As for the conditions at the other end, it not unfrequently happened that even though the supply-trains might go to stations where the facilities for unloading them were ample, the Commissariat or other officers in charge would follow the example already being set in France by regarding loaded railway trucks as convenient movable magazines which should not be unloaded until their contents were really wanted. This was done regardless of the fact alike that the trucks thus kept standing on the lines impeded the traffic and that they were urgently wanted to meet the shortage of trucks elsewhere. But for the stringent action taken to check it, the evil due to this use of railway trucks for storage purposes would have assumed even graver proportions than was actually the case. Defective, also, as the German arrangements in this respect undoubtedly were, they still did not attain to the same degree of inefficiency as was the case in France. All the same, the general result of these various conditions was that serious difficulties were experienced on the German no less than on the French railways. No sooner had the concentration of the Prussian troops been completed than provisions and stores were sent after them in such volume that a hopeless block, extending to Cologne in one direction and Frankfort in the other, was speedily produced on the lines along the left bank of the Rhine, while the feeding of the troops was brought to a temporary standstill. The combined efforts of the Prussian Executive Commission, of the Minister of Commerce and of the Line Commissions failed for a time to overcome the conditions of chaos and confusion thus brought about, and on August 11, 1870, instructions had to be given that thenceforward supplies were to be forwarded only on the express order of the Intendant-General or of an Inspector-General of Communications. Yet on September 5 there were standing, on five different lines, a total of no fewer than 2,322 loaded wagons, containing 16,830 tons of provisions for the Second Army, or sufficient to keep it supplied for a period of twenty-six days. Such blocks on the German lines--though not always on so great a scale--were of frequent occurrence throughout the war. Trouble arose, also, in getting provisions from the railway to the troops by reason either of the inadequate number of road vehicles or because of the use of these for the conveyance of ammunition or for other purposes, instead. Thus the Inspector-General of the First Army started with 2,000 road vehicles; but on October 17 the total number still at his disposal was only twenty. The position became still worse as the retreating French destroyed the lines behind them, increasing the difficulties of the invaders in maintaining their communications with the Fatherland.