Volume 18 , Issue 6

1894 Novelties In Warfare

We continue searching thru old newspaper archives with "Pigeons In War." We found this article: "Novelties In Warfare" and how carrier pigeons were trained for Army purposes, in the "Democrat and Chronicle," out of Rochester, New York, dated 3 April 1894, Tuesday, page 7.

Found on Newspapers.com

Did you know that it was the original Rothschild who first employed carrier pigeons in war - war on the bourse? His birds followed the armies of the great Napoleon in charge of trusted persons and brought him messages of success and disaster from two to ten days earlier than the district cabinets of Europe received any.

We found that ever since the war of 1870 to 1871 the military authorities of Germany and France, Russia and Austria, Italy and England, and, in addition, of all the smaller states of Europe, experimented with feathered messengers of war. The french at one time announced that the representatives of her War Office succeeded in Taming the swallow and pressing that swift service. Of course, all the other governments tried to emulate this alleged example of superior training facilities, and failed, as, indeed, the French failed in it. The very fact of the boastful proclamation loved to the initiated its fallacy. In our times feverish competition in all matters military one country can ill afford to give another points as to the manner of outwitting her enemies.

The carrier pigeon indeed was still the war bird par excellence and was likely to remain so unless the perpetual machine would ever be invented and with that mechanical birds that submit to the orders of nature and of man alike. Strange to say, the people most advanced in and most devoted to the art of making war, the Germans, had so far not succeeded in outstripping their rivals by the superior training of army pigeons. The pigeon corps of France, Austria, England and Italy were all equally far from being perfect. Belgium, on the other hand, claims to possess the best carrier pigeon service in Europe, while Russia had established a system for capturing and disabling the enemy's feathered messengers by reviving the ancient institution of hawking.

There was obviously no connection between the achievements of these two countries in the pigeon and the anti-pigeon lines. The Belgians, the most unwarlike of nations, employed the carrier pigeon for sportive purpose only; still they had in the so styled Falconry school at Failkenswerth, Flanders, the only institute in the world where falcons and hawks were trained for the chase in approved Norman style. It wasn't admitted by the authorities of either nation that the Russian war ministry obtained its hawking material in Flanders, but it was easily seen that the Falkenswerth institute derived its liaison d'être from the fact that it sell its product to those in want of it, and while a few English and Spanish sportsmen had taken up the ancient custom of hunting with the bird, their combined demands do not exceed, at most liberal reckoning, from thirty to fifty falcons per year.

What became of the surplus of from two to three hundred birds, which the Falkenswerth institute turned out annually?

A few weeks from the date of this news article, a Russian newspaper man discovered that Roumania was quietly building a navy for use in the Black sea. That she had been engaged in that nefarious practice since 1887. An Italian army officer then furnished the dread news that "it is gallup" with carrier pigeons for war purposes, inasmuch as Muscovite hawks would catch and kill them with lightning rapidity. This was a piece of intelligence such as an army leader frequently found in his mail. No sooner had somebody invented an armor guaranteed to withstand the action of the greatest gun in existence than somebody else comes along with a projectile capable of smashing into smithereens that identical armor.

Would the other powers answer the Russian threat by likewise establishing hawk brigaded, or would they dissolve their carrier pigeon crops? Falcons were more or less numerous all over the world and the art of training them was not a secret. Indeed, there was no end of books, some by royal authors, on the subject. The method followed at Falkenswerth,, the alleged Russian training school for hawking, was as follows:

The falcons were either procured when still in the nest or in their first year of existence. The female bird usually succeeded in breeding three young ones - two females and one male. The females were in special demand, as they were stronger, more active, and more courageous than the other sex. The first thing to do was to place the young birds in dark coops and keep them there until they had grown sufficiently to undergo training. A one year old bird could be at once admitted to school if it were not for its inherent wildness and ferocity. To make the falcon at all tractable, it must undergo a hunger cure in a dark recess, where it was not permitted to sleep or rest a moment.

One of the greatest falconers of all ages, the German Emperor Frederick II, even advised to blind the birds while preparing them for training by drawing a silk thread through the lower eyelids. Of course the falcon does not take to this sort of thing patiently. On the contrary, the birds make it their business to get even with their tormentors, and to this end employed their mighty beaks and claws as best they knew how, so that it frequently become necessary to clip the latter. To break them from biting, pieces of hard wood, stone and porcelain or glass were held out to the birds when in a fury.

After the bird had thus been trained to a degree it must become used to riding on a man's gloved hand - gloved. Not for the falcon's sake, but for that of the falconer. There it learned to mind the trainer's voice and to ride on horseback without exhibiting a wild passionate claw the animal. The falcon's uniform was as follows: it wears a cap of soft leather, covering the entire head, inclusive of the eyes, and leaving but the beak free. Two leather bands encircle both legs, kept together by a large brass ring. The cap is removed when the falconer throws the bird to the winds easy for business.

In doing so he puts his index finger through the ring, and, throwing up his hand, lets go suddenly. While the bird is undergoing training a thin wire is fastened to the ring, by which the bird can be pulled back in case of need. The caps of Russian army hawks were in the colors of the regiment to which they belonged. The glove of the falconer was made of the strongest leather, in order to protect him against the clawing propensities of the bird. It took about a month to get the falcons used to other masters. They took quite naturally to hunting pigeons. The difficult part was to teach them to return with their prey and not to tear it to pieces in midair.

A war falcon departing from this rule would be a very poor specimen of a reconnoiterer, indeed. It did not do to kill the spy or message carrier. The principal object was tolerant his business, and thus obtain an advantage over him. If the St. Petersburg authorities gained this end, and there was no reason why they should not do so if the birds were properly trained, they undoubtedly would have a great advantage over an enemy, whose secret plans they may followup by catching their winged messengers and perchance catching them alive and setting them free again, after substituting a bogus message for that originally dispatched.

To fully appreciate the value of the hawking service one must turn to the records of the achievements of army carrier pigeons as set forth by the story of the sieges of Paris, Strassburg and Metz.

It was proved that of 354 pigeons sent out from Paris 100 returned with messages. One single pigeon carried 3,500 dispatches of twenty words each between the commander of Paris and the temporary government established at Tours. Not only the French, but all the German, Austrian, Russian and Italian fortresses were then supplied with a full corps of carrier pigeons, each having certain stations whither they travel regularly.

Berlin was connected with Cologne and Koenigsberg respectively and so was Paris London. Occasionally German war pigeons were sent to Vienna and vice versa. Mr. Gladstone employed messenger pigeons with great success on his last electioneering tour on land and water, and when the German emperor traveled at sea he was never without his coop of experienced birds. All the navies of the great powers were plentifully supplied with carrier pigeons, and just now an effort was being made to furnish ocean steamers with such to carry news of disaster or messages of the date of arrival or departure.

Germany and the other states of the triple alliance, as well as those of the dual alliance, have regular war carrier pigeon stations under military governors. The amateur pigeon societies were likewise organized under a central head, who was responsible to the minister of war. Germany, Austria and France each possessed in the neighborhood of 100,000 trained pigeons, Italy boasted of 60,000; the number of pigeons in Russia was not definitely known.

Up to then the only recognized enemies of messenger pigeons in war were the fool hardy business of ballooning, obnoxious weather, storm, rain, snow, frost, hunger and thirst, the bullets of friends and enemies and occasional birds of prey. Then that the Russian government proposed to let loose a regular army of hawks of war the security and the life of carrier pigeons became very precarious indeed. The smokeless powder likewise added terror to the poor birds' existence. Yet the military experts continued to extend and improve their war carrier pigeon service though it was admitted that the birds' capacity for work could not be enhanced by any means. But then they also persisted in building new armored ships, top heavy and liable to be blown up by a simple little torpedo, a thing much less pretentious that a trained hawk.
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