Soemmering, Schilling, Cooke and Wheatstone, and the electric telegraph

Baron Montgelas of Dillingen had been very impressed by the Chappe telegraph which was used extensively during the Napoleonic campaigns and on 5th July 1809 he asked Dr. S.T. Soemmering to obtain proposals for a telegraph system. Baron Schilling, attached to the Russian Mission at Munich, became interested in Soemmering's work and between them they constructed as had Cooke and Wheatstone in England. The author looks at the telegraphs made by these four men.<
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