VARIOUS APPLICATIONS OF TELEGRAPHY. 283 
number of operators from the Civil Telegraphic Service were 
prepared for war service. Soon after the war was declared 
300 telegraphists were ready to go with the advanced guard 
of the army, and communications with the rear guard were 
quickly established. This telegraph corps were supplied with 
Morse instruments, and the bell telegraph was never used. It 
was provided with light posts and copper wires, and used also 
insulated wires and cables laid along the ground, or suspended, 
as occasion required. 
A less slight line was set up by a second corps on small 
posts; and this was to provide communications by which pro¬ 
visions and munitions could be sent for to Prussia. A third 
corps of telegraphists followed the rear guard in its advance 
into French territory, and transformed these temporary lines 
into permanent ones, of the same power and dimensions as 
those used by the government. The utility of the electric 
telegraph was specially demonstrated in the sieges of towns 
and fortresses. Without the electric telegraph it would 
have been impossible to maintain the sieges of Paris and of 
Metz. 
A circle of 100 miles of telegraph lines surrounded Paris, 
and as, of course, this vast circuit could not have been every¬ 
where filled with soldiers, two lines of overhead wires were 
erected beyond the range of the French guns. Each of these 
had four wires, and connected twenty-four different stations, 
between which thousands of messages were every day trans¬ 
mitted. The Emperor of Germany stated to Moltke his opinion 
that without the telegraph it would have been impossible to 
undertake the siege of Paris, or to maintain that of Metz so 
long a time. Another advantage of the telegraph relates to 
supply and maintenance of war material. All the provisions 
of the immense Prussian army were procured from Germany, 
for it would have been impossible to have found sufficient 
supplies in the districts occupied. When supplies were asked 
for by telegraph, the reply stated the time at which they might 
be expected to arrive. The return home of sick and wounded 
soldiers was also much facilitated by the telegraph. 
It often happened that the railway lines were blocked by 
trains conveying troops, cannons, military stores or provisions. 
It was by means of the telegraph that the trains with the sick 
