Optical telegraph in C15th Central Europe?

[Justin Pickard]

As part of the research for the next stage of my Anti-Habsburg / Lantern Empires timeline, I thought I'd see whether you guys had any ideas as to the effects that the introduction of the optical telegraph / semaphore (a la Claude Chappe) would have on Central Europe, c. 1450-1500.

Would it be used to centralise and democratise the political entities of the time, or remain in the hands of the decentralised aristocracy, reinforcing and strengthening the status quo?

I quote Max, who had some interesting ideas -

How would they change the late medieval world?

- Armies could get a central command, since the semaphores make it possible that the king always knows where which army is. (The fact that they don't have good maps might hamper this, however... maths aren't good enough yet for producing exact maps... but even if the king knows immediately that army X is near city Y would help for making a good strategy.) This is a development that wouldn't happen IOTL until centuries later.
- News from other countries would reach the people faster. Lacking the printing press, I don't see newspapers or newsletters emerging, but town criers could provide people with more and better news. Horizon of people would definitely widen. (And some kings might decide to introduce censorship.)
- Merchants could trade better, if they know which wares are supplied and demanded in which city. They'd have a better / more up-to-date overview of their firms in other cities.
- Languages (i.e. written languages) might become more (rapidly) uniform and standardized. This again would help nationalism...
- Scientists could exchange thoughts. If they can pay for the semaphors, that is. I could imagine, however, that every university gets one semaphor, plus people working for it.

Any other thoughts?

 

[carlton_bach]

It would impose interesting new strategic demands on militaries. In peacetime, a semaphore system would compete with extant services - the scholarly 'litterae' - collections of letters copied and passed around among the academic community, the messenger services and the pigeon post, where extant. After around 1450, you also have enough cocksure cryptographers to make people believe they can safely sent confidential messages. I can see mathematics becoming a 'money subject' to study pretty quickly as demand for high-grade encryption and analysis picks up.

In wartime, strategic control will revolve more around holding territory. Semaphore lines are muich harder to defend and much more vulnerable that defensible strongpoints. Unfortunately, in the usual mode of Central European warfare - raid and siege - of the 15th century, their utility is limited. But I could see a city throwing out a system of semaphore towers around its hinterland to report raids and suspicious movements quickly. Additional security for big, wealthy cities could translate into less security for small and weak ones except by integration into larger entities. The system will certainly favour those with deep pockets.

I'm not sure about standardising languages, but it could certainly introduce the concept of a civil service early if all those signallers work for a central authority.

I think I just got an idea for the Vivaldi Journeys

 

[sunsurf]

Telescopes to see the semaphores might be developed and accepted earlier.

And semaphores could be mounted on hot air balloons so their operators can see and be seen at greater distances...that's assuming, of course...