LlNE -CONSTRUCTIONS DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR. 149 



cover the whole Empire with a network of electric 

 telegraphs. The speedy construction of a line from 

 Moscow to Kiev, between the former of which towns 

 and St. Petersburg an underground line was already in 

 operation as mentioned before, was entrusted to us. 

 Then in quick succession lines from Kiev to Odessa, 

 from St. Petersburg to Reval, from Kowno to the 

 Prussian frontier, from St. Petersburg to Helsingfors, 

 were ordered; which were all completed after over- 

 coming infinite difficulties in the years 1854 and 1855, 

 and were of great utility to the Russian empire in the 

 Crimean war raging at the time. 



o o 



By means of the telegraphs Russia was put in 

 speedy communication with Berlin and the west of 

 Europe; in the interior of the empire the movement 

 of troops and material could be regulated with their 

 help, and the central government could everywhere 

 promptly make and improve its arrangements. 



Of the difficulties which beset the construction of 

 these lines one may form an idea, when it is borne 

 in mind that all the materials, with the sole excep- 

 tion of the wooden telegraph poles which were pro- 

 curable in Russia, had to be obtained from Berlin 

 and western Germany, that there were then no other 

 railways in Russia than those from the Prussian fron- 

 tier to Warsaw and from St. Petersburg to Moscow, 

 and that all the roads and means of transport were 

 occupied in an unusual degree by the war transports. 

 In addition to this the marine transport of heavy 

 materials from German to Russian ports was impeded 



