GERMAN RAILWAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1915, Page 8

GERMAN RAILWAYS.

ORfiiLNISATION IN EXCELSIS (Bef«r» going to Germany (writes a teutral correspondent of the Times) I knew that the railway system played an Important, perhaps the most important, part in the organisation of the war. But not until I had seen the system at work did I realist the services it renders to the military authorities. I travelled one day to a small town In the west. It is situated in a valley through which runs the double line, of in important railway connecting the western frontier districts with Central Germany. I went by a slow train, and w*a struck by the masses of Landstrum men who entered it at the garrison town, and who got in and out at every small station. They were lusty, talkative fellows of mature age, many of them fresh from their civilisation occupations and hurriedly rigged out in uniform. One man in my compart, ment wore his long working boots. He explained that he had been up all night killing pigs, and had had no time to change them. It was at the moment when a general pig-killing was ordered so as to save grain and potatoes for human food, and the municipal authorities had been commanded to lay by a reserve ef pickled and preserved pork up to the value of 15s per head of the population. My L&nditrum pig-sticker told me that he and his comrades were under orders to guard the line, with its tunnels and bridges. Every now and then he greeted someone through the window, and, on looking out, I noticed that the whole lis# was guarded. I thought involuntarily of the way we used to think the Czar's train was guarded in former days. None of my fellow-travellers could or would say why, even in war time, these extraordinary precautions were being taken so far inside the country. The mystery was soon to be cleared up. On reaching the little town I went to a small hatel, got a room, and began to dine ia the snug beer restaurant of the house. The landlord welcomed me in the friendly, homely fashion which is so attractive in the inns of places untouched by the modern hotel "industry." Then he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with glee: "The Russians will soon get a new licking. We are moving masses of troops across to their side. flindenburg has something big up his sleeve. More than 100,000 are going through here. Do you hear that." FROM WEST TO EAST. I heard.. It was a long troop train passing through. The railway ran near the hotel, and opposite it was the station. I went to the window, and saw the train, filled with soldiers and with guns, horses, motor-cars and transport material. People in the streets and on the buildings along the railway greeted the men enthusiastically. The soldiers lined up behind the windows and in the open troop trucks to return the greeting. Then they 3ang "Deutschlan4 Über. Alles" and other patriotic songs. The landlord told me, a complete stranger, that troops came from the French front, and were being sent at Hindenburg's request straight across Germany to the distant eastern front, where huge operations were being prepared. During these preparations there was, for a number of days, a strict postsperre—that is to say, all postal and ordinary telegraphic communications with foreign countries were absolutely stopped in order to prevent leakage of information about' the work in progress. The troops concerned in the movement were not allowed to communicate even with their own families. Then I witnessed the working par) of the. war machine. The long troop trains continued to roll eastward, one every ten, fifteen or twenty minutes for two days and two nights. As long as daylight lasted every train was greeted with the same applause, and even at night we heard the soldiers sing and shout "Hurrah 1" as they passed. For them it was one triumphal progress through the country. The remarkable thing was that there was no apparent dislocation of the ordinary traffic. The express, as well as the slow local train, arrived and departed according to timetable. Long goods trains with supplies went west, and empty trucks went back. Presently other long troop trains, filled with new levies, also went west. It is easy to imagine how this spectacle strengthens the popular feeling of security. It is an ocular demonstration of the power of the military authorities to withdraw forces without danger from one front and to throw them, by night and day, across the country to the other front, with absolute precision, and without dislocating civilian life. No wonder the Germans are proud of their railways. They know that but for the mobility which the railways give to great masses of troops the war would long ago have to be carried on inside the German frontiers.

WIDEAWAKE AUTHORITIES. The spirit of the soldiers and the extraordinary precautions taken to guard the line strengthen the feeling of security. The impression produced is that the authorities are wide awake and ready for all emergencies. Not only was the railway strongly guarded—l repeat, well in tli® interior of Germany, east of the Rhine—but there were special defensive posts against aircraft, and at intervals a Zeppelin travelled as a guardship up and down the valley, closely following its sinuous turns. Two days after the troops had passed through my little town, the expected happened. The German official reports from tlie eastern frontier had for some time contained only the stereotyped phrase: "There is no change in the general situation." Suddenly, one morning, all the flags in the town were hung out, the school children were given a day's holiday, and the people heard that the great offensive in the Carpathians had begun, and that the Russian lines were broken. Soon afterwards I learned that the troops I had seen passing through had gone straight to the theatre of operations in Galicia. Their relatives in Germany had no inkling that they had left the western front until letters arrived from the region of the San. Xaturally the usual train service in Germany has been greatly reduced. The time-table itself shows a high percentage of trains withdrawn. But the reduced service is perfect, despite the decrease in the number of railway servants who now include very few able-bodied young men. In the booking offices women are supreme. If a traveller is wise he will take with him only as much luggage as he can carry himself because porters' may be scarce. But trains leave and arrive to the minute, and provide the usual accommodation. There are sleoping and restaurant ears on the important expresses between the principal cities. All the German railways are now worked on one single system, which has been extended to the whole of Belgium under German occupation, aB well as to the occupied portions of France and of Russian Poland. Direct express trains, with sleeping and restaurant cars, run from Berlin to Metz-Charleville-Mezierea. Special trains run to Brussels and Lille, With a special ptrait a civilian can travel there just M

he can travel eastward to Lodz. The German time-tablea tell him when he can reach places as far weit as Noyon, Laon, and Chauny. In fact the organisation is such that, notwithstanding the heavy military burden on the railways, one can travel almost as freely and quite as punctually as if there were no war. In certain towns and fortified areas your passport may be required, but that is all. Even in the timetables the note of confidence is apparent. The red 'Koenig' still appears with its old dimensions. The summer gives all the ordinary peace trains, but/marks with a black circle those which are not running on account of the war. An explanatory introduction states that: "In the light of experience, and in view of the favourable development <pf the military operations, the restoration of many trains temporarily withdrawn must be reckoned with.