Péchot and French railways during the Great War

Aurélien Prévot has just published 'French Railways of the First World War/ Chemins de fer francais de la premiere guerre mondiale'. When we received our copy, we went straight to the section on narrow gauge. There appear some wryly humorous watercolours of the Péchot-Bourdon locomotive at war. The captions include: 'While everyone else cowers below ground, the Péchot marches up to the enemy proudly blowing off her double plumes of steam' and 'Others may avoid an obstacle - the Péchot simply laps it up'. These were painted by an artist called Renault who unfortunately died in 1917 - more below.

This model by the late Henry Holdsworth captures the colouring of the Renault watercolours. The Péchot-Bourdon locomotive is clearly on a trip to the British sector of teh Front

'French Railways of the First World War' covers all war-time aspects of the railways of France - standard gauge, metre gauge and trench railways - from the lessons of 1870 to the state of north-east France at the time of the Armistice, 1918. It describes the general mobilisation of 1914, army supplies, evacuation, hospital trains, civilian transport, Verdun, the crisis of 1917 and U.S. transport. In this, it very closely follows a book published in 1922 - 'French Railways in the War/ Les Chemins de fer francais et la guerre'. Col le Hénaff and Capt Bornecque were contributing to the series 'The Great War on the Western Front/La grande guerre sur le front occidental' published by Chapelot. There are numerous parallels, and not just in the chapter headings chosen.

Take for example the chapter on the AEF, the American Expeditionary Force which was sent from the USA to France starting in 1917. Le Hénaff writes - 'Supply Ports: Given the number of men and tonnage of supplies, it was necessary to share them among all available ports with sufficient capacity, that is, the ones bordering the Ocean, the Channel ports already working to capacity because of the traffic to England; the Mediterranean ports being out of the question because of submarine warfare'. Prévot: 'Taking account of the importance of staff and tonnage expected, it was important to choose ports with sufficient capacity. The Channel ports, however, were being used by the British and the Mediterranean ports not available because of submarine war. Therefore there remained only the Atlantic ports'

The map on page 339 of the Prévot book is very similar to map number 22 in the book written in 1922. Courtesy Terry van Winkle

The majority of the maps in the Prévot books are direct descendants of the Hénaff maps.

A sour comment?  Let me just correct this impression.  'Les chemins de fer français dans la première guerre mondiale' - even if it were just a reissue of Le Hénaff and Bornecque, was needed. 90 years have gone by and most of the original copies have disappeared. We have been fortunate to have one on loan from Terry van Winkle. In the 2014 book, there are changes in wording which reflect modern thought. 'The Ocean' of Hénaff has become 'the Atlantic' in Prévot. The 'English' have become the 'British'. The wonderful single sentence of 1922 with so many clauses in apposition has given way to three sentences in the later book. In short, even if it were merely a revised edition of the original, it is welcome!

In the 2014 book, Prévot gives us much more. There are new chapters; the one on 60cm gauge/ chemins de fer being particularly timely. A few paragraphs on 'la voie de 0m60' are scattered through the Hénaff text. Those, such my Other Half, who are fond of rail-mounted guns will welcome the new chapter on Heavy Artillery on rails/Artillerie Lourde sur Voie Ferrée (ALVF). There is an interesting section on camouflage, pages 391 to 395.

This model of a 60cm gauge WD water-tanker was built by Jim Hawkesworth using Wrightscale bogies. It shows how camouflage bariolé breaks up the outline of the wagon, making it less of a target for the enemy.

Anglophones will regret one thing. In the book of 1922, le Hénaff devoted a whole chapter to 'les transports anglais' but not so Prévot. Hang on though, Prévot has taken the sub-headings of the single chapter of the older book - concentration, up to 1916, war's end - and placed them in separate sections through the book. The Railway Operating Division - ROD - gets its own heading.

Most glorious of all are the illustrations in the new book. Apart from the maps, the Hénaff book of 1922 has half a dozen photos, mainly railway bridges. The book by Prévot is generously illustrated. As he explained, he spent many years building up a collection of contemporary photographs and postcards to be used in his work. He also thanks Didier Oberlin for allowing him to use the archive built up by Georges Mangin, his grand-father. This is one of the most important and systematic collections of railway photographs of 1914-18. Aged 36, Georges Mangin was called up at the beginning of the war. In 1916, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 5th regiment of the Génie (9th Company),  a regiment which specialised in operating 60 cm railways. Mangin saw service at Verdun and Reims. He was one of the few non-official photographers to possess a a camera. Inspired by a real interest in the subject, he took a series of photographs to document military narrow gauge. After the war, he went on to be a naval gunner before moving to the family firm. Until the end of his life, he kept up his interest in narrow gauge, frequently contributing to 'Chemins de fer Régionaux et Urbains' the magazine of FACS, among others.

One word of Prévot troubles me slightly. He uses the word 'inédit/not published before' of his illustrations. This is certainly not true of the maps! See above. As Didier Oberlin and his grandfather were real gents and would not refuse reasonable requests for reproduction, the word is not quite appropriate applied to the Mangin archive. Though pleased to see the tribute to 60cm/0m60/2' gauge, the Renault watecolours - La Grande Guerre de 1914/15/16/17 La Voie de 0,60 aux Armées par un poilu du front - have been circulating on the internet for some years. They are not 'previously unseen'. This is just one word in 400 very welcome pages.

How the victory parade actually happened

Let's give the last word to the Péchot Bourdon locomotive. In his seventh watercolour, entitled Le triomphe final/ final triumph, Renault shows two of them, garlanded with French flags, passing through the Arc de Triomphe on temporary track. It never happened, though he was not to only one to think  'wouldn't it have been a fine sight!'