overcome, e.g. the number of adjacent routes, the localities traversed, narrow passages, etc. Between Bar-le-Duc and Verdun there were six " districts " varying in length from 5 to 10 km.
It is quite unnecessary to guard 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, 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 ac- curately 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. It is well understood that a C.R.A., to whom a zone of operations has been entrusted, prepares as minutely as possible this bringing into action of the mobile districts on a plan of some kind over its route-system. For instance, it installs in advance a network of telephone stations; above all, it establishes and puts into place enormous placard indicators showing the direction of localities, designations of the routes, local traffic, war maps, etc.
A C.R.A. that has organized its zone of operations properly is really master of it; it installs a few permanent districts on the main roads, and has several mobile districts, always at disposal, which are thrown out each day wherever traffic makes it neces- sary. In the French automobile service system during the war, this role of the C.R.A. was facilitated by the fact that the com- missions were at the same time executive transport authorities. The head of the C.R.A. was also commander of several " group- ings " of transport, and he was responsible for carrying out all military motor transport work required by the army within the territorial limits of his zone. He was thus the first to be informed of any large movement of automobiles in his zone.
Maximum Efficiency over a Road System. When one is master of circulation throughout a given region, one is free to aim at maximum efficiency. How is this obtained? 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 eche- loned 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 1870.
When this system is applied to present-day conditions the efficiency of the road system is low, because the increase of speed due to the automobile is not turned to account. All modern armies have tractor-drawn heavy and automobile light artillery, and possess the means of transporting the bulk of their infantry by motor lorry. There remain the horse columns, on which it is no longer necessary to impose the speed limitations of marching infantry. In consequence, in coordination 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 elements 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.
We will examine further the conditions of carrying out stra- tegical movements on the road. From the point of view of traf- fic organization, these considerations lead to the principle of allocating the available routes gardees according to type of traffic. Thus, such a route is reserved for heavy artillery on tractors having a speed of 8-10 km. an hour: another route is allotted to motor field artillery; others for motor lorries, and yet others for horsed columns a distinction being made between the require- ments of light columns (field artillery and trains) and heavy columns (heavy artillery and bridging equipment) . One must also remember, in the distribution of these itineraries, the quality of the roads, their breadth and the strength of the road bridges. Thus one is led to a completely new technique in the utilization
of the roads, for which one must know the output of each itin- erary for the given density of traffic which it is proposed to put on it. One must work out the crossings and the doublings of the columns, and, above all, the way to place all these elements of different' speed so as to make as many different " moving stair- ways " as there are rates of movement.
The existence of regulating commissions in charge of zones of movement, and masters of the traffic, considerably eased the French problem. But the regulating commissions must have control not only of automobile traffic, but of all traffic: in their zones no movements must occur without their having received ' notice and taken the necessary measures to facilitate the execu- tion of the movements in question. They must be able to arrest all false movements in good time. And they must be in close touch, so as to form a complete network, covering the whole area over which it may be necessary to move any column.
It was by the functioning of an organization of this nature that the French army was able to make its concentrations of consid- erable numbers of troops at very short notice in March, May and July 1918.
Strategic Transport by Road. What is a strategic transport, or, in a wider sense, a strategic move? It is a movement capa- ble, by its results, of affecting the present or future situation of a battle. In war, when the forces are equal on both sides, the only way to act effectively on the opponent is by means of sur- prise a word that must be interpreted in the widest sense. The problem is not only to dazzle the enemy by unexpected blows, but also to secure that the blows get home. It is necessary to be stronger than the enemy where he believes he can cope with you, and as strong as he is where he believes he can overcome you.
The battlefield of Rocroy was no more than 2 km., that of Austerlitz no more than 10 kilometres. The French front of 1914-8 was 500 km. long. In modern warfare, up to 1914, one counted only on railways for strategic transport for the large higher formations: the plan of concentration was exclusively a plan of transport by rail, and the movements by road leading to the battle were only the immediate consequence of the deploy- ment of these higher formations on their railheads.
As the automobile has brought on the road again the tourist who had deserted it since the middle of the i9th century, so transport by motor lorry has brought into use again strategic movements by road. And, for the production of surprise effect, by adding the roads to the railways, it has been possible to put to full use all available means of communication.
The air alone has not been utilized; but it maybe foreseen in the future that it must be utilized for quick transport of combatants. In order that movements by roads should be serviceable, it is necessary for them to be rapid and powerful; this is attained by applying the same principles as in rail movements that is to say, the temporary break-up of large units for transport.
To understand these principles better, an example may be taken from the situation of Sept. 16 1918 on the Allied front in the region Toul- Verdun. The American army had at this time, to the E. of St. Mihiel, 8 divisions, which, with corps and army troops, were quite equivalent to 8 French army corps. The orders of Marshal Foch prescribed that this American army should be placed to the N. and N.E. of Verdun, in positions precisely laid down and sharply echeloned in depth, ready to move on the enemy on Sept. 26. Six divisions were coming from different sides, and principally from the region of Chaumont-Neuf chateau; eight would be those already mentioned, which, after carrying the salient of St. Mihiel by a brilliant assault, found themselves in very considerable disorder, as large forces rapidly successful in a convergent offensive must. It was calculated that time admitted of seven nights being devoted for it was desired to conceal the strategic move entirely to moving these eight army corps 60 km. from their present position and depositing them in order opposite the new objectives. What was the solution? For movement in suitable stages (three in number) there were available two itiner- aries, constituted by two roads which in part were very narrow and bad. It would be necessary to put four army corps in suc- cession on each road. Such a movement by road in earlier days,
