Telegraphic communication in Tomsk Province during World War I

World War I contributed to the growth of telegraph correspondence in Russia on the whole and in Tomsk Province in particular. There were 98 postal telegraph offices on the eve of World War I in Tomsk. Tomsk had broad international contacts by cable. In 1913 they were especially close with Germany, England, Switzerland, France and Austria-Hungary. The telegraph connected Tomsk with 16 countries of Europe, the USA, Egypt and China. Before the war the staff of the postal telegraph district of Tomsk was increased for the purpose of relieving telegraphists. Telegraphists got their training in the postal telegraph school of Tomsk. However, these measures were not enough as, because of the war, telegraph was more loaded. In spite of the war, telegraph was installed in distant regions, telegraph sets were renewed and new postal telegraph offices opened. In 1916 the building of the Narym line was finished. The organisation of telegraphic communication through this line was of great importance for connections between north regions and the centre of the province when, in seasons of bad roads, postal roads in the north of the province were blocked for a long period of time. In 1916 the preparation for introducing telegraph sets of Baudot started. A year before, the chief of the postal telegraph office in Tomsk ordered to replace the Wheatstone telegraph by the telegraph of Baudot for the purpose of sending telegrams to Omsk. The advantage of the Baudot system was the first practically suitable system of multiple and consecutive telegraphy. In June 1916 the second and the third postal telegraph offices opened in Tomsk. Thus, in the period before the next political cataclysm the electrical communication in Tomsk Province continued to develop. However, the general economic dislocation and the destabilization of the political situation in the country affected more and more the situation with telegraph. After the revolutionary events of the end of February and the beginning of March 1917 there were increasingly more difficulties with telegraph functioning. Telegraph sets and staff were overloaded. The staff of telegraphists was not much enlarged and so it could not cope with the increasing daily work. By the end of 1917 the telegraphic communication between Tomsk and Moscow began to work with the telegraph sets of Wheatstone. In the line Tomsk - Novonikolayevsk the Morse telegraph was replaced by the telegraph of Hughes. The level of technical equipment of telegraph offices in the postal telegraph district of Tomsk remained the same for some more years because the two revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War could not contribute to progress in this direction.

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