THE NERVE-CENTRE OF AN ARMY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 47, 18 June 1915, Page 8

THE NERVE-CENTRE OF AN ARMY.

HOW THE MESSAGES COME IN.

THE MEN WHO BRING THEM AND THE MEN WHO DEAL WITH THEM.

AN ARMY'S SUPPLIES

A wonderful place is the signalling headquarters of the British Army at the front, where every half-minute a message arrives which may be fraught with the fate of nations.

This spot is really the nerve-centre of the British Army in the field, for in to it radiate the tentacles along which flash messages from every part of the field of operations, from the base and from rmgland. By telegraph, air-line, and cable, by wireless, by telephone, and by motor-cyclist, does the information reach this office, the total number of messages handled in one day averaging about 3000. The whole building pulsates with the tick of machines of different kinds. In one room the operators are l. 'sy perforating long strips of paper with the noisy •'puncher,'" so that the messages can be sent off by the Wheatstone highspeed apparatus; in another are machines which can send at any speed up to GOO words a minute, and machines by which means messages can be sent along the wires in both directions, at the same time. . In the Intelligence Section of the General Staff, which is the branch specially charged with the collection, from every possible source, of information about the enemy, further use is made of some of the messages conveyed to Headquarters by the Signal Service. Here officers sift* out the intelligence received, and carefully record the topographical portion of it 011 large-scale maps. Above these two organisations —one for transmission of information of all sorts and the other for the collection and co-ordination of that referring to the enemy...is the Operations Section of the General Staff, or the executive branch which anpreciates the situation as it actually affects both sides, and applies the knowledge collected. Lpon these labours the Commander-in-Chief is able to formulate his plan of action. Outside a'l these departments are the departments under the Quartermaster General—Supplies, Ordnance, Transport, Railway Transport. Remounts. Veterinary, and Postal Services: the heads, in fact, of auxiliary services which are responsible for the sustenance of an army and its maintenance in the field. Mow numerous are the duties of tins department may be gauged fron. the fact that they vary from the provision of monster howitzers to bootlaces.