RAILWAY REGIMENT.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1215, 3 January 1883, Page 2

RAILWAY REGIMENT.

It is just announced "by the Vienna Press that the Mtablishrnent of a railway regiment in the Austro-Hun Igarian service has been definitely decided on by the Imperial Minister of War. Thero is little doubt that the action of the English in Egypt has accelerated the decision of the Austrian authorities. Since Sir Beauchamp Seymour opened fire on Alexandria the public have been continually hearing and reading of armour plated trains, and the pictoral papers have familiarized them with engine and railway carriages — a sort of land ironclad — creeping slowly to the front with their load of armed men. Recent experience has shown that the railway plays an important part in warfare and that it is destined to be of yet greater service in the science of destruction. The Germans for years have familiarised their troops with the construction and working of railways, and the knowledge acquired proved of the greatest service during the Franco G-erman war. The railway regiment about to be formed in Austria which will be permanently connected with railway operations, is to consist of two battalions, each of four companies. Two companies of each battalion will be specially trained in the construction and destruction and management of traffic. During peace the new regiment is to be practised in its work on the different lines of the Empire. In short

every, precaution will be taken to make it efficient when its services are required. Of course, in the case of war the Austrian authorities, as well as the i German, have the right to appropriate all the Railways and the officials, whether the lines belong to private companies or to the State, but there can be no doubt that the plan of forming in time of peace a body of men specially able to manage the movement of troops by railway in time of war is a step in the direction. For the future — so long at least as the present vast war establishments are maintained on the Continent — no nation can afford to do without its railway regiment.