German bureaucracy and old gauges: why boosting Europe’s train network is vital to prepare for war

When France deployed its troops to lead a new Nato battlegroup in Romania, its tanks were loaded onto trains ready to be sent across the continent - only to be held up at the German border.

Since then, French officials like to remind the military alliance that its credibility relies on being able to rapidly respond to threats.

“You won’t have a credible deterrence if the Russians know that we can’t move a brigade without tanks being held up at the border,” a senior Nato source said, describing the French frustrations.

This view extends to the upper echelons of Nato’s leadership, who know they will be in a race to move up to 500,000 troops to the alliance’s easternmost borders at the first sign of Russian aggression.

“You’re trying to convey to the Russians that ‘Hey, we see what you’re doing. Don’t make a terrible mistake’,” Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of the US army in Europe and now a Nato senior mentor on logistics, told The Telegraph.

“It’s about preventing a crisis and about giving our political leaders some options other than having to do a liberation campaign into Lithuania or Romania.”

Since last year’s summit in Vilnius, Nato has been preparing that 300,000 troops are kept in a state of high readiness and the force structures are in place to ensure they have what they need to defend the alliance.

For this, the old adage that “infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars” applies best.

Logistical imperatives

Railways are a key part of such logistics - train lines are easily the fastest and most efficient way to move large amounts of military equipment and vehicles across countries without shutting down roads.

But moving forces around Europe involves navigating a complex web of bureaucracy and faltering infrastructure - with Germany emerging as a major stumbling block on both fronts.

“After the Cold War, we completely restructured our armed forces and to a large extent put aside everything we planned and exercised during the Cold War,” Heinrich Brauss, a retired German lieutenant general and former Nato official responsible for defence planning, said.

The peace dividend of the time led to money being diverted away from defence budgets.

What was spent was used to maintain battlegroups and not the less-sexy logistical enablers such as universally compatible rail gauges needed to move them around.

But now that war is on Europe’s doorstep, change is once again afoot.

Regional defence plans have been drawn up for how to quickly shift as many as 100 brigades – up to 500,000 men – into defensive positions to avert a crisis.

An initial 100,000 men would be moved to Nato’s eastern border within the first 10 days.

A second echelon would arrive in reinforcement in the first month, with a third tier of forces being dispatched across the first six months.

But while civilian and commercial traffic move freely around the European Union’s Schengen travel zone, no such arrangement exists for the military.

Customs clearances for tanks and artillery howitzers to enter Germany, considered the roundabout of European defence because of its geography at the heart of the continent, often take three to four weeks instead of a few days as in other countries.

Diplomatic clearance is needed for any military movement greater than 50 troops and 10 vehicles.

This issue has been raised multiple times by the French after their tanks were left stranded at the German border en route to Romania.

And then there are the questions over the reliability of the country’s Deutsche Bahn railway network, which was said to favour transporting passengers and commercial freight over military hardware.

“People complain, tanks don’t,” Hans Damen, a retired Brigadier-General in the Dutch military, said.

“What I’m afraid of is if there is really a threat, Russia might not attack Europe but may ‘accidentally’ cross the border of Poland,” he added.

“What are we going to do? Are we going to wait and see whether Deutsche Bahn has room on their railroads? Or are we waiting for diplomatic clearance from Hungary? I hope not, but I’m not sure if everything will go smoothly.”

Addressing weaknesses

While Europe’s railways are seen as the most effective method of transporting military hardware around the continent, there is a shortage of the flatbed rolling stocks needed to do so.

Deutsche Bahn has only enough capacity to move two armoured brigades – normally made up of around 85 tanks and hundreds of armoured vehicles – at the same time.

Germany acts as the main throughway to Eastern Europe for American military hardware landing in the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

Berlin recently struck a deal with The Hague and Warsaw to develop a new military corridor to ease transport along Europe’s North Sea ports to Nato’s eastern flank.

It aims to tackle burdensome bureaucracy, poor infrastructure, such as weak bridges, and gives priority to military rail traffic when needed.

Nato’s Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC) hopes to broker more of these deals in discussions with the European Union, which controls military mobility in times of peace.

In the five years since it was formed, JSEC has carried out a review of Europe’s infrastructure to make sure it can cope with wider Nato plans to defend the alliance.

It is creating a number of “corridors” that its commanders believe will be able to deliver troops and tanks to the easternmost borders quick enough to deter any Russian threat.

Ports in the Netherlands, Germany and Baltic states are seen as particularly susceptible to Russian missiles and hybrid attacks aimed at triggering labour strikes, Lt Gen Hodges said.

Other facilities have been identified in France, Spain, Greece and Slovakia at potential entry points to keep the Russians guessing.

Much of this pressure could be alleviated by pre-positioning stocks of ammunition and fuel in warehouses across the continent. But Nato planners are acutely aware that Russia was able to take out nearly 80 per cent of Ukraine’s static supplies in the first days of the war.

EU collaboration

Another weakness identified by JSEC is moving equipment into the three Baltic states and new member Finland, whose railways operate a narrower, Soviet-era gauge.

This means trains entering Lithuania from Germany have to move hardware onto different trains, severely slowing down movements to any potential frontline in a conflict with Russia.

The EU’s Pesco programme has been set up in parallel to address the continent’s infrastructure.

As of January, the EU had spent €1.69 billion, and had allocated a further €807 million for 38 projects aimed at improving troop movements.

But Lt Gen Hodges sees the EU scheme as somewhat of a failure after its initial budget of €6.5 billion was slashed.

“If we don’t get this right, we can’t fight,” the Nato official said.

“There’s now a realisation that we’ve been noticing everywhere that if the enablement piece is not ready then we won’t be able to execute our plans, we won’t be able to deter properly.”