Editing Optical telegraph (section)

====Portugal====
In Portugal, the British forces fighting [[Peninsular War|Napoleon in Portugal]] soon found that the Portuguese Army had already a very capable semaphore terrestrial system working since 1808, giving the [[Duke of Wellington]] a decisive advantage in intelligence. The innovative Portuguese telegraphs, designed by {{Interlanguage link|Francisco António Ciera|pt}}, a mathematician, were of 3 types: 3 shutters, 3 balls and 1 pointer/moveable arm.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thompson |first=Mark S. |date=1 December 2016 |title=Allied Use of Telegraphs during the Peninsular War |url=https://www.napoleon-series.org/military-info/organization/Britain/Miscellaneous/Telegraphs.pdf |journal=Royal Engineers Journal |via=The Napoleon Series}}</ref> <!-- (the first for longer distances, the other two for short) and with the advantage of all having only 6 significant positions. -->He also wrote the code book "Táboas Telegráphicas"<!-- , with 1554 entries from 1 to 6666 (1 to 6, 11 to 16,... 61 to 66, 111 to 116,... etc.) -->, the same for the 3 telegraph types. Since early 1810 the network was operated by "Corpo Telegráfico", the first Portuguese military Signal Corps.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Luna |first1=Isabel de |last2=Sousa |first2=Ana Catarina |last3=Leal |first3=Rui Sá |date=2008 |title=Telegrafia visual na Guerra Peninsular. 1807-1814 |url=https://repositorio.ul.pt/handle/10451/40114 |journal=Boletim Cultural da Câmara Municipal de Mafra |pages=67–136}}</ref>