it might be called—of carrying on the business of the railways. And the importance of this they might estimate when he assured them that with the finest army in the world, unless they had a system by which 200,000 men could move upon the railways with order, security, and precision, efficiency and numbers would be of no avail upon the day of battle; and that unlesswe had order, unless we had certainty in the moving of large masses, the day of battle, which might come, would be to us a day of disaster."
Accorded the title of "The Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps," this select little group, combining some of the best brains and ability to be found in the engineering and managerial departments of the railways, acted in the capacity of consulting engineers to the Government, from the time of its formation until the year 1896, when a smaller body composed on similar lines and known as the "War Railway Council" was introduced for the purpose of supplementing, and to some extent relieving, the original Railway Staff Corps.
As has already been seen, although in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 1871 the Government would assume control of the railways in the event of "an emergency" arising, the directors, officers, and servants of the different companies would nevertheless be required to "carry on" as usual, and to maintain, each in their several spheres, the actual working of the lines.
The final adjustment of any minor defects that may have been apparent in the rapidly completing chain of organisation was speedily accelerated by the Agadir crisis of 1911, resulting in the inception in the following year of that unique and singularly thorough institution, the Railway Executive Committee, which in turn superseded its immediate predecessor, the War Railway Council.
On the outbreak of the world conflict inAugust, 1914, and following on an official announcement by the War Office to the effect that Government control would be exercised through this "Executive Committee composed of General Managers of the Railways," Sir Herbert Walker, K.C.B., General Manager of the London and South-Western Railway, who was forthwith appointed Acting-Chairman of the Railway Executive Committee, issued in concise form a further and confirmatory statement, in which he drew attention to the fact that "the control of the railways has been taken over by the Government for the purpose of ensuring that the railways, locomotives, rolling-stock, and staff shall be used as one complete unit in the best interests of the State for the movement of troops, stores, and food supplies.... The staff on each railway will remain under the same control as heretofore, and will receive their instructions through the same channels as in the past."
Indelibly imprinted though the memory of those fateful August days must remain in the minds of every living individual, days brimful of wonderings alternating with doubt, expectancy, ill-foreboding, and occasional delight, coupled with an all-pervading sense of mystery completely enshrouding the movements of our own forces, few indeed were aware of the extent of the task imposed upon the Railway Executive Committee. Yet so swiftly, so silently, was the entire scheme of mobilisation carried through, that it was with a sense bordering on bewildermentand with something akin to a gulp that the public found itself digesting the news of the safe transport and arrival in France of the Expeditionary Force. On the occasion of his first appearance in the House of Lords as Secretary of State for War, the late Lord Kitchener referred in brief, but none the less eulogistic terms, to the successful part played by the railway companies (cp. theTimes, August 26th, 1914): "I have to remark that when war was declared mobilisation took place without any hitch whatever. The railway companies in the all-important matter of railway transport facilities have more than justified the complete confidence reposed in them by the War Office, all grades of railway services having laboured with untiring energy and patience. We know how deeply the French people appreciate the prompt assistance we have been able to afford them at the very outset of the war." Nor has Sir John French neglected to record his own appreciation of so signal a performance, for, in describing the events leading up to the concentration of the British Army in France, he writes (cp. "1914," p. 40): "Their reports (i.e.of the corps commanders and their staffs) as to the transport of their troops from their mobilising stations to France were highly satisfactory. The nation owes a deep debt of gratitude to the naval transport service and to all concerned in the embarking of the Expeditionary Force. Every move was carried out exactly to time."
So far so good, it will be opined. Certainlyfrom the chief points of disembarkation, Boulogne and le Havre, there were "roses, roses all the way," surely never before in the annals of warfare have troops from an alien shore been greeted with such galaxy of joy and enthusiasm, though perhaps most touching tribute of all was that of a wayside impression, the figure of an old peasant leaning heavily on his thickly gnarled stick, with cap in hand outstretched, his wan smile and glistening tear-dimmed eye indicating in measure unmistakable the depth and sincerity of his silent gratitude.
"On Friday, August 21st, the British Expeditionary Force," Sir John French tells us, "found itself awaiting its first great trial of strength with the enemy," and the childish display of wrathful indignation evinced by Wilhelm the (would-be) Conqueror, who is credited with having slapped with his gauntlet the face of an all too-zealous staff officer, bearer of so displeasing an item of intelligence, is not devoid of humour. The nursery parallel is complete—"Fe, fi, fo, fum," roared the giant, "I smell the blood of an Englishmen." "Gott im himmel," snarled the Kaiser, "It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little army." Head-quarters, Aix-la-Chapelle, August 19th, 1914, (cp. theTimes, October 1st, 1914).
"Up to that time," however, as Sir John French asseverates in his further reminiscences, "as far as the British forces were concerned, the forwarding of offensive operations had complete possession of our minds.... The highest spirit pervaded all ranks"; in fact "no idea of retreat was in the minds of the leaders of the Allied Armies," who were "full of hope and confidence." In this wise, then, did the Regulars, the flower of the British Army, enter the fray, little dreaming that the entire nation and Empire were to be trained in their wake, or that upwards of four years, instead of so many months, involving sacrifices untold, must elapse ere we were destined to emerge (or perhaps muddle) successfully from out the wood.
For the moment, as it transpired, "nothing came to hand which led us to foresee the crushing superiority of strength which actually confronted us on Sunday, August 23rd"; neither had "Allenby's bold and searching reconnaissance led me (Sir John French) to believe that we were threatened by forces against which we could not make an effective stand." How completely the strength and disposal of the enemy forces had been veiled, no more than a few brief hours sufficed to disclose; disillusion quickly supervened. "Our intelligence ... thought that at least three German corps (roughly 150,000 men)2were advancing upon us," and followingon a severe engagement in the neighbourhood of Charleroi in which the French 80th Corps on our left suffered heavily, a general retirement commenced. Namur had fallen on August 25th, and there was no blinking the truth, it was the Germans who were advancing, not we! Thenceforward, the retreat, the now historic Retreat from Mons, orderly throughout, set in along the whole line of the Allied Armies; of respite there was none, day in day out, 'neath the burning rays of an August sun the enemy pressure increased rather than relaxed.
The following narrative set down by an eye-witness, temporarilyen panneduring the afternoon and evening of August 27th on the outskirts of the little provincial town of Ham, depicts briefly but with some degree of vividness the tragic nature of the scene that was being enacted. After making some slight preliminary allusion to the pitiable plight of refugees who everywhere helped to block the roads, "there commenced," so the narrative runs, "this other spectacle of which I speak; at first, as it were, a mere trickle, a solitary straggler here, a stray cavalry horseman there, until the trickle grew, grew into a strange and never-ending living stream; for, down the long straight route nationale from Le Cateau, and so away beyond from Mons, they came those 'broken British regiments' that had been 'battling against odds'; men bare-headed, others coatless, gone the verytunic from their backs; tattered, blood-stained, torn; now a small detachment, now a little group; carts and wagons heaped with impedimenta galore, while lying prone on top of all were worn-out men and footsore. And all the time along the roadside fallen-out, limping, hobbling, stumbling, came stragglers, twos and threes, men who for upwards of four days and nights, without repose, had fought and marched and trekked, till sheer exhaustion well-nigh dragged each fellow to the ground. Yet on they kept thus battling 'gainst the numbness of fatigue, that mates more broken than themselves should ease, in measure slight, their sufferings in the bare comfort of thrice-laded carts. All but ashamed to poke the crude curiosity of a camera in the grim path of war-worn warriors such as these, from where I stood, as unobtrusive as could be, I snapped three instantaneous glimpses of this gloriously pitiful review, stamped though it was already ineradicably in the pages of my memory. Twilight fell, and night, and still the stream flowed in and ever onward."
The news in London, heralded by a special Sunday afternoon edition of theTimes, came as a bolt from the blue, for not since the announcement of the landing of the Expeditionary Force in France had anything of an authentic nature been received as to its subsequent doings or movements; in fact, as theTimespointed out on August 19th, "the British Expeditionary Force has vanished from sight almost as completely as the British Fleet"; further, as if to completethe nightmare of uncertainty, "British newspaper correspondents are not allowed at the front; ... the suspense thus imposed upon the nation is almost the hardest demand yet made by the authorities,—with some misgivings we hope it may be patiently borne."
The British public, however, in spite of occasional qualms and momentary misgivings, ever confident of success and sure in its inflexible belief that the British Army could hold its own against almost any odds (the prevailing logic being that one Britisher was as good as any three dirty Germans), had bidden Dame Rumour take a back seat in the recesses of its mind.
Incredible then the news that broke the spell: "This is a pitiful story I have to write," so read the message, dated Amiens, August 29th, "and would to God it did not fall to me to write it. But the time for secrecy is past. I write with the Germans advancing incessantly, while all the rest of France believes they are still held near the frontier." What had happened? How could it be true? Sir John French wastes no time in mincing matters:—"The number of our aeroplanes was limited." "The enormous numerical and artillery superiority of the Germans must be remembered." "It (the machine gun) was an arm in which the Germans were particularly well found. They must have had at least six or seven to our one." "It was, moreover, very clear that the Germans had realised that the war was to be one calling for colossal supplies of munitions, supplies indeedupon such a stupendous scale as the world had never before dreamed of, and they also realised the necessity for heavy artillery."
The time for secrecy was past; but how to stem the tide? The situation was, and indeed remained, such that a year later Mr. Lloyd George (then Secretary of State for War) was moved to make this astounding admission in the House of Commons: "The House would be simply appalled to hear of the dangers we had to run last year." And again at a subsequent date when as Minister of Munitions he exclaimed in the House, "I wonder whether it will not be too late. Ah! fatal words on this occasion! Too late in moving here, too late in arriving there, too late in coming to this decision, too late in starting enterprises, too late in preparing. In this war the footsteps of the Allied forces have been dogged by the mocking spectre of 'Too late.'"
In this connection it would be amusing, were it not so utterly tragic, to compare a slightly previous and public utterance from the lips of this same "Saviour of his Country":—"This is the most favourable moment for twenty years to overhaul our expenditure on armaments" (Mr. Lloyd George.Daily Chronicle, January 1st, 1914).
Happily however, "il n'est jamais trop tard pour bien faire," and this good old adage as to it being nevertoolate to mend was perhaps never better exemplified than when, the Army Ordnance authorities having realised that theGovernment arsenals were in no position to cope fully with the demands likely to be made by the military authorities in the field, that other army of "Contemptibles," the staffs and employés of the great engineering concerns of this country, came forward in a manner unparalleled in the history of modern industry, and forthwith commenced to adapt themselves and their entire available plant to the process of manufacturing munitions of war.
Foremost amongst firms of world-wide repute must be mentioned the great London and North-Western Railway Company, whose Chief Mechanical Engineer, Mr. C. J. Bowen-Cooke, C.B.E., realising from the outset the import of the late Lord Kitchener's forecast as to the probable duration and extent of the war, and in spite of ever-increasing demands on locomotive power which he found himself compelled to meet for military as well as for ordinary civilian purposes, threw himself heart and soul into the problem of adapting the then existing conditions and plant in the Company's locomotive works at Crewe to the requirements of the military authorities.
Forewarned as it was to some extent by the hurricane advance of the Hun, the Government was also forearmed in that it was empowered by the provisions of the Act of 1871 not merely to take over the railroads of the United Kingdom, but, should it be deemed expedient to do so, the plant thereof as well. The Government might even take possession of the plant without therailroad; though how the railways could have been maintained minus their plant, any more than the Fleet could have remained in commission minus its dockyards, is doubtless a problem that was duly considered by those who framed the wording of the Act in the year of grace 1871.
However that may be, as soon as the really desperate nature of the struggle began to dawn upon the Government, and it was seen to be a case of "all or nothing," the then President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Runciman, M.P., was not slow to espy the latent, yet none the less patent, possibilities which surely existed within the practical domain of railway workshops.
In certain circumstances it may be regarded as fortunate that not a few of those happy-go-lucky individuals, whose leaning is towards politics, are gifted with the convenient art of adapting themselves and their views to that particular quarter whence the wind happens to be blowing. "I must honestly confess," as this same Mr. Runciman had expressed himself when in 1907 he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, "that when I see the armaments expanding it is gall and wormwood to my heart; the huge amount of money spent on the Army is a sore point with every one in the Treasury."
Particularly galling, therefore, must have seemed the rate at which expenditure on armaments was increasing by leaps and bounds in 1914; yet so ingenuous is the manner in whichpoliticians are calmly capable of effecting a completevolte-face, that on October 13th we find Mr. Runciman positively engaged in seeking out the late Sir Guy Calthorp, then General Manager of the London and North-Western Railway, and Mr. Bowen-Cooke, for the purpose of eliciting their views as to the extent to which the railway companies might be relied upon to assist the Government in spending still more huge amounts of money (incidentally thus adding a further dose of wormwood to his heart), especially in regard to the output of artillery.
Without knowing for the moment what actually were the more immediate and pressing requirements of the Government, Mr. Cooke suggested an interview with the late Sir Frederick Donaldson, then Director of Army Ordnance at Woolwich Arsenal, with whom he was personally acquainted; the result being that Sir Frederick was able to point out in detail the difficulties with which he was faced, handing over to Mr. Cooke a number of drawings of gun-carriage chassis, etc., which he (Mr. Cooke) went through, tabulating them in concise form, so that at a forthcoming meeting which had been called at the Railway Clearing House for Tuesday, October 20th, the Chief Mechanical Engineers of the Midland, Great Western, North-Eastern, Great Northern, and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways who were present should have every facility for noting and deciding what they could best undertake in their respective railway workshops.
The rapid growth of this Government work necessitated arrangements being made for orders to pass through some recognised channel, and in November 1914, an offshoot of the previously-mentioned Railway Executive Committee, consisting of the Chief Mechanical Engineers of the principal railway companies, together with representatives from the War Office, was created, to be called "the Railway War Manufacturers' Sub-Committee."
Briefly the duties of this sub-committee were to consider, to co-ordinate, and to report upon various requests by or through the War Office to the railway companies, to assist in the manufacture of warlike stores and equipment. All applications for work to be done in the railway workshops, either for the War Department or for War Department contractors, were submitted to this committee by one of the War Office members. On receipt of any request the railway members of the committee decided whether the work was such as could be effectively undertaken by the railway companies, and if their decision was favourable, steps were taken to ascertain which companies could and would participate in the work, the amount of work they could undertake to turn out, and the approximate date of delivery. The War Office members decided as to the priority of the various demands made upon the railway companies. The actual order upon the railway companies to carry out any manufacturing work was given to such companies by the Railway Executive Committee.
To detail the manner in which the London and North-Western Railway Company's locomotive Works at Crewe became, in great measure, as it were, a private arsenal subsidiary to the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich is the aspiring theme of the succeeding pages of this narrative.
1.Carl Rosemeier, a German in Switzerland, to the Allies. Cp.Daily Mail, June, 1919.2.The German army corps of two divisions has 44,000 men, and a combatant strength of 26,900 rifles, 48 machine guns, 1200 sabres, and 144 guns. The German army corps of three divisions is approximately 60,000 strong (cp. theTimes, August 29th, 1914).
1.Carl Rosemeier, a German in Switzerland, to the Allies. Cp.Daily Mail, June, 1919.
2.The German army corps of two divisions has 44,000 men, and a combatant strength of 26,900 rifles, 48 machine guns, 1200 sabres, and 144 guns. The German army corps of three divisions is approximately 60,000 strong (cp. theTimes, August 29th, 1914).
"The armourers,With busy hammers closing rivets up,Give dreadful note of preparation."Shakespeare.
"The armourers,With busy hammers closing rivets up,Give dreadful note of preparation."Shakespeare.
"The armourers,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation."
Shakespeare.
Actually the first "job" to be undertaken in Crewe Works, with a view to winning the war and kicking the Hun away back across the Rhine whence rudely and ruthlessly he had pushed his unwelcome presence, was the hurried overhaul of a L. & N.W.R. motor delivery van which, destined for immediate service overseas and in conjunction with other and similar vehicles volunteered by such well-known firms as the A. & N. Stores, Bovril, Ltd., Carter Paterson, Harrod's Stores, Sunlight Soap, etc.,ad lib., formed the nondescript nucleus, unique and picturesque, but none the less invaluable, of the mammoth columns of W.D. lorries which eventuated in proportion as the Country got into her stride.
Thereafter the "fun" became fast and furious; orders succeeded one another in quick succession, and in ever-increasing numbers, with the result that men who till then had been accustomed toliving, moving, and having their being solely and entirely in an atmosphere of cylinders, motion rods, valves, and all the like paraphernalia of locomotive structure, suddenly found themselves "switched over" on to then unknown quantities, such as axle-trees, futchels, wheel-naves, stop-plates, elevating arcs, trunnions, and other attributes of "war's glorious art"; until from bolt shop to wheel shop, fitting and electric shops to boiler shop, foundries to smithy and forge, one and all became absorbed in the tremendous issue which threatened the ordered status, the very vitals, of the civilised communities of the world.
One, if not indeedthe, centre of wartime activity within the extensive domain of Crewe Works may be said to have been the mill-shop; for, although of necessity "fed" in respect to integral parts by other—and for the time being subsidiary—shops throughout the Works, it was here that were assembled and completed in readiness for dispatch to that particular theatre of war for which they were destined numerous "jobs" of anything but "Lilliputian" dimensions, and evincing characteristics of exceptional interest and unmistakable merit.
So immersed in munition manufacture did the shop become that, always—even in the everyday humdrum round of peace-time procedure—a source of delight and information to the visitor, professional and amateur alike, entry within its portals perforce assumed the nature of a privilege which Mr. Cooke, bowing to the dictates ofD.O.R.A., but none the less regretfully, felt constrained to withhold from all save the few legitimate bearers of either Government or other similar and indisputably genuine credentials.
Employing none but men possessed of considerable technical knowledge conjointly with the highest degree of mechanical skill and ability, the mill shop might, not without reason, be termed a "seat of engineering"; a "siége," that is, not simply productive of new machinery, but responsible for the repair and maintenance within the Works, as well as for the repair throughout the Company's entire so-called "outdoor" system, of a plant of infinite variety, embracing machinery evincing qualities so diverse as are to be found in air-compressors, gas engines, hydraulic capstans, lifts, presses, etc.
Fitly enough, however, in spite of these habitually peaceful proclivities, the soul of the millwright from the very outset of the war became infused with the spirit of Mars, and pride of place should perhaps be accorded the two armoured trains which, during the late autumn and early winter months of 1914-15, claimed the combined energies and ingenuity of those who were called upon to construct them.
Invasion was a bogey which, rightly or wrongly, undoubtedly throughout the whole period of the war never failed to exercise the minds, not only of competent military and naval authorities, but of amateur and would-be "Napoleon-Nelsons" as well, and right up to the spring of 1918, when every available ounceof weight was flung across the Channel to counter what was destined to prove the final and despairing enemy offensive, large forces had been kept at home, if merely as a precautionary measure.
True enough, a certain degree of material damage accompanied not infrequently by a sufficiently heavy toll of human, and usually civilian, life resulted from perennial air raids, and an occasionalballon d'essaismacking of "tip and run" on the part of some small detachment or flying squadron of enemy ships might momentarily upset the resident equilibrium of one or other of our East-coast seaside resorts; but nothing approaching the semblance of any actual or serious attempt at invasion was ever known to occur; in fact, Mr. Lloyd George, when speaking at Bangor in February, 1915, went so far as to "lodge a complaint against the British Navy," which, he reminded his hearers, "does not enable us to realise that Britain is at the present moment waging the most serious war it has ever been engaged in. We do not understand it." There was no disputing the fact, those at home never really understood the war; almost equally self-evident was the truism that they seldom if ever really appreciated to the full the natural beauty and charm of their native shores. It needed the grim reality of the former, and the aching sense of void created by enforced and prolonged absence from the latter, to bring home the unadulterated meaning of each in its true perspective, as may be seen from that poignantlittle plaint, pencilled from the hell of a front-line trench:—
"The wind comes off the sea, and oh! the air,I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair,But now I know it in this filthy rat-infested ditch,When every shell must kill or spare, and God alone knows which."
"The wind comes off the sea, and oh! the air,I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair,But now I know it in this filthy rat-infested ditch,When every shell must kill or spare, and God alone knows which."
"The wind comes off the sea, and oh! the air,
I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair,
But now I know it in this filthy rat-infested ditch,
When every shell must kill or spare, and God alone knows which."
Very similar, too, is the strain reflected by the French "poilu," who, drafted out to distant Macedonia, and languishing 'midst the fever-stricken haunts of the mosquito, plagued everlastingly besides by sickening swarms of flies, suddenly exclaims,—"Où est notre France? la chère France, qu'on ne savait pas tant belle et si bonne avant de l'avoir quittée?" From fighting men at the front and from them alone could realistic portrayals of pent-up emotions such as these emanate; they alone were capable of expounding the naked definition of the word "War;" the people at home "do not understand it."
Whether it was by good luck or by good management that "this sweet land of liberty" of ours, England, remained unmolested, immune from the horrors that were being perpetrated just across the narrow dividing line afforded by the waters, within sound of the guns, within range of modern projectile, must be left to the realm of conjecture; although some idea of "the dangers we had to run" may very well be obtained by a perusal of a few of the several and extremely cogent observations which no less an authority than Admiral Viscount Jellicoe has tomake on the subject in his notable work "The Grand Fleet, 1914-16."
In comparing the relative strength of Great Britain and Germany he insists that "the lesson of vital importance to be drawn" is that "if this country in the future decides to rely for safety against raids or invasion on the Fleet alone, it is essential that we should possess a considerably greater margin of superiority over a possible enemyin all classes of vesselsthan we did in August, 1914," and one of the four cardinal points which he cites as being theraison d'êtreof the Navy is that of preventing "invasion of this country and its overseas dominions." Conditions had, moreover, undergone such a complete change since the Napoleonic era, that whereas one hundred years ago "stress of bad weather was the only obstacle to closely watching enemy ports, now the submarine destroyer and the mine render such dispositions impossible," with the result that "throughout the war the responsibility of the Fleet for the prevention of raids or invasion was a factor which had considerable influence on naval strategy." Thus although, as we learn, certain defined patrol areas in the North Sea were watched on a regular organised plan by our cruiser squadrons, it was not a difficult matter for enemy ships to slip through. For "the North Sea, though small in contrast with the Atlantic, is a big water area of 120,000 square miles in extent," and whilst the Fleet was based at Scapa Flow it was not only impossible to intercept ships, but equally impossible"to ensure that the enemy would be brought to action after such an operation" as that of a raid.
Armoured TrainArmoured Train.[To face p. 45.
Armoured Train.
[To face p. 45.
Bearing these considerations in mind, it is not altogether surprising that the military authorities awoke to the fact that the policy of having two strings to one's bow is not usually a bad one; and so, rather than "rely for safety against raids or invasion on the Fleet alone," they bethought themselves of the secondary line of defence which would readily be afforded by armoured trains.
Any serious attempt at landing by the enemy was, in Viscount Jellicoe's opinion, "not very likely in the earliest days of the war, the nights were comparatively short, and the Expeditionary Force had not left the country. It was also probable," so he thought, "that the enemy had few troops to spare for the purpose." But in proportion as "we denuded the country of men, and the conditions in other respects became more favourable," so did the anxiety of the home authorities increase, resulting in an urgent order being received at Crewe in October, 1914, for the first of the armoured trains. Even when so undoubted an authority as Mr. Lloyd George affirms (cp. theTimes, July 1st, 1915) that "those who think politicians are moved by sordid pecuniary considerations know nothing either of politics or politicians," some people there may be who require a grain of salt wherewith to swallow so glib a declaration. Statesmen, possibly yes; but politicians—well, theleast said is often the soonest mended. But even our belief in the sincerity of statesmen is apt to be a little shaken when we find a former Prime Minister, none other then the revered Mr. Balfour, devoting himself to the A.B.C. of the Little Navyites and solemnly declaring in the House of Commons (cp. theTimes, May 11th, 1905) that the "serious invasion of these islands is not an eventuality which we need seriously consider." One has only to contrast this expression of a complacent and false sense of security with the dogma which has ever imbued the soul of the insatiable Hun:—"The condition of peaceableness is strength, and the old saying still holds good that the weak will be the prey of the strong" (Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg in theReichstag, March 30th, 1911), and we can never feel too grateful for the knowledge that in spite of politicians and statesmen, the problem of home defence was never relegated to the dust-bin by those whose obvious duty it is to preserve our shores inviolate. As evincing the serious amount of attention devoted to the subject, a perusal within the library of the Royal United Service Institution of a paper read by—then 2nd-Lieutenant, now—Major-General Sir E. P. C. Girouard, K.C.M.G., R.E., on "The Use of Railways for Coast and Harbour Defence" as long ago as 1891, and published in the journal of the Institution, is of exceptional interest, as the following few extracts reproduced through the courtesy of the Librarian of that Institution tend to show.
Speaking from the point of view of the "gunner-engineer," Sir Percy Girouard lays particular stress on the primary need for gun power. "Gun power to ward off the raider from our unprotected towns and ports; gun power to ward off any attack until the Navy reaches that point, and gun power to prevent landings upon our shores." Alluding next to the utter impossibility of extending "fixed fortifications of a modern type for the defence of every exposed point of our coast" for the obvious reason that "the cost of such an extension would be enormous," Sir Percy goes on to draw attention to the systems of railways in Great Britain and Ireland "which are the admiration of the world." These he contends "suggest the truest and most economical basis for resistance to any aggression or insult to our shores," for whereas "ships and fortifications under modern conditions rapidly become obsolete, our railways are always kept in excellent working order by the Companies concerned without any expense to the Government"; in fact "such would be the elasticity of the system that an enemy would have opposed to him at any exposed point of the coast the armament of a first-class fortress."
Obviously a lapse of nearly twenty years cannot fail to witness the introduction of new methods, novel ideas, and alterations in design, and, just as the practical experience gained or bought at the expense of a few weeks of actual warfare went to prove in August, 1914, the worthlessness of modern forts and fortresses whichliterally crumbled and crumpled under the weight of high-angle high explosives and were quickly superseded by trenches and dug-outs, so, too, it would appear that the engineer and gunner experts were led to rule out of court anything of so cumbersome a nature as would be represented by a "first-class fortress" on wheels, which, too heavy and unwieldy a mass to travel at anything but a snail's pace, could not but afford a first-class target to an approaching enemy warship. Armoured trains were, to some extent, employed during the war in South Africa, chiefly for purposes of reconnoitring, and it was from photographs of these trains which they had in their possession that the military authorities asked Mr. Cooke to evolve a train on similar, though improved, lines; a train one might say more akin to a mobile "pill-box" than a fortress, in that bristling with maxims and rifles it could be relied upon to move at least with the speed of an express goods train, and be capable of extending a "withering" welcome to any venturesome and aspiring raiding-parties at whatever point of the coast they might select as suitable for an attempt at landing.
Drawings were accordingly prepared, providing for a train which should consist of two gun vehicles, two infantry vans, and a "side-tank" locomotive; the latter a 0-6-2 type engine, with 18 inches by 26 inches inside cylinders, and 5 feet 8 inches diameter coupled wheels, supplied by the Great Northern RailwayCompany, was placed in the middle of the train. Both gun-vehicles and infantry vans were carried on ordinary 30-ton wagons with steel underframes and 4-wheel bogies. On each gun-vehicle at each end of the train was mounted a 12-pounder quick-firing gun (having an approximate range of 3 miles) which was fixed midway between the bogie wheels, thus ensuring an equal distribution of weight on each axle.
Apart from the gun platform, which was protected by 1/2-inch steel plate (rolled in the mills at Crewe) with loopholes for maxim gun and rifle fire, the vehicle had two further partitions, one an ammunition store, the other fitted up as officers' quarters.
The infantry vans were nothing less than luxuriously appointed caravans on (flanged) wheels, fitted with folding tables, lockers, hammocks, rifle racks, cooking stove and culinary apparatus complete, equipped with acetylene lighting and an extensive telephone installation. Loopholed with sliding doors near the top, these vans were also protected by 1/2-inch steel plating.
Beneath the frames were four reserve water tanks, each of 200 gallons capacity, feeding to the engine side-tanks, and in one of the two infantry vans were two coal bunkers, holding each 1 ton of reserve coal supply for the engine.
Access from one end of the train to the other was obtained by the provision of a suitable platform alongside the engine, but protected by armour plates, and by similarly protected connecting platforms from one vehicle to another.
Formidable "fellows" as they were, cleverly camouflaged too with grotesque daubs and streaks of dubiously tinted paint, these armoured trains, although continually on thequi vivewithin easy reach of the East Coast, were fated to be denied all opportunity of showing their mettle, and of giving the wily Hun "what for," for the very reason that the Hun was seemingly too wily ever to risk exposing himself to the sting likely to be forthcoming from such veritable hornets' nests.
"I am more than grateful to you and your fellow-locomotive superintendents of the various railway companies for your readiness to help us in this time of pressure."
"I am more than grateful to you and your fellow-locomotive superintendents of the various railway companies for your readiness to help us in this time of pressure."
In these brief but none the less straightforward and sincere terms, did the late Sir F. Donaldson, then superintendent of Woolwich Arsenal, address himself to Mr. Cooke in the early part of November, 1914, terms expressive, not merely of his own personal feelings of gratitude, but also of Government appreciation of the assistance so spontaneously proffered by the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway concerns of the country.
Looking back over the four and a half years during which was fought out that "stupendous and incessant struggle," not without reason perhaps described as "a single continuous campaign," Sir Douglas Haig, in his final Despatch, under date of March 21st, 1919, whilst reminding us that we were at the outset "unprepared for war, or at any rate for a war of such magnitude," lays especial stress on the fact that "we were deficient both in trained men and military material, and, what was moreimportant, had no machinery ready by which either men or material could be produced in anything approaching the requisite quantities." In short, "the margin by which the German onrush in 1914 was stemmed was so narrow, and the subsequent struggle so severe that the word 'miraculous' is hardly too strong a term to describe the recovery and ultimate victory of the Allies."
There can be no gainsaying the fact that in spite of frequent and bombastic assurances to the contrary emanating from the All-Highest, the Almighty must indeed have been on our side, for surely never in the history of mankind did a people "ask for trouble" in quite the same barefaced manner as did the great British people in the early part of the twentieth century of grace?
"Give peace in our time," might well be the prayer purred by the devout lips, year in year out, of innumerable comfortably-respectable, smug, and faithful citizens on each succeeding Sabbath day. Obviously, for there was "none other that fighteth for us but only Thou." There was never any attempt at denial; we were unprepared and well-nigh negligible, "deficient in trained men and military material." It will be argued, no doubt, that the practice of offering up prayer and supplication is a very desirable and eminently estimable form of procedure, but it is nevertheless a generally accepted theory that the Almighty helps those only who help themselves. Miracles do not perform themselvesin these matter-of-fact work-a-day times, and we may pause to reflect both upon the cost at which, and the means by which, the miracle of our timely recovery and ultimate victory was performed.
"To our general unpreparedness," writes Sir Douglas Haig, "must be attributed the loss of many thousands of brave men whose sacrifice we deeply deplore, while we regard their splendid gallantry and self-devotion with unstinted admiration and gratitude."
This then was the cost, "the loss of many thousands of brave men," this the price in blood, the sacrifice upon the altar of unpreparedness. "Can the lesson," despairingly asks the writer of a leading article in theTimesof April 11, 1919, "of this great soldier's remarks be missed by the most reckless of politicians, or the most fanatical of 'pacifists'?" Can it be missed either, it may be asked, by those congregations of the faithful, who, repeating as of yore the old, old cry "Give peace," resemble rather the ostrich that buries its head in the sand, making no active endeavour to combat the approaching storm?
Incredible that the lesson should be missed by any, and having marked the undying tribute which Sir Douglas Haig has paid to those thousands of brave men who for us paid the price, we may turn to that other tribute which this same great soldier unhesitatingly pays to those who supplied the means by which, miraculously enough, recovery was assured, and ultimate victory achieved.
"The Army owes a great debt to science and to the distinguished scientific men who placed their learning and their skill at the disposal of their country." Such is the praise bestowed upon the distinguished heads of industry and of science as representing the vast mass of workers at the back, the backbone of the country, and undoubtedly, as the great Field-Marshal goes on to explain, "a remarkable feature of the present war has been the number and variety of mechanical contrivances to which it has given birth, or has brought to a higher state of perfection." But perhaps the most remarkable of all these remarkable features was that particular one evinced by that particular body of distinguished scientific men, to wit, the chief mechanical engineers of the great railway companies, in that, by their ingenuity and versatile ability, they succeeded in producing not the quantities only, but the varieties also, of all those mechanical contrivances which, as we know, added to the horrors of, as well as to the interest in, modern warfare.
But just as is the case with a railway engine, of which the whole forms so commonplace, if majestic, a feature of everyday affairs that seldom, if ever, does one pause to consider the mass of detail and intricate parts which go to compose it, so, too, is it the case with a gun, an aeroplane, a ship, a road motor vehicle, or whatever other equally familiar object that chances to catch the eye. Little does one realise the extent of the detail requisite for the framing ofeach and every such mechanical contrivance in its entirety. It was, nevertheless, "the dauntless spirit of the people at home," as Sir Douglas Haig openly avows, which "strengthened and sustained the invincible spirit of the Army, the while their incessant toil on land and sea, in the mine, factory, and shipyard, placed in our hands the means with which to fight." Nowhere was this "dauntless spirit," the record of this "incessant toil," better exemplified than by the staff and employés of the London and North-Western Railway Company's Locomotive Works at Crewe, that great "factory" in which were manufactured those countless component parts essential to the whole: and without which the gun could not be fired, the aeroplane could not soar, the ship could not swim: without which, in short, the miracle of our recovery and ultimate victory could not have been performed.
Let us take first the question of gun power; and we cannot do better than digest the further comments of Sir Douglas Haig. He says:—"The growth of our artillery was even more remarkable (than other remarkable developments alluded to in his Despatch), its numbers and power increasing out of all proportion to the experience of previous wars. The 476 pieces of artillery with which we took the field in August, 1914, were represented at the date of the Armistice by 6437 guns and howitzers of all natures." In order to stimulate this remarkable growth of artillery Crewe concentrated her endeavours upon 8-inch, 4·5-inch, and 6-inchhowitzer guns; upon 12-pounder quick-firing guns, and in due course upon high-angle anti-aircraft guns. In conjunction with the guns themselves gun-carriages, carriage-limbers, wagon-limbers, ammunition-bodies—all were required with feverish haste. "Kultur," as has been pithily observed, "was working overtime to crush Civilisation;" Crewe Works responded by working twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four to beat the Hun; the spirit was indeed "dauntless," the toil "incessant."
And what, it may be asked, were the countless component parts essential, not only to the manufacture of these "attributes of war's glorious art" when entirely new, but which were further turned out in their tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds, nay, even in their thousands, as "pièces de rechange," spares, all made to standard sizes and gauges, ready to replace at a moment's notice existing parts worn out or damaged in the field? Here, in motley assembly, are just a few: arcs, axles, bands, bearings, chains, collars, connectors, crank-levers, eyes, forks, futchels, guards, gussets, handles, hooks, keys, levers, loops, plates, rings, rods, sockets, springs, stays, trails, trunnions, tumblers, with a vast array of variously assorted bolts, nuts, pins, screws, studs and washers, one and all claiming the combined skill and energy of an army of smiths, forgemen, boiler-makers, fitters, turners, and machinists.
Yet in spite of the "incessant toil" requisite for the supply of this military material, such wasthe extent of our unpreparedness that "it was not until the summer of 1916," as we read in Sir Douglas Haig's Despatch, "that the artillery situation (as regards material) became even approximately adequate to the conduct of major operations.... During the battles of 1917 ... the gun situation was a source of constant anxiety. Only in 1918 was it possible to conduct artillery operations independently of any limiting consideration other than that of transport."
Once, however, the material was assured in sufficient quantity there was never any looking back, and "from the commencement of our offensive in August, 1918, to the conclusion of the Armistice, some 700,000 tons of artillery ammunition (equal to the weight approximately of 6,000 heavy express passenger engines) were expended by the British Armies on the Western Front," this prodigious expenditure of metal fully amplifying the opinion expressed by Napoleon, that "it is with artillery that one makes war."
Before finally laying aside the question of guns, and turning our attention elsewhere, a few reflections on that popular little weapon known as the high-angle anti-aircraft gun may be not altogether lacking in interest, more especially in view of the fact that the price of our unpreparedness in this as in other respects was destined to be counted in the number of lives sacrificed, of which the civilian proportion was invariably very high.
The gentle art of dropping bombs upon opentowns was commenced by German airmen in the very early days of the war, and the French capital, perhaps not unnaturally, soon became an object of their attentions.
Under the heading "German aeroplanes over Paris," theTimes'correspondent writing from Paris on September 2nd, 1914, records, perhaps, the first air-raid of the war, although at the moment "no bomb is reported to have been dropped." How irrepressible is the innate and inimitablegaitéof Parisien and Parisienne alike, even during the excruciating uncertainty of a raid, is delightfully brought out in the remark so typically French, "Comme il est dangereux de sortir sans parapluie." In this connection, too, one recalls the little ruse, pre-arranged between host and butler, for speeding the departure of guests, inclined to outstay their after-dinner welcome: "Messieurs, mesdames," announces the butler, suddenly appearing at the salon door, "on vient de signaler les Zeppelins."
In comparison with our own, the measures adopted by the French authorities for defence against enemy aircraft were, from the outset, on a considerable scale; in fact, prior to the time when Admiral Sir Percy Scott took over the defence of London, in September, 1915, there had been, to all intents and purposes, no defence at all; any impartial observer might even have inferred that we were doing our best to live up to the lofty notions of the writer in theManchester Guardianof August 19th, 1915,who laconically decreed that we had "it in our power to turn every air-raid into a failure, simply by taking as little notice of it as possible." Whether this superior personage remained for the duration of the war so providentially privileged as to be able to take no notice of the air-raids that took place, history does not narrate. Suffice it to say that if we select at random two typical instances from the many which occurred—one on May 25th, 1917, at Folkestone, when 76 persons were killed and 174 were injured; the other on June 13th, 1917, in London, resulting in 157 deaths and 432 persons injured, without mentioning the amount of material damage effected—it is open to argument whether the public in general, and particularly those who were personally and in so tragic a fashion affected, were capable, even if they felt so disposed, of taking little or no notice of these attacks; it is also a moot point whether they or the perpetrators of these outrages regarded this particular form of "frightfulness" in the light of a failure, when attended by such undeniably telling results.
Happily the boot was not always on the same foot, for, as we know, the marauders on occasion paid the supreme penalty themselves in the course of their aerial outings, and this, thanks in great measure to the determined energy of the gallant admiral, to wit Sir Percy Scott, who, far from taking no notice of air-raids, lost no time in organising a vigorous system of defence against them.
But as he tells us in his reminiscences, "Fifty Years in the Royal Navy," from the very outset of his endeavours he was hopelessly handicapped; for, whereas "General Gallieni, who was in charge of the defence of Paris, had for the protection of his forty-nine square miles of city two hundred and fifteen guns, and was gradually increasing this number to three hundred; whereas, too, he had plenty of men trained in night flying, and well-lighted aerodromes, he (Sir Percy Scott) had eight guns to defend our seven hundred square miles of the metropolitan area, no trained airmen, and no lighted-up aerodromes."
The amazing part of the whole business was, as Sir Percy Scott explains, and not without a touch of humour, the "War Office was as certain that a Zeppelin could not come to London as the Admiralty was that a submarine could not sink a ship"; hence the corollary that "London's defence was a kind of 'extra turn.'"
Nothing daunted, however, and fully determined that London should be made to wake up to the dangers she was running, he succeeded in spite of all difficulties, and after procuring suitable ammunition, in increasing the number of his guns from the initial eight to one hundred and twelve.
Herein it was that the locomotive shops at Crewe were once again called into requisition, for, as Sir Percy Scott tells us, "unfortunately mountings had to be made for these (guns),"mountings such as base rings, pedestals, pedestal pivots, as well as elevating arcs, sighting arms, etc., the manufacture of which necessarily "took a considerable time," but which were successfully evolved with a minimum of delay at Crewe.
Then again, "the few guns we had for the defence of London were mounted permanently in positions probably as well known to the Germans as to ourselves. We had no efficient guns mounted on mobile carriages which could be moved about and brought into action where necessary."
Being anxious to secure from the French authorities the loan, as a model, of one of their 75-millimetre guns, which as he knew were mounted on motor lorries, and in order to circumvent "Admiralty red-tape methods," Sir Percy Scott promptly took the law into his own hands, and very quickly obtained what he wanted. Owing, however, to the impracticability of adapting the British 3-inch gun to the French lorry mounting, a new design was got out, the gun platform being mounted on a single pair of wheels, which, with the axle, was detachable when the gun came into action, and of which component parts, such as plates, pivots, blocks, covers, catches, limber connections, were forthcoming from Crewe.
Thanks once again to the courtesy of General Gallieni, who agreed to supply "thirty-four of the famous French 75-millimetre guns and twenty thousand shells with fuses complete," Sir Percy Scott finally had at his disposala total of one hundred and fifty-two guns, which, although admittedly "rather a mixed lot," combined to frustrate the designs of those "airy devils" which so frequently were wont to—