This article first appeared in Navy and Army Illustrated, April 22, 1899.

In this country where the supposed necessities of the defense of our coastline as a problem that appeals to the military student, the idea of a moving series of batteries, ready to proceed to any threat is very attractive to many thinkers and writers and as early as 1849, a Scotsman from Edinburgh proposed some plan to the Duke of Wellington. As at that time there was still a very considerable objection to anything 'new fangled' especially in the Services, we need not be surprised to hear that this suggestion fell on barren ground, and was rejected on the pretext of cost.

Little more than a decade had passed away however before an actual armoured train was an established fact. This was in the United States of America, where, so far, so far from looking askance at novel ideas, they were followed up with avidity, especially as regards those connected with warlike affairs, for at that period the tremendous convulsion known as the Civil War in America had just broken out.

A mob from Baltimore had destroyed the bridges on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railway, and in order to prevent a recurrence of these disorders, and to protect the line generally, the Government ordered the construction of a specially equipped car (see right). A long, flat baggage car was built up and covered in with thick sheet iron, in which a number of loopholes for musketry were pierced. At either end, and in the centre of each side was a porthole, from either of which a cannon mounted on a traversing turn-table could be fired.

Its projectiles were unique, as it was to be loaded with a number of discs cut from boiler plate. This cannon was to be worked by a crew of Bluejackets, while fifty riflemen completed the garrison of the car. Whether this railway carriage was ever used for hostile purposes is not recorded.

Siege of Paris

The next use of armoured trains was made by the French during the siege of Paris, when they were frequently employed in supporting the sorties in which the besieged vainly endeavoured to break throuph the iron girdle with which the Germans had invested their city.

There seems to be some doubt as to the construction of these trains, but the following is a description of one (see right) that was equipped at Tours, for the purpose of assisting in running a provision train to the hard pressed Paris garrison.

Both engines and carriages were bullet proof, and provided with loopholes, while four small cannon were carried whirh could he fired from the train. The whole affair was capable of harrying fire from a hundred men. When after the evacuation of the city by the Germans, the outbreak of the Commune caused the fighting round Paris, the 'Reds' made considerable use of armoured trains, either those already constructed for use against the Prussians of those created by themselves.

On April 17, the Communists had seven armour-plated locomotives on the railway near Asnieres, in which place they were strongly entrenched, and these might have proved formidable adjuncts of defence had not the position been suddenly outflanked by heavy Naval guns placed in position at Colombes, and by the Redoubt of Genevilliers, which the Versaillese had rearmed without the knowledge of their opponents. Two days later, the Government troops between Asnieres and Courbevoie, while according to the Communists they even ran out as far as Chateau Becon, and night after night beat down the fire of the batteries which the besiegers were there establishing.

Egypt, 1882

We come now to the year 1882, when we ourselves made considerable use of 'armoured trains' during our operations against the Egyptian rebels under Arabi Pasha. These trains were not however armoured in the same way as the somewhat elaborate contrivanees which we have already noticed, but were partially defended by boiler plates and sandbags.

"Armed trains' would have been a more correct description of these affairs, as they all mounted cannon and sometimes machine guns as well.

The most famous one (see right) was that which ran out every evening from Alexandria towards Kafr Dowar, and was fitted out by Captain (now Sir John) Fisher, R.N. She was quite a sight to see as she came rumbling through Gabarrie Station then held by our pickets, a pilot engine in front, and then the long line of trucks with the engine in the middle, the Jack forward and the white ensign fluttering out astern, 'all ship-shape and man-o'-war fashion'.

The locomotive was garlanded with sand-bags, while the trucks, at least the leading ones, were protected by boiler plates roughly attached to their sides. The foremost one mounted a 40pounder Armstrong gun, while further back were Nordeufelts, and in one truck a couple of 9-pounders on their field carriages, which could be lifted out and in by a small crane that was fitted to the train so that they could be rapidly brought into action.

The train was well tested in the reconnaissance near Milala Junction on August 5. It ran out in front of another train conveying the battalion of marines that formed the right of the British attack and as soon as. these had been detrained and came into , action along the railway embankment, the armoured train began to aid the advance with its cannon.

The two 9-pounders were hoisted out and ran up into position on the railway some way ahead of the train with wonderful rapidity, and made excellent shooting at a house at the bend of the line whose garrison were, from its position, enabled almost to enfilade the marines as they advanced. One gun with common shell would bolt the 'Gyppies' out of their shelter, to be greeted with a well-aimed round of shrapnel by the other. This manoeuvre was again and again repeated with great success. The 40-pdr was of great value in keeping back the enemy wben the retirement was ordered.

Then again in Egypt, and after the dash up the Suez Canal, when the British army was encamped at Kassassin, previous to advancing on the lines of Tel-el Kebir, another armoured train was constructed.

This was not such an elaborate affair as the one at Alexandria, merely consisting of a truck defended with iron plates and carrying a 40-pounder Armstrong pointing forward, and a Gattling gun at the side (see right).

It was used in the second battle of Kassassin when the attack on our camp was repulsed. On this action there was a train on the same railway within the Egyptian fighting line, which was said to be also an armoured and armed train. At the first hattle of Kassassin, too, a gun mounted on a railway truck played a very important part, though neither armour nor engine were available. This was a captured Krupp, which, manned by a crew of the Royal Marine Artillery, engaged the whole of the enemy's batteries for the greater part of the day, avoiding derailment by being constantly pushed backwards and forwards along the line to alter the distance and disconcert the enemy's aim.

Since the Egyptian War there have not been many more examples of the effective employment of 'armoured trains', but one at any rate, was used in the Civil War in Chili, while only recently a sand-bag protected train' carrying a field gun and riflemen was employed in the Soudan and manned by the 9th Soudanese Battalion.

In Cuba too, a protected truck and engine (see right) carried a guard of soldiers to protect the following trains between Colon and Santa Clara from the rebels. But it is possible that, in the future, armoured steam propelled carriages may play an important part in warfare than they have heretofore done.

The French have experimented with guns mounted on tracks along railway lines placed imnediatly behind parapets of a height suitable for them to be fired over, while we have in our own country an experimental armour-plated gun truck for use in shore defense, which is manned by the 1st Sussex Volunteers Artillery and whose trials have been fairly promising.

The gun, which is a 40-pounder Armstrong, is mounted on a turntable placed on a net truck 9see right) . The gunners are protected by a 6' high shield, forming three sides of a square, which revolves with the gun. A steel-protected locomotive and a couple of steel-plated carriages for the conveyance of men, complete this very well equipped armoured train.

German War Cars

But this comparatively simple apapratus will be quite put in the shade if the extraordinary 'war-cars' (see right) proposed by that versatile genius, the Emperor Wilhelm of Germany, should ever be found practical.

These are not to be confined to the narrow sphere afforded by the existing lines of railway, but are to roam, or rather 'run amok' at will over the battlefieold of the future and will be a cross between the war chariot of the ancients and the modern armoured train.

According to a recently published account, each of these cars will be as big as a Pullman and will be complete in itself. The sides will come close down to the ground to protert the wheels and will be composed of stout steel plating and be pierced with a number of ports and loop-holes for quick-firing guns, machine guns, and rifles.

To prevent the enemy, when at close quarters, from getting on the roof and so being in a position to annoy the crew from a quarter in which they cannot turn their weapons, the sides and top are provided with row upon row of speel spikes or bayonets.

Manned by a dozen men and laying down their own lines as they go, these bristling monsters are intended to charge down upon the enemy and break their line at a at a critical period of an engagement and in fact to play the part of invulnerable enemy cavalry.

What the enemy will do against these is not said. It seems to be assumed they will wait with fixed bayonets. Still, it is possible that some unking foeman would get out of the way and at the same time find means to overset or blow up the mailclad motorcar before it got very far in its wild career.

Such contrivances seem certainly to look very like chimeras, but as it is said that the renowned Herr Krupp has had a great deal to do with their design and is engaged in building an experimental one, there may be something to the idea after all.

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