Wireless Goes to War

Abstract

This chapter explores the changing reliance on telegraph and how more and more governments and private companies were employing wireless to transmit their messages over great distances of land and sea. It begins with recounting the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia. The chapter uncovers how had the German kaiser learned of the murders and how Americans found out that the loose fabric of European alliances had been irreparably torn. The chapter then argues that the Great War altered the nature of radio, just as radio began to alter the nature of war. Shortly after the declaration of war, the US federal government imposed a moratorium on radio patent litigation for the duration of the hostilities. The chapter then investigates how the moratorium ignored the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America and De Forest Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company suits and all other patent infringement cases. The chapter analyzes the implications of the government's actions — arguing its orders brought about an institutionalization of radio development that signaled the end of the lone inventor — the Marconi, de Forest, or Armstrong — who had brought radio to life.