The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1874-09-03
The Telegraph On the Battlefield.

II Is just twenty years since, for the
first time. the electric telegraph wire was
used on the field, and to the British army
belongs the honor Of having led the way
in its adoption The trenches and bat
teries before Scbastopol were traverscd
and connected by lines of telegraph,
and the French soon followed our cX-
ample and constructed similar system
in their own lines; while later on, a
cable laid across the Black Sea put the
armies in the field in direct communica-
ton with Paris and London. Since that
time 4 regular telegraph corps has been
organized in every European army. And
the field telegraph was used by the
French in Italy in 1859, and in their cam
| paigns against the kabyles, in Algeria; ;
and in America both the Federals and
Confederates made free use of permanent
and temporary lines during the war of
secession, the Southern cavalry in par
ticular displaying great daring and en-
terprisc in riding round the TANKS of
Federal armies, Selling their telegraph
lines, sending false messages to the
Northern Generals, and then cutting the
line and retiring as rapidly and secretly
as they came. 1t was, however, in the
Prussian army, and in the great cam
paigns of 1864, 1865, and 1S70-71, that
military telegraphy attained its greatest
developments; and, after the experience
of these three wars, the Prussian tele-
| graph corps is probably the most efficient
in Europe. We have already seen how
| well it did its work In the campaign Of
1866, and in 1870 it established the net
work of wires over the northeast of
France that enabled Moltke, sitting in
his bureau at Versailles, to move his
armies as accurately and certainly as
pieces on a chess-board; while
round Paris itself circle OF tele-
graph wires-that in moment flashed
information Of a sortic. and orders for
reinforcement of the threatened point to
every part Of the long line Of sixty miles
on which the besiegers lay-contributed
almost rs much toward the reduction of
"
iron, Of batteries, carthwcrks and re-
doubts, which, without the connecting
link of the telegraph wire, could not have
been maintained for single month On
their side the French displayed no less
energy. The regular telegraph corps was
shut up in Metz or lost at Sedan; but. a
fresh corps was organized for the armies
of the Republic, and at Paris the tele-
graph lines linked together the besieged
city, the forts and outworks and the head
quarters of Gen. Trochu. But it was in
the second siege Of the capital the
French telegraph corps obtained its
greatest success. During the fighting in
the streets of Paris, in May, 1871, the
moment a barricade was taken tele-
graph station was established in neigh
boring house, and when another post
was carried the telegraph corps would
again move forward with the troops, and
thus MacMahon was able to watch every
turn OF the fight and provide for every
contingency in a way that. otherwise
would have been utterly impossible. For
ourselves, we have had no European war
since 1854; but our armies have carried
the telegraph with them into India and
China and through the ravines and
passes Of Abyssinia; and now talking
WIRE stretches from Cape Coast Castle
through the bush, across the Prah into
the heart Of Western Africa, hanging on
the trees, with here and there a few
poles, the whole having been erected by
Fantce laborers under the direction of
handful of royal engineers English
MINER