[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
Fourth Series
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.
NO. 726. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1877. PRICE 1½_d._]
WAR AND TELEGRAPHY.
It is vexing, even saddening, to think how large an amount of
discovery, invention, and skill is applied to the murderous purposes of
war. As we advance in civilisation, armies become larger and larger,
and more abundantly supplied with agencies we would willingly see
devoted to more peaceful purposes. Whether wars of race, wars of creed,
wars of ambition, or wars of national vanity, the result is much about
the same in this respect. Some consolers tell us that wars by-and-by
will become so terrible as to check the desire to wage them: let us
hope so, despite present symptoms.
Science has unquestionably rendered a vast amount of aid to attack
and defence in war within the last few years. Gunpowder, gun-cotton,
dynamite, and other explosive substances for fire-arms, torpedoes,
and military mining have had their properties and relative powers
investigated with remarkable completeness. Gun-carriages have
been so vastly improved, that by Captain Scott's contrivances a
six-hundred-pounder can be managed as easily and quickly as a
thirty-two-pounder could in the days of our fathers or grandfathers;
while by Major Moncrieff's automatic apparatus a gun lowers itself
behind the screen of a parapet or earthen battery for loading, and then
raises itself twelve or fifteen feet to fire over it.
Photography, again, is applied in a great variety of ways to aid
warlike operations. At the office of the Ordnance Survey, or under the
supervision of the Director, an amazing number of such photographs are
taken, enlarged or reduced from the original dimensions according to
circumstances, and multiplied or prepared for printing by a very rapid
process of zincography or some other kind of electro-engraving. One of
the Reports issued by the Director tells us that he supplies the War
Office with photographs of plans of battles, important fortified posts
and their surrounding districts, barracks and forts in all parts of
the British dominions, &c. All the equipments of troops for the field
are similarly photographed or zincographed, as unerring patterns for
reference. For such wars as we have been engaged in during the past
five-and-twenty years (happily few in number), such as the Crimean,
Abyssinian, and Ashanti campaigns, photographs and zincographs have
been supplied in large number to the officers, illustrating all details
which the home authorities have been able to ascertain, and which are
likely to be useful in the intended operations.
What are we to say of the _torpedo_, and its management by electricity?
This is really a wonderful subject, the influence of which on future
naval warfare even the most skilled and experienced officers can only
dimly surmise. We know that during the civil war in America, the
Federal torpedoes wrought more destruction on the Confederate ships
than all the guns in the Federal fleet; that, on the other hand, the
Confederate torpedoes so effectually guarded the approach to Richmond
up James River, that a hostile flotilla was compelled to retire baffled
and disappointed. One unlucky Federal ship unwittingly passed over a
submerged torpedo at the moment of explosion. And with what result?
'The hull of the ship was visibly lifted out of the water, the boiler
exploded, the smoke-funnels were carried away, and the crew projected
into the air with extreme velocity. Out of the crew of one hundred and
twenty-seven men, only three remained alive--the vessel itself being
blown to atoms.' The arrangements have been so much improved since that
time, that messages can be sent across a river or estuary from shore to
shore through the very wire which is to discharge the torpedo! In every
naval war during the last few years, torpedoes have been more or less
employed. In what way the weaker Russian fleet has been able to baffle
the stronger fleet of the Turks in the struggle of 1877, the newspapers
have told us in full detail. There is no necessity for pursuing this
part of the subject further, seeing that it was lately treated with
some degree of fullness in our pages.
But the greatest marvel of all, in regard to the application of
electricity to warlike purposes, is the _electric telegraph_.
We know what service the lightning-messenger renders to society
generally in the peaceful daily maintenance of commercial and social
intercommunication; and military men now know what a potent instrument
it is in the conduct of field-operations and siege-works. An officer
well qualified to judge affirms that the memorable Franco-German War,
so disastrous to France, could not have been carried on without the aid
of the electric telegraph by the German forces. The warlike struggles
engaged in by various European powers in the Crimea, in India during
the Mutiny, in China, in New Zealand, in the Austro-Italian provinces,
in Morocco by the Spaniards, in America by the Federals and the
Confederates, in Holstein during the brief Dano-German War, in Bohemia
during the still briefer Austro-Prussian War, in Abyssinia, in France
during the struggle against the Germans, in Ashanti--all these were
marked by the adoption of the electric telegraph to a greater or less
extent.
Many of us remember, from the vivid descriptions written by the
special correspondents of the daily newspapers, how terrible were
the sufferings of the British troops in the Crimea during the winter
of 1854-5, engaged in trench-work and other siege-operations under
almost every kind of privation. But we also know how impossible it
would have been to learn the news quickly in England and to send
instructions, without the aid of telegraphy. An electric cable was for
this very purpose submerged in the Black Sea from the Turkish mainland
to the Crimea; while on land, wires were set up from Balaklava to the
headquarters outside Sebastopol. Thus it was that daily messages could
be exchanged between Lord Raglan's headquarters and the War Office in
London--also between the special correspondents of the daily papers
and their employers in Fleet Street or Printing House Square. So in
like manner, during the struggle arising out of the Indian Mutiny, the
advancing British columns contrived, wherever possible, to maintain
unbroken telegraphic communication with Calcutta, whereby the viceroy
was kept informed of what was going on. Of course the mutineers or
rebels destroyed or disrupted the wires wherever and whenever they
could; and to repair the damage thus inflicted formed no small part of
the arduous duties of the British officers.
Our little but expensive war in Abyssinia in 1868, marked by a less
shedding of blood than almost any other war in modern times, was
an engineers' war from first to last. A wild and unknown country
was surveyed and accurately mapped out, four hundred miles of
road constructed, tube-wells sunk, photographs of various useful
kinds taken, and a telegraphic system established. The telegraphic
arrangements first made had to be abandoned, owing to the scantiness
of the facilities for transporting the necessary materials. The more
restricted plan actually adopted was difficult enough, so limited
were the means of obtaining wood for telegraph poles. On approaching
Magdala, however, Captain St John (who had the management of this part
of the engineering) succeeded in laying down from five to ten miles
a day. Short as was the war, this telegraph conveyed more than seven
thousand eight hundred messages during the five months of its working,
and aided most materially in giving effect to General (now Lord)
Napier's well-planned and successful scheme of operations.
Our strange Ashanti War gave further evidence of the formation of a
telegraph line through a wild country inhabited by a barbarous people.
Lieutenant Jekyll, who had the management of this work, has given a
lively account of the difficulties that beset him, and his mode of
overcoming them. It was at first intended to fight the war with native
levies and to lay down a railway; but Sir Garnet Wolseley, on landing
to take the command, soon found that the natives were not sufficiently
reliable, that the country was almost impracticable for a railway, that
he must have English troops, and that an electric telegraph would be a
highly useful aid. Lieutenant Jekyll, with a small staff, went inland
and bought bamboo canes of the blacks, set them up as posts, and laid
his wires from Cape Coast Castle to Coomassie at the rate of about two
miles a day. A gang of fifty natives helped him. Of these worthies
he says: 'They were not promising in appearance, and I was compelled
to dispense with the services of those who were _less than four feet
high_! (We italicise these words to shew what pigmies many of the West
Africans are.) But they had with them an intelligent headman; and by
dint of supervision, supplemented by a little flogging once now and
then, turned out a tolerably useful body for light work, as niggers
go.' The line was extended by degrees as far as Accrofumu, about a
hundred miles from the coast. An amusing proof was afforded of the
tendency of the natives to regard the telegraph as a kind of fetich,
charm, or spell. The English one day saw bits of white cotton-thread
suspended from tree to tree for several miles, as if to obtain thereby
some of the mysterious benefits which the white man evidently expected
from the wire. When the native helpers received small electric shocks
occasionally, consequent on the testing or using of the line, they
made sure that a charm was at work; and the lieutenant was half afraid
his men would run away in terror. The climate was very trying to the
English, who, lying ill with fever, got the natives to rouse them when
any movements of the receiving apparatus were observed. Nevertheless,
this telegraphic line rendered services much more than compensatory for
the expense, difficulty, and anxiety of laying, maintaining, and using
it.
The truly wonderful and eventful Franco-German War of 1870-1 exhibited
the value of electro-telegraphy with a completeness never equalled
before or since. A foretaste had been given in the Austro-Prussian or
'Seven Weeks' War' of 1866; when four complete and distinct telegraphic
organisations were adopted--one with Prince Frederick-William's fine
army; one with that of Prince Charles; one at the king's headquarters;
and one in reserve. Each could lay down wires as fast as the
headquarters could advance. The speedy termination of the war averted
the necessity of constructing field-telegraphs, such as those about to
be described.
When the German forces advanced to Paris in the closing months
of 1870, the plan pursued with the telegraph was as follows: The
ordinary commercial and railway telegraphs were gradually extended
over the frontier into France, as the German armies advanced. The
field or _étappen_ telegraphs maintained communication between the
base of operations, the ammunition dépôts, and the advanced columns
of the various army corps. When the sappers and miners had pushed on
to the vicinity of Paris, the ubiquitous wire travelled with them.
The materials used were light and simple; the operators employed
to transmit and receive messages had been trained in the state
establishments; and headquarters were kept instantly informed of
any observed movements on the part of the French. The telegraph was
indeed in constant use by the Germans--for arranging the transport
of ammunition; for hourly communication with the commissariat; for
directing the conveyance to Germany of sick and wounded, as well as
prisoners; for regulating the traffic on the field railways; for
maintaining unbroken connection between the troops, which formed
a belt of ninety miles' circumference around Paris; for summoning
reinforcements to any point where suddenly needed; and to send news of
any gap in the continuity of the immense ring of soldiers encircling
the beleaguered city.
If any evidence were needed of the invaluable services rendered by the
electric telegraph in the war just noticed, it was furnished by M. Von
Chauvin, who attended before a Committee of the House of Commons on
Postal Telegraphs in 1876. He stated in distinct terms that the war
could not have been carried on without this potent aid.
Our own English system of war telegraphy, organised at Chatham, has
been improved from time to time. Light iron telegraph poles are
provided, to support insulated wires. There is a travelling office on
wheels for the operators; while the materials are carried in specially
constructed wagons. So strong is the wire that wheels may go over
it; and therefore the line is laid above ground or _on_ the ground
according to circumstances. Spikes of peculiar form enable the wires
to be hung on trees or walls to meet the contingencies of towns and
villages. The nucleus of the staff of operators is a small body of
Royal Engineers, under their own officers, comprising about fifty
military men, with occasional assistance from others--well organised
into superintendents, inspectors, clerks, linesmen, storemen, artisans,
and labourers. The wagons for materials contain drums on which the wire
is coiled; this is unrolled as the wagon moves on, which is as fast as
the operators can lay the line. At the present time, ten thousand miles
of prepared wire are said to be kept in store, ready for any exigences.
We might go on to notice the aid furnished to warlike operations by the
electric light; as for instance, at Paris in the closing weeks of 1870,
when such a light on Montmartre enabled the Parisians to gather some
knowledge of what the besiegers were about at night. But enough: the
brief summary above given will suffice to shew how electricity is used
in war.
NEARLY WRECKED.
CHAPTER III.--WILFRED'S LETTER.
Time went by, and nothing happened to justify Mabel's fears. Wilfred
seemed to be working hard and getting on well. His talent was
pronounced unmistakable by the master under whom he was placed, and
he himself was in good spirits about his future. But before very long
matters began to change. His letters to Mabel were less frequent and
shorter than they had been; he spoke with less openness and frankness
of his doings; and it was evident to her that there was a _something_
which he was careful to keep from her.
She longed to see Mr Merton, to hear from him what news he had of his
son, and whether his ideas about Wilfred corresponded with her own; but
she dared not speak to him about it. She knew how hard he had always
been to Wilfred, how intolerant of all his faults; and she knew well
there would be little mercy to be hoped for him at his father's hands
if, as she suspected, he had been taking more to pleasure and less to
work lately. She dared not even speak to her father of what she feared,
for could she expect even him to think as leniently of her dear one as
she did? So she had to go on from day to day keeping her trouble--which
was not less difficult to bear because it was only suspected--to
herself.
At last, when Wilfred had been about nine months in Paris, but too
certain proof arrived of how true her suspicions had been. Mr Colherne
was staying away from home--a very unusual proceeding, and Mabel was
left alone. He had gone to pass a few days with a friend in Scotland,
whither it had been impracticable for his daughter to accompany him.
The morning after his departure, Mabel came down to breakfast rather
later than usual, singing a snatch of one of her favourite ditties, and
burst open the dining-room door in a way that was indicative of her
lively feelings. Her eye lighted upon a letter that was lying in her
plate; the writing was that of Wilfred Merton. The missive was almost
illegible and very brief, and acted upon her gay spirits like a sudden
freezing. It ran as follows:
MY DARLING MABEL--I must write a few words, the last you will
ever have from me, to tell you that whatever may appear,
however any one may try to persuade you, I still love you;
love you, as I have done all my life, with all the best part
of my nature. Believe that, Mabel, my own, always. I write to
say good-bye, for I shall never see you again; and yet I never
longed to see you as I do at this moment. I feel half mad now,
and hardly know what I am writing. How shall I say it; I have
nothing to live for, except disgrace, and I will not live for
that, I am resolved. Once more, good-bye, dearest and best. Try
to forgive me, and then forget me, as every one else in the
world will soon do.
WILFRED MERTON.
For an instant Mabel sat quite still, gazing straight before her with
one expression, that of blank despair, upon her face. This sudden
fearful shock had quite stunned her. But she was not a girl to remain
inactive, simply grieving over misfortune, when there was anything to
be done. Her resolution was promptly taken. She rang, and a servant
appeared.
'Tell Hawkesley to bring the brougham round as soon as he possibly
can,' she said; 'tell him not to mind how it looks, but to be at the
door as soon as possible.'
'Is anything the matter, miss?' said the man, astonished at this order.
'Yes. I have no time to lose.'
'Is it master, miss?' he asked, with that dreadful habit of his class
of questioning instead of doing what is wanted.
'No; papa is quite well. But don't stop now; go yourself to the stable;
I haven't a minute to waste.'
In a few minutes more she was seated in the brougham which was fast
making its way to Mr Merton's bank in the City.