The iron warhorses

Engines of War

I had the idea that the importance of railways in war belonged to the 19th century or, at a stretch, to World War I. Not so, according to Wolmar, who makes a very convincing case that railways were pivotal even in World War II and beyond.

Hitler was very anti-railway, says Wolmar. He was a believer in mechanised road transport and the Nazi state spent so much money on autobahns – at a time when few vehicles could take advantage of them – that the war on the Soviet Union was handicapped because of an acute shortage of rail transport to move the huge quantities of men and supplies needed to fight that war.