Pigeons with messages attached.

Young lady in oriental clothing with a homing pigeon (19th century painting)

Pigeon post (1843 painting by Miklós Barabás)

Pigeon post is the use of homing pigeons to carry messages. Pigeons were effective as messengers due to their natural homing abilities. The pigeons were transported to a destination in cages, where they would be attached with messages, then the pigeon would naturally fly back to its home where the recipient could read the message. They have been used in many places around the world. Pigeons have also been used to great effect in military situations, and are in this case referred to as war pigeon.^[1]

Early history[edit]

As a method of communication, it is likely as old as the ancient Persians, from whom the art of training the birds probably came.^{[citation needed]} The Romans used pigeon messengers to aid their military over 2000 years ago. Frontinus said that Julius Caesar used pigeons as messengers in his conquest of Gaul.^[2] The Greeks conveyed the names of the victors at the Olympic Games to their various cities by this means.^[3]

Yes, homing pigeons were used to share messages during wartime, as they were able to get through enemy lines much easier than a man on a horse. This earned them the name “war pigeons”, and in some fashion, they were used up until World War II. A retired couple found a message from a carrier pigeon sent over a century ago during WWI. This pigeon was one of the rare failures in the tried-and-true messaging system of the war.

By the 12th century, messenger pigeons were used in Baghdad.^[4] Naval chaplain Henry Teonge (c. 1620–1690) describes in his diary a regular pigeon postal service being used by merchants between İskenderun and Aleppo in the Levant.^[5] The Mughals also used messenger pigeons.

Before the telegraph, this method of communication was used extensively by stockbrokers and financiers. The Dutch government established a civil and military system in Java and Sumatra early in the 19th century, the birds being obtained from Baghdad. In 1851, the German-born Paul Julius Reuter opened an office in the City of London which transmitted stock market quotations between London and Paris via the new Calais to Dover cable. Reuter had previously used pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels, a service that operated for a year until a gap in the telegraph link was closed.^[6]

Details of the employment of pigeons during the siege of Paris in 1870–71 led to a revival in the training of pigeons for military purposes. Numerous societies were established for keeping pigeons of this class in all important European countries; and, in time, various governments established systems of communication for military purposes by pigeon post. After pigeon post between military fortresses had been thoroughly tested, attention was turned to its use for naval purposes, to send messages to ships in nearby waters. It was also used by news agencies and private individuals at various times. Governments in several countries established lofts of their own. Laws were passed making the destruction of such pigeons a serious offense; premiums to stimulate efficiency were offered to private societies, and rewards given for destruction of birds of prey. Before the advent of radio, pigeons were used by newspapers to report yacht races, and some yachts were actually fitted with lofts.

During the establishment of formal pigeon post services, the registration of all birds was introduced. At the same time, in order to hinder the efficiency of the systems of foreign countries, difficulties were placed in the way of the importation of their birds for training, and in a few cases falcons were specially trained to interrupt the service war-time, the Germans having set the example by employing hawks against the Paris pigeons in 1870–71. No satisfactory method of protecting the weaker birds seems to have been developed, though the Chinese formerly provided their pigeons with whistles and bells to scare away birds of prey.

As radio telegraphy and telephony were developed, the use of pigeons became limited to fortress warfare^{[clarification needed]} by the 1910s. Although the British Admiralty had attained a very high standard of efficiency, it discontinued its pigeon service in the early 20th century. In contrast, large numbers of birds were still kept by France, Germany and Russia at the outbreak of the First World War.

In modern days, a rafting photographer still uses pigeons as a sneakernet to transport digital photos on flash media from the camera to the tour operator.^[7]

Paris[edit]

Siege of Paris 1870–1871, pigeon post medal by the artist Charles Degeorge.

The pigeon post that was in operation while Paris was besieged during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 is probably the most famous. Barely six weeks after the outbreak of hostilities, the Emperor Napoleon III and the French Army of Châlons surrendered at Sedan on 2 September 1870. There were two immediate consequences: the fall of the Second Empire and the swift Prussian advance on Paris. As had been expected, the normal channels of communication into and out of Paris were interrupted during the four-and-a-half months of the siege, and, indeed, it was not until the middle of February 1871 that the Prussians relaxed their control of the postal and telegraph services. With the encirclement of the city on 18 September, the last overhead telegraph wires were cut on the morning of 19 September, and the secret telegraph cable in the bed of the Seine was located and cut on 27 September. Although a number of postmen succeeded in passing through the Prussian lines in the earliest days of the siege, others were captured and shot, and there is no proof of any post, certainly after October, reaching Paris from the outside, apart from private letters carried by unofficial individuals. For an assured communication into Paris, the only successful method was by the time-honoured carrier-pigeon, and thousands of messages, official and private, were thus taken into the besieged city.

Cover that contained mail to be sent by pigeon post

During the course of the siege, pigeons were regularly taken out of Paris by balloon. Initially, one of the pigeons carried by a balloon was released as soon as the balloon landed so that Paris could be apprised of its safe passage over the Prussian lines. Soon a regular service was in operation, based first at Tours and later at Poitiers. The pigeons were taken to their base after their arrival from Paris and when they had preened themselves, been fed and rested, they were ready for the return journey. Tours lies some 200 km from Paris and Poitiers some 300 km; to reduce the flight distance the pigeons were taken by train as far forward towards Paris as was safe from Prussian intervention. Before release, they were loaded with their despatches. The first despatch was dated 27 September and reached Paris on 1 October, but it was only from 16 October, when an official control was introduced, that a complete record was kept.

The pigeons carried two kinds of despatch: official and private, both of which are later described in detail. The service was put into operation for the transmission of information from the Delegation to Paris and was opened to the public in early November. The private despatches were sent only when an official despatch was being sent, since the latter would have absolute priority. However, the introduction of the Dagron microfilms eased any problems there might have been in claims for transport since their volumetric requirements were very small. For example: one tube sent during January contained 21 microfilms, of which 6 were official despatches and 15 were private, while a later tube contained 16 private despatches and 2 official ones. In order to improve the chances of the despatches successfully reaching Paris, the same despatch was sent by several pigeons, one official despatch being repeated 35 times and the later private despatches were repeated on average 22 times. The records show that

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