The South African War—The Italian Transport in Tripoli—The Balkan Campaigns.
Although mechanical transport was employed during the South African war, the experiences then gained must not be applied with too much rigidity to the conditions of the conflict taking place in Europe. In South Africa, a considerable number of traction engines were put into service, while steam motor lorries were also used. Colonel R. E. Crompton, C.B., who was in charge of the British transport columns, has described how “De Wet, knowing the country, destroyed bridge after bridge until the roads and the railways were only islands, disconnected by things called ‘deviations’—horrible places, full of dead animals, horse transport, animal transport of all kinds, which had died there, simply because there was practically no road.... The fact that we were able, even though we had broken engines, to repair them from our spares, so that the dead engines became live engines, so impressed Lord Roberts that he felt that we were at the birth of real, practical mechanical military transport with all the advantages it gives.”
There can be no doubt that the experience obtained during the South African war pointed directly to the use in the first case of steam tractors, and later—when they could be sufficiently perfected—of internal combustion tractors with a bigger radius of action. These conclusions resulted not only from the inherent conditions of military service, but also from the local conditions of the country in which this particular war took place.
Reviewing the possibilities of South Africa in times of peace, Mr. W. W. Hoy, the General Manager of the Government Railways and Harbours, while approving of the use of light passenger and goods vehicles up to 2 or 3 tons capacity, lays stress on the desirability of the light paraffin tractor for easy services on good roads, and the heavy paraffin tractor for cross-country work with trains of trailers each carrying from 12 to 25 tons of goods. If we admit that a country in which these represent the main normal requirement cannot be safely taken as indicating accurately even the war requirements of other countries, we are reduced for practical experience to the Italian campaign in Tripoli and the recent wars in the Balkans. Italy is one of those countries in which commercial motor transport has not, owing to unfavourable local conditions, made any great progress. As a result the war was begun without any provision having been made in this direction, and the authorities were at first very sceptical as regards the desirability of employing motors at all in connection with the operations of the army. After much discussion, two light lorries, fitted with twin pneumatic tyres on the back wheels, were sent out on trial. These served very rapidly to convince the staff officers of the superiority of the system over horse transport. Consequently, thirty more light Fiat lorries were sent out as promptly as possible, and these were followed by larger consignments, bringing the whole fleet in use up to the number of about 200. Arrived at Tripoli, the cars were slung off the transport ships on to big pontoons, and towed to the quay. From that point they were immediately employed for the transport of all kinds of war material, as well as provisions and forage. They were further utilised for the conveyance of large bodies of troops to the front, and for carrying wounded to the hospitals and dead to the improvised cemeteries. Most of the country over which they operated was entirely devoid of roads, and consisted chiefly of rough loose desert strewn with rocks and treacherous sandy hills. These peculiar conditions account for the type of vehicle selected for employment. Heavier lorries on solid tyres would no doubt have experienced even greater difficulties in negotiating country of this class.
The following extract, from a full account published by the manufacturers of the uses to which their vehicles were put, will serve to give an idea of the varied employment of military motors:
“At the battle of Zanzur, on June 8th, 1912, fifty-four vehicles took part and were divided into four columns under the personal command of Capt. Corazzi. Ten were under the command of an officer at the disposal of the Medical Corps; a second column, under the command of Lieut. Milani, carried a load of barbed wire and netting, sand bags and shovels; a third column, in Lieut. Bosio’s charge, carried also 800 spades, 600 shovels, sand bags, and barbed wire; and a fourth column of fourteen lorries, under Lieut. Marocco, took a large quantity of dynamite and other explosives in addition to pioneers’ tools.
“The first column to move were the ambulances, which left Tripoli at two o’clock, and at 3.30 came out of the outer redoubt at Gargaresh to follow the fighting column and to work under the instructions of a surgeon-captain. The other columns left Tripoli about three o’clock, and at 4.15 at Gargaresh, about 5-1/2 miles from Tripoli, they formed up in a square about 350 yards in front of the redoubt under cover of a hill, waiting for orders. At 5.30 they advanced, and leaving cover of the hills, moved forward about 2-1/2 miles beyond the batteries. The nature of the ground changed as the columns approached a sandbank, which had until then protected them from the enemy’s fire. The passage over this sand dune was extremely difficult, as the cars had to proceed in single file at walking pace, exposed to a violent rifle fire. Proceeding round the extreme north of the Arabo-Turkish trenches the columns reached the Marabotto of Abd-el-Gelil shortly after the arrival of the third battalion of the Fortieth Fusiliers, mountain artillery, and a company of pioneers, and proceeded with the work of fortification. When the columns returned to Gargaresh, and while the Rainaldi Brigade was engaged against overwhelming forces of the enemy, one of the motor columns, acting under Lieut. Milani, was ordered to load provisions, whilst the other two were told off to join the ambulance section. In the very line of fire the motors brought succour to the wounded, conveyed some seventy disabled soldiers to the temporary hospital at Gargaresh, and carried forty dead to the cemetery. At Gargaresh the order arrived to convey to Marabut the provisions and luggage of the 6th and 40th regiments of the line. The three motor columns therefore re-formed, one going to Tripoli to load provisions and returning to Marabut, the other two being loaded up with luggage. The three columns then returned to Tripoli.”
After two years of incessant service, and notwithstanding the “emery” effect of the fine sand which was carried in clouds by the wind and penetrated everywhere, it is generally understood that the Italian military motor fleet maintained reliable services throughout the war, and that the individual machines were in surprisingly good condition when their service was completed. Results were, at any rate, sufficiently satisfactory to justify the Italian Government in placing considerable further orders, with a view to increasing their motor columns. This war was probably the first event which enabled the motor vehicle to prove itself in practice absolutely essential as a military implement. A Tripoli newspaper summed up the value of the experience obtained:
“Many people will have asked themselves how it was possible for the Lequio Division to live, march, fight, and win with a base of operations distant from 70 to 200 miles, with rapid and long deviations which were almost of daily occurrence, in a country so barren and inhospitable that man and beast would perish if they were left for only two or three days without provisions.... The motor lorry provided the solution of the problem; by its use in a few hours provisions were brought from the stores and bases to the fighting column, having been conveyed possibly hundreds of miles, and, further, by its means not one day passed without the troops having bread, wine, and coffee. The motor lorry was ubiquitous; it transported ammunition or succoured the wounded, fetched fodder for the horses and other animals, or money for the troops and for the Arabs; it brought new boots for the soldiers or delivered urgent messages, as well as being used for the transport of troops from the various bases right up to the first fighting line in battle. Only the advent of the autocar rendered possible many of the daring moves of this war, as it solved the difficulties of desert transport.”
As regards the uses of motors during the various Balkan campaigns, the only reliable and available information appears to be that contained in a series of articles contributed by Capt. A. H. Trapmann of the Daily Telegraph to the columns of Motor Traction. At the commencement of the war in 1912, there were less than 100 motor vehicles in Greece, and some sixty of these—the property of Greek subjects—were immediately commandeered. The machines formed a fleet very far from ideal, representing cars of all makes and sizes, many of them suffering from negligent treatment or unskilful handling, and some very near the termination of a chequered career. The officers entrusted with the duty of purchasing the machines were completely ignorant of their value or qualities, and the drivers into whose hands they were subsequently put consisted mainly of people who could, or said they could, drive a motor car, though the great majority did not profess to possess any knowledge over and above that required for travelling with reasonable safety and certainty, assuming the mechanism of the cars to give no trouble at all. The better machines were chiefly allotted to the various generals and their staff officers, while some of the worst were fitted up with lorry bodies for the transport of goods.
After the fall of Salonica, the Greek objective was Janina, connected with the port of Preveza by an excellent road about sixty-three miles long. Directly Preveza fell into Greek hands, the authorities were faced with the problem of provisioning an army, in the first instance consisting of 15,000 men and gradually augmented to 60,000, operating against a fortified town in a totally barren country intersected by huge mountain ranges. The front of the army extended for about a hundred miles, and only one good road was available from the base to the centre of the advanced positions. Under these conditions, the authorities realised the possibilities of motor transport, and about thirty motor lorries, mainly obtained from Italy, were shipped to Preveza and put into service. It was found that each lorry could, in three hours, carry to the front about enough food for 1,000 men. This, however, was not the only problem. The army was absorbing on the average one ton of ammunition per day for every thousand men. The lorries were only capable at the best of handling 2-ton loads, and consequently were kept more than fully occupied. Moreover, the road, though good in certain portions, was in others particularly dangerous, being very winding and hewn for the most part out of the side of a precipice. Heavy traffic and heavy rains contributed to make the conditions yet worse, and under the circumstances, it is not surprising that very serious accidents occurred, and that by the end of the first six weeks only nine out of the original thirty lorries were still upon the road. It then became necessary to replenish the supply, which was managed in one way or another, and the service was maintained with enormous difficulty under conditions of false economy, which dictated considerable purchases of unreliable secondhand machines. Even so, the results served completely to convince Captain Trapmann that motor transport was the only solution of the supply problem in warfare.
It seems that a similar opinion was forced upon the Greek military authorities, since one of the first moves when the second campaign became inevitable in 1913, was the purchase of one hundred motor lorries. This step, while good in itself, was inadequate, since no real provision was made for the supply of competent and responsible drivers, for adequate supervision, or for completely equipped workshops. Many of the drivers were well-to-do enthusiasts who had volunteered for service, and who very soon came to regret that they had done so. It is one thing to drive a good touring car and to fall back upon professional assistance whenever trouble occurs, but quite another to handle and maintain a heavy motor lorry without competent backing and under thoroughly bad conditions of service. Some 50 per cent. of the motor fleet was usually out of commission, and the staff of the repair shops were so incompetent that it was seldom that a car once taken to pieces was ever fit for the road again. The following extract from Capt. Trapmann’s account gives some idea of the difficulties which had to be overcome:
“The strategy and tactics of the campaign against Bulgaria landed the Greek headquarters at Doyrani on July 8th, and there nearly two-thirds of the Greek motor service was concentrated on July 10th. Greek headquarters decided to move sixty miles west to Hadji Beylik along the railway, and the vital question was how the cars for the service of the staff, and the lorries for the army service were to accomplish the journey. The single-line railway track was impossible on account of unbridged gaps, and also because the railway was in urgent demand for transport. The only semblance of a road was a mule track two feet wide, which led for the most part through a tangle of vegetation, and occasionally amidst a wilderness of rocks and stones. Eventually it was decided literally to force a road by sheer weight. The lorries took turns at leading, raced full speed for twenty yards, and then bashed their way through the jungle. After fifty yards or less the lorry would be brought to a standstill by the accumulation of rubbish piled up in front. This would be cleared away, the car would back, then start on a fresh charge. When a lorry got seriously damaged it would be replaced by another and taken in tow by a third. Sometimes explosives had to be used, and small rivers were bridged by the simple expedient of placing tree trunks in them until a car could cross. It was bumpy work.
“In Macedonia a road of any sort was a luxury, the best roads could not compare as regards surface with a fourth-class English roadway, whilst as often as not the motors had to make their own road as they went along. It must be remembered, also, that driving in war time is very different from under peace conditions. Bridges and culverts have usually been destroyed, telegraph lines sag across the road, and at night time are apt to get entangled in the driver’s neck with dire results. I, myself, have seen a goodly number of motor smashes, one when a temporary bridge gave way under an overloaded lorry, another when a contact mine exploded. The worst accident I remember, however, took place soon after the fall of Janina. A very old and depreciated lorry was being used to convey passengers down to Preveza, a distance of sixty-three miles, by a mountain road which for half its length was cut on the edge of a precipice. At one of the awkward places on the road the steering gear broke, and the car with its human freight dashed over the cliff and fell into the river.”
The conclusions reached by Captain Trapmann as a result of very exceptional opportunities of observing military motor transport under active service conditions should be of considerable value. His catalogue of desirable features is as follows:
(1) Clearance from ground in order to enable a car to pass over rock-strewn stretches.
(2) An adjustable cow-catcher in front for use at night on good stretches of road, on which, however, dead or wounded horses or men may be lying.
(3) An inclined bullet shield of light steel to protect the front of the radiator from casual sniping.
(4) A stout iron hook or ring in front and behind for towing purposes, especially when a river has to be negotiated, the bridge over which has been destroyed.
(5) Solid tyres with a set of non-skid chains which can be fitted when occasion arises.
(6) A wire grappler to preserve the driver from the danger of sagging telegraph wires hanging across the road.
While the experiences detailed in this chapter are, comparatively speaking, on a very small scale, and consequently results cannot confidently be applied in anticipation to a war of immensely greater magnitude, they have at least served to show that even unavoidable lack of experience, or avoidable lack of competence, cannot prevent the motor vehicle from being a very valuable asset behind an army in the field. The Tripoli and Balkan campaigns proved not only the necessity of employing motors for the work of the transport and supply columns, but also the possibility in so doing of saving the lives of very many wounded men who, when dependence was placed on slower methods, frequently died from exposure on their way down from the front to the base.