Excerpt from Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers Modern warfare demands an enormous amount of labour both on and off the battlefield, and although some of this may be done by rb. And other special corps, and some by civil labour, yet a great part of it must inevitably be done by the infantry, if it is to be done at all; and the need for willing and ready co-operation in all work which concerns the efficiency of the Army is imperative. It is certain that the introduction of mechanical transport means a great increase of work to the engineers in the upkeep of roads, and sometimes in their construction. The mass of mechanical vehicles will quickly destroy, in bad weather, anything but the best roads. It will be impossible for the re. To carry out this work without the assistance of other arms, especially of the ra. For transport of road materials. In these days, as we have been painfully reminded by the railway strike, we are all dependent for our existence on the work of the engineer and mechanist, and a field army is no exception to this rule. At Bloemfontein in 1900 we lost over men by death and invaliding in a few weeks, largely owing to bad water, caused by the destruction of the machinery of the waterworks. If any c.r.e. Had proposed, when the town was first occupied, that the troops should go on half rations for a day or two in order that the necessary materials for repairs of the waterworks might be brought by road from Kimberley, he might likely have been sent down to the base without even waiting for a medical board! But had the army realized what the loss of good drinking water would mean to them, they would gladly have done without a day's food if necessary, so that good water might be forthcoming, and such co-operation with the engineers might have saved more lives than were lost at Magers fontein or [spion Kop. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.