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Show SHE SFRVlil " i i Miles and Miles of Telegraph I and Telephone Lines Strung j by American Linemen. TOUJIS, CENTRAL FRANCE. Sept.t !26. (Correspondence of (be Associated i ProsB) Along tho railway routes and the great national highways of France one sees milo after mile of the new telegraph and telephono lines set up by tho American army, with squads of linomen In khaki stringing the wires and laying our new lines. The telegraph tele-graph offices all through the war zones aro crowded with khaklunlformed operators op-erators and a personnel of American officers and enlisted men. It is one of the extensive systems suddonly installed on a huge scale with tho coining of tho Americans, spreading a vast wiro network over all France nnd realizing governmerf operation op-eration of telegraph and teleitioms on i foreign soil even before it was under jway on home soil. I This military nerve systom is nol j alone telograph and telephone lines, but cable lines across the channel so Ithat American headquarters in France can be in Immediate intercourse with American officials in London; wire-ICS's wire-ICS's receiving and sending plants for detecting enemy exchanges and carrying carry-ing on our own radio work; couriers and disnatch riders: weather observ ers to warn when storms may impede military operations, and all those modern mod-ern methods of rapid communication which have becomo indispensable to warfare. It is a complete linking together of the army, front and rear, hendquar-tcrs, hendquar-tcrs, staff and line, keeping the commanding com-manding officers in constant touch with every division and. every other branch in "the huge field of operations. The movement of troops and the actual ac-tual fighting of battles aro largely dependent de-pendent on this highly developed army communication, which not only joins our own array but keeps up the liaison of a vast united command. it is something over 500 miles from the French coast to the battle line in eastern France, and throughout this distance there is a complete system of 10 and 20 -wire American telegraph lines, linking the seaports with the front and also spreading through the vast ramification of warehouses, camps, hospitals, construction shops and military establishments of all sort extending from the ports inland to the firing line. There is another multiple line running run-ning southward toward the Mediterranean Mediter-ranean and over to the Spanish frontier. fron-tier. These are (he trunk lines, extending clear across France and, besides those main arteries, every division and branch of the army has its own telegraph tele-graph and telephone linos keeping up constant Intercourse with headquarters. headquar-ters. In every area occupied by the army along the front a complete system sys-tem of lines ruus back to switchboard central stations from regiment back to the brigade, brigade to division,, division di-vision to corps, corps to headquarters. On tho first day of the big battle above Chateau Thierry when the LAmerlcans '" began their' 'famous drive, there were 27,000 messages averaging over GO words each all the way from an extended report on an operation to a short sharp order for some new move in the swiftly moving drama. Within six weeks, since the Americans had got into action, the communication between front and rear had quadrupled, quad-rupled, over the service on April 1 when tbe American activities were beginning to get in motion. Tho culmination of the great battle late In July stirred into intense activ ity every branch ot communication, with orders flying to hospitals, supply sup-ply centers, ordnance works, and to he" training and rest camps for the steady movement forward of fresh troops. oo |