Strategic path

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Strategic railways were railway lines that not only served a civilian transport need, but were also built and operated for military reasons.

Europe

Germany

prehistory

Siege of Sevastopol with a railway line

As soon as the railroad began as a means of transport, the military took an interest in it too. As early as 1836 a commission of Prussian officers and civil servants was formed to investigate the importance of the railroad for military purposes and which submitted its report on July 4, 1836. It was established that the railway “ deserves all consideration in a military context” and uniform standards regarding dimensioning and load capacity were required. In 1836 the State Ministry refused to encourage the establishment of militarily desired railroads when there were no economic interests. In a cabinet order of August 13, 1837, the king ordered "in the military interest to determine the construction of trade in such a way that the latter, without prejudice to its actual purpose, should be adapted to military needs as much as possible."

The first troop transports were carried out in Prussia as early as 1839. 8,000 infantry guards were transported in 10 trains from Potsdam to Berlin. The first rail transport in wartime in Germany took place in 1849 when the Prussian troops were transported by rail through southwest Germany to suppress the revolutionaries in Baden and Palatinate.

The first railroad built purely for military reasons came about during the Crimean War . In 1855, an improvised light railroad about nine kilometers long was built between the port of Balaklava and the camp of the British-French siege army off Sevastopol . However, this was not a strategic path in the strict sense of the word. The British-French side provided the supplies exclusively by ships.

Even when the technical prerequisites for the infrastructure were in place, there was no practical experience in logistics . This became evident in the Olomouc crisis in autumn 1850. The Prussian mobilization went down in chaos, the Austrians were able to transport 75,000 soldiers and 8,000 horses to the Silesian border by train, but in a time that would also have been needed on foot. The speed of the marches on foot was not surpassed, but the troops were spared the exertion and high marching losses.

In the campaign of France and Piedmont ( Sardinian War ) against Austria in 1859, further experience in the railway deployment was gained. The troop transport was about six times faster than walking. Every day the French railways moved 8,500 soldiers and over 500 horses to the deployment area. Here, too, mistakes were made: the replenishment was not organized, food, blankets and medication were quickly lacking. Abandoned freight cars clogged the stations en masse. This was the first war in which railroads gained tactical and operational importance.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the railroad was systematically used as a strategic element in warfare. This also made the railway a target of warfare. It was the birth of the railway pioneers who had to rebuild destroyed lines and bridges. It was here that railway guns and armored transport trains were used for the first time ; but also the disadvantages of the privately developed railway network became apparent. When the war broke out, there were six different gauges; the routes were laid out for economic and not military reasons.

The international events were closely observed by the German military leadership. In Germany, Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke (at the head of the Prussian General Staff since 1857), who recognized the strategic importance of the railroad and set up its own railway section in the General Staff in 1864, was essential . According to the political and strategic situation, this had to constantly update the time tables for rail transport. In 1859 it was still 42 days from mobilization to operational readiness of the troops, in 1866 the time difference was reduced to 25 days. This became important for the first time in the Austro-Prussian War . For the deployment in Bohemia, the Austrians had a single railway line that was operational after 45 days, but the Prussians had five lines. However, this had the disadvantage that the initial front line was extended to over 300 kilometers, which made it very vulnerable. For this, Moltke was severely reprimanded by his specialist colleagues. The Prussians' rapid railway deployment made up for this disadvantage. Moltke then coined the term “march separately - strike together”. The Prussian troops were already in action when the Austrians were still on the march. The encirclement of the Austrians at Königgrätz was only possible because of the rapid deployment.

Due to the tactical operational importance of the railway, its own automatism developed, which became important in later wars. The initial phase of a war and the strategic starting position took on a whole new weight. As soon as the first step of the escalation ladder, mobilization, is carried out, it must be struck quickly in order to realize the time advantages. The possibilities for de-escalation at the political level, e.g. B. through diplomacy, are only very small. The tactical operational importance of the railway was most clearly visible in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/05. It broke out because Japan wanted to create "clear conditions" before Russia could complete the Trans-Siberian Railway and thus strengthen its bases on the Pacific coast at will.

The railway deployment was also of decisive importance in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. While planning in 1869 assumed a time difference of 24 days from mobilization to operational readiness, at the beginning of the war it was only 20 days. It took the French six weeks.

Strategic railway construction

Strategic railways were built not according to economic, but according to military requirements. It was about logistics as well as the transport of material and the wounded . To do this, two essential conditions had to be met:

  • The state had to create the infrastructure itself. Up until then, railways were largely financed with private capital and built and operated by private companies, although the state often undertook to provide interest guarantees.
  • In order to be able to build the mostly uneconomical routes on a larger scale, the state had to have enough money. This was the case in Germany after the war of 1870/71 through the French reparations payments .

The nationalizations in the 1870s were due, among other things, to the increasing strategic military importance of the railroad. In 1871 at the latest, the first considerations were made on the strategic construction of the over 800 km long cannon railway, the route of which was largely of no or little importance for civil traffic. With the law of June 11, 1873, the so-called Cannon Railway Act, this railway was resolved, funds from the French reparation payments were made available and the authorization to issue bonds was made.

The strategic railway lines for bypassing Switzerland in southwest Germany between 1887 and 1890. The aim was to expand the German railway network, since in the event of another war with France it could not be expected that the border lines on Swiss territory could be used.

In Germany , especially before the First World War, such routes were systematically built. This became particularly important when relations with Russia deteriorated rapidly from 1878 after the Balkan Conference and Germany prepared for a two-front war with France and Russia . The Schlieffen Plan is also of interest in this context . The mobilization plans at that time provided for the troops to be transported to the western front with the help of all available railroad lines , to defeat France in a quick campaign , and then to bring the same troops east by rail to wage war with Russia. The strategic railways were then built within the German railway network in places where the existing lines did not appear efficient or where they touched foreign territory. These routes were mainly built on the western border of Germany near the border with France and Belgium . During the First World War, the German side built further strategic railways, especially in Belgium.

The generous construction was characteristic of the strategic railways. The trains should be able to transport the heaviest guns on freight trains without the locomotives reaching their performance limits. This primarily meant limiting the gradient of the route to 1% and curve radii of at least 300 m. As a result of these limitations, a disproportionately large number of bridges and tunnels had to be built in the low mountain ranges , which made operation considerably more expensive in peacetime . Because of their military character, the routes ran far away from the large cities in the German Empire , so their use in peacetime was little.

Furthermore, normal railway lines were prepared for the operation of military trains. This means that these were laid out more generously than the expected operation would have required. What is striking about them, for example, is that the tracks and platforms within a station could and still have a length of up to one kilometer to accommodate the extra-long transports .

In addition, routes such as the Berlin outer ring or the Förtha – Gerstungen connection were built , which were built on the basis of the inner German border without any direct military connection.

Strategic paths in Germany

Baden-Württemberg

Routes to bypass Switzerland :

Sections:
Berlin
Brandenburg
Hesse
Lower Saxony
North Rhine-Westphalia
Freiherr-von-Korff Bridge, Born
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
Saarland / Lorraine
Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Schleswig-Holstein
Thuringia
Supraregional / diverse
Unfinished routes

Bridges destroyed in 1945 and not rebuilt:

Switzerland

Overview of the routes around Olten train station

The strategic railway lines in Switzerland are still used today for military security in the country, although the actual routes are usually very short. A very typical example is the almost 1 km long bypass of the Olten train station near Aarburg / Oftringen for traffic from the Gotthard in the direction of Bern or Geneva . The construction of this line in 1940 goes back to the Swiss general Henri Guisan , who wanted to remove the most endangered point of the entire Swiss railway network from a possible attacker in this way.

This “war loop” was put back into operation in 2004 in order to realize the direct IC connection between Lucerne and Bern (via the new Mattstetten – Rothrist line) planned as part of Bahn 2000 . There was never a train on the war loop until the direct journeys Bern - Lucerne opened. The line was not connected to the main line in the direction of Rothrist ; the switch lay in individual parts next to the embankment. The line served at most as a siding.

Another strategic track bypasses the Basel SBB train station and connects the Hauenstein direct with the Jura line (via Basel St. Jakob - Basel Dreispitz).

Belgium

In Belgium, during the German occupation in World War I, on the orders of General Wilhelm Groener , who was responsible for the field railways, four new rail lines were built for the supply of supplies. These were

A line called the Ourtalbahn from St. Vith to Losheim was also started but not completed .

Denmark

France

Southern half of the building and central building of Nouvel-Avricourt, summer 2014

Numerous lines in northern and eastern France were designed as strategic railroad lines to meet military transport needs during armed conflicts with the " hereditary enemy " Germany at the time and were mostly double-tracked even when civil traffic was weak , and several sections of important main roads had three or four tracks. Examples include the Steinbourg – Rastatt connections in the border area , the Neuenburg – Chalampé bridge over the Rhine and the Haguenau – Falck – Hargarten or Metz – Anzeling railway lines . The junction stations located at them were - as in the case of Metz - built from a strategic point of view and often had complex, unplanned junctions and crossings of the routes, even with weak regular traffic . Since the Second World War , many of these lines have been closed or the number of their tracks and the overpass structures reduced.

Many routes had train stations, although they hardly needed a stopping point, because troop shipments were supposed to have taken place here, for example along the Revigny – Saint-Dizier line . For the same reason, the train stations were often much larger than would have been necessary for the population. The Metz train station is often used as an example, but this also applies to many other train stations such as the Igney-Avricourt border station . With the adoption of the Freycinet Plan in 1878, it was decided to build a total of 8,850 km of railway lines on 181 routes. This enabled extensive network extensions in the border area to Belgium and Germany, but also on the Mediterranean coast to Italy. Railway lines such as the Meyrargues – Nice connection would never have been built without this legal framework.

Greece

The Thessaloniki – Strymónas – Alexandroupoli railway was built in 1892 by the Ottoman Empire as a strategic railway line. Together with the existing routes of the Orientbahn, it enabled a direct connection from Istanbul to Thessaloniki without having to take the route via hostile Bulgaria and Serbia . The line was built at least 15 km from the border and the sea to avoid artillery fire. The land was expropriated for a double-track line, but the railway was only made single-track.

Italy

A strategic railway line was built between Cava Manara and Cava - Carbonara in 1883 to relieve the Ticino bridge near Pavia .

Before the Second World War , a long stretch was built from Ostiglia via Cologna Veneta , Grisignano di Zocco and Camposampiero to Treviso . It was only operated for three years because it was partially shut down in 1944 due to war damage.

In the same years the construction of a line from Portogruaro to Udine , with the branch line from Bertiolo via Palmanova to Savogna , began, but was never completed.

The Reschenbahn was supposed to run from Landeck on the Arlberg route to Mals in Vinschgau , but this was not implemented .

Lithuania

see the history of the railways in Lithuania # Railway construction in the First World War

Norway

Spain

Engaña Tunnel , part of a strategic railway line between Santander and Valencia .

Railway lines of predominantly strategic importance were built in Spain under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923–1930) according to a plan from 1926 by the Minister of Construction, Conde de Guadalhorce. The three most important lines have in common that they were supposed to bypass the capital Madrid, which is located in the center of the country, in a wide arc, were single-track and had long routes and many engineering structures to avoid steep gradients, but were of practically no economic importance.

Only the first line, called Santander - Mediterráneo ("Santander - Mediterranean") from Santander on the Bay of Biscay via Burgos , Soria , Calatayud to Valencia on the Mediterranean , under construction from 1925 to 1930, was largely completed, with the exception of one gap that was not closed of approx. 30 km at the repeatedly planned transition over the Cantabrian Coast Mountains south of Santander. There the two-track, 6976 m long Engaña tunnel ( Túnel de la Engaña ) near Espinosa de los Monteros (50 km southeast of Santander) was built by forced laborers under Franco from 1941 to 1959 ; But the 30 km long stretch between the train stations from Cidad in the south to Ontaneda in the north, in which the tunnel is located, was no longer in operation. The unused tunnel - until the construction of the high-speed lines for the AVE in the 1990s, the longest "railway tunnel" in Spain - was occasionally used as a provisional diversion for road traffic during heavy snowfall on the mountain roads in winter, until it was closed in 1999 due to dilapidation ( it is partially flooded, only accessible on foot, the risk of further break-ins is high). Most of the remaining sections of the line were abandoned by RENFE (along with numerous other branch lines) due to unprofitability in 1985 and have since been dismantled, only the section from Caminreal via Teruel to Valencia is back in service after extensive renovation.

Teruel - Lleida railway line, purple: partially built, yellow: no constructions. Map background: Openstreetmap
Railway line Baeza - Útiel, purple: partially built, yellow: no constructions, green: vía verde (cycle path) Map background: Openstreetmap

The longest route from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic coast near Jerez de la Frontera would have connected military bases in Cádiz and Cartagena , among others . Only the Lleida - Pobla de Segur section (89 km, 41 tunnels) in the north-east of the country was completed by 1951 , and after a modern expansion in 2006, it is still in operation today. The originally planned extension to Saint-Girons in France (approx. 100 km with crossing the Pyrenees) was never started, but is occasionally under discussion again as a European connection. Of the rest of the route, only the sections from Lleida to Teruel (see map) and from Utiel to Baeza with connection to the existing network in Linares (366 km, 107 tunnels) were worked on. A spatially separated section from Jerez to just before Almargen (north of Ronda, 110 km, 29 tunnels) was also under construction. Work has been going on on the sections mentioned since 1927 and the route and the ancillary structures were largely completed. After the work had largely rested during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), only maintenance work took place, there was no longer any major construction activity. The tracks were still laid on some sections, but operations did not get beyond test drives. In 1964, the railway line was officially given up after reports on the lack of profitability. Although the line was only designed as a single track, several large viaducts were designed for a second track.

The same fate experienced the third stretch from Calera y Chozas (near Talavera , on the Madrid - Cáceres route ) to Villanueva de la Serena (on the Ciudad Real - Badajoz route ) with a length of 168 km and 48 tunnels. Construction began in 1928, but came to a standstill when the civil war broke out in 1936. The work did not resume until 1955, and the project was finally discontinued in 1962. Only a 56 km long section from Villanueva to Logrosán was still in operation in 1962, but passenger traffic was discontinued in 1964 and the line was dismantled around 1995. On these (and other) routes, Vías Verdes (“green paths”), mostly well-developed long- distance cycle paths , often with rest areas in old station buildings, have been set up for some time .

An older, strategically motivated narrow-gauge railway was built between 1902 and 1915 on the Costa Blanca from Alicante to Dénia (93 km), it is now in operation as an electrified light rail.

Outside of Europe

Chile

Ferrocarril Militar de Puente Alto al Volcán

Eritrea

Massaua – Biscia railway line

Mexico

To end the caste war waged by independent Maya Indians against the government of Yucatán since 1847 , the Mexican general Ignacio A. Bravo built the Decauville railway Vigía Chico - Santa Cruz from the coastal town of Vigia Chico to the capital of the Maya, then Chan Santa Cruz called (today: Felipe Carrillo Puerto ).

Railway line Vigía Chico - Santa Cruz de Bravo (formerly Chan Santa Cruz), 1901

Palestine

Russia

Thailand Burma

Thailand-Burma Railway ( Death Railway )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.wehratalbahn.de/Suedbadenbahn/Palmrain/St.Louis-Leopoldshoehe.htm
  2. ↑ Again: Holzminden - Scherfede here: Engländer curve (a lot of text, 4 B). In: Turntable Online Forums. Retrieved July 7, 2018 .
  3. ^ The railway viaduct in Bielefeld-Schildesche (1). In: geschichtsspuren.de. Retrieved July 7, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Loi qui classe 181 lignes de chemins de fer dans le réseau des chmins de fer d'intérêt general les lignes dont la désignation. Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, réglements, et avis du Conseil d'Etat. Jean-Baptiste Duvergier, 17th-18th centuries July 1879
  5. ^ Les locomotives pour trains de voyageurs du chemin de fer Ottoman Jonction Salonique-Constantinople . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 27 , no. 8 , February 22, 1896, p. 48 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-82323 .
  6. ^ Relation: Vía Verde Santander-Mediterráneo (1689868) . openstreetmap.org. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  7. ↑ Relation: FC Baeza - Utiel (2343629) . openstreetmap.org. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  8. ↑ Relation: FC Jerez - Almargen (2343552) . openstreetmap.org. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  9. ↑ Relation: FC Villanueva de la Serena - Calera y Chozas (2345009) . openstreetmap.org. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  10. ↑ Juan Pedro Esteve García: Historia del Ferrocarril (Talavera de la Reina a Villanueva de la Serena), accessed August 11, 2012 [1]

literature

  • Klaus-Jürgen Bremm : From the highway to the rail. Military and railroad in Prussia 1833 to 1866. (= Military history studies. Volume 40). Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57590-2 .
  • Klaus Jürgen Bremm: Armies under steam. The railways in European war history 1871–1918. Hövelhof 2013, ISBN 978-3-937189-75-8 .
  • Marcus Junkelmann: The railroad at war. In: Train of Time - Time of Trains. German Railways 1835–1985, Volumes 1 + 2. (The official work for the exhibition of the same name under the patronage of Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker, published by the Nuremberg Railway Year Exhibition Company) Siedler, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-88680-146-2 .
  • Wolfgang Klee: The cannon train Berlin-Metz. Transpress, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-613-71082-X .

Web links