New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-08-02
The telegraph on the Battlefield.

1t Is just twenty years since, for the first
time, the electric telegraph was used in the
field, and to the British army belongs the
honor Of having led the way in it's adoption
The trenches md batteries before Sebasto
pol were traversed and connected by lines
Of telegraph, and the French soon followed
our example and constructed a similar sys-
TEN in their own lines; while later on,
cable laid across the Black sea put the ar.
mics in the field in direct communication
with Paris and London. Since that time a
regular telegraph corps has been organized
in every European army. And the field
telegraph was used by the French in 1859,
and in their campaigns against the Kabyles
in Algeria; and, in America, both the fed
erals and Contederates made free use of
permanent and temporary lines during the
war of secession, the Southern cavalry in
particular displaying great daring and en-
terprise in riding round the TANKS of federal
armies, Selling their telegraph lines. send
ing false messages to the Northern gener-
ais, and then cutting the line and retiring
as rapidly and secretly as they came. 1t
was, however, in the Prussian army, and
and IN the great campaigns of 1864. 1865,
and 1901, that the military telegraphy
attained its greatest development, and after
the experience of these three wars, the
Prussisn telegraph corps is probably the
seen how well it did its work in the cam
paign of 1866, and in 1870 it established the
network 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
chessboard; while round Paris itself circle
OF telegraph wires-that in moment flashed
information OF a sOrtie, and orders for rein
tOrcements of the threatened point, to every
M a nf ivfry
which the besiegers lay-contr buted al
most as much toward the reduction of the
vast fortress as the circle of steel and iron,
Of batteries, earthworks, anu -edOubts,
which, without the connecting linz of the
telegraph wire, could not have been main
taiEed tor a single month. On their side
the French displayed no less energy. The
regular telegraph corps was shut up in
Metz or los at Sedan; but fresh corps
was organized or the armies of the repub-
lie, and at Paris the telegraph lines linked
together the enciente, the forts and out
works, and the headquarters of General
Trochu. But it was in the second siege of
the capital that the French telegraph corps
obtained its greatest success. During the
fighting in the streets of Paris, in May, 1871,
the moment a barrcade was taken, a 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 emergency,
in 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 Abyssnia; and now
.taiking 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 few poles
the whole having been erected by Fantee
iahorers. under the direction of q handful of
royal ngineers.-Engiish paper.