Great as the confusion undoubtedly was at the points of despatch, it was far surpassed by that which prevailed at stations to which trains were sent regardless of any consideration as to whether or not they could be unloaded there with such despatch as to avoid congestion. No transfer stations--constituting the points beyond which only the supplies wanted for immediate or early use at the extreme front should be taken, the remainder being forwarded as wanted--had been arranged, and the consignors, military or civil, had assumed that all supplies should be sent in bulk to places as near to the troops as possible. There were, consequently, many stations close to the frontier where the rails leading to them were occupied for miles together by loaded wagons, the number of which was being constantly added to by fresh arrivals. Many of these wagons were, in fact, used as magazines or storehouses on wheels. The same was, also, being done to a certain extent on the German lines, though with this difference--that whereas in Germany there were at the railway stations route commandants whose duty it was to enforce the prompt unloading of wagons, in France there was no corresponding authority. It suited the officers or the military department concerned to keep the supplies in the wagons until they were wanted; and this arrangement may have appeared an especially desirable one from their point of view because if the army moved forward--or backward--the supplies could be more readily moved with it if they were still in the wagons. For these various reasons, there were officers who gave the most stringent orders that the wagons were not to be unloaded until their contents were actually required. It was evidently a matter of no concern to them that the wagons they were detaining might be wanted elsewhere, and that, for lack of them, other troops might be experiencing a shortage in their own supplies. When the wagons were not deliberately kept loaded, it might still be impossible for the unloading to be done because of there being no military in attendance to do the work. As for the picking out, from among the large number in waiting, of some one wagon the contents of which were specially wanted, the trouble involved in this operation must often have been far greater than if the wagon had been unloaded and the supplies stored in the first instance. Even the stations themselves got congested, under like conditions. The Commissariat wanted to convert them into depôts, and the Artillery sought to change them into arsenals. There were stations at which no platform was any longer available and troops arriving by any further train had to descend some distance away, several days elapsing before their train could be moved from the place where it had pulled up. At stations not thus blocked trains might be hours late in arriving, or they might bring a squadron of cavalry when arrangements had been made for receiving a battalion of infantry.