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James H


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Possibly Interesting Book On Railways.
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Bearing in mind the role of railways in the War, I thought this might be of interest. Came out last month. By rail expert Christian Wolmar .

Engines of War: How Wars Were Won and Lost on the Railways

Plenty of reviews on t'Internet. FYI, it sounds as if there is plenty of info on the War and development leading up to it. Haven't read it, but I understand the chapters are:

1. War Before Railways
2. The Railways called Into Action
3. Slavery Loses Out To The Iron Road
4. Lessons Not Learnt
5. The New Weapons Of War
6. The War The World Anticipated
7. The Great Railway War On The Western Front
8. Eastern Contrasts
9. Here We Go Again
10. Blood On The Tracks

My understanding was that the first major use of railways for transporting troops was during the  Franco-Austrian War (or Second War of Italian Independence) in 1859. I don't know what Mr. W has to say on the subject, but he apparently starts off with the Crimea.

Thought it might be useful if anyone's drawing up a Christmas list.

BTW, readers of The Guardian will be amused to hear that that admirable newspaper included in its review a photograph of entrained tanks, entitled "New German tanks on their way to the Russian Front, 1942". All the tanks in the photo are Matilda IIs.



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Rectalgia


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Heh:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/nov/09/corrections-clarifications (item 2).

Good on the Guardian to have a proper corrections process. I once bought one issue of a publication which I then found published no errata, amendments or corrections. That was Australasian Science. Perhaps they really are infallible (therefore over-manned or free of deadlines, either way over-priced) or maybe they rely on their readers for corrections via the letters column (a sort of peer review, I suppose) but I lost all interest in any event.

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James H


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Cultural note: The Guardian has a (probably exaggerated) reputation for misprints. It is traditionally referred to by the satirical magazine Private Eye as The Grauniad.
You will note that immediately beneath the correction about the Matildas there is an apology for using the phrase "sceptic tank". I think that scepticism about these particular Tanks is fully justified.


-- Edited by James H on Saturday 11th of December 2010 12:52:34 PM

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Rectalgia


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The Grauniad, eh? Well, anyway, thanks for the note on the book. As I think I opined "here" once before, we tend to forget just how critical railways once were in land warfare (the story of Dyce Murphy disguised as a girl scouting out the continental railway networks for the British in the years immediately prior to WW1. etc.). I would go so far as to say anyone NOT appreciating the part played by rail in WW1 (particularly in Europe) hasn't a real picture of the war at all.

In "living memory" terms, the Thursday Islander tracklayers working on the big Pilbara iron ore rail systems in the 1960s probably hold the prizes for the rate of putting down track. Strapping big blokes who demanded (and got) three steak meals a day. But I reckon our forefathers in WW1 would have given them a run for their money, fed on porridge (when they were lucky) and under fire half the time.

And another cultural note. These days "septic tank" (or just "septic") is mostly encountered in rhyming slang (with apologies to our members from the US of A and yes, I blush to confess it is applied equally to Southrons).

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Saturday 11th of December 2010 04:43:41 PM

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