Expectation and Reality. The Great War in the Air
Abstract
In 1883, one year before the invention of the dirigible, Albert Robida's book War in the Twentieth Century envisaged a sudden, crushing air strike, while Ivan S. Bloch's 1898 treatise on warfare expected bombardment from airships in the near future. With the evolution of airships--in particular, the flights of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's dirigibles toward the end of the first decade of the twentieth century--speculation increased about the prospects for their military usage. In England, flight portended a new avenue of assault on an island nation hitherto immune to the land invasion that threatened continental European powers. Press magnate Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe, had recognized that "England was no longer an island" when Alberto Santos-Dumont flew in France in 1906, although his conception of the threat as "aerial chariots of a foe descending upon England" indicated a more classical and less realistic appraisal of its nature.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA529474
Entities
People
- John H. Morrow Jr.
Organizations
- Air University