Because World War One was fought on a global scale, the development of long-distance radio communication was vital to both sides. This review appeared in a British Marconi publication, so it gives a generally one-sided view of events, but it does document the importance of radio to both Great Britain and its German adversary.
 
The Yearbook of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony, 1916, pages 625-644:

WIRELESS  WAVES  IN  THE  WORLD'S  WAR.

A  General  Survey  of  War-Happenings  affecting  Radiotelegraphy.

By  H.  J.  B.  WARD,  B.A.
"The  value  of  Wireless  Telegraphy  may  one  day  be  put  to  a  great  practical  and  critical  test;  then  perhaps  there  will  be  a  true  appreciation  of  the  magnitude  of  our  work."
THE words quoted above occur in a speech made by Senatore Marconi in the summer of 1914. Viewed in the light of recent events, they rank not merely as prophecy, but as fulfilled prophecy. The distinguished Italian referred to this fact in his address to his shareholders on July 26th last year.
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    At 5 a.m. on July 30th, 1914, the great naval review at Spithead over, the first fleet, which had just left Portland, was recalled by wireless telegraphy and instructed not to disperse for manoeuvre-leave, as had been previously arranged.
The first
National
Service.
On the following Sunday, August 2nd, the London Gazette issued a special notice that it had become "expedient for the public service that His Majesty's Government should have control over the transmission of messages by wireless telegraphy."
    It will be seen therefore that five days before the actual declaration of war wireless telegraphy had performed its first national service, and that two days in advance of hostilities the British Government had taken steps to assume complete control of this all-important factor in national organisation. Two further notifications followed closely, both issued on August 3rd: the first providing for the dismantling of all wireless apparatus on merchant vessels in the territorial waters of the United Kingdom and Channel Islands, and the second ordering the closure of all experimental wireless telegraphy stations in this country, and asking for the co-operation of the public in order to secure "information of any wireless station which may be observed to be kept up in contravention of his orders."
    Thus early did the British Government assume State control of Radiotelegraphy and take steps to ensure the complete cessation of its use by any private individuals in the country.
    Of course, enemy installations were subsequently discovered here and there, and a few instances leaked through into the Press. But in by far the greater number of cases such matters were dealt with in camera, and information was very properly prevented from reaching the ears of the enemy.
    This state of affairs has continued ever since; successive regulations have only tended to render the provisions more stringent, and to stop any loopholes for evasion which the wording of the proclamations might appear to have left open.
Patriotic
Duty.
Englishmen, unaccustomed to interference with their private liberty, were slow to grasp the necessity for obeying absolutely and without question the Government regulations. Nevertheless here and there we find individual instances when men made spontaneous sacrifices for the benefit of their country in advance of anything demanded of them by Government. A notable example was shown by Mr. G. D. Smith, an English wireless operator on the German freight steamer Mazatlan, who, on October 7th, 1914, when ordered to communicate with the German cruiser Leipsic, for which his vessel was conveying a cargo of coal, wrecked the wireless apparatus rather than lend any aid to the enemy. Doubtless Mr. Smith's example found many emulators in similar emergencies; but the disregard for regulations, characteristic of the English under the humdrum conditions of home life, led many young amateurs into the courts, and all through the earlier months of the struggle a crop of wireless cases had to be dealt with, despite the solemn words of warning addressed to wireless amateurs in the pages of the Wireless World and other technical and non-technical journals.
    It is hard--and no one but the person interested can know how hard--to have spent much time and labour in manufacturing and getting to work a set of apparatus only to find that war breaks out and one is asked immediately to dismantle it. But this is one of the sacrifices that wireless amateurs in England have been called upon to make, and on the whole, with a relatively small number of exceptions, they have made it, not grudgingly, but cheerfully and without reserve.
    Aye, and more than this! They have consummated their sacrifice of amateurism by assuming the rôle of professionalism. Thus a very large number of young men, who in days gone by took their initial steps in radio training as amateurs, have now proved the value of their hobby, and to-day are performing useful service pro patria.
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    Within the Empire the first steps of assumption and repression were speedily taken; the matter of wireless outside the Empire, however, was less simple.
Neutral
Wireless.
Naturally, as far as enemy wireless is concerned, the obvious and only course was destruction. The success with which this has been conducted is dealt with elsewhere. In the countries of our Allies the situation was equally plain and straightforward. There, Radiotelegraphy was, and is, as much under friendly influence as if it were directly controlled by our own Government. But when we come to neutral countries, affairs stand on a totally different basis. The situation has been complicated by (a) the various interpretations put upon neutrality by the Governments of the different countries; (b) the amount of influence obtained in peace-time by the German Government through their state-aided pseudo-private erection of stations; and (c) the amount of control exercised by the responsible neutral governments over outlying portions of their territories.
    Take, for instance, the case of South America. In the earlier days of the War a correspondent, writing to the Morning Post, pointed to the large number of stations scattered through Argentine, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, emphasising that with regard to a large number of them there were potentialities of use inimical to the Entente.
    Let us hasten to say that one and all of the Governments concerned have adopted the most correct attitude all the way through. A lengthy official statement on the subject was promulgated in the House of Commons on November 25th, 1914. Moreover, full advantage has been taken of the parental authority of "Uncle Sam" over the daughter republics in the Southern Continent, so that the difficulties with which the British authorities have had to contend in South America have been due rather to the surreptitious influence exerted by Germany than to the official attitude of neutral Governments. Germany backed her wireless industry in the same thorough manner as that in which she supported other Teutonic commercial enterprises.
"Peaceful
Penetration."
This is what was meant by her policy of "peaceful penetration." The result was that the Kaiser's Imperial Wireless chain was supplemented, notably in South America, by a number of commercial stations, the vast majority of which were constructed by Germans. This preference for the Teuton was partly a matter of "buying in the cheapest market," partly a matter of "pushfulness" displayed by diplomatic representatives and partly due to the support of German banks. Thanks to Government subsidies, German prices for wireless stations for a good many years antecedent to the War had been appreciably lower than those of her competitors. The combination of absurdly cheap contracts with expressly designed mechanical or electrical complications in wireless plants was supplemented (as a necessary corollary) by the introduction of the German "Wireless Expert." The latter was consistently found to be the only person who could efficiently work the station, and--as a result--in a large number of cases received a request to stay on in charge at a handsome salary. By such means as these "a very large number of the South American coast stations came under the charge of naturalised Germans, whilst in some cases the chief technical officials of the various Government telegraph administrations belong to the same nationality." [See an interesting paper on this subject specially contributed to the Wireless World by an engineer, resident before the war in South America.]
    An incident which recently came to light through the arrival at San Francisco of a British scientist and his wife from a three years' archæological voyage gives an excellent illustration of the matter we are considering.
Surreptitious
Wireless.
Mr. and Mrs. Routlege were on Easter Island, conducting their scientific investigations, when they witnessed the arrival of German cruisers and the erection by them of a base of supplies and a radiotelegraphic signalling station. This for a long time escaped notice because of the remoteness of the island from intercourse with the outside world. It is under the jurisdiction of Chile, but Chilian neutrality unsupported by Chilian armed force was treated with the usual Teutonic nonchalance.
    The influence that this surreptitious wireless policy has had upon the course of the war is admirably illustrated by alternate victory and defeat. The only important German naval victory occurred on November 1st, 1914, in the Pacific, when Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock was defeated, and lost the Good Hope and Monmouth, a disaster gloriously avenged in the South Atlantic on December 8th of the same year. In the former instance the German success was undoubtedly due to the fact that they were within a wireless zone of activity friendly to themselves, so that they received knowledge of every movement of the British vessels at the moment of its initiation, whilst their own evolutions were concealed from the British, whose commander could only rely upon the installations on his own vessels.
    A totally different state of affairs came into play when the German admiral, issuing from this zone of friendly wireless influences, made his abortive attempt to strike at the heart of the British friendly wireless zone centring round the Falkland Islands station. Beaten off by the British guardship, Von Spee's only resource for preventing the British from reaping the benefit of the information gained for them by the land station lay in a resort to jamming, and the operator at Port Stanley thus describes his frantic efforts:--
    "Immediately we touched the key, all the Germans pressed their keys, making indescribable noises by altering their spark frequencies rapidly. It has never been my lot to receive through such a jingle before, and I trust never again. Our signalling continued without interruption despite their efforts, although for about two hours pandemonium reigned in the ether."
    It would have been impossible for Admiral Sturdee's great cruisers, the "Indomitable" and "Inflexible," to have made their long voyage, and reached the scene of action totally unknown to the German commander, had it not been that the latter, as soon as he left the Pacific for the Atlantic, had passed from his friendly wireless zone.
    The Falkland Islands engagement not only exemplified in a most striking mariner the importance of wireless telegraphy, but has contributed one of the most dramatic British naval incidents which have occurred in modern days. Following the example of Nelson before the opening of the Trafalgar fight, but utilising modern instead of ancient methods of signalling, Admiral Sturdee caused the message, "God Save the King," to be radiated from every wireless aerial in his fleet as the vessels went into action. There is as true a Nelson touch in this regard for dramatic effect as there was in the secret rush from England to avenge the honour of Britain's Navy upon her barbarous foe.
    As an example of the cunning exercised by the Germans in pursuing their policy of secret world-wide wireless, we may refer to the report of a member of one of the naval expeditions engaged in "rounding up" the German Pacific colonies.
World-wide
Duplicity.
He lays special emphasis upon the fact that they were constantly finding wireless installations in the most isolated and out-of-the-way places. In some cases they had to penetrate 50 miles into the interior before discovering the enemy wireless apparatus, artfully concealed amongst the trees.
    Not content, however, with exercising their underground ramifications in these out-of-the-way districts, the Germans went the length of tampering with the great American Republic itself. The story of Sayville Station, the ramifications of the German plot, its discovery, and the way in which the damning evidence was brought to the notice of, the United States authorities, constitute as thrilling a detective yarn in real life as could possibly be imagined by the brain of a Gaboriau or Edgar Allan Poe. Mr. Charles E. Apgar, the hero of the piece, has told the story in the American and British Press. This American wireless amateur displayed in sober actuality all the resourcefulness and ingenuity attributed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to his fictional hero, Sherlock Holmes. What, in effect, Mr. Apgar discovered was that, thanks to the German controllers of this station, secret messages, which would not have passed the Censorship established by the American Government, were communicated by an ingenious and scientifically worked-out system of transmission. As soon as these facts had been proved to the satisfaction of the United States President, he confiscated the station, and Commander W. H. G. Bullard assumed control. The incident is now closed, but its record of duplicity and impudent disregard of neutrality remains,--a flagrant example of the extreme length to which Teuton cunning is prepared to go in its bid for world-domination.
    A note of irony is introduced by the fact that the regulations governing international wireless relations thus continually set at naught by Germany were framed by the Berne Convention, a permanent tribunal, whose inception was due to the initiative of the German Government, whilst the predominating voice in that Convention has, up to the declaration of war, been that of Germany.
The German
Delegates.
It was on the initiative of the German delegates that the old signal of distress, "CQD," was abolished by that Convention in favour of the modern "SOS." The Hun has as consistently violated the international law of neutrality as he has that of belligerency, and in so doing has aroused the resentment of many nations whose inclination it was to remain strictly aloof, if not to exercise a neutrality beneficent to the Central Powers. Only the other day, for instance, the Swedish Government was obliged to order the forcible sealing of the wireless fitments of a Hamburg-American liner lying in one of their own ports, on account of its commander having set at defiance the Swedish neutrality regulations which directed that wireless installations on all steamers should be dismantled whilst within Swedish territorial waters. This Hamburg-American liner had been utilising its wireless to the full, sending and receiving messages as though upon the high seas.
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    We started these remarks with a quotation from the words of Senatore Marconi, and we would here refer to the comment he made upon his own prophecy a year after it was first uttered:--
    "I have full confidence that when the War is over, and the facts can be made public, the appreciation to which I have referred will not be lacking."
    The old proverb that "A cat may look at a king" emboldens us to deprecate the Senatore's "gloss," and to point out that popular appreciation of the debt that all the combatants owe to wireless has already made great progress, so that whilst for full appreciation we may have to wait until the end of the war, even the facts which have already been permitted by our censors to appear in the pages of the Press have sufficed to give some indication of what that indebtedness is.
Public
Appreciation.

    War is a science and, like any other branch of science, possesses its own machinery and implements. Of these, in every branch, our adversaries were better provided than ourselves and our Allies. Just as they were better furnished with men, with guns, with ammunition, with air-craft, and with transport, so had they grasped to a greater extent the military advantages afforded by the use of portable wireless apparatus. Gradually, painfully, step by step, the Allies have been obliged to overtake them, and not until this overtaking has been completed in every particular is it possible to look for that complete smashing of Prussian military ascendancy which can alone satisfactorily end the contest.
    Mr. Godfrey Isaacs, in his inspiring speech of July 1915, emphasised the enormous amount expended by the German Imperial Government upon their wireless chain, and the excellent investment that this expenditure had proved to be. He demonstrated that by its means thousands of valuable German ships had been able to seek safe internment and escape otherwise inevitable capture by the British fleet.
    The same theme of admiration for German preparedness formed the motif of the speech made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies when in the autumn of last year he introduced his report on the Colonial vote. Mr. Bonar Law declared that one of the first objects of military importance before the British and their Allies consisted of the capture or destruction of Germany's Colonial wireless stations. All through the overseas campaigns, which have resulted in the capture of German colonies one by one, until only East Africa remains to them, the objective of the allied attack has invariably been the great German wireless station in the respective districts. The capture of these installations has in each instance marked the decisive issue of the Allies' operations.
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    Turn we now from the long-distance stations to the portable apparatus and field sets which keep the various units of an army in close touch with one another, and with their central authority.
Enemy
Wireless in
the Field.
Naturally, the German military authorities will not allow details of the working of such apparatus as this to leak through into our possession. But every now and again we get glimpses of them, and it is not long since there was published in the Press of one of the neutral countries an interesting account of how the reports of the smaller units were wirelessed first to divisional headquarters, and afterwards to main headquarters, being finally despatched thence to the High Command itself. The journalist who gave the account, apparently from details personally demonstrated or communicated to him, emphasised the admirable thoroughness of the system and its methodical working.
    With regard to the enemy, however, we shall really have to wait until the end of the War before we can properly appreciate their indebtedness to wireless in field operations; at present it is largely a matter of knowing the preparations they had made and of judging their efficiency by the results.
    But with regard to our own and our Allies' indebtedness, we are in a better position. One of the most interesting references to wireless working in the field appeared in a Press account of King George's tour round to the British forces in France and Flanders.
British
Field Radio
Activities.
After inspection of some of the motor-cyclist despatch riders, His Majesty paid a visit to the Army Signalling Head Office. This spot constitutes the nerve-centre of the army in the field, the central point of the spider's web. The tracery of the web is formed by the threads of messages ceaselessly passing to and fro, not only from every part of the sphere of action, but also from the bases of supplies in England. All methods of transmission are employed, and the total number of messages of all natures, and from all quarters, handled in one day, averages no fewer than 3,000, the majority of which run to a far greater length than the average telegrams of peace-time. What proportion of these messages is due to wireless telegraphy we are not in a position to say; nor should we be allowed to say it if we were. There is little doubt, however (not from conjecture but from actual indications of fact), that radiotelegraphy bears its full share of this burden.
    All sorts of odd little incidents happen in connection with field service work. An account extracted from a letter of a telegraphist in charge of a tiny little outpost station on one of the fronts came recently under our notice. It was only a little wooden hut, just large enough for two, yet the telegraphist states that he was in regular receipt of the French communiqués from the Eiffel Tower, the German fairy-tales from the enemy long-distance stations, and occasionally of messages from Madrid. It seems strange that the occupant of such a tiny outpost cabin should be able to gather the wireless news before it becomes known in the great world-centres.
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    Aircraft and wireless have between them revolutionised the whole system of military scouting.
Wireless
on Aircraft.
A most interesting picture recently went the round of the British Press, showing a group of Frenchmen, some with the double wireless ear-pieces fitted close to their heads, others standing by with note-books ready to take down messages dictated from oral reception, whilst one keen-visaged Frenchman keeps his hands hovering significantly over the transmission keyboard. Pictures make an eloquent appeal, in a way impossible to mere verbal description, and such an illustration brought home very vividly to newspaper readers the method in which the scouting work at the front is done. Hovering high in the air, French aeroplanes were viewing the enemy preparations against the Salonika position, and transmitting the results of their operations to this group of signallers.
    The aircraft utilised for this kind of observation may be of many descriptions, and practically all forms are being used in the present war: dirigibles, both rigid and non-rigid; observation balloons; and aeroplanes. All, however, have this in common--that their utility depends upon the rapidity, not only of their observation, but also of their transmission of what they have observed. They must, moreover, do their work under all conditions of weather, and wireless alone furnishes a means practically instantaneous in transmission, and capable of serving its purpose in sunshine and fog, in the still atmosphere of a summer day, or through the fierce blasts of winter storms.
    Over and above the province of scouting, however, the recent development of fleets of battle-planes composed of "Dreadnoughts of the air" in combination with smaller and swifter "cruisers" and "destroyers" operating as a complete fleet entity, has been rendered possible by the aid of wireless.
    Arising out of their efficiency in scouting work, and supplementing this branch of activity, aeroplanes are now regularly employed in the direction of gunfire. By dint of following out the directions given by wireless from these aerial "Watchers," the great cannon now regularly employed on land and sea can actually bombard points totally invisible to the manipulators of these mighty engines of war.
    The wonderful accuracy with which it is possible to direct gunfire by wireless from aeroplanes is exemplified in a communication to a friend at home from an operator on one of H.B.M.'s men-of-war. He narrates how, at a time when the vessel on which he was employed was engaged in shelling a town on one of the Eastern sea-boards, a central feature of the city consisted of a mosque tower erected on a piece of high ground. Anxious to set the Germans a good example, the aeroplane operator so directed the gunfire which he controlled that, despite the fact that shells from British vessels destroyed everything in and around the place, the mosque tower remained intact.
    Aircraft of the Zeppelin type carry installations as a matter of course, and their lifting capacity enables them to support apparatus capable of reception and transmission over much longer distances than their "heavier-than-air" comrades.
    Wireless stations are provided at all the airship bases on the German frontiers, and what a Zeppelin, properly equipped with a wireless transmitter and receiver, can accomplish may be gauged from the fact that in 1913, during the Upper Rhine reliability trials, the old "Victoria Louisa," which took part in them, remained throughout their duration in constant wireless communication with the base at Frankfort over a distance of 120 miles, besides communicating with other stations up to 200 miles; so that a complete and regular wireless service was maintained for the benefit of her passengers.
    We do not know as yet what the far more powerful installations on the later type of Zeppelins are capable of; but of this we may feel sure, that they certainly have doubled the distance obtained by the older type.
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    We have hitherto been dealing for the most part with land warfare; but, after all, the greater pride of the British Empire rightly centres in her fleet, and the indebtedness of the Fleet to wireless telegraphy is even more pronounced than that of the shore forces. Here there are no competing methods of transmission, and wireless rules alone.
Wireless
in the
"Senior Service."

    We referred at the beginning of our article to the wireless message which instructed the Fleet assembled for review to remain "in being," and assured Great Britain against the "hussar stroke" which the "All Highest" used to boast he held in store for the British at sea.
    Details are necessarily and rightly lacking; but the main outlines are clear enough. One of the first notable accounts of what was going on was afforded by the American journalist, Mr. Frederick Palmer, who, in September 1915, was favoured with a personally conducted tour round the "Grand Fleet" of Britain. The description of what he saw on the Flagship of Sir John Jellicoe is worth quoting verbatim. After picturing for his readers his first glimpse of the British admiral, "rarely without a telescope under his arm," the American was conducted through the Flagship, and finally into the little cabin which forms the hub of the mighty organisation:--
    "Stepping into a small room where the telegraph keys clicked and a compact wireless apparatus was hidden behind armour, we saw one focus of communication which brings Sir John word of any submarine sighted, or of any movement in all the seas around the British Isles, and carries the Commander-in-Chief's orders far and near. The bluejackets on this service are invariably sturdy, long-service men of mature years."
    Think of what this picture means! Nelson and the great British geniuses of the sea in old days were able to communicate with the units of their fleet by flag and flare signals alone, visible only when they were in close proximity to the Admiral's ship, and when the state of the atmosphere was favourable; liable to misunderstanding at all times. Many and many a battle manoeuvre, ordered under those old conditions, failed in execution through non-reading (or mis-reading) of the primitive signals employed. Whenever a squadron had to be detached for separate service; as the vessels composing it passed from view, they passed from all possibility of quick communication. They might be able to carry out what they were sent to do, or they might fail. They might be destroyed, or sail away in a wholly unintended direction, without being able to let their commander-in-chief know where they were, or what they were doing. Wireless has completely revolutionised all this. Admiral Jellicoe can despatch single ships, or squadrons, where he will, and remain in touch with them the whole time. They can tell him how they fare, what they discover, how they are acting; they can ask for his instructions and receive them, so that he always has them as truly under command as if they were lying within earshot close by his side.
    The complicated manoeuvres of a modern fleet are only possible under such conditions. The "traffic," as it is technically called, at headquarters is enormous. The Lieutenant-Commander in charge of signals has information poured over him without cessation. Sheaves of white forms intrude upon his plate as he sits at table, are thrust into his hand as he goes on deck, follow him wherever he is in the ship, and fill his cabin. Only the Admiral and the Paymaster, who acts as the Admiral's secretary, can guess the vast mass of detailed information, instructions, and routine connected with the squadron with which they daily wrestle, even when the enemy makes no attempt to bring them to action. "Stupendous" is the only word which can adequately describe the paper work alone. This goes on without cessation; the British fleet is on active service all the time. Senior officers in peace time do occasionally enjoy a little leisure; under present war conditions they get none at all. And this is the work of wireless.
    A very excellent description by a writer who had been serving with the Grand Fleet appeared in the pages of one of the principal London dailies describing "A Wonderful Night for Wireless." The writer, who appears to have been an expert radio-telegraphist, describes how he listened to the various messages which were simultaneously quivering through the ether, but at different wave-lengths, and which accordingly could be picked out singly, by due adjustment of the receiver. He summarises: "We heard the Russian commander-in-chief in the Baltic; we heard Madrid; we heard the German commander-in-chief from his fastness across the North Sea; we heard the British Commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean; we heard Norddeich and Poldhu."
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    We have already referred several times to Horatio Nelson. It is scarcely possible to write, or even to think for any length of time, concerning the British Navy and fail to turn one's thoughts to our eighteenth-century naval hero, so thoroughly does he typify the spirit of the "Senior Service."
The
Naval
"Nerve Center."
His statue, perched high on top of the lofty column stationed in Trafalgar Square, looks down upon the roofs of the Admiralty. Those roofs are criss-crossed with wires, which are constantly busy. Day and night they are actively picking up messages from the Grand Fleet and from all quarters of the globe; day and night they transmit information and issue orders.
    As you pass down Whitehall, or cross the Horse Guards Parade, you must often have noticed folk pointing out the aerials to one another. None but a feeble imagination can fail to be thrilled by the thought of what those wires could tell us if they were at liberty to speak. Here we are at "the heart of things," the "nerve centre" of the British Navy. It is on these palpitating wires that Lord Nelson's figure looks. An inspiring picture on the subject was published by the Sphere towards the end of last year under the title of "England Expects . . ." There is something peculiarly appealing in the close association between the colossal present and our glorious past. The same sight, too, has moved Punch to pen the following Gilbertian lines:--

"There sits a little demon
    Above the Admiralty,
To take the news of seamen
    Seafaring on the sea;
So all the folk aboardships,
    Five hundred miles away,
Can pitch it to their Lordships
    At any time of day.
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    We have been speaking up to the present of British naval wireless, as in duty bound, for on the sea at all events Great Britain claims "Pride of place."
Enemy Naval
Wireless.
Our British sea-dogs have provided that the moment the Germans show themselves outside their own safe waters, wireless shall flash news to Britain's naval commanders, so that Jack may be ready to receive his Teuton foe ere he can issue from the narrow waters and range in battle array.
    Wireless has been of invaluable use for aggressive purposes to the various German naval raiders which have preyed upon our merchant traffic. The latest of the German corsairs, the so-called Möwe after she had taken a number of British prizes and put the survivors on board the Appam, despatched the latter vessel to America, with strict directions to receive all wireless messages and be guided by them, but to send none. The same procedure seems to have been largely followed by the Kronprinz Wilhelm during her course of piracy. We have read extracts published from the diary of Paymaster Mahlstedt, who formed part of her personnel, and find that he attributes to this policy the immunity his ship enjoyed for so many months. Our German diarist evidently believes that it is possible to have "too much of a good thing"--even wireless!
    A striking demonstration of the confidence inspired in the mercantile marine by the possession of wireless occurred when the S.S. Nebraskan, an American steamer, was torpedoed off the Irish coast.
Wireless in
the Mercantile
Marine.
The torpedo exploded in the forward part of the vessel, and the steamer appeared to be settling by the head. The crew took to the boats, while the wireless operator set to work with the S O S signal. The boats hovered near the vessel, and, as nothing further seemed to happen and there were no signs of her sinking further in the water, they returned to their ship, which was ultimately manoeuvred under her own steam into Liverpool. This result was due to the confidence inspired by the fact that, through wireless telegraphy, it was possible to communicate and ask for help at any time. Many a steamer unprovided with such safeguarding apparatus has been abandoned by her crew, and left to drift helplessly to and fro at sea, useless to her owners and dangerous to other vessels.
    And not only has wireless helped merchantmen by enabling them to signal for aid; it has likewise enabled them to receive messages warning them of the existence of danger.
Timely and
other
Warnings.
At the very outset of the war, one dark night in August, the Mauretania received a message from H.M.S. Essex bidding her change her course and make for Halifax. She obeyed--so suddenly that the passengers on board thought the vessel was going to turn turtle--blanketed all her lights and arrived safely. Thus also were the Cedric, the Calgarian, and many another vessel saved from the depredations of the German raiding cruisers in the early days of the struggle.
    Such warnings as these, however, must always be taken cum grano salis, a point very clearly brought out in an incident which occurred in the early part of the current year in the Mediterranean Sea. The liner America was on her way from New York to Naples, and had on board that which would have been sadly missed by the British forces had it not got through. Soon after she left Gibraltar her wireless operator received a message directed to the captain instructing him to change his course and steer for a certain rendezvous, where he would be joined by an escort. The message in question purported to come from Algiers, but the wireless operator, a man of experience, seemed to "suspicion" that all was not as it seemed. Perhaps he knew the peculiar note which is, or was, characteristic of the Algiers Station. Anyhow, his technical knowledge led him to believe that the message seemed to emanate from a point much nearer. He reported his suspicions to the captain, who, acting on the advice, carefully avoided the course recommended by this, as it turned out, fake messages from an enemy submarine, and reached Naples in safety. Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely, but we will close this section with a passing mention of the dramatic incident narrated by one of the partcipators in the event. A "Pacific Steam" liner was wirelessly summoned by the Karlsruhe to give her exact position, and through the same medium declined to do so, and breathed defiance Fortunately concealed by fog, the British vessel felt her way, directing her course in accordance with the strength of the wireless signals, and passed the German raider some ten miles abeam! Could fiction depict a more dramatic example of the direct utility of wireless to non-combatant ships in times of war?
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    Perhaps one of the most striking points in connection with wireless which has been developed by this war is that public attention has been directed upon it as never before, owing to the fact that so much of the official information--particularly enemy information--has been brought to the notice of newspaper readers through this medium.
Wireless
War Bulletins.

    And here we may advert to the curious psychological fact of the inveterate anthropomorphism of the "man (and woman) in the street." We have had all sorts of moral attributes attached in public phraseology to wireless. What more common heading do we find in the Press than "German Wireless Lies," or "More Wireless Mendacity." We have even noticed in heavy block type the heading, "Wireless Blasphemy!" If one sits down to analyse, even for a moment, such phraseology, its stupendous inappropriateness is immediately apparent. Wireless--as wireless--never lies. But inasmuch as this magnificent instrument, like all other instruments equally potent for good or evil, is frequently wielded by the wicked, the messages transmitted on their initiative embody the characteristics of the senders' immoral nature. This truth is crystallised in crisp, anthropomorphic phrase, analytically and philosophically incorrect, but nevertheless containing an essential underlying truth.
    We have referred frequently elsewhere to the fact of Germany's cable isolation, and her consequent dependence upon wireless.
Objects.
She wants to conduct a propaganda campaign in neutral countries. She yearns to magnify her military successes, to minimise her defeats, to excuse the deeds of infamy which have caused her reputation to stink in the nostrils of the civilised world. She desires to issue vapouring boasts about what she is going to do, and to disseminate communications of her future intentions, wherein falsehood and truth are so mixed up as to render it hard for the military and political directors of the Allies to utilise the information to her detriment. For all these purposes, she has been obliged to place her main reliance upon radiotelegraphy. The ether is daily and nightly filled with messages sent from Norddeich, Hanover, Cologne and other long-distance stations, some presciently erected in times of peace, some put up since the beginning of hostilities. These various communications are picked up by the wireless installations of the Allies, and, as far as the British Press is concerned, are issued for publication (after censorship) by the "Wireless Press," which thus discharges a highly valuable public duty.
    They may be roughly divided into two categories (a) official reports of military events on the various fronts issued under the supervision of German headquarters, and (b) political propaganda of various kinds, slanders against their enemies, and a certain amount of more or less garbled news about internal affairs in Germany, particularly emphasising the speeches made and debates carried on in the German Reichstag.
Methods.

    With regard to the military headquarters reports, these have, on the whole, been characterised, as far as the purely German operations are concerned, by a fair accuracy as to the facts narrated, relying for their favourable effect rather upon the suppressio veri--turning a blind eye to adverse facts and only narrating favourable--combined with a large amount of suzggestio falsi, which generally takes the shape of insinuating the false conclusion by the verbiage employed. For instance, over and over again a fierce German attack has resulted in the capture of some Allied trenches, and the German report duly embodies this capture, conveniently omitting to state that an Entente counter-attack had been successful in causing them to revert to their former owners. A fair instance of the suggestio falsi occurred when they announced that their fierce onslaught upon Verdun at the end of February was marked by the capture of Douaumont, an antiquated piece of fortification which had been entirely undefended--as a fort--by the French, but which the German headquarters account characterised as "the armoured fortress of Douaumont, the north-eastern pillar of the permanent main line of fortifications of the Verdun fortress."
    The political and propaganda communiqués are of a totally different nature. They consist almost entirely of a tissue of misrepresentations, lying insinuations, and direct falsifications of the truth. For instance, soon after they had captured Brussels they set to work to carefully search the confidential files of the Belgian Government for evidence which could be twisted into a "rod" wherewith to "beat the backs" of the British. Of course, they unearthed a number of communications which had passed between Belgium and the British War Office and Foreign Office. These, after careful selection and doctoring, they published in order to support their monstrous accusation against Great Britain, that she had been for years preparing an attack upon Germany, in which she was to receive the assistance of the Belgian Government, and for which purpose she had arranged to ignore all treaties of Belgian neutrality. These baseless and belated accusations fell a little flat after the deliberate acknowledgment in the Reichstag made by Count von Bülow that Germany had committed a "technical error" in violating the Belgian treaty and tearing up "the scrap of paper," but pleading that they had been obliged to do so by force majeure. On several other occasions the German wireless propagandists persisted in spreading lying statements about "British misuse" of hospital ships. They tried to make out that these vessels, protected by the Geneva Convention against armed assault, were being utilised in large numbers by the British Government for the conveyance of troops and munitions of war. The slander was repeatedly and categorically denied by British Ministers, but it was, over a long period of time, kept up, added to, and repeated through the wireless stations controlled by the German Government.
    Naturally, their idea in continually promulgating these glaring falsehoods was intended to excuse the flagrant breaches of international law both past and in contemplation.
Results.
Moreover, Mr. Teuton has always acted upon a belief in the ancient adage, "Only throw enough mud, and some of it is sure to stick!" They have not attained their object. What they have succeeded in doing is to establish for themselves such a reputation as has never been the lot of any responsible Government of a civilised nation. It will doubtless be within the recollection of some of our readers that on one occasion they actually added to their wireless communiqué the words "das ist die wahrheit" (this is the truth). Can anything be more humiliating than for the official communication of a first-class Power to be reduced to begging to be "believed this time"? It is a notable instance of "the engineer hoist with his own petard."
    The Allies, in their turn, have systematically utilised wireless for the purpose of radiating reports received from the various fronts; and, although to a comparatively limited extent, have endeavoured to neutralise the effects of German "poison gas" by the antidote of truth. Mistakes may have occasionally been made, but they have always been honest mistakes, and by far the greater part of the Allies' endeavours has been devoted to demonstrating to the world at large the baseless character of the slanders levelled at them by their malignant opponents.
    In the course of the egregious account recently sent forth by a German of some repute concerning the escape of the Goeben and Breslau from Sicily through the Golden Horn, the deus ex machina is made out to be German wireless. This impudently mendacious story alleges that, becoming aware of wireless messages being sent by the British scout concerning the change in the German warships' course, which indicated their real destination, the word went out from the Teutonic admiral, "Jam the British wireless, jam it like the devil." According to this modern Niebelungenlied, Telefunken absolutely crushed Marconi; the news failed to reach the British Admiral in time, and thus two formidable units were duly added to the Ottoman Navy. Doubtless our disingenuous German fabulist intended to prefigure, by this combat of ether waves, the result of the ultimate issue of the whole war. The same kind of prophecy, however, with wireless as a prototype of the protagonists, appeared in the pages of Punch from the pen of "Evoe" in the early days of warfare. Here, as may easily be judged, the victory lay in another quarter, and unmistakable signs are already visible upon the horizon pointing to the fact that this prefiguration is the correct one. "Evoe's" lines appeared under the title of an "Ode to the Spirit of Wireless Victory," and dealt with the rout of Telefunken and its complete subjugation by the radiant waves of Marconi. It is significant that each side should choose the spirit of radio-telegraphy to represent its general cause. "Evoe's" lines run thus:

. . . . "red devastation
    Still shall urge by land and sea
Every proud advancing nation,
While Marconi's installation
    Rules the skies of Germany."