THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
57 
necessary that the supply system shall be based on two principles—first, that each 
corps be supplied, as far as may be, from its own district; and second, that the 
supply of each field army, no matter how many corps it may contain, shall be 
under the direction of one chief. The combination is secured thus :— 
“ The supply of a whole field army is placed in charge of a field officer holding 
the rank and position of a General of Division. His department is called the 
Etappen Department, or department of the line of communications. The general 
who takes charge of the whole supply of an army in the field is called the Etappen 
Inspector. His duties and responsibilities are numerous, and second to none in 
importance. It was the difference between the organisation of the French and 
Prussian armies in the two points of district corps and Mappen arrangements, 
which placed superior Prussian forces in the field while the French were still 
hurriedly collecting troops from the whole country, and sending men from Strasburg 
to their depots in the south of France to get their arms and uniform, though the 
regiment to which they belonged was actually assembling near Strasburg itself. 
“ The Mappen Inspector for a field army has attached to him a chief of the staff, 
and officers representing respectively the artillery, engineers, intendant, medical, field 
post, telegraph, and railway departments. All the troops detailed for defence of 
the line of communications are placed under his orders, and have nothing to do 
with the army in the field except to watch the ways by which it has come, over 
which it must return, and along which its supply of life blood must flow. So an 
army advancing into an enemy’s country does not necessarily diminish as it 
proceeds, only the further it marches the more soldiers follow it from Germany to 
be distributed along the railway or roads forming its line of communications. In 
case of retreat, it gathers like a snowball as it rolls along. 
“ The artillery officer is responsible for all artillery materiel , whether guns, am¬ 
munition, or stores, and for the ammunition of the infantry. The engineer has 
to look after all means for digging trenches, &c., including everything required 
by his own branch of the service. The Surgeon-General and all the other 
officers detailed above, have the charge and responsibility of supplying whateveT 
may be wanted by the medical officers in the field. The great railway or road 
leading from the base from which the army has originally marched is entirely 
in charge of the Mappen Inspector and his assistants, and if anything goes wrong 
with it there can be no doubt where the responsibility lies. But his charge begins 
with this main line of road or railway, or both together, side by side, and ends 
about one, two, or three days’ march, according to circumstances, behind the field 
army. It is the business of the districts to send stores to the main line near its 
commencement, and that of the corps themselves to receive the stores from the 
Mappen Inspector’s last station, or station nearest to them, and to distribute 
them. 
“ Each corps in the field has an Mappen Department, with transport of its own, 
and far away in its German district, hands are busy collecting supplies, packing 
them, and forwarding them to the station appointed, generally the nearest, on the 
main line, where the Etappen Inspector takes charge of them. 
“ Whatever is collected and packed in a district is marked as belonging to its own 
corps, though all rules must be understood as liable to exception; and there can 
be no doubt that, in case of need, one corps would not be allowed to overflow 
while another starved. At intervals along the road, depots are established to 
feed the army with stores of all sorts, even if a temporary accident should occur 
on the line and the regular flow be cut off. The trains are made up of carriages 
conveying various articles. Each carriage has its way-bill or paper stating its 
contents, and their destination. If one is detained some time at a station on the 
road, its way-bill remains with the Etappen officer at that station. He has given 
a receipt for it, and is responsible until it leaves his hands again. 
“ Generally speaking, all meat is made to carry itself on its own legs, and much 
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