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I am currently studying Middle East Political history and have come to some correspondences between British diplomats and Arab leaders. The dates on these outgoing correspondences are 14 July 1915, from Cairo, (British administered) Egypt and 30 August 1915, from Mecca (modern day Saudi Arabia). My question is threefold.

  1. How long would it have taken an official correspondence between officials to reach one another given the above region of travel?

  2. What would have been the means of delivery for these correspondences? -Diplomatic Couriers?

  3. What was the means of postage between countries in the early 1900's?

Lars Bosteen
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G Tanza
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  • Related: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/38762/how-long-would-it-take-a-victorian-to-travel-from-central-germany-to-the-uk/38770#38770 – Denis de Bernardy Mar 05 '18 at 07:39
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    I'd imagine that the method of transport and the speed of delivery would be determined by the importance and urgency of the message. Are you interested purely in this example, as parts of the question hint at a broader requirement? – Steve Bird Mar 05 '18 at 10:35
  • Spark-gap radio was common by this time, even aboard ships. This makes it seem likely that radio would have been available at least aboard a British naval ship in Cairo, maybe at a ground-based station as well. Googling turned up a magazine article from 1920 describing a telegraph line connecting Jeddah with Mecca: https://books.google.com/books?id=pCA6AQAAMAAJ For 1915, I'm guessing radio from Cairo to Jeddah, and either telegraph or snail mail from Jeddah to Mecca. If Jeddah didn't have radio in 1915, then the Suez canal did already exist. –  Mar 06 '18 at 03:16

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