So far as the mobilisation of the German troops and their concentration on the frontier were concerned the plans worked, on the whole, remarkably well; though even in this respect complete success was not attained. There were, in 1870, nine lines of concentration available, namely, six for the Northern and three for the Southern Army; and between July 24 and August 3, there were dispatched by these different routes 1,200 trains, conveying 350,000 men, 87,000 horses, and 8,400 guns or road vehicles. Yet the delays which occurred to some of these trains were alone sufficient to show that the machinery which had been elaborated was not working with perfect smoothness. On, for example, the route known as line "C," the troops sent to Giessen were--as told by Balck, in his "Taktik"--eleven hours late in their arrival. They then had their first warm food after a journey which had lasted twenty-one hours. For the transport to Homburg-in-der-Pfalz and Neunkirchen forty hours had been allowed. The first train did the journey in the time, but the next one took ninety hours. It was, however, in the forwarding of supplies and in the provisioning of the troops that the greatest difficulties were experienced; and here there certainly appeared to be little real advance on the shortcomings of the campaign of 1866, notwithstanding all the preparations which had been made in the meantime. Comprehensive as it undoubtedly was, the scheme prepared in time of peace included no adequate organisation for regulating the transport of supplies to the front and for ensuring alike their dispatch and their arrival in just such quantities, and under just such conditions, as would provide for the needs of the troops from day to day. Magazines had certainly been set up, but not in sufficient number or always in the right place. The system, too, of operating them was defective. Just as in 1866, so in 1870, army officers, contractors and railway companies, all inspired by zeal for the welfare of the troops, rushed off train-load after train-load of supplies to stations provided with an inadequate supply alike of sidings where the wagons could be accommodated and of labour for the work of unloading. Stores were handed to the railway staffs under the same conditions as in peace time, the idea being, apparently, that if they were only dispatched as soon as possible they would be sure to get to the troops in want of them.