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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 03/04/21, SPi
Getting the Message

A nineteenth-
century prediction of the state of the art in the year 2000.

Getting the Message
A History of Communications
Second Edition
Laszlo Solymar
1

1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Laszlo Solymar 2021
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First edition published in 1999
Second edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021932103
ISBN 978–0–19–886300–7
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198863007.001.0001
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

To my grandchildren Juliet, Oscar,
Georgina, and Tanya

Preface to the Second Edition
The history of communications is a branch of the history of technology.
However, most of technology delivers something tangible: a piece of
machinery, a piece of furniture, a road, a bridge, or a plastic bag, to
name a few.The goods produced by communications are quite different.
They are messages: nearly always useless but occasionally very useful.
They were already used at the dawn of civilisation for early warning, for
receiving information about approaching armies.
The first edition, published in 1999, was mainly about point-
to-
point
communications as realized by the telegraph (mechanical or electrical),
the telephone, the fax machine, the telex, microwave links, satellite and
optical communications. I excluded broadcasting whether radio or

television. I made though a concession, by describing a kind of broad-
casting by telephone that was founded in 1893 in Budapest, and even
survived the First World War. I did include the fledgling Internet and
made some predictions about the future.
In the new edition, as in the old one, I start with some correspond-
ence some 4,000 years ago between the King of Mari (a city on the banks
of the Tigris) and whoever was in charge of communications at the
time. The historical context is always emphasized, e.g. the Kruger tele-
gram that caused the cooling of relations between Germany and the UK
prior to the First World War, or the Ems telegram that led to the 1870 war
between France and Germany. Social history related to communica-
tions like scandals, murder, and bankruptcy has also been included as
much as genius, inventiveness, and steady progress.
Twenty-one years is a long time and particularly in communications
that is probably the fastest advancing discipline. There has been enor-
mous expansion in satellite communications, and similarly in optical
communications, which jointly cover by now every corner of the Earth.
And there is the Internet, in its infancy at the time, that has turned
into an aggressive and robust adult. I am going to discuss both the
advantages (Internet is so all-embracing that it is difficult to imagine life
without it) and the abuses which are numerous. The same applies to
smartphones, and particularly to the younger generation. I have a few
photographs in Chapter 20 showing their obsession.
A notable inclusion into the new edition is the story of the Soviet
InterNyet. It shows the difficulty of a dictatorship to cope with a tech-
nique that cannot be easily controlled.They never managed to set up an
all-
embracing computer network.

Dictionary: NOSD
A discipline that is still in its infancy is artificial intelligence. It is
included in a separate chapter in order to discuss its potential. Are the
claims advanced by those doing research in the subject sustainable?
Finally, I add a chapter on the future. Technical advances are quite pre-
dictable but otherwise (peace, politics, society) predictions are risky and
it is not easy to be optimistic.
viii Preface to the Second Edition

Acknowledgements First Edition
First of all I wish to acknowledge my debt to the Oxford College system
which permits, nay, encourages the contacts between the practitioners
of the arts and of the sciences. I had the good luck to be able to discuss
Mesopotamia with Stephanie Dailey, the Holy Scriptures with John
Barton, Classics with Stephanie West, Byzantine times with Philip
Pattenden (actually, from Cambridge), science in the seventeenth cen-
tury with Scott Mandelbrot, Napoleonic times with Geoffrey Ellis, the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with Bob Evans, citations
from Goethe with Kevin Hilliard, a translation from Confucius with
Z. Cui, post-
Second World War politics with Nigel Gould-
Davies, the
standard of living indices with Charles Feinstein, and matters in eco-
nomics with Roger van Noorden and Tony Courakis.
Concerning the history of communications I wish to acknowledge
the help I received from Patrice Carré and Christine Duchesne-
Reboul
of France Telecom; John Bray, Peter Cochrane, David Hay, Neil
Johannesen, and H. Lyons of British Telecom; Alan Roblou of the BBC;
Karoly Geher of the Technical University of Budapest; Tony Karbowiak
of the University of New South Wales; Peter Kirstein of University
College, London; David Payne of the University of Southampton; Victor
Kalinin of Oxford Brookes University; and Dominic O’Brien, David Dew-
Hughes, Terry Jones, Lionel Tarassenko, Don Walsh, and David Witt of
the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford.
For help with the literature search I wish to thank Stephen Barlay,
Leon Freris, Margaret Gowing, George Lawrence, Gabriella Netting,
Sandor Polgar, Klaus Ringhofer, and Jeno Takacs. I am indebted to
Michael Allaby, Eric Ash, Frank Ball, Mike Brady, Godfrey Hodgson,
Gillian Lacey-
Solymar, Avril Lethbridge, Lucy Solymar, and David Witt
for reading various parts of the manuscript and for helpful comments.
The whole of the manuscript was read and a large number of stimulat-
ing comments were made by Jonathan Coopersmith, Richard Lawrence,
Julia Tompson, and Peter Walker.
I am greatly indebted to David Clark, the Head of the Department of
Engineering Science, and Chris Scotcher, who is in charge of adminis-
tration, for providing generous facilities while this book was written.
Special thanks are due to Jeff Hecht who let me read the manuscript
of his book The City of Light, to Geoffrey Wilson who let me use any
material from his book The Old Telegraph, and to Mark Neill for providing
the pixellated pictures of Napoleon in Chapter 15. I have to mention sep-
arately Pierre-
Louis Dougniaux, the picture archivist of France Telecom,

Dictionary: NOSD
who went well beyond the line of duty in providing me with photo-
graphs from the history of communications in France.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the great debt I owe to my wife,
Marianne, who not only read the manuscript but was willing to put up
with the long hours I spent in libraries and archives.
OxfordL.S.
October 1998
x Acknowledgements First Edition

Acknowledgements Second Edition
I wish to thank John Holt for help on optical communications, Eric Ash
and Richard Syms for discussions on the subject of communications in
general, Ekaterina Shamonina for help with both text and drawings,
and Alexander Shamonin for inside information on social media.
Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Marianne, who encouraged me to write
this second edition.
Oxford 2020

Dictionary: NOSD
Contents
Figure Acknowledgements First Edition xv
Acknowledgements for Figures Added in the Second Edition xvii
PART I The First Thirty-
Six Centuries
1 Introduction 3
2 The Beginnings of Communications 7
3 The Mechanical Telegraph 21
PART II The Beginning of Electrical Communications
4 The Electrical Telegraph 47
5 The Telephone 95
6 Wireless Telegraphy 125
7 The Telephone Revisited 151
PART III The Modern Age Beckons
8 Great Advances 167
9 Microwaves 171
10 Devices Go Solid State 187
11 Digitalization 199
12 Optical Communications: The Beginning 211
13 Deregulation and Privatization 225
14 Mobile Communications: The Beginning 233
15 The Fax Machine 245
16 The Communications–Computing Symbiosis: The Beginning 259
PART IV Communications Galore
17 Satellites Again 289
18 Optical Fibres Revisited 295
19 The Mature Internet 301

Dictionary: NOSD
20 Mobile Phones, Smartphones 315
21 Artificial Intelligence 325
22 The Future 335
Appendix 1 347
Appendix 2 349
Bibliography 351
Index 353
xiv Contents

Figure Acknowledgements
First Edition
ATT Fig. 9.4
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford Figs 3.6 (M90.D00642,
p. 297), 4.12 (N2706.d10, 14/9/1850, p. 117), 4.13 (N2706.d10, 21/8/1858,
p. 77), 5.3 (N2706.d10, 2/4/1892, p. 163), 5.4(b) (N2706.d10, 12/1/1910,
p. 27), 6.9(a) (N2706.d10, 22/10/1913, p. 341), 7.1 (N2706.d10, 28/3/1891,
p. 151), 7.2 (N2706.d10, 12/3/1913, p. 203), 22.1 (ALM2706d99, 1879)
British Telecom Archives Figs 4.7 (P4027, c. 1856), 4.11(a) (YB42,
1882), 5.4(a) (E73245, 1910), 5.9 (E6325, 1929), 7.6 (ARC14, c. 1907), 7.7
(Post84/8 Selection of publicity material, c. 1905)
Cable Wireless Figs 6.1, 14.1
Corvina Kiado, Budapest Fig. 5.21
France Telecom, Archives et Documentation Historique
Figs 2.3, 3.1, 4.4, 4.20, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 6.9(b), 7.5, 7.8, 9.11, 15.7, 16.6, 20.2
GloCall Satellite Services Fig. 9.13
Mark Harden Fig. 15.1(a)
Piers Helm Figs 3.12, 5.2, 16.1
Hertford College, Oxford Fig. 5.11
Illustrated London News 4.11(b), 15.6
Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, New York
Fig. 15.8
Intel Corporation/Physics Today Fig. 10.1
Marconi Electronic Systems Ltd Fig. 6.7
Mike Mosedale Fig. 14.6
Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris Fig. 15.5(b)
Museum für Post und Kommunikation, Frankfurt am Main
Fig. 5.8
National Gallery, London Fig. 1.1

Dictionary: NOSD
xvi Figure Acknowledgements First Edition
Northern Electric plc, London Fig. 9.2
David Payne Figs 12.1, 12.8
Murray Ramsey Fig. 12.4
Geoffrey Wilson Figs 3.2(a), 3.5, 3.8

Acknowledgements for Figures
Added in the Second Edition
G. P. Agrawal 18.1, 18.2, 18.4
Bankmycell 20.3
Carcharoth 9.10
Cartoon Collections 21.2, 21.3
Computer Museum Moscow 16.8(a)
FTTH Council of Europe 18.3
Getty Images 16.7, 21.1
History of Computing in Ukraine 16.8(b)
Peter Kirstein 16.5
Pew Research Centre 20.5, Table 20.1
The Planetary Society 9.7
NASA Earth Observatory 9.8
Statista 17.1
Union of Concerned Scientists 17.2
Shutterstock 20.7(a,b,c)
We are Social 20.6
Wikipedia 19.2
Wikimedia Commons 16.4
World Bank 20.1, 20.2

Part I
The First Thirty-
Six Centuries

Introduction
The history of communications is a branch of the history of technology
but, strictly speaking, it is in a category of its own. The goods produced
by technology, whether a piece of machinery, a piece of clothing, or a
piece of furniture, are tangible; they perform some useful function. The
goods produced by communications are messages. They are mostly

useless but when they are useful they can be very, very useful. For that
reason communication has always been regarded as a good thing by all
peoples at all times. Even in prehistoric times a tribal chief would have
easily appreciated both the military and economic implications. He
would have dearly loved to receive reports like ‘Scores of heavily armed
Mugurus sighted at edge of Dark Dense Forest’ or ‘Buffalo herd fording
Little Creek at Mossy Green Meadow’.
The idea was there but the means of sending messages were rather
limited until very recent times. The same limitation did not apply to
human imagination. A god in Greek mythology could contact any of
his fellow gods without much bother and could cover the distance from
Mount Olympus to, say, the battlefields of Troy in no time at all.
Communication between gods was, of course, not possible in monothe-
istic religions. On the other hand the single god could easily send

messages to any chosen individual. A possible method was first to call
attention to impending communications (e.g. by a burning bush) and
then deliver messages in a clear, loud voice. Oral communication was
nearly always the preferred method but there is also an example of
coded written communications in the Book of Daniel. The occasion is a
feast given by Belshazzar, King of Babylon. Belshazzar draws upon him-
self the wrath of Jehovah by drinking with his wives and concubines
from the holy vessels plundered earlier from the Temple in Jerusalem.
Thereupon a message appears on the wall, ΜΕΝΕ, ΜΕΝΕ, TEKEL,
UPHARSIN. This message is decoded by Daniel, as saying: ‘God has
numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Thou art weighed in the

balances, and art found wanting’. By next morning Belshazzar was
dead. This unique example of instantaneous written communications
may be seen in Fig. 1.1 in Rembrandt’s interpretation.
Besides appealing to human imagination, communications have a
number of other distinguishing features. Its rate of progress over the
past century and a half has been conspicuously faster1
than that of any
other human activity, and shows no sign of letting up. Let me make a
few comparisons. In 1858 it took 40 days for the news of the Indian
Mutiny to reach London.2
By 1870 there were several telegraph lines
1
CHAPTER
ONE
1
This claim may be rightfully chal-
lenged by computer enthusiasts but
it will be discussed in Chapter 16.
Communications and computers are
no longer separate subjects.
2
To be exact, to reach Trieste, because
by that time there was a telegraph con-
nection between Trieste and London.
Getting the Message:A History of Communications. Laszlo Solymar, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198863007.003.0001

4 Introduction
connecting India to Europe. Transmission time depended mainly on the
speed of re-
transmission from station to station, four hours being a
good estimate.The progress in 12 years from 1000 hours down to 4 hours
represents an improvement by a factor of 250. For the Atlantic route the
advent of the submarine cable in 1866 reduced the time for sending a
message from a couple of weeks to practically instantaneous transmis-
sion. The figures are no less daunting if we talk about the capacity of a
single line of communications then and now. In the 1840s when electrical
telegraphy started to become widespread, information could be sent at
a rate of about 4 or 5 words per minute. Today, the full content of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica could be transmitted on a single strand of optical
fibre in a fraction of a second. A similar increase in, say, shipping capacity
would mean that a single ship would now be capable of transporting
trillion tons of goods, i.e. more than a thousand tons for every man,
woman, and child on Earth.
Fig. 1.1 Belshazzar’s Feast by
Rembrandt.

Introduction 5
A third possible measure is the cost of information, not when we send
information in bulk—that is less tangible—but when we want a leisurely
chat with a friend in America. In 1927, when the trans-Atlantic telephone
service was opened (relying on radio waves), a three-
minute telephone
call cost £15. Today, it might cost 10p. In nominal prices the reduction is
by a factor of 30 which, in comparison to the figures quoted previously,
is perhaps less striking, but since we are talking about money in our
pocket, its effect on everyday life is much more significant. It needs to be
added of course that prices have risen considerably since 1927. A loaf of
bread, for example, cost about 3d. (1.25p in decimal currency) at the
time, whereas today it costs something like £1. So while the price of
bread has gone up by a factor of 80, the price of a trans-
Atlantic

telephone call has gone down by a factor of 150. In real terms, to make
that call is now cheaper by an amazing factor of 12,000. And this is not
an anomaly. We would arrive at similar figures whichever aspect of
communications is chosen for comparison. The benefits are obvious. In
1927 only the richest people could afford a social telephone call across
the Atlantic; today it is within the reach of practically all people in
Europe or America.
What else is so extraordinary about communications? Its significance
for conducting affairs of state. Governments which were quite happy
leaving the manufacture of guns and battleships in private hands were
determined to keep communications under their control. Perhaps the
most forward-
looking one was the French Government. As early as 1837,
before the appearance of the electric telegraph, the Parliament approved
the proposal that
Anyone who transmits any signals without authorization from one point to
another one whether with the aid of mechanical telegraphs or by any other
means will be subject to imprisonment for a duration of between one month
and one year
This law was repealed only in the 1980s when France, following

cautiously the example set by the United Kingdom, started on its
privatization programme.
Having made a case for communications being a subject worthy of
study, I would like to add that there is no chance whatsoever of doing it
justice in a single book. Of necessity the subject must be restricted. The
kind of communications I shall be concerned with is, first of all, fast—
faster than the means of locomotion at the time, i.e. faster than a horse
or a boat in ancient times, faster than a train in the nineteenth century,
and faster than an aeroplane in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Secondly, it is long-
distance communications, meaning that messages
are to be delivered at a distance well out of earshot. Thirdly, it is

communications from point A to point B. This last distinction has only
become significant in recent times. If, say, a Roman Emperor wanted to

6 Introduction
send a message to a provincial governor he sent a messenger. If the
Emperor wanted to send the same message to a dozen governors he sent
a dozen messengers. The techniques for sending to one and sending to
many were the same. However, modern methods of reaching the many
differ considerably from those set up for establishing communications
between two persons. In technical jargon the first one is known as
broadcasting and the second one as point-
to-
point communications.
I shall keep away from broadcasting (it has too many different facets)
and concentrate on the latter, asking the question: how, starting from
the earliest evidence, did man manage to send information from point
A to point B, far away, without physically delivering the message?
Having limited the subject to be discussed I shall now broaden it. The
availability of fast communications has made such an impact upon all
aspects of human life that it is impossible to ignore the political and
social consequences. I shall discuss them in detail whenever I have a
chance. The last and possibly the most important thing I wish to do is
not only to describe what happened in the past 4000 years but also to
explain the underlying principles as new inventions and new discover-
ies came along. One might think that the subject of modern communi-
cations is far too complicated for the layman to understand. This is true
indeed for the past two decades but does not apply to the previous 3880
years. For that period I shall try to describe the operational principles of
many of the devices as they entered service.

The principal aim of this chapter is to present some evidence of the
existence of early communications systems. At the same time, faithful
to the dual purpose of the book, the concept of communications will
also be discussed starting at the very beginning. Terms like ‘binary
arithmetic’ and ‘bit’ will be liberally used, and the two digits 0 and 1 will
be introduced in the sense used by communications engineers.
In order to emphasize the simplicity of the basic principles it might be
worth starting in the world of nursery rhymes. It may be assumed that
Jack needs a pail of water but owing to an accident on the previous day
he is confined to bed and his head is still wrapped up with vinegar and
brown paper. Jill, who lives next door, would be willing to go up the hill
on her own and fetch the aforesaid pail of water but she has no idea
whether the water is needed.
Jack can call attention to his need in several ways. He can, for
ex
ample, shout or he can send a brief note. However, Jill’s house, par-
ticularly when the windows are shut, may be too far away for oral com-
munications, and there may be nobody about to fulfil the role of the
messenger. So Jack may decide to send a signal. How to send a signal?
Anything that has been previously agreed would do. Using artifices eas-
ily available for someone lying in a bed he could, for example, put one of
his slippers in the window. According to his agreement with Jill, no slip-
per could mean ‘water is not needed’, whereas the presence of a slipper
would indicate desire for a pail of water. It is a case of YES or NO; yes,
water is needed or no, water is not needed. In the communications

engineer’s jargon one bit of information needs to be transmitted. YES
may be coded by 1, and NO by 0. In the particular communications sys-
tem set up by Jack and Jill, the presence of a slipper in the window is
coded by 1, and the absence of the slipper by 0.
In times less demanding than ours, being able to obtain one bit of
information was regarded as quite substantial, particularly in mat-
ters of defence. The question most often asked was ‘Are hostile forces
approaching? Yes or no?’ The practical realization of such an early
warning system was quite simple. Watchmen were posted at suitable
vantage points in the neighbourhood of the city: the watchmen then
sent signals whenever they could observe enemy movements.The usual
way of sending a signal was by lighting a fire. Lack of fire meant, ‘No, no
enemy forces are approaching’. The presence of fire meant, ‘Yes, enemy
forces are approaching’.
The Beginnings of
Communications
2
CHAPTER
TWO
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198863007.003.0002

8 The Beginnings of Communications
Next suppose that the fire lit by the men on watch is not directly

visible from the city where the information is required. There might be
a mountain in between as shown in Fig. 2.1. So what is the solution?
Post watchmen on both mountain A and mountain B. Those on moun-
tain A will first see the enemy and light a fire. Those on mountain B will
light another fire in turn, and that will be seen in the city. The idea is to
have a relay, and there is of course no reason why the relay could not
have many more elements—5 or 10 or perhaps 100. In principle, it makes
no difference how many elements there are. In practice, there is a higher
chance of failure if there are too many of them. At one particular post
there might be a flood which makes lighting any fire impossible; at
another post the watchmen might be playing dice instead of paying due
attention. The various reasons for failures in communications will be
discussed at several places in this book.
It would be of interest to know when fire signals were first used.
Presumably, as soon as men could confidently ignite a fire, and had
acquired some elementary command structure. Documentation is
another question. Only a minority of our ancestors were fond of

documentaries—and most of those ever written must have perished in
the frequently occurring disasters. How far one can go back seems to
depend on the diligence of archaeologists and on the ingenuity of those
who can decipher odd-
looking symbols. It is quite possible that a lot of
evidence is still hidden in some unexcavated palaces. As it is, the earliest
evidence comes from the middle of the nineteenth century bc.
The city where the evidence comes from is called Mari. Once upon a
time it lay on the banks of the Tigris, somewhere halfway down its jour-
ney to the Arabian Gulf. It disappeared from history before the close of
the century when Hammurabi’s forces razed it to the ground. It
re
appeared in the 1930s thanks to the efforts of a group of French
archaeologists. They found an amazing amount of information about
the city and about all those with whom the kings of Mari kept up a

regular
correspondence. The various chambers of the excavated palace
Watch tower
A
B
Relay station
Greek city
Fig. 2.1 A relay station is
needed when those on watch
cannot directly communicate
with the city.

The Beginnings of Communications 9
yielded over 20,000 clay tablets written in Akkadian. They are particu-
larly informative because in that period the letters were written (using
cuneiform writing which had a symbol for each syllable) in the living lan-
guage.They give accounts of all kinds of activities; for example: register
of people obtained from the last census, records of incoming and outgoing
goods (including such disparate items as garlic and gold), legal documents
on various disputes, commercial transactions, correspondence with

foreign rulers, and reports on administrative and political problems, on
the state of the roads, on weather conditions, and (luckily for this book)
on fire signals.
One might expect that there would be no need to write reports when
the signalling system worked smoothly. Letters written to the king
would more likely be concerned with difficulties encountered. The

following two letters (see Stephanie Dalley, Mari and Karana, Two Old
Babylonian Cities. Longman, London, 1984) are indeed of that genre:
Yesterday I went out from Mari and spent the night in Zurubban; and the
Yamanites all raised torches: from Samanum to Ilum-muluk, from Ilum-muluk
as far as Mishlan. All the towns of the Yamanites in the district of Terqa raised
their torches in reply. Now, so far I have not managed to find out the reason for
those torches, but I shall try to find out the reason and I shall write to my lord
the result. But let the guards of Mari be strengthened, and may my lord not go
out of the gate.
The second letter has a similar message:
Speak toYasmah-Addu, thus Habil-kenum. My lord wrote to say that two torch
signals were raised; but we never saw two torch signals. In the upper country
they neglected the torch signal, and they didn’t raise a torch signal. My lord
should look into the matter of torch signals, and if there is any cause for worry,
an official should be put in charge.
Unfortunately, we do not know whether an official was ever appointed
and if so whether his intervention improved the communications net-
work.There is no doubt, however, that fire signals were used, erratically
perhaps, in that part of Mesopotamia some 4000 years ago.
The letters found in Mari clearly show how our civilization, which we
like to refer to as Western civilization, had one of its roots in those fertile
grounds between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Hammurabi’s forces
soon put an end to Mari’s prosperity.The city disappeared from the stage
of history by the end of the eighteenth century bc. The fall of Mari did
not of course mean that torch signals fell into disuse. Various forms of
fire signals were no doubt used for the next twelve centuries, although
no detailed descriptions have survived.
Moving westwards towards Asia Minor and Greece, our next stop is
at the beginning of the seventh century bc when, quite likely, the works
of the great Homer were first written down. It would be reasonable to

expect in those epics a story about a beleaguered city which managed
to summon help by fire signals at some time or another. My classicist
friends tell me that no such story exists in the epic poems per se but they
can instead offer a simile from the Iliad on much the same lines.1
The
subject is Achilles’ head adorned by a gleaming, burning flame. The
whole spectacle is arranged by the goddess Athene with the specific aim
of frightening theTrojans. What does that flame look like? According to
Homer:
As when the smoke rises up from a city to reach the sky, from an island in the
distance, where enemies are attacking and the inhabitants run the trial of
hateful Ares all day long, fighting from their city: and then with the setting of
the sun the light from the line of beacons blazes out, and the glare shoots up
high for the neighbouring islanders to see, in the hope that they will come
across in their ships to protect them from disaster—such was the light that
blazed from Achilles’ head up into the sky.
Greece is of course the country where all the exciting action takes
place and I fully intend to return to it but it is worth making a little
detour to another source of our civilization, the Old Testament. The
time is early in the sixth century bc, The source is the Book of Jeremiah,
which gives a contemporary account of one of the periodically occur-
ring Middle Eastern crises. Jeremiah is known as a prophet of rather
gloomy disposition, and it must be admitted that his pessimism was fully
justified.Ten of the twelve tribes of the Israelites had already been taken
into captivity never to reappear. The remaining two tribes, Benjamin
and Judah, were threatened by the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar.
Jeremiah gave a sound warning (6:1):
O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves, to flee out of the midst of
Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in
Bethhaccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north,2
and great destruction.
Returning to Greece a century and a half later the next thing to look
at is another product of the Greek entertainment industry, the theatre.
A reference to a chain of fires can be found in one of the popular plays
that drew the crowds in Athens at the time. The date of its performance
is well known: 458 bc. The title of the play is Agamemnon, the first one in
the Oresteian trilogy, written by the celebrated Aeschylus. As any play-
wright, he wrote what the audience wanted to hear and to see: a horror
story. The events take place just after the conclusion of the great war at
Troy. Clytemnestra (sister of the fair Helena who caused all the trouble)
seemingly welcomes back her husband Agamemnon but, in fact, she is
busy plotting his demise. She has a double motive: first she still resents
her husband’s act ten years earlier of sacrificing their daughter
Iphigenia in order to ensure fair wind for the Greek fleet. In addition, she
is reluctant to tell him of her affair with Aegisthus. There is usually
1
Book 18 from line 208 onwards.
2
Babylon was to the east of Jerusalem.
The reference is to the north because
that was the customary invasion route
to Jerusalem. No army liked to march
across the desert.

a marked lack of cordiality in the relationship between the lover and the
husband, but in the present case this tendency is further reinforced
by the fact that Agamemnon’s father murdered two of the sons of
Aegisthus’ father, and served their flesh to the unfortunate father at a
banquet. The full story of vengeance exacted and justice perceived is
rather complicated. As far as the communications aspects are con-
cerned, the main point is that Aeschylus wanted a new dramatic touch.
The play starts with a soliloquy by a watchman. His job for the past
twelve months has been to study the sky from the roof of the palace. He
hopes to see ‘the promised sign, the beacon flare to speak from Troy and
utter one word, “Victory!” ’ And indeed before he has a chance to finish
his soliloquy the shining light does appear. He cries out joyously:
O welcome beacon, kindling night to glorious day,
Welcome! you’ll set them dancing in every street in Argos
When they hear your message. Ho there! Hullo! Call Clytemnestra!
The Queen must rise at once like Dawn from her bed, and welcome
The fire with pious words and a shout of victory,
For the town of Ilion’s ours—that beacon is clear enough!
A little later, in reply to the questions of the Chorus, Clytemnestra

vividly describes how the message came from Troy. She tells them of the
chainof fireslitsubsequentlyonthemountaintopsof Ida,Lemnos,Athos,
Peparethus,3
Euboea,Messapium,Cithaeron,TheMegarid,andArachneus
(see Fig. 2.2).The Chorus is not entirely convinced; they suspect a possibly
unreliable divine message, but her information proves to be correct when
later in the play a herald arrives and
confirms the fall of Troy.
Did the Greeks in those mythical times set up such an elaborate relay
between Troy and Argos? Had they done so those mountain peaks
would have indeed provided the best choice. Unfortunately, there is
no evidence whatsoever for such a link outside Aeschylus’ play. It is

certainly not in Homer. So did Aeschylus invent them to present an
exciting image to his audience? Possibly. By his time relays of beacon
fires were widely used, as we know from the works of Herodotus and
Thucydides, so why not make use of them on the stage?
I have by now amply discussed the transmission of one bit of infor-
mation and even put it in historical context, so this might be the right
place to graduate to two bits. In the example given, Jack’s interest was
confined to a pail of water. It will now be assumed that Jack might want
a loaf of bread as well. So his possible choices are:
(1) A pail of water but no loaf of bread;
(2) A loaf of bread but no pail of water;
(3) Both a pail of water and a loaf of bread; or
(4) Neither a pail of water nor a loaf of bread.
3
Peparethus is not in the text that sur-
vived but modern scholarship tends to
the view (partly from the syntax and
partly from the fact that Euboea and
Athos are too far from each other) that
it was in Aeschylus’ original text.

How could the above options be described in terms of slippers? Now,
clearly, two slipper holders are needed. Option (1) could then be coded
by a slipper in holder 1, option (2) by a slipper in holder 2, option (3)
by slippers in both holders, and option (4) by the complete absence of
slippers. Now a particular arrangement of slippers (their presence or
absence) would carry two bits of information. It will represent one
choice out of four possible choices. Using the notation of 1 and 0 for
‘
slipper present’ and ‘slipper absent’, the options may be presented in
the following manner:
Option 1 1,0
Option 2 0,1
Option 3 1,1
Option 4 0,0
Fig. 2.2 The beacon chain
between Troy and Argos.
Athos
Peparethus
Euboea
Messapium
Cithaeron
The Megraid
Arachneus
Argos
0
0
25 50 miles
100 km
50
Lemnos Troy
Ida

The description of the four options is related to ‘binary arithmetic’, a
term that may sound rather intimidating: however, all that needs to be
known is that in this example the presence of something is coded with
the digit 1 and the absence of the same thing (whatever it is—slippers
are not necessary, socks will do equally well) with the digit 0. There are
only two possibilities: either something is there or it isn’t, so exactly two
digits are needed. By the way, it may now be appreciated that ‘bit’ is not
a natural word either: it is a product of the flourishing acronym indus-
try. It stands for ‘binary digit’.
My next example will still be a little artificial but bit by bit (if you will
excuse the pun) I shall be getting nearer to more realistic coding prob-
lems. The assumption is now that there is a language which uses only
four letters: A, B, C, and D. According to what has been said already, two
bits are needed to describe the four possibilities. Hence the code for the
four letters may, for example, be chosen as follows:
A 0,0
B 0,1
C 1,0
D 1,1
The next logical jump is to a language that uses 8 letters from A to
H. How might the coding be done now? How many bits are needed?
I shall presently show that one more bit, that is the availability of a 1 and
a 0, will be sufficient.The code for A to D given above may then be modi
fied by sticking a 0 on to the end. Thus they will take the form
A 0,0,0
B 0,1,0
C 1,0,0
D 1,1,0
Choosing now the third digit as 1 instead of 0 there are clearly four new
possibilities which may be used to code the letters E to H as
E 0,0,1
F 0,1,1
G 1,0,1
H 1,1,1
The general rule can now be easily seen. By adding one more bit,
the number of possibilities can be doubled. Thus, 4 bits are needed for
coding 16 letters and 5 bits for coding 32 letters. If a language does not

contain 32 letters (but only 24 as the Greek alphabet or 26 as the English
alphabet), then the rest may be made available to code symbols like
question marks, exclamation marks, commas, etc.
Now if we put ourselves in the ancient world where for the purpose
of communications we have only fire at our disposal, how would we
have coded the alphabet? With torches. We would have had 5 designated
places which would or would not have displayed a torch.
Did the ancient Greeks think of such a system? Nearly. To find that
out it is necessary to leave Aeschylus behind, jump about three cen
tur
ies and stop at Polybius, one of the best and most prolific historians who
ever lived. Unfortunately, out of his 40 books only 5 are extant, but, by
good luck, the one in which he wrote extensively about signalling has
been preserved. After describing some fairly sophisticated signalling
systems (improvements on the simple one-bit message) he comes to one
which is capable of sending any message whatsoever. He attributes
the invention of this system to Cleoxenus and Democlitus with some
further improvements due to himself. The idea is simple and ingenious.
The alphabet is divided into groups of five letters as follows:
A Z Λ Π Φ
B H M P X
Γ Θ N Σ Ψ
Δ I Ξ T Ω
E K O Y
Since the Greek alphabet has only 24 letters one place remains empty
but that is of no consequence. The position of each letter is now deter-
mined by its column and its row. For example the letter K is in the fifth
row and in the second column. The coding is done by two sets of
5 torches, one set to the left of a mark and the other set to the right.Thus
the letter K is coded by 2 torches on the right, and 5 torches on the left.
How does this compare with our binary system described earlier? The
binary system certainly wins on the number of torches. With five
torches we can code any letter out of 32 whereas Polybius needs 10
torches to code one letter out of 25. Does Polybius’ system have any
advantages over ours? It does. It works much better in the circum-
stances envisaged when the information is to be relayed by watchmen
relying on the power of their naked eyes. In the binary system the rela-
tive position of each torch is crucial. As the torches flicker and are
swayed by the wind it may not be easy to tell whether it is the second
torch or the third one that is missing. Anyway, it is a humbling thought
that as many as twenty-
two centuries ago communications engineers
(Cleoxenus and Democlitus could hardly be qualified by any other

description) invented the means of being able to send any message.
Polybius’ closing remarks on the subject are also quite illuminating:
I was led to say this much in connection with my former assertion, that all the
arts had made such progress in our age that most of them were reduced in a
manner to exact sciences; and therefore this too is a point in which history
properly written is of the highest utility.
Did this communications system ever come into practice? The prin
ciples were there but that’s about all. To be able to count the number of
torches, the watchtowers would have had to be spaced about 1 km from
each other. That would have been far too expensive to build and to
maintain at the time of Polybius. But with a jump of another 300 years
the situation looks much more favourable. In the second century ad
Roman emperors were reasonably intelligent and had enormous
resources at their disposal. Any communications engineer who would
now enter a time machine and resurface in Rome at around that time
would certainly pester the sitting emperor to build such a system, and
the emperor would very likely give his consent.4
Surely, such a system
would help in the administration of the empire (so the emperor could
count on the support of all the administrators), would keep the emperor
aware of what was going on in the provinces (any rumour of a revolt?),
would give an early warning system against any attack by barbarians,
and, even better, would enable the emperor to direct all military op
er
ations from his headquarters in Rome. Well, had it happened that way,
the Roman Empire might have never collapsed and we would still speak
the language of Horace all over Europe. Or, to give another example, a
communications system would have given an opportunity to local gov-
ernors to solicit advice from the central authorities. Pilate, for example,
could have sent a telegram toTiberius asking, ‘What shall I do with that
turbulent prophet?’ And Tiberius might have replied: ‘Send him to
Rome’. And the prophet might have mellowed with the passage of time
and might have been converted in Rome to the worship of Minerva,
with incalculable consequences for the subsequent history of the world.
There is no doubt that the Romans were great engineers. Their
mechanical engineers produced great war machines, their civil en
gin
eers built roads unsurpassed until the eighteenth century, so why were
the communications engineers so far behind? The writings of Polybius
would have been fairly easily available so it seems quite likely that a
number of people had a pretty good idea, at least in principle, of how to
build a communications system. That is, however, not enough. There
are probably two further conditions to be satisfied. The decision-
makers
must be aware of both the ideas and the technological possibilities and,
secondly, ideas must be tested by experiments. One can just imagine an
eager young man, who has just finished reading Polybius’ Histories,
4
This excursion into antiquity is not my
invention.There is a novel by L. Sprague
de Camp, Lest Darkness Fall, on this very
subject. He puts an American in sixth-
century Rome where, among other
things, he sets up a mechanical tele-
graph along the Italian peninsula.
Under his wise advice the ruling Goths
adopt democracy, and thereby man-
kind is saved from the Dark Ages.

explaining the principles of telegraphy to a decision-
maker fairly high
up in the hierarchy.
‘It won’t work’, says the decision-
maker.
‘Why not?’ asks the eager young man.
‘A message might travel undistorted through two or three relays but
mistakes are bound to multiply when the message has to be repeated
hundreds of times. One letter is misread here, another letter is misread
there, and the message that arrives will be completely garbled. And
what about the security aspects? We don’t want to tell every Quintus,
Marcus, and Alexander of what the Emperor is thinking, do we? And
besides, the whole thing would be prohibitively expensive. If I wanted to
take such tremendous risks I would rather send a ship to China via the
Pillars of Hercules, as one of your friends recently suggested to me. Oh,
youth! When I was young...’
The eager young man might have suggested that they set up an
experimental line involving only three or four towers and find out the
snags, but that would have been against the spirit of the time.You invest
a certain amount of technological effort to produce some immediately
useful result, like a road for example, or an aqueduct, but you do not
waste the effort of so many slaves to produce a white elephant. It was
also alien to the spirit of the time to give further thought to possible
improvements. If the possibility of distorting the message is a strong
argument against building a communications system, wouldn’t it then
be worthwhile to develop a code that is more resistant to mistakes? If
security is a problem, wouldn’t it then be worthwhile to develop a code
that cannot be easily broken?
Whatever the reason, the fact is that Imperial Rome failed to develop
a communications system capable of transmitting any desired message.
The need was there, they knew how to build it, they would have been
able to afford it, but they just did not do it. They had beacons for early
warning but their system was no more sophisticated than that of other
empires before them: a couple of watchtowers here, a few watchtowers
over there, that was all they ever had. Thanks to the illustrated history
of their achievements, left to the world in the form of Trajan’s column,
it is known what these watchtowers looked like (see Fig. 2.3).
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west there was still a
chance, a slim chance admittedly, for the Byzantine Empire to develop
the telegraph. We know that they did no such thing. In fact, they did not
even have chains of beacons apart from a brief interval around the mid-
dle of the ninth century. It was a time of frequent Arab raids necessitat-
ing an early warning system. Fortunately, it was also the time when
Leo the Mathematician (known also as Leo the Philosopher) lived and
worked. The system he devised stretched from Loulon, close to the
Arab frontier, to Constantinople, 450 miles away, using altogether nine

strategically located beacons. The method of signalling relied on
clocks
situated at the two ends of the chain. The meaning of the fire
depended on when it was lit. It meant an Arab raid at hour 1, war at
hour 2, arson at hour 3, and some other unspecified event at hour 4.The
message arrived in Constantinople about one hour after it was sent.The
system worked satisfactorily for a decade or two but then it came to an
undignified end some time during the reign of Michael III (842–67). The
story goes that a signal indicating an Arab raid came just at the time
when the emperor had a winning streak at the horse races. Not wanting
to upset the crowd at the next day’s race he ordered the dismantling of
the system.
From the seventh century onwards the Arabs were of course more
than invaders of Byzantium. They founded their own empire. By the
middle of the eighth century the Muslim Empire of the Abbasid dynasty
stretched from the river Indus in the east to the Pyrenees in the west.Their
need for communications was served by a postal system relying on mes-
sengers riding horses, mules, or camels, depending on the terrain. The
empire was nominally ruled by the caliph sitting in Bagdad but in prac-
tice most of the provinces were under local rulers intriguing against
Fig. 2.3 Roman watch-
towers as shown on Trajan’s
column.

one another. Thus, there was some motivation to build a fast communi-
cations system for local use. There is only one such communications
system on record coming from Arabic sources. The chains of towers,
built along the North African coast, apparently covered the enormous
distance from Ceuta (opposite Gibraltar) to Alexandria.The chain might
have worked for quite a long time, maybe for two centuries. It is known
to have been destroyed in 1048 during the revolt of the Arabic West
against the Fatimid dynasty (who ruled Egypt at the time). The trans-
mission of fire signals took just one night to run the whole course. The
shorter distance from Tripoli to Alexandria was covered in three to four
hours.
Europe made no contributions to communications techniques after
the victory of the barbarians. It was the time of the Dark Ages, which
were not quite so dark for technological development (the saddle, the
stirrup, the crank, to name a few, were invented during those centuries
and that’s also when water mills started to be used extensively). However,
the Dark Ages was a complete loss for ideas. Some monasteries might
have produced a few eager young men having bright ideas, but no
decision-
maker would have shown the slightest interest in promoting
communications.
Coming to the Renaissance, there must have been renewed interest
in telegraphy but apparently only one name has been preserved, that
of Girolamo Cardano,5
an Italian mathematician who lived in the six-
teenth century. His proposal is identical to our 5-
bit binary system
capable of coding 32 letters or symbols. He still relied on torches but
in order to distinguish clearly which torches were present and which
were absent he proposed building five towers, each of which might or
might not display a burning torch. The chances of errors were rather
small this way (it should not have been too difficult to observe whether
a torch was lit on a particular tower or not) but the cost had to be
multiplied by a factor of five, an expensive way of reducing mistakes.
The system was, of course, never built and it seems unlikely that any
of the rulers of the numerous Italian city states ever gave a thought
to it.
It is not my purpose in this chapter to give an exhaustive account of
all the beacon systems that ever existed. The list would be too long and
not particularly interesting. Fire signals were obviously used by many
peoples throughout the ages at times of danger. I would, however, like to
give one final example of a chain of fires set up during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I. The aim was to report the movement of the Spanish
Armada, on the assumption that their visit was not inspired by peaceful
intentions.The means was a chain of beacons set up on the south coast.
The event was commemorated by Macaulay, the historian, who also
dabbled in poetry:
5
Mathematicians know him as the first
man who found the roots of a general
cubic equation.

From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford Bay,
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the day,
For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly war-
flame spread.
High on St. Michael’s Mount it shone; it shone on Beachy Head.
Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire,
Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire.

The Beginning of Organized Science
The seventeenth century did not start well for independent thinking. In
the year 1600 Giordano Bruno, a believer in the Copernican system, was
burnt at the stake. Galileo, another believer, escaped a similar fate only
by recanting his views in 1633. However, looking at the century as a
whole, it was undoubtably the beginning of modern science. Besides
Galileo, Kepler, and Harvey, who entered the century as mature men, it
was the century of Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, and Pascal, and of many
others like Fermat, the mathematician, Torricelli with his barometer,
Boyle and Marriotte of gas laws fame, von Guericke with his electric
friction machine and unbreakable hemispheres, Vernier of the Vernier
scale, and universal geniuses like Huygens and Hooke.
As for bloodshed, the century was slightly above average. Catholics
and Protestants killed each other in great numbers but there was no
shortage of Catholics killing Catholics or Protestants killing Protestants.
Some people were defenestrated in Prague, an English king lost his
head, Spain had her ups and downs (more downs than ups), French
cardinals spread intrigue, but science marched on. Inexorably. It even
became respectable.
The first organized scientific academy, the Accademia del Cimento,
was founded in Florence in 1657 by the two Medici brothers, the Grand
Duke Fernando II and Leopold. It flourished for ten years. Tradition
says that the end came when Fernando was offered a cardinal’s hat
and the pope did not think that being a cardinal was compatible with
supporting a scientific society. The Académie des Sciences was
founded in 1666 in Paris when Colbert, a forward-
looking minister of
finance, managed to persuade Louis XIV to extend his patronage to
the sciences.
The foundations of a scientific society in England were laid on
28 November 1660 when some illustrious scientists met at a lecture by
Christopher Wren (the architect of the rebuilt St. Paul’s Cathedral).
A‘mutuallconverse’washeldand‘Somethingwasofferedaboutadesigne
of founding a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-
Mathematicall,
Experimentall Learning’.1
After obtaining the Royal Charter they became
known in 1663 as ‘The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural
Knowledge’. Were the Fellows of the Royal Society concerned in any way
with telegraphy? Not particularly: that was not one of the burning ques-
tions of the time, but they were interested in all natural and man-
made
The Mechanical Telegraph
3
1
It may be worth noting that the
expected contributions of the founding
Fellows were not restricted to matters
scientific. On 5 December 1660 they
decided to undertake the obligation
‘that each of us will allowe one shilling
weekely, towards the defraying of occa-
sional! charges’.
CHAPTER
THREE
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198863007.003.0003

22 The Mechanical Telegraph
phenomena about which evidence could be gathered. So they did not
dabble in theology but if one of their Fellows thought up a scheme for
long distance communications, they were only too happy to consider it.
Telegraphy with a Difference
It fell to Robert Hooke, one of the most inventive men who ever lived, to
introduce the subject of ‘speedy intelligence’ to the Royal Society. There
is a brief report just mentioning the subject in 1664, but one can find a
lengthy description with figures twenty years later ‘showing the way
how to communicate one’s mind at great distances’. Hooke proposed a
symbol for each letter, to be displayed at one site and observed at the
next one. He even proposed a mechanism for storing the symbols and
for sliding them quickly into the display area. In principle, this was no
improvement on Polybius (whom Hooke probably did not read). There
is, however, an additional idea that could not have possibly been part of
Polybius’ scheme, and which did bring the idea nearer to practical
realization.The symbols displayed were to be observed from the next site
by telescope.
So how do telescopes work? They are nothing more than two lenses
(or one lens and a curved mirror) so arranged that a faraway object will
appear to be much closer. In early embodiments the distance between
the lenses could be changed by sliding a tube inside another one. They
are a familiar sight in films made about pirates and admirals. Before
embarking on a juicy battle, both types are usually seen holding a long
adjustable tube to one of their eyes.
When were telescopes invented? Obviously, some time after the

invention of lenses which had been used from about the middle of the
thirteenth century for correcting eyesight. Progress was, however,
rather slow. It was not until 1609 that a Dutch spectacle-
maker, Hans
Lippershey, cottoned on to the idea of using two lenses a distance apart.
Legend has it that he delivered some spectacles to his customers and
looking through two of them by chance, he saw the spire of the church
in the town of Middelburg brought much closer.
Was Hooke’s suggestion of using a telescope a milestone in the his-
tory of the telegraph? It was, because it permitted placing the towers
much farther from each other, maybe by a factor of ten, yielding a ten-
fold decrease in the number of stations needed.The chances of building
a communications system had suddenly improved. Of course all inventors
exaggerate the effectiveness of their invention and Hooke was no excep-
tion. He thought that ‘with a little practice thereof ...the same character
may be seen at Paris, within a minute after it hath been exposed at
London’. Hooke did not do any experiments but about a decade after
Hooke’s report (around 1694) Guillaume Amontons, a member of the

The Mechanical Telegraph in France 23
Académie des Sciences, did actually try such a system in the Luxembourg
Gardens in Paris (see Fig. 3.1) in the presence of high royal personages.
They were duly impressed but did nothing about it. The time was still
too early. Louis XIV was not interested. He could happily govern his
country without the need for fast communications.
The Mechanical Telegraph in France
The beginning
Priorities in the history of science and technology are often disputed.
Was it X of nationality A, or rather Y of nationality B, who first
built such-
and-
such apparatus? There are no disputes concerning the
mechanical telegraph. Everyone agrees that the first communications
system able to transmit any information was built by Claude Chappe
just about a hundred years after Amontons’ experiments. It covered the
distance of 210 km between Paris and Lille. The first telegram over that
line was sent on 15 August 1794. In principle, there was nothing new in
the way it functioned. What was new was that unlike earlier attempts,
this one actually succeeded. Why? We must appreciate that the time
that elapsed between Polybius’ first description of the possibility and
Chappe’s realization was nearly 2000 years, somewhat longer than the
usual germination time for useful contrivances. Why 1794? There was a
slight possibility that it could have come earlier but, as discussed before,
Fig. 3.1 Guillaume
Amontons showing his
experiments to royal
personages in the
Luxembourg Garden in Paris.

there were too many obstacles. Could the first communications system
have come later? Yes, certainly. How much later? Half a century would
be a realistic estimate. Once electricity was discovered and its various
manifestations investigated the electric telegraph was bound to come.
However, but for Chappe and his brothers and the extraordinary his-
torical circumstances of the time, the mechanical telegraph might have
never existed.
There were five brothers, Ignace, Claude, Pierre-
François, René, and
Abraham who all played a role in the history of telegraphy. The art of
transmitting information to a distant observer interested them from
early childhood. Claude was destined for the church and might have
quietly spent his life between his job of praising God and his hobby of
inventing devices. But revolution came and Claude lost his church
bene
fices. Like many others at that time he went to Paris in 1791 to seek
his fortune. His brother Ignace was already in Paris as a member of the
Legislative Assembly. Claude continued his experiments, and by March
1792 he was in the position of being able to submit a proposal to the
Assembly to build a practical communications system. The proposal
was referred to the Committee for Public Instruction. The President of
the Committee reported favourably on the plans submitted on 1 April
1793.2
Experiments took place on 12 July 1793 over a distance of 35 km
using three stations. A report on the experiments reached the
Convention (the successor of the Legislative Assembly) on 26 July,
and there and then they adopted the telegraph as a national utility. By
4 August 1793 the Ministry of War was instructed to acquire sites and
the system was in working order a year later.
One might make an inspired guess at the factors responsible for success:
(1) the product was good;
(2) the inventor was determined;
(3) the inventor had a brother sitting in the body which decided on the
matter; and
(4) there was a demand for the invention.
Points (1)–(4) were necessary conditions which could have come into
play at any time between Polybius and Chappe.The inventor always had
to push his invention and of course an invention that does not quite
work is of limited interest. The brother, as such, was not necessary but
some contacts with the body who control the purse strings have been
necessary since time immemorial, and are still not a bad thing now
adays. The demand for information, well, that has always been there.
The real reason for Chappe’s success was the timing of his submis-
sion. Had he written to Louis XVI a few years earlier, before the rise
of the revolutionary tide, the reply would have surely been negative.
2
We have often referred to the commu-
nications systems described as ‘tele-
graphs’ but the actual baptism took
place only in April 1793 when Miot de
Melito, a classical scholar in the
Ministry of War, coined the term from
the Greek words tele (far) and grafein (to
write). Claude Chappe’s original term
was tachygraph meaning speed-writer.

Regimes which had been running for decades or for centuries are very
reluctant to introduce any major change. They would say of the tele
graph: ‘Oh, yes, it’s a nice thing to have, oh, yes, we do believe that it will
work but we can’t possibly spare the money to set up such a system.’
The administrators of the time probably would have believed in the effi-
cacy of the final product more than their counterparts in ancient Rome,
but the chances are that they would have been equally reluctant to
spend money on it.
In order to put Chappe’s proposal in context I shall review here both
the political and military situation at the time. There are two things
every
one knows about the French Revolution: that the revolutionaries
were in favour of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and that the Parisian
crowd (known as the sansculottes because of their lack of fashionable
wear) stormed the Bastille, a symbol of oppression under the Ancien
Régime, on 14 July 1789.There was of course a lot more to it.The political
situation may be characterized by saying that over the course of the
next five years, power moved steadily from moderates to radicals to
extremists and then suddenly to philistines.
Needless to say everyone had their own agenda. The moderates
(the Feuillants) wanted a constitutional monarchy; the radicals (the
Girondins) wanted a republic and a fair amount of social change; the
extremists (the Mountain) wanted a completely new start, an eradica-
tion of all remnants of aristocratic rule, a new constitution, a new
social order, and a new economic policy, and they wanted all these
things at once, irrespective of the amount of bloodshed necessary to
achieve them.
The wiser aristocrats immediately realized that their future looked
rather bleak and took flight. Lots of émigrés congregated outside the
French borders and waited for the Revolution to collapse. Louis XVI, a
man of indecision, did not know what he wanted. By the time he decided
to flee Paris (June 1791) it was too late. He was caught at Varennes, a
good 200 km from Paris, and escorted back to Paris.
The kings of Europe looked on with sympathy, and some with fore-
boding, at the predicament of Louis XVI. The emperor Leopold (it was
the last avatar of the Holy Roman Empire, a fairly ineffectual body at
the best of times) and the King of Prussia expressed their concern in the
form of a declaration at Pillnitz.They declared themselves for monarchy
and against disorder. The Parisian sansculottes were displeased. Their
basic inclination was just the opposite: against the monarchy and for
disorder. There was a war fever cleverly manipulated by the radicals.
They were in favour of war because they wanted to put Louis XVI, to use
a modern phrase, in a ‘no-win’ situation. If the war went well their own
position would be strengthened, if the war went badly they could blame
the King and his contacts with émigrés for the failure. The Feuillant
(moderate) Government fell and the radicals came to power.

The war started badly for the French. The Prussians and Austrians
crossed the French border. After some initial setbacks the French armies
were, however, victorious at Valmy and the attackers had to withdraw.
Meanwhile the Parisian sansculottes acquired more and more street
power. In June 1792 they stormed the Tuileries where the king was resi
dent, making him a virtual prisoner. The Legislative Assembly was dis-
solved in September 1792. The Convention was elected in its place and
promptly proclaimed the Republic. The radicals suddenly found them-
selves preaching caution.They passed some radical laws (e.g. the expul-
sion of all recalcitrant priests, and the abolition of all dues owed to
seigneurs, without compensation) but they voted with some reluctance
for the execution of the king in January 1793.
The war restarted with new vigour in February–March 1793. France
had to face a coalition of England, Holland, Austria, Prussia, Spain, and
Sardinia. The French armies had serious military reverses in the first
few months. The internal situation shifted towards the extremists. The
radicals lost power in June and most of their leaders were executed in
the autumn (the revolution started to devour its own children). From
the summer of 1793 the extremists ruled. Their power was vested in the
Committee of Public Safety which came to dominate the Convention.
They governed by terror. The extremists were split in the spring of 1794.
Robespierre was in power. The revolution devoured a few more of its
children: Hebert was executed in March, Danton in April. A conspiracy
against Robespierre succeeded in July. He was executed with his two
lieutenants, Saint-
Just and Couthon on the 28 July 1794.
How did all these political changes and the continuous state of war
affect the telegraph? On the whole it was to the good. Under the Ancien
Régime the natural thing was to leave things as they were; under the
revolution the natural thing was to introduce changes. Obviously, a
new thing like the telegraph had a much better chance of support under
the revolution. Secondly, the revolution was threatened by external
enemies. The revolution had to be saved. The telegraph was intended to
help the war effort, so it was a desirable thing to have.
The crucial meeting of the Convention took place on 26 July 1793.
Lakanal, a scientist of repute who had witnessed the successful experi-
ments on 12 July, addressed the Convention:
Citizen Legislators,
The sciences and the arts, and the virtues of heroes characterize the nations
who are remembered with glory by posterity. Archimedes, by the happy con-
ceptions of his genius, was more useful to his country than if he had been a
warrior meeting death in combat.
What brilliant destiny do the sciences and the arts not reserve for a republic
which, by its immense population and by the genius of its inhabitants, is called
to become the nation to instruct Europe.

Two inventions seem to have marked the 18th century; both belong to the
French nation: the balloon and the telegraph.…
Later he praises experiments:
One does, one fails, one asks questions, one compares, and the positive results
come only by experimentation.
Then he praises the population at large:
The inhabitants of this beautiful country are worthy of liberty because they
love it and because they respect the National Convention and its laws.
Towards the end he remarks:
I hope you will make good use of the present opportunity to encourage the use-
ful sciences. If you would ever abandon them fanaticism would rule and slav-
ery would cover the Earth. Nothing works so strongly in the interests of tyranny
than ignorance.
Summarizing Lakanal’s main points: (i) the telegraph was one of the
two most important discoveries of the century; (ii) it was a French
invention; (iii) it enabled France to teach Europe; (iv) it was an example
of the benefits of science; (v) science is good; (vi) the opposite of science
is ignorance; and (vii) ignorance favours tyrannies.
Let us now imagine a typical deputy of the Convention. He is proud
to be French; he is proud that it was the French nation which shook
off oppression and is now leading the way in Europe. He strongly
believes that French scientific achievements outstrip those of other
countries. He regards it likely that Chappe’s telegraph will help to
win the war. How will he vote? For the motion, without hesitation.
In the unlikely case that some of the deputies have reservations they
will have thought twice before voting against the proposal.The radical
leaders are already in prison. Who wants to appear to support

ignorance and to be on the side of tyranny? The motion is passed
unanimously.
Given the historical circumstances, Chappe was bound to receive the
commission. The whole enterprise could, of course, still have failed on
account of shoddily built apparatus, inferior telescopes, and untrained
personnel. But that side was taken good care of by Claude Chappe and
his brothers. Everything worked beautifully by August 1794.
What did these telegraphs look like? There are plenty of illustrations,
chosen from contemporary engravings and paintings, in the book of
Geoffrey Wilson entitled The Old Telegraphs. One of these, the St Pierre de
Montmartre Church in 1832, with the telegraph erected on the top of
the tower is shown in Fig. 3.2a. A schematic drawing, showing the
details, may be seen in Fig. 3.2b.The telegraph consisted of a mast about

5 m long upon which a wooden beam, called the regulator, could rotate.
At each end of the regulator was an indicator which could also rotate.
There were a large number of possibilities. The regulator could take
four different positions, vertical, horizontal, right inclined at 45°, and left
inclined at 45°, as shown in Fig. 3.3. Taking the regulator as horizontal,
Regulator
(a)
(b)
Indicator
Tower
Fig. 3.2 (a) Claude Chappe’s
mechanical telegraph perched
on the tower of the St Pierre
de Montmartre church,
(b) Schematic representation
of Chappe’s telegraph.

the indicator could take seven different positions as may be seen in
Fig. 3.4. Notice that the position where the indicator is a mere continu-
ation of the regulator was not used. From a distance it would have been
easy to mistake it for the position shown in Fig. 3.4g, in which the indi-
cator is pointing to the left and lying above the regulator. The only

difference between them would have been the apparent length of the
regulator. In any case they did not need this eighth position as they had
plenty of different configurations without it. Considering the 4 possible
positions of the regulator and 7 positions of the indicator, there were
4 × 7 = 28 configurations with one indicator and 7 × 28 = 196 configur
ations with two indicators.
It would have been perfectly possible to send only letters of the alpha-
bet and numbers from 0 to 9, but the large number of possibilities
allowed a more efficient coding devised by Leon Delaunay, a former
French consul in Portugal, who knew how to code diplomatic messages.
It was essentially a double-
code. They had three books, each of them
having 92 pages, and each page containing 92 words or more complete
expressions, e.g. ‘this is the end of the message’. Next, they attached a
number to each of 92 different positions of the apparatus. Then a mes-
sage of 2, 15, 88 meant the 88th word on page 15 of book 2. Coding and
decoding occurred only at the terminal stations. The code was not
known to the operators.
How many words and expressions could they send by this method?
The number of words is clearly 3 × 92 × 92 = 25,392. Was this faster than
sending the message letter by letter? Yes, because they could transmit
any word by showing 3 subsequent positions of the apparatus, and of
course most words contain more than 3 letters.3
The speed of signalling for a message was about 1.5 signals per
mi
nute. It was rather slow partly because it took time to operate the
Fig. 3.3 The four possible
positions of the regulator.
(a)
(d) (e) (f) (g)
(b) (c)
Fig. 3.4 The seven possible
positions of the indicator
(a further possibility when the
indicator is an extension of
the regulator was not used).
3
There is a question here for those a lit-
tle more mathematically minded. Why
did they use only 92 (actually 98 by
including some auxiliary signals) posi-
tions out of a total of 196? They could
have considerably speeded up the pro-
cess if they had only one book of 196
pages with 130 words on each page.That
would have given them about the same
number of words (25,480) without the
need to indicate the book. So, they would
have saved transmitting one signal, the
one that specified the book. Chappe and
his collaborators must have thought of
such a possibility. Presumably, the errors
in decoding the telegrams were higher
when they used all 196 configurations.
The reduction to 98 was achieved by
abandoning the 45° positions of the
regulator.

heavy beams and partly because some feedback from the next tower
was built into the method of signalling in order to reduce the chances of
mistakes.
The modern measure of signalling rate is bits per second. As seen in
Chapter 3, 5 bits are needed to send a letter of the alphabet. Taking
the average length of a word at 5 letters, each word can be coded with
25 bits. Chappe’s telegraph could deliver a word with the aid of 3 signals
taking two minutes. Hence, roughly speaking, the signalling speed was
12.5 bits per minute or about 0.2 bits per second. This is in contrast with
the figure of about one trillion bits per second that can be routinely
transferred today via a single optical fibre.
Further progress
The inauguration of the first telegraph line practically coincided with
the fall of Robespierre. There was a backlash in the form of the White
Terror and then a fairly quiet period (apart from a minor coup d’état in
1797) until 1799, when the country’s leadership was entrusted to three
consuls with General Bonaparte as the First Consul. In 1804 Bonaparte
became emperor as Napoleon I. After many a victory and some mixed
fortunes (the Russian campaign of 1812 was particularly painful) he was
defeated in 1814 and had to abdicate in favour of Louis XVIII. Napoleon
was exiled to the island of Elba where he had a court but not much to
do. He returned to France on the first day of March 1815, where he was
again enthusiastically received by the crowds, quickly regaining power
at home. The rest of Europe, as may be expected, united against him
once more. Napoleon remained in power for a hundred days but was
finally defeated at Waterloo by Wellington and Blücher. Louis XVIII
came back, this time to stay. He was followed in 1824 by Charles X who
was swept away by the July Revolution in 1830. Then came Louis-
Philippe,the‘citizenKing’whoserulewasterminatedin1848byanother
revolution.
There is no doubt that the establishment of the mechanical telegraph
service coincided with one of the most turbulent periods in French his-
tory.The interesting thing is that although the turbulence of the age did
account for the birth of the service, its subsequent development was
practically independent of who was in power. The users, whether they
were republicans, administrators in Napoleon’s empire, or royalists, all
liked to have access to speedy information. The building of telegraph
lines went on steadily and irrevocably. The dates for the completion of
the various lines are given in Table 3.1. Note that most of them were
built in the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.
As for the Chappe brothers, they remained involved with the admin-
istration of the telegraph system with the exception of Claude who, for
reasons not entirely known, committed suicide in 1805. The reign of the

Chappes came to an end only after the July Revolution of 1830 when
René and Abraham were relieved of their functions. The reason was
unlikely to be political. Presumably, someone wanted their jobs. The
king, Louis-Philippe, at least showed his appreciation by granting a pen-
sion to Abraham Chappe in acknowledgment of his 35 years of service.
A map of the full mechanical telegraph system in France around 1846
is given in Fig. 3.5. By then it was a major enterprise. It had some 5000
km of line with 534 stations.
The last act of the story of the mechanical telegraph was played out
under trying conditions (Fig. 3.6) in the Crimean War (1854–6), at a time
when British engineers had already laid a 340-
mile submarine cable
between Varna and the Crimea. The days of the mechanical tele
graph
were numbered. By the end of 1856 all French mechanical tele
graphs
stopped waving their arms. The abandoned towers must have provided
a dismal sight. Their demise was mourned by Gustave Nadaud:
Que fais-
tu, mon vieux telegraphe,
Au sommet de ton vieux clocher,
Sérieux comme un épitaphe,
Immobile comme un rocher.
The mourning continues for eight verses of which the most sentimental
is the seventh:
Moi, je suis un pauvre trouvère,
Ami de la douce liqueur:
Des chants joyeux sont dans mon verre;
J’ai des chants d’amour dans le coeur.
Mais à notre epoque inquiête
Qu’importent l’amour et le vin?
Vieux télégraphe, vieux poète,
Vous vous agiteriez en vain!
Table 3.1 Completion dates of French mechanical
telegraph lines.
Paris–Lille 1794
Paris–Strasbourg 1798
Paris–Brest 1798
Lille–Brussels 1803
Paris–Lyons 1807
Lyons–Milan 1809
Brussels–Antwerp 1809
Milan–Venice 1810
Antwerp–Amsterdam 1811
Venice–Rimini–Monte Santa Lucia4
1811
Lyons–Marseilles–Toulon 1821
Paris–Bordeaux–Bayonne 1823
Avignon–Bordeaux 1834
4
Note that Brussels, Milan, Antwerp,
Amsterdam, Venice, Rimini, and
Monte Santa Lucia were under French
rule when the telegraphs were built.

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¡Adios, mi lira! a Dios encomendada
Quedas de hoi mas; ¡adios! ¡yo te bendigo!
Por tí serena el ánima inspirada
Desprecia la crueldad de hado enemigo.
Los hombres te verán de hoi consagrada;
Dios i mi último adios quedan contigo:
Que entre Dios i la tumba no se miente,
¡Adios!...... voi a morir...... ¡soi inocente!
Inocente ante Dios i ante la conciencia humana, i culpable, en
cuanto puede serlo el que vierte su sangre en holocausto de la
libertad.
El silencio pavoroso del vértigo se apoderó de la multitud. Tenia el
reo altiva la frente i resplandeciente la mirada. No se oia sino el
ruido de sus pisadas al hollar los escalones del cadalzo. Cuando
subió a él, el perfil de su figura grandiosa se dibujaba pálida i
arrogante a la vez al través de la rojiza i cambiante luz de los
relámpagos, que alumbraban tan sucesivos como si fuesen un
relámpago continuado. De pié sobre el cadalzo, la mirada perdida en
el infinito i levantando el índice de la mano, dijo con plateada i
serena voz:—¡Adios pueblo querido! A todos pido perdon; ¡rogad
por mi! Hizo una pausa i continuó: A don Ramon Gonzalez i a don
Francisco Hernandez de Morejon, ¡los emplazo para la eternidad!..
Subieron inmediatamente dos soldados al cadalzo, para amarrarlo al
palo que le servia de espaldar. Pero él se incorporó en su banco, les
fijó una mirada altanera, i les dijo: Puedo asegurarles que siempre
mantendré la cabeza erguida. Los soldados, dominados por el
imperio del valor, miráronle con sorpresa, callaron, i bajaron los
escalones, para ir a juntarse con los demas soldados que estaban en
linea i con las armas preparadas al frente de la víctima.
Oyóse en ese momento los alaridos de una infeliz mujer que se
arrastraba de rodillas en torno del cadalzo i se abrazaba de él. Era su

madre. Sus lamentos fueron ahogados por una descarga de fusilería
que derribó al héroe envuelto en su sangre. Cayó tendido sobre el
tablado del cadalzo. La griteria de la muchedumbre, el eco de la
descarga, el espectáculo de la víctima estremecia la naturaleza.
De en medio del charco de sangre que le rodeaba, a la rojiza luz del
fogonazo, en medio de la humareda de la descarga que flotaba en
su torno como una nube cenicienta, levantó la frente cadavérica i
con acento patibulario i flebil esclamó, señalando el herido pecho
con la mano: ¡Adios mundo! ¿No hai perdon para mí?..... ¡Fuego
aquí!
Con una segunda descarga espiró.
¿I Berta? ¿Sigue tendida en el umbral de la prision? ¿Hánse juntado
esas dos almas apasionadas sobre el umbral de la eternidad?... No.
Cuando se levantó del umbral de la prision, las pálidas facciones de
su rostro temblaban con una horrible contraccion histérica.
¿Plácido?.... murmuró levemente, como buscándolo con la mirada
estraviada al rededor de sí. ¿Plácido?.... repitió varias veces, i
prorrumpió en una interminable carcajada.
Estaba loca.
¡Nueva Ofelia! llorando i sonriendo vió caer las flores incoloras de su
corona nupcial.
La sombra del cadalzo se proyectaba en el suelo: la sombra de
Plácido surcaba la inmensidad bajo el cielo de los trópicos, sobre la
sombra de las nubes e impelida por las frias brisas de la muerte.
¡La bandera de la Independencia de Cuba, será su mortaja! El
estandarte de la Libertad, su cipres fúnebre. I cuando la mano de la
Democracia desgarre los negros crespones que enlutan los altares
de las libertades cubanas, el recuerdo de Plácido brillará en ellos
como la luz del tabernáculo.
¡Musa de fuego! nada pudo estinguirla. ¡Cisne negro! como el cisne
murió cantando. ¡Víctima inmaculada del corazon! ¡Mártir prematuro

de la independencia de tu patria! ¡cuánta mas sangre haya
chorreado de los laureles que ceñian tu frente, serán mas
inmarcescibles ante la posteridad!
¡Nuevo Chernier! ¡Plácido i Chernier, las dos obras mas simpáticas de
Dios, ambos poetas, ambos víctimas, ambos murieron pulsando sus
liras sobre el patíbulo, al siniestro resplandor de su martirio!
FIN.

EPÍLOGO.
¿Qué podia tardar Arturo en saber los sucesos que acababan de
desarrollarse? Cayó la noticia como un rayo de nieve que heló para
siempre su corazon, i que redujo a escombros el frájil castillo de sus
ilusiones i de su felicidad. Lleno su corazon de las calientes cenizas
del pasado; lleno del infortunio que cruzó su camino en la víspera de
su felicidad, cruzó a su vez los mares en direccion a España, cargado
de riquezas i desengaños.
Sin embargo, como un postrer homenaje al pasado, como un último
tributo a su amor, cumplió su oferta de llevar consigo a Alberto para
encargarse de su educacion. Así vió Raquel coronado de prosperidad
al hijo lejítimo de su amor, i coronado de martirio al fruto criminal de
su deslíz.
La familia quedó sumida en la miseria.

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