Links for Victory

摘要

The exigencies of the 1914-1918 conflict meant that electronic communications on the Allied side had to find new ways to interoperate both on the battlefield and on the Home Front: but can the beginnings of 2014's interconnected domains be found in innovations that came out of the necessities of that war? WHEN THE FIRST World War began the British War Office seemed to pay little initial attention to the development of new technologies to be deployed in the prosecution of hostilities. There was, of course, no way of knowing in 1914 that the conflict would last more than four years, or that electronic communications would come to play such an integral part of the Allied war effort on both the Front Line and the Home Front. The general stance was that significant new technological development proceeded gradually, as no one could foretell that they would be needed or that the fighting would last long enough for new products to be realised. The assumption was also that basic communication methods such as semaphore, lamps, and telegraphy would suffice for tactical communications, as well as sending in reinforcements to critical battle points. In fact the contending military forces discovered, as the war plodded from bloody stalemate to murderous stand-offs, that the Allied forces needed to revolutionise thinking on communications before hostilities could be brought to an end.