Iii Intensive Traffic on the Roads

III. INTENSIVE TRAFFIC ON THE ROADS The Route Gardee.—For the organized employment of auto mobiles on the roads, like that of railway trains, the essential condition is to be master of the road. If all and sundry are per mitted to put columns of troops or vehicles on a road, it is useless to attempt to carry out important movements. It is an absolute rule, based on experience, that it is not possible to launch a big transport movement involving several hundreds of lorries without being absolutely certain of the complete freedom of the road dur ing the whole time that the movement will last. Hence the organi zation of the routes gardees, with their personnel of guards and their traffic orders.

A route gardee is not necessarily reserved exclusively for auto mobiles. But in every case there must be a responsible authority, having power to give orders and have them carried out. In the French Army, during the War, this authority was a motor regulat ing staff (C.R.A.). In the British Army, the control of traffic in France was part of the duties of the Provost Marshal's staff (P.M.). The organization of the route, on a railway model, is based on the block system. The route is divided into a series of districts, each of which is under the direction of a district chief, having assistants for supervision. The district chief is in constant touch by telephone with the neighbouring districts, and with the office of the C.R.A. ; he knows all the movements which affect his district, and also keeps a record of all movements which occur there and all the incidents of the traffic. Thus at the office of the C.R.A. it is always known what the state of the traffic is on every route gardee, and the necessary arrangements for launching an important movement can be made in a short time.

The length and the importance of the districts on a route gardee depend, obviously, on special difficulties to be overcome, e.g., the number of adjacent routes, localities traversed, narrow passages, etc. Between Bar-le-Duc and Verdun there were six "districts" varying in length from 5 to io kilometres. It is quite unnecessary to control in this permanent fashion a route over which there is not continuous traffic. Whenever such a road is

needed, for the time being, for an intensive transport operation, it is sufficient to occupy it immediately and transform it into a route gardee. This requirement leads to the C.R.A. (or any cor responding organization) being given a territorial zone of opera tion. In each zone it is the immediate business of the C.R.A. concerned to guard any portion of the road over which the trans port will be moving. For this purpose the C.R.A. had at its disposal specially organized personnel, which may be fairly accu rately designated "mobile districts," and which, being in the habit of operating in this way and supplied with the means of rapid installation, can, in two or three hours, make themselves masters of the traffic on whatever part of the road is entrusted to them.

Maximum Efficiency Over a Road System.

When one is master of "circulation" throughout a given region, one is free to aim at maximum efficiency. Formerly, when the staff proposed to carry masses of troops to a theatre of operations it traced the greatest number of parallel and serviceable roads which led to the zone of action decided on, and there was thrown on each of these roads a column of all arms scientifically echeloned in depth. Thus it was that Napoleon moved from the Rhine to the Main in 1805; thus, also, Moltke moved from the Sarre to the Moselle in 187o. When this system is applied to present-day conditions the effi ciency of the road system is low, because the increase of speed due to the automobile is not turned to account. All modern armies have motor tractor-drawn heavy and light artillery and pos sess the means of transporting the bulk of their infantry by motor lorry. In consequence, in co-ordination with the movements made by railway, the movements by road ought to be organized in the form of special itineraries, on each of which move columns of ele ments that are homogeneous from the point of view of speed. Thus combination of movements can be worked out in which much time is saved, as compared with the old methods.