e no waggons." "But you have waggons. I
see them over there" (the station was Cognac). "Yes, but we may not
touch them. They belong to the military engineering department."
"Well, but what are they doing there?" "Ah, that is none of our
business."[134]

[133] _Le Journal_, November 26, 1915.

[134] _Le Journal_, November 26, 1915.

And in the ports, at the termini, at intermediate stations, the
merchandise lay heaped up, immobilized, while the merchants, the
middlemen, the manufacturers, the Government, the army were waiting,
time was lapsing, and the fate of the Republic and the nation hanging
in the balance. At Havre great machines, destined for a Paris firm
which was to have delivered them to factories making shells, lay
untouched for two months. The number of shells lost in this way has
never been calculated. Yet it was well known that during all that time
there were numbers of waggons available. What had become of them? The
answer was: They are to be found everywhere, immobilized. It is a case
of general immobilization of the rolling stock. People slept in them,
turned them into cottages, used them as warehouses, each individual
reasoning that one waggon more or less would not be missed. And as
this argument was used by large numbers of easy-going, well-meaning
people the result was appalling.

The most terrific war known to history was raging in three Continents,
and one group of belligerents, unaware or heedless of the magnitude of
the issues, kept wasting its enormous resources and throwing away its
advantages. At the little station of Cognac waggons laden with all
kinds of war materials, barbed wire, galvanized wire, etc., were
detained from September 1914 until November 1915, 400 days in all,
doing nothing. Forty-two waggons ready to move were found on two
grass-covered rails. Fourteen waggons were there since September 1914.
Eight since December of the same year, twenty since June. Altogether
at the modest little station of Cognac the total recorded by Senator
Humbert's _Journal_ was 228,500 tons-days. "All this during the most
tremendous war the world has ever witnessed, in which hundreds of
thousands of men have been slain, where we have continually been short
of war material, while industry and commerce are agonizing for lack of
means of transport. It may well seem a dream."[135]

[135] _Le Journal_, November 26, 1915.

Seven hundred French railway stations were devoid of rolling stock.