More broadly, wireless telegraphy was a key technology that globalized conflict both militarily and through news.Īside from its naval purposes, wireless enabled governments to reach their colonies without using Britain’s “All Red Line” of submarine telegraph cables around the world. All ninety German warships were equipped with wireless in 1909 in 1912, the former first sea lord, Admiral Sir John Fisher (1841–1920), called wireless “the pith and marrow of war!” Germans focused more heavily than other countries on employing wireless in multiple arenas, though other combatants used wireless extensively by 1917–1918. Navies were generally the first to see potential in wireless, as the technology allowed them to coordinate their ships’ maneuvers. Initially, many felt that the dense telegraph system negated the need for wireless to communicate on land. Only in the 1920s did the transmission of speech through radiotelephony begin to replace wireless telegraphy. Wireless telegraphy emerged in the 1890s and transmitted Morse code through electromagnetic waves. By 1918, advances in wireless technology had laid the groundwork for communications strategies during World War II.

It created new spaces for communications at sea and in the air as well as the ability to coordinate mobile units during battle. Wireless was one of myriad novel technologies employed during World War I.

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