ABSTRACT
The years leading up to the First World War saw huge change in a wide variety of fields, many of them crucial to the business of war. The European nation states built extensive rail networks, enabling them to move large bodies of troops up to a battle-front quickly. Military offensives became easier to organize, as did defensive consolidations, even though the more traditional means of transport that took soldiers from the rail-head up to the line remained vital and often caused delay.1 The numbers involved were huge. In the second half of the nineteenth century conscription was reintroduced in almost all European countries, most of which had abandoned it after the Napoleonic Wars. The ease of mobilization and the growth of armies made management essential, requiring the introduction of general staffs.2 The disadvantages of this would become apparent in wartime; the absence of commanding officers fighting alongside their men and inspiring them widened the gulf between the ordinary soldier and his general.
