European territorial defence creates a civilian movement problem before it creates a transport problem. A government facing an armed attack may need part of its population to remain protected in place, another part to move within national territory, and another to cross a border temporarily. Each decision changes the demand placed on roads, railways, communications, public administration, accommodation, energy, water, health and social services at the same moment that military formations require many of the same resources. The strategic question is therefore not whether Europe possesses enough buses, buildings or emergency equipment in aggregate. It is whether national systems can turn those assets into an authorised, financed and sustained service that works across jurisdictions, without generating a competing demand that obstructs mobilisation or transferring an undefined liability to the state that receives the people. The question is concrete rather than hypothetical, because ten northern European governments have now committed themselves on paper to planning for this contingency, and the four national systems whose public record is richest have begun to move money and legal powers behind it. What follows traces how far that commitment has travelled down the chain separating a political undertaking from a service a public authority can call upon.