In the same category with the aeroplane, the automobile, the submarine, the torpedo, in their effect upon the method of waging modern warfare are the telephone and the wireless telegraph. There were no telephones and no wireless instruments in the days of our own Civil War, and the stories related of the bravery and astuteness displayed by orderlies, messengers and scouts of those days will not be repeated.
Today the army carries a complete telephone system and wonderful wireless apparatus. The commander sits in his headquarters and communicates with his officers in all parts of the field, reaching points miles distant. Wires are strung through trenches, along fences and wherever needed, and telephone "booths" are set up wherever it is found necessary. Switchboards are mounted on motor cars and encased in armor plate. The "repair" wagons are motor vehicles, and lines cut or destroyed are quickly repaired or replaced.
Aerial stations for the wireless are carried, and are of many varieties. Some of them are similar to the observation towers and ladders. The French army regulations provide for wireless service between the general staff headquarters and the army corps, connecting these with the heavy cavalry divisions and lines of communication. The wireless companies in the French army are made up of 10 officers and 293 men.
Nearly all of the other nations have patterned their wireless companies after the French. The company carries 302 miles of wire and cable and about 96 sets of instruments. The rate of operation is more than 400 words a minute. The mast for the aerial station is made in sections, on the telescope plan, and can be erected by a trio of men in a few minutes. The whole outfit for a station weighs about 750 pounds and the range of service is about 200 miles.
"KNAPSACK" STATIONS.
There are, in addition to the field stations, "knapsack" stations, which are divided into sections so that four soldiers can carry an outfit. The sections weigh about 20 pounds each. The small station set up with this apparatus has a range of from 5 to 10 miles and in service replaces the orderlies and such visual signs and signalling, as was used before the wireless came into existence. Such an outfit can forward more information in a few minutes than a whole squadron of orderlies could riding at full speed.
The aeroplanes carrying a wireless outfit can communicate with the field stations, and have rendered wonderful service on the battlefields. The cavalry also carry wireless outfits, and in the Allied armies the second regiment of every cavalry brigade has a wireless detachment of 4 troopers, 1 cyclist and 3 horses, besides a wagon. There is also a division with tools and material for both destroying and repairing lines.
The French army also has automobile wireless stations. The automobile outfit is complete in every particular and is not augmented. It carries its own crew and has a traveling radius of several hundred miles. The car containing the station is completely enclosed and the walls are deadened so that the noise made by the apparatus may not betray the presence of the station to the enemy scouts.
The practical application of portable wireless outfits to military usage is probably less than four years old, but the portables can transmit messages over a radius of 200 to 250 miles. Expressed in technical terms, the portable stations have a capacity of about 200 mile wave-lengths.
The one weakness of the wireless is that the enemy can purloin secrets, though adroitness in manipulation can overcome some of this difficulty.