International Herald Tribune: 1919: France Finds Thousands of Telegrams Not Sent During WWI

Visits: 4

It is no secret that the French telegraphic service treated the public with scant courtesy during the war, delivering despatches when and to whom it pleased, but the extent of its abuses as elicited by the committee appointed by the Chamber of Deputies to investigate into State contracts during the war will nevertheless astonish everybody.

This investigation — the results of which are published in the “Temps” — shows that the Telegraphic Control Section, of which M. Tannery was the head and Captain Ladoux and M. Pierre Lenoir were active members, was responsible for scandalous abuses.

For instance, in the course of the investigation M. Tannery recognized that on an average at the Paris Telegraph Bureau 40,000 despatches were held back daily. The majority of them were never delivered and the others were distributed after great delay. The despatches which were retained were in the main thrown into a basket and when the accumulation had become too great they were destroyed. The Control Section never made any inquiry and neither the senders or those to whom the despatches were addressed were ever informed.

It must be admitted that these telegraph authorities were no respecters of persons. Telegrams sent by or to foreign sovereigns, princes, and diplomatists were treated like the despatches of Tom, Dick or Harry. In fact, the close attention and all the patience of the Delegation of Foreign Affairs was needed to prevent the systematic holding up of these State telegrams.

The Foreign Affairs Department, in support of a protest, stated that the Telegraphic Control Section, unknown to it, stopped all telegrams for Spain, notably those of Ambassadors in Rome and London. Telegrams also from agents of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs were stopped, particularly those from M. Bapst, Minister at Copenhagen.

And the Control Section was just as ruthless in regard to the country’s financial interests, for, on the occasion of the last national loan, it stopped or suppressed a considerable number of Stock Exchange orders and stopped despatches of funds destined for the loan.

And this is not the limit. The claims of the National Defence received no consideration. The report states that orders of Le Creusot and Firminy were stopped as well as those of other factories working for the war. One of the latter was obliged to close down owing to its inability to forward its demands in the needful time.

The report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concludes as follows: “Under its present head, the section of Telegraphic Control is an organ of confusion and disorder, which has engendered extraordinary abuses and risked compromising the Government seriously and hampering its general policy.”

As a consequence of these revelations, M. Tannery has been relieved of his functions at the Telegraphic Control. But retaining his post at the Cour des Comptes, he was appointed to the exchange commission by the Minister of Finance and then sent to represent the latter in Alsace and Lorraine. The Premier has removed him from the last position.

Captain Ladoux and M. Pierre Lenoir are bring prosecuted on the charge of dealing with the enemy in connection with the purchase of a Paris newspaper, with which Senator Humbert is also the subject of prosecution.

This pretty scandal comes as a sorry satisfaction to the newspapers, whose despatches were so often held up, lost, or delivered to their rivals, without the slightest excuse or apology.

— The New York Herald, European Edition, March 22, 1919

Source