Military road

“ The road we were following was particularly interesting, inasmuch as it was in the immediate rear of the fighting line the whole way, and we were therefore, right in the midst of every description of military traffic and movement all the time.
It was quite remarkable considering this how little there was in the shape of incident to record, or [139] for the matter of that, to sketch either. Everything appeared to be so perfectly organized that it worked like a big well-oiled machine. It reminded me not a little of a road in China with its endless stream of human beings. ”

“ Traveling by automobile in the war zone is far more complicated than by train. Even in a gray military car, with two men in horizon blue on the front seat, you are held up at the entrance and exit of every town and hamlet, and often half way between, by the sudden appearance of a sentinel in the middle of the road, holding his gun horizontally above his head. ”

“ Now, as to preparedness for defense or for war to follow the building of this great trunk line, military highway over the Oregon Trail which would soon be followed east by the extension on the old Cumberland road as such to Washington and, as originally, to Philadelphia, thus creating the world's greatest thoroughfare, is so patent, we need not occupy your time to discuss, except as to the general principles of such a measure. We can readily see how a small army may become more formidable than a larger one where the means are at hand for speedy mobilization. ”

“ Lawrence 117 miles below Quebec. This is the road which has been always used, and there is no other.
“I admit that it is very convenient for the British Government to possess territory through which they may enjoy a road; it is of great value as an avenue of communication in time of peace; but as a military communication it is of no value at all. What business can an army ever have there? Besides, it is no gorge, [300] no pass, no narrow defile, to be defended by a fort. If a fort should be built there, an army could, at pleasure, make a détour so as to keep out of the reach of its guns. ”

“ As a rule, it is best to use the road until it brings you near the enemy and then leave it and travel across country. You will thus be able better to avoid the outposts and patrols that will surely be watching the roads. ”

“ The cloud of dust proved to be two more battalions and a wagon train. These two battalions went into bivouac on opposite sides of this road at the crossroads and sent out strong patrols east and west on the crossroad. Five wagons went forward to the outpost battalion and the reserve built cook fires.
As Private Rush, here, was the only man I had left, we started back, sketching the valley, ridge and positions of the main body and outpost. Here is the sketch, sir. The fields are all cut crops or meadow. ”

“ The road, especially near the base, is nothing but a sea of clay in which the military carts sink up to their hubs. Frequent rains every week keep the roadway softened up and thus render it necessary for the Japanese infantry to rebuild it and to construct drainage ditches in order that there may be no delay in getting supplies and ammunition to the troops at the front. ”

“ Precaution must be taken that the proper road is followed and that contact between units is maintained, men being stationed, if necessary, to mark changes of direction. If necessary, guides are secured and charged with the duty of following the right road. When, due to unfavorable conditions, units cannot be kept well closed, men will be placed at forks and crossings of roads, especially on very dark nights. ”

“ A single line of operations does not mean a single road, but embraces all the roads or routes taken by the fractions of the army for the purpose of reaching a common point of concentration; the condition being imposed that these roads shall not be so far apart, or have intervening such obstacles, that the different parts of an army will be prevented from uniting at any given time which may be appointed. ”

“ Special attention has of late years been given to the defence of the north-western frontier. Plans have been drawn up for the construction of more fortresses and of strategic railways and military roads. ”

“ To go up the road from here to the firing-line is a great experience. You see, as you pass along, all the multifarious items of army organisation—long lines of lorries, horsed-wagons, limbers, guns, columns of marching men, motor-cars by the score, French soldiers, British soldiers, aeroplanes spinning merrily overhead—truly a wonderful spectacle. You have no conception of the abominable state of the main roads out here. The pavé road, peculiar to these parts, is always a bone-shaker at the best of times, but now, after the passage of so much heavy traffic, it is simply appalling. ”

“ At 6 o’clock in the morning following on our arrival we were off on what turned out to be the biggest trip we had made hitherto, and when we got back in the evening we had covered no less than 245 kilometres in the car, and without a hitch or contretemps.
It spoke volumes for the excellent manner in which the roads in the war zone are looked after. Heavy as military traffic was, seemingly endless, everywhere one saw gangs of men at work making repairs, where the surface had got broken up. ”

“ It was varied traffic, mechanical, horse and foot: guns and other cars, some signed with the Geneva cross; now a cavalry patrol, now a dusty detachment of infantry; and, intermingled with soldier stragglers, little groups of non-military wayfarers, in carts and tramping afoot. All these grew more frequent as the miles went under them; so frequent as to hinder their progress, and finally, when they neared their destination, bring the pace of the car to a crawl. ”

“ One passes through arcades of waiting motor vans, through arcades of waiting motor vans, through suburbs still more intensely khaki or horizon blue, and so out upon the great straight poplar-edged road—to the front. Sometimes one laces through spates of heavy traffic, sometimes the dusty road is clear ahead, now we pass a vast aviation camp, now a park of waiting field guns, now an encampment of cavalry. ”

“ As we now clearly see, the significance of the strategic network in such a total war as that in which the Nation is at present engaged must be interpreted in terms of the carefully precise descriptive title applied to it by the War Department. It consists of not all but only the principal traffic routes of military importance. In the present war a very large part of the whole highway system of the Nation is bearing a substantial share of the burden of war, but we are finding that in general the routes of the strategic network were well chosen as the principal routes. ”

“ The further up one got, too, the more congested were the roads with the impedimenta of war: motor-lorries, ambulances, guns, wagons and the like. The Military Police, being stationed on point duty on the more important cross roads, with the aid of red and green flags directed the traffic, and for all the world it was often like a block of vehicular traffic at Piccadilly Circus, the usual accompaniment of language not being forgotten! ”

“ The road was a place of constant travel. Endlessly it unrolled a pageant of the times. War’s varied movement was here, the multiplicity of it all; and also the unity as of the sound of the sea, or the waving of grass on a prairie. Troops, incoming or outgoing,—infantry, artillery, cavalry,—were to be found upon it. The commissariat went up and down with white-covered wagons. Foragers appeared, coming in to camp with heterogeneous matters. Ordnance wagons, heavy and huge, went by with a leaden sound. Mules and negroes abounded—laughter, adjuration, scraps of song. ”

“ In one sense it is all highway, that is, it can be traversed in every direction by ships, wherever there is water enough for them to float. For military purposes land transit is confined to such highways as are suitable to the march of an army accompanied by artillery and heavy baggage and supply trains, or to such railways as can more expeditiously serve the same purpose. Hence an army advancing in an enemy's country cannot advance on a very broad front, nor can it outmarch its baggage and other supplies except for a very limited time and for some exceptional purpose. ”

“ If one of the greatest triumphs of the war is the creation of the transport system, another is the maintenance, often under heavy shell-fire, of the highways on which that transport moves. No one can imagine what the traffic from the Channel up to the British front is like; one must see it to believe it. The roads are as crowded with traffic as is Fifth Avenue on a sunny afternoon. Every fifty yards or so are military police, mounted and afoot, who control the traffic with small red flags as do the New York bluecoats with their stop-and-go signs. ”

“ Important as the railroads were to the strategic conduct of the war by both armies, the day-to-day military operations for the most part followed the wagon roads, and, as in earlier wars, the condition of the roads influenced the outcome of military operations. ”

“ Imagine hundreds of miles of wide, white roads, hard-surfaced and graded for the war, leading to a sector of the line. To make and keep these roads, itself is a master's job. Imagine the roads filled all day with two long lines of trucks, passing and repassing; one line carrying its guns and camp outfit, its whole paraphernalia of war, going to the battle front in the hills ”

“ Roads of the first and second groups, and their bridges, will have to be made adequate for the expected military use. They will have to be designed to support frequent loads of military vehicles and equipment, with sufficient capacity to permit such frequent movements to occur without unreasonable interference with normal civil traffic. In respect to these first two groups of tactical roads, the urgency of improvement is substantially the same as that of access roads. ”

“ In normal times it must be a quiet place with little traffic. But now there is continual movement, Infantry going up to the front line and often waiting for hours at the station, and other Infantry coming back to rest, goods trains of enormous length passing through, motor lorries loading and discharging, driven very skilfully though sometimes very recklessly, horse and mule transport in great variety, both military and civilian, some of the horses wearing straw hats with two holes for the ears, and carts drawn by stolid, slow-moving oxen. ”

“ Country vehicles, laden with all manner of queer produce, their bitless stallions swaying tinkling bells, encumber the way. Presently all make clear the crown of the road for the passage of a company of mounted infantry, which, in the almost blatant pride of fitness and workmanlike appearance, sallies forth into the country for exercise beyond the walls. ”

“ Many of the roads of this class are little used by traffic of any kind, and are presently provided only with surfaces and structures consistent with such light usage. To prevent or repair damage by military movements in maneuvers and war games, substantial improvements will be needed, and must be charged almost wholly to defense. ”

“ For we had proceeded on our deeply-trodden war trail no more than a mile or two before we encountered the raw evidences of an army's occupation. Everywhere spotted leads, game trails, and runways had been hacked, trimmed, and widened into more open wood-walks; foot-paths enlarged to permit the passage of mounted men; cattle-roads cleared, levelled, made smoother for wagons and artillery; log bridges built across the rapid streams that darkled westward, swamps and swales paved with logs, and windfalls hewn in twain and the huge abattis dragged wide apart or burnt to ashes where it lay. ”

“ Those who live in the vicinity of any important military centre must be well aware of the damaging effect that heavy military traffic has upon the roads, even if well-constructed, in view of the inevitable nature of the traffic. ”

“ These main cross-roads had, in anticipation, been selected for the lines of defence along which our troops should turn and fight if necessary, for though it is laid down in the text-books of the wise that a line of defence must not run along a main road, such a road has obvious value for purposes of correct alignment. As the German advance was from the north-east, it is self-evident that the line of resistance or defence had to extend from north-west to south-east. ”

“ Now is the road fraught with lusty soldiers, labourers, and mariners, who are fain to stand to their tackling, in setting to every man his hand, some to the carrying in of victuals, some munitions, some oars, and some one thing some another, but most are keeping their enemy from the wall of the road. ”

“ The whole countryside is criss-crossed with field telegraph and telephone wires. Still more spectacular, everywhere there are traffic directions. And these directions are very large and very curt. “Motor- lorries dead slow,” you see in immense characters in the midst of the foreign scene. And at all the awkward street corners in the towns a soldier directs the traffic. Not merely in the towns, but in many and many a rural road you come across a rival of the Strand. For the traffic is tremendous, and it is almost all mechanical transport. ”

“ Roads are constantly shelled, searching for troops or supply columns. I was coming home to-day, up a road which ran approximately at right angles to main fire trenches. At one place the road was exposed for a matter of thirty or forty feet, and again farther up it was necessary to go over the brow of a small hill. This was about three hundred yards farther on and was exposed to the enemy's view. Thinking they wouldn't bother about a single rider on a motor cycle, I went up past the first exposed position. ”