The Napoleon Telegraph

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[Aaron-ymyx]

Crazy how in less than a century we could do all this through a wire

[lordMartiya]

The optical telegraph was still used during World War I, as radios were still too unreliable for the battlefield.
Italian general Badoglio planned to use it to order his artillery batteries to strike Austrian-Hungarian units if they broke through the first line in his sector, as they'd have to pass and mass in a certain area he could easily target.... But since Badoglio was criminally incompetent he forgot the persistent MIST in the area, so when the breakthrough happened he was unable to give the order to the artillery previously instructed not to open fire without orders, and the Battle of Caporetto went much worse for Italy than it could have had he let his men do their job.

[Hawaiian]

Amazing what a 64yr old has learned on your channel....Mahalo's History Guy!....I just cant get enough of your History!

[MaximilianonMars]

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett features 'the clacks', an optical telegraph system in competition with the postal service in the story. It was adapted into a mini-series. Excellent viewing, I love it.

[noinfo]

I find the Prussian optical telegraph, some 30 years later: the timing/coordination signal from Berlin to Koblenz and back took less than two minutes, leading to the first coordinated/unified time over long distance.

[kevnwarriner]

There was the Admiralty telegraph from the Southern ports too, like Plymouth, Portsmouth and Chatham that kept the Admiralty informed and the Ships of the British fleet informed of their Lordships orders, I visited a couple of the towers while on vacation and the historical shipyard of Chatham.

[evilemperorzurg]

The innovations that come just decades before world changing inventions like the telegraph, flight, and the internet always fascinate me.

Solutions to things like long distance travel or communication seem obvious in hindsight but at the time they were just throwing things at the wall and seeing what worked.

[Fayanora]

THE BEACONS ARE LIT! GONDOR CALLS FOR AID!

[copyrightenforcement]

"Now all of France knows you are here"

[hairyneil]

Technically going at the speed of light, just the relay stations slow it down a bit

[TankDerek]

Surprising that this was never attempted earlier in history. I guess metallurgy wasn't advanced enough to create the semaphore arms before this?

[ІлляВетров-йд]

Fascinating. I didn't know about such simple, yet effective technology. Will definitely read more about that. Thank you.

[M_Montalvão]

A similar system with baloons instead of cranes was used to relay messages and orders along the Lines of Torres Vedras, a series of forts, bulwarks and entrenchments in Portugal in 1811, ironically built to halt the third French invasion of Portugal.

[JimGreen-ph]

I find it amazing that, this is the first time I have heard of this mode of communication.

[Corium]

first guy to commit wire fraud via optical telegraph I bet was really proud of himself

[garypulliam]

For it to work, though, someone would have to be watching and waiting in both directions every minute of every daylight hour.

[erikhesjedal]

This is why we Norwegians like to make a cairn whenever we're on a mountain top.
Back in the Viking age the whole western coastline was covered by a cairn bonfire messaging system. I actually live right next to the most known one, the Lyderhorn

[ct]

An important plot twist in "The Count of Monti Cristo."

[nilo]

It's always interesting to hear your take on things historical.

[iainballas]

It is kinda wild to think that if we set up a Semaphore station all the way from New York NY to Portland OR and sent a message the same time a plane took off, it could alert you of your friend's arrival nearly three or four hours before they landed.