The National Geographic Magazine 



a powerful instrument of war, more 

 powerful, indeed, than battleships and 

 cruisers, since by its wonderful and in- 

 stantaneous communications of thought, 

 it brings distant countries and colonies 

 together in sympathy, which is the only 

 true and permanent tie. 



ELECTRICITY THE IDEAL MEANS OF 

 TRANSMITTING INTELLIGENCE. 



The triumphs of science in the last half 

 century have been nowhere more exem- 

 plified than in the enormous strides made 

 in the facility of transmitting intelligence. 

 The mails, the telegraph, and the tele- 

 phone are civilizing the world. Perfect 

 as is the mail system of to-day, a monu- 

 ment to organization, yet its swiftest 

 messenger — steam — is so far outstripped, 

 either on land or sea, by the practically 

 instantaneous electric current, that the 

 tendency, year by year, is to put more of 

 the world's business " upon the wire." 



Time has an international money value 

 in trade, and a paramount strategic value 

 in war. The fastest mail express, or the 

 swiftest ocean ship, are as naught com- 

 pared with the velocity of the electrical 

 impulse which practically annihilates any 

 terrestrial dimension. As the distance 

 increases, electricity surpasses steam in a 

 continuously increasing ratio. A mes- 

 sage is to be sent half way around the 

 earth; the minutes required by the tele- 

 graph run into weeks and months by the 

 slow process of the mails. Steam time 

 is directly a function of the distance to 

 be traversed, and from the nature of 

 things is twice as long for two miles 

 as for one. If, then, the cable saves 

 six days between Europe and America, 

 it will save more than twice this time 

 between America and the East, and is, 

 from this point of view, correspondingly 

 important and necessary. Since electric- 

 ity so far outstrips any other known 

 vehicle for transmitting intelligence, it 

 must eventually carry all the most im- 

 portant of the world's information. 



Strategy has been defined as " the sci- 

 ence of combining and employing the 

 means which the different branches of the 

 art of war afford, for the purpose of 

 forming projects of operations and of 

 directing great military or naval move- 

 ments ; the art of moving troops or ships 

 so as to be enabled either to dispense 

 with a battle or to deliver one with the 

 greatest advantage and with the most 

 decisive results." 



It is believed that the more the foun- 

 dations of successful strategy are ana- 

 lyzed, both as the science of conceiving 

 military plans and as an art of executing 

 the same, the more it will become clear 

 that the strategist who is possessed of the 

 most efficient and reliable means of ob- 

 taining and communicating information, 

 both of the enemy and his own forces, 

 will have a paramount and insuperable 

 advantage. 



Maritime nations are at present be- 

 ginning to realize that it is not ships and 

 coaling stations alone which measure 

 maritime strength, but also reliable and 

 efficient means of directing, concentrat- 

 ing, supplying, or withdrawing those 

 ships upon the great chess-board of the 

 sea. 



As a means of communication over 

 great distances at sea nothing compares, 

 at the present state of practical science, 

 Avith the submarine cable. The nation 

 with exclusively controlled submarine 

 communications, not possessed by an ad- 

 versary, has an organized service of sur- 

 veillance which is not only important 

 during actual war, but which may and 

 will prove a powerful weapon in the 

 diplomatic and preparatory conflict which 

 always precedes a declaration of w;ar,. 

 and these communications are a means 

 of securing a first real victory, even be- 

 fore war has been formally declared. 



It may be said, therefore, that the very 

 foundation of successful naval strategy 

 is efficient and exclusively controlled 

 communications, and the lack of them 

 more serious than inferior ships. 



