@chris_bloke @glent @mattblaze @karlauerbach So the British action in 1914 was actually the product of a strategy devised decades earlier. (Btw, Paul M Kennedy, Imperial Cable Communications and Strategy, 1870-1914, 86 English Historical Review 728 (1971), http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/563928?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103708309471 also has details, and for some folks is more accessible than Headrick's book.) Britain tried to route its communications through British-controlled territories, and tried to route other countries communications, too…