The advent of electrical signaling

Despite the early pioneering efforts on land and sea the real development of signal communication in war did not come until after invention of the electric telegraph by Samuel F.B. Morse. In his successful demonstration of electric communication between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore in 1844, he provided a completely new means of rapid signal communication. The development of the Morse Code of dots and dashes used with key and sounder was soon used to augment the various means of visual signaling. Vice Admiral Philip Colomb’s flash signaling, adopted in the British navy in 1867, was an adaptation of the Morse code to lights. The first application of the telegraph in time of war was made by the British in the Crimean War in 1854, but its capabilities were not well understood, and it was not widely used. Three years later, in the Indian Mutiny, the newly established telegraph, which was controlled by the British, was a deciding factor.

In the American Civil War (1861–65), wide use was made of the electric telegraph. In addition to its employment in spanning long distances under the civilian-manned military telegraph organization, mobile field service was provided in the Union army by wagon trains equipped with insulated wire and lightweight poles for the rapid laying of telegraph lines. Immediately before and during the Civil War visual signaling also received added impetus through development of a system, applying the Morse code of dots and dashes, that spelled out messages with flags by day and lights or torches by night. Another development for light signaling placed a movable shutter, controlled by a key, in front of a strong light. An operator, opening and closing the shutter, could produce short and long flashes to spell out messages in Morse code.

Simultaneously, the Prussian and French armies also organized mobile telegraph trains. During the short, decisive Prussian campaign against Austria in 1866, field telegraph enabled Count Helmuth von Moltke, the Prussian commander, to exercise command over his distant armies. Soon afterward the British organized their first field telegraph trains in the Royal Engineers.

Another instrument was added to the techniques for visual signaling through the development of the heliograph. It employed two adjustable mirrors so arranged that a beam of light from the sun could be reflected in any direction. The beam was interrupted by a key-operated shutter that permitted the formation of the dots and dashes of the Morse code. Where climatic conditions were favourable this instrument found much use, notably by the British army in India and the U.S. Army in the American Southwest. Because consistency and regularity of sunshine were important, the heliograph was never widely adopted throughout the armies of continental Europe.

The invention of the telephone in 1876 was not followed immediately by its adoption and adaptation for military use. This was probably due to the fact that the compelling stimulation of war was not present and to the fact that the development of long-distance telephone communication was not achieved for many years. The telephone was used by the U.S. Army in the Spanish-American War, by the British in the South African (Boer) War, and by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War. This military use was not extensive, and it made little material contribution to the development of voice telephony. Before the outbreak of World War I, military adaptation of the telephone did take place, but its period of growth had not yet arrived.

Near the close of the 19th century, a new means of military signal communication made its appearance—the wireless telegraph, or radio. The major powers throughout the world were quick to see the wonderful possibilities for military and naval signaling. Development was rapid and continuous, and, by 1914, it was adopted and in extensive use by all the armies and navies of the world. It soon became apparent that wireless telegraphy was not an unmixed blessing to armies and navies, because it lacked secrecy and messages could be heard by the enemy as well as by friendly forces. This led to the development of extensive and complicated codes and ciphers as necessary adjuncts to military signaling. The struggle between the cryptographer and the cryptanalyst expanded greatly with the adoption of radio and continued to be a major factor affecting its military use.