Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-07-28

Paris. July 5.-The role played by
telephone wire in the war-to say
nothing of the barbed variety that
protects nearly three thousand mile
battle fronts prodigious. 1t be-
comes apparent miles behind the lines
strung along all the routes leading to
commanding posts, through fields and
forests. on trees, poles. fence posts.
roofs. towers. windmills, straw stacks,
forming a network of communications
in which only the trained lineman can
see system and order. With aircraft
the telephone wire has largely re-
placed reconnoitering parties and
vedettes. There is scarcely "a skirm-
ish. battle or artillery attack in which
the wire doesn't participate. some
times in cooperation with aeroplanes,
sometimes without.
Every corps of the French army has
a certain number of motor-car tele-
phone shops, each equipped with two
complete telephone installations with
four miles of wire and an adequate
number of ground stakes and forked
pickets that may be stuck in the
bayonet socket of a rifle serving as a
temporary pole. Each of these outfits
has also its wireless equipment with
antennes to reach a height of so feet
and a dynamo connected with the
motor of the car to furnish the cur
rent. 1t requires only a few minutes
from arrival of the car to set up the
wireless outfit and put it in operation.
The enemy's artillery is constantly on
the watch for these motoring wire
men and occasionally gets them.
Their work enables observers to
utilize captive balloons and every
point of vantage-trees. housetops,
towers. windmills, straw stacks or ex-
tension posts raised by MINDLESS so
feet in the air. and telephone informa-
ton to officers or to batteries posted
miles behind. Perhaps the most eff
fective work Of all is done by the
wireless outfits that enable airmen to
the location of the enemy's' batteries
or concentrations of troops
The wire and the telephone are the
first objects of search when the en-
envy occupies town or a building.
At Compiegne on their march south
after Charieroi the first care of the
Germans was to cut all the wires and
destroy all the telephones and tele-
graphic instruments.
The Germans are said to have wired
the entire quarry region between the
Aisne and the Disc through their se-
cret agents before the. war. AZ any
rate wherever the French have ad-
vanced in that region they say they
nave found evidences Of long prep
aration for wire communication be-
tween farm buildings, cottages, mills.
etc, occupied by spies and the Ger
man batteries.
The story is told of an infantry
picket arriving at an isolated farm
house in that region and finding an
old woman seemingly alone. They
asked for water and food. 9. She
s~ore she had nothing and insisted
that it was useless to search. RE-
luctantly she preceded the soldiers To
the cellar. where there was nothing
but a few hogshead standing on end
one OF them. bigger and higher than
the rest, aroused the curiosity of the
sergeant in charge of the party. In
approaching he had the forethought tn
level his revolver at the top and Thus
get the drop on a man inside with a
revolver in one hand and a telephope
IN the other. All the other hogshea ds
contained batteries.
Inc Gazette De La Bourse of Petro-
grad tells story of telephonist who
was the only Russian living when a
post was captured by the German,
Huddiing in his hole. protected bv
sano- bags he telephoned to the artil-
W., ~, 20 nre directly at him and they
would get the Germans. The battery.
changed its aim accordingly ana ~.
.eiephonist transmitted the result ~
.ne nre as coolly as If he were not the
target. Shells rained upon the Mace
ana the Germans were repulsed ieay-
ns tneir dead When the Russians
.s,saa the position they found the
a'e,epnonist still unframed in his hole.
ojectors and aircraft ordered frn, u,
421ee hy wirelees PLAYED ! go. ,o,.