Communication Methods
Many communication methods were used and new ones were made. Here a list of some the the methods used:
- Radio communication played a vital role for all combatants during the war, although, in the era before mechanization, army transportation still largely depended on mules and horses. In the 1906 Manual of Wireless Telegraphy by A. Frederick Collins, the Clark Portable Army Set sections reviewed "apparatus as compact and portable as possible so that it may be transported on the backs of mules", and in the 1911 edition of Drill Regulations for Field Companies of the Signal Corps. Radios were also used to communicate to planes and submarines.
- Morse code
- Carrier Pigons were commonly used by all sides to ferry messages from point to point. Nevertheless the use of carrier pigeons did bring with it certain limitations, notably that as pigeons could only be trained to fly to known positions, they could therefore only be deployed from the front line to rear positions and not in the other direction unless troops were settled in a particular location for a lengthy period of time.Pigeons were even carried aboard warships and seaplanes as a means of communications backup should radio communications break down (First World War).
- Dogs were used as messengers and proved to be as reliable as soldiers in the dangerous job of running messages.
- Wired Communication was not often used because of the unrealibilty of the lines.