The British empire's resilient subsea telegraph network
Source: Hacker News
The British Empire’s Red Line Cable Network
The British Empire had largely completed its Red Line cable network by 1902. This global ring allowed news and messages to be delivered in a few minutes or, at most, several hours, depending on the length of the message queue. Because the network formed a continuous ring, traffic could be rerouted in the opposite direction if a segment was disrupted.
Resilience and Redundancy
As Dr. Michael Delaunay has argued, the Red Line was a highly resilient network. Its resilience stemmed from two key design principles:
- Ring configuration – traffic could be rerouted opposite the original direction if a segment failed.
- Multiple parallel cables – each pair of endpoints was connected by several cables, ensuring uptime even when some were damaged.
The British military believed that an enemy would find it impossible to cut enough cables on any route to sever all communications between a given pair of endpoints.
Required Cable Cuts to Isolate Regions
- British Isles: 57 cables would need to be shut down.
- Canada: 15 cables.
- South Africa: 7 cables.
Manufacturing and Naval Superiority
The Empire was self‑sufficient in:
- Manufacturing the components for subsea telegraph cables.
- Repairing damaged cables.
Additionally, the Royal Navy possessed capabilities that had no peers, further protecting the network from hostile interference.