Here's something I didn't know before. In 1939, an Indian chemistry professor and Theosophist named D. D. Kanga edited a collection of articles entitled Where Theosophy and Science Meet: A Stimulus to Modern Thought. One of the articles was by Peter Freeman, who had been a Labour MP from Wales between 1929 and 1931 (and would be again from 1945 until his death in 1956). He had also been general secretary of the Welsh branch of the Theosophical Society since 1922. His contribution to Kanga's volume was entitled 'The practical application of Theosophy to politics and government'; I'm not sure when it was originally published, assuming it wasn't written specially for this volume, but it would probably be the early to mid-1930s.

Freeman's basic premise is that of Theosophy: that the universe and everything in it is evolving in accordance with what he calls '"the Plan"'. This applies to societies too, 'in the gradual civilization and progress of humanity towards its destined end -- the full realization of Universal Brotherhood'. But this process is helped along both by enlightened people (e.g. Theosophists) and by 'a body of super-men, the Masters [...] who, having passed through the many stages of life, are now competent to help and guide the affairs of the earth'.

These evolved men are known as the Great White Brotherhood, or the Inner Government of the World. All forms of government on earth are but pale reflections of their activities, nevertheless everyone can assist, in however humble a manner, in their mighty task of bringing about the perfection of all life.

In this spirit, Freeman asked:

What are the immediate political steps that should be taken to secure World Peace and to establish the Brotherhood of Man?

His answer was that 'a World Power acting on behalf of the League of Nations' was required, so that nations would feel secure and consent to disarmament.

And was this to be achieved? By an international air force:

As a step to this end the inauguration of an International Air Police Force would appear to be the most practicable means. Much of the Air Service is already under international control. This could be extended and it could act under the general control and jurisdiction of the League of Nations with a minimum of difficulty as outlined in detail in "The New Commonwealth League" proposals.

Air Forces are almost useless for defence, but invaluable for offence. It is, therefore, only the potential aggressor who would insist on their retention under individual national control.

This would, of course, mean that the so-called sovereign rights of Nations would have to be subordinated to the welfare of the World, but only in this way can world Peace be secured. Until some central World Authority has not only been established but has also secured effective power to see its judgments carried out, war will continue. Until international justice can thus be maintained, it is inevitable that disputes between nations will not only break out from time to time but may even grow more ruthless, brutal, bitter and intense.

Now, this is a pretty standard left-liberal viewpoint for the mid-1930s -- apart from the stuff about the Great White Brotherhood benevolently directing the evolution of the human race, which is very weird indeed. (Not to mention Lemuria, the seven root races of man, the akashic records, the Book of Dzyan...) And even then, many liberal internationalists probably did think that something like Freeman's vision was the way the world was evolving, and were certainly in sympathy with the idea that people of conscience should do all they could to bring that about. Still, I wonder if this was just Freeman merging his own particular political and spiritual beliefs, or if Theosophy and the international air force went together in some sense?

One way to answer this would be to find out where Freeman came across the international air force idea. One clue might be in his reference to the New Commonwealth, which was devoted to promoting a world police, which in practice mainly meant an internationalised air force. It was quite prominent in the public debate about collective security in the early and mid 1930s. It's also interesting that the driving force behind the New Commonwealth was Lord Davies, who was also a former Welsh MP, from a neighbouring constituency -- albeit a Liberal one who left the House of Commons just as Freeman was entering. Still, Freeman surely must have known of Davies and his ideas, even if they didn't know each other.

Another possibile source is the psychologist William McDougall, who oddly enough was one of the first people to come up with a fully-fledged international air force scheme, in an appendix to his Ethics and Some Modern World Problems (London: Methuen & Co., 1924). Even though McDougall was quite a successful public intellectual, I can't find many references to his ideas on this topic. But he was also interested in parapsychology, carrying out ESP research with J. B. Rhine in the United States. This was a subject which interested Theosophists very much, and I've found a number of reviews of his books in Theosophical journals. So it's possible this was Freeman's way into international air force advocacy.

A final possibility is also another example of a Theosophist interested in the international air force concept. In September 1932, the Theosophical Magazine printed a notice of a new organisation called the New Political Fellowship. While it declared itself to non-political, it was opposed to 'Communism and partisan policies with their imposition of outside authority', operating on the basis of voluntarism not compulsion. That sounds quite liberal, as far as it goes. To apply this 'New Order of Things -- The New Crusade' to international affairs the following were deemed to be required:

(a) International Police (ex-Army).
(b) International Naval Police and Transport (ex-Navy).
(c) International Air Police and Transport (ex-R.A.F.).
(d) International Codes for Road, Sea and Air Travel.

A news item in Nature reveals that the New Political Fellowship was the brainchild of A. G. Pape, the founding secretary of the Scottish Anthropological and Folklore Society and author of a couple of books on racial themes. And Pape, it turns out, was a Theosophist. Not only did he evidently ask the Theosophical Magazine to publicise the founding of his New Political Fellowship (which in turn suggests he thought it might appeal to Theosophists), but there's also an article by him in... wait for it... Kanga's Where Theosophy and Science Meet (on the subject of anthropology).

Having come full circle it seems appropriate to leave off there, which is convenient because I don't have much more to add. I haven't been able to find any other connections between Theosophy and the international air force idea. On the other hand, Hugh 'Stuffy' Dowding was a Theosophist (and keenly interested in fairies and flying saucers too). And then there's J. F. C. Fuller's Alesteir Crowley and kabbalistic phases...

A comment by Gavin Robinson over at Thoughts on Military History reminded me that I've been a bit slack with self-archiving. This is the policy some academic journals have which allows authors to upload copies of their articles to their own websites, with certain caveats. For SAGE journals the policy is that you can

At any time, circulate or post on any repository or website the version of the article that you submitted to the journal (i.e. the version before peer-review) or an abstract of the article.

Which I did do for my first peer-reviewed article, 'World police for world peace: British internationalism and the threat of a knock-out blow from the air, 1919-1945' which appeared in War in History, a SAGE journal, in 2010. That version is only slightly different from the one which was accepted for publication, so I was quite happy to make it available for download.

But I'd forgotten that SAGE's policy also allows you to

At least 12 months after publication, post on any non-commercial* repository or website* the version of your article that was accepted for publication.

Since 'World police for world peace' was published in July 2010 I could have put the accepted, peer-reviewed version up five months ago. Well, I've now rectified this omission: that version is now available for download. Of course, that doesn't have the same pagination as the published article, which has also been copyedited; so the absolute, definitive version is the one available from War in History itself.

Is self-archiving worth the trouble? I think so. Since August last year (when I installed a proper download counter) 'World police for world peace' has been downloaded by 26 different people, from Thailand to the UK. While that's not an earth-shattering number, these are presumably people who are interested enough to download and (hopefully) read my research on the international air force concept, but don't have access to or can't afford the journal's version. That is to say, they probably wouldn't have read my article in any form, if it hadn't been available for free. I don't know how many people have ever read the official version, but 26 sounds like a reasonably substantial fraction. So self-archiving is helping to get my research out there.

As it happens, my second article, 'The air panic of 1935: British press opinion between disarmament and rearmament', was also published by SAGE (in the Journal of Contemporary History) which means the same policy applies. I didn't put up the submitted version because it was radically different from the accepted version. But when the first anniversary of its publication comes around in April, I'll be self-archiving that one too.

Today's big story must have caused quite a bit of consternation to readers: it's scarcely possible to credit it. Here is the full text of the statement issued by 10, Downing Street last night (as reproduced in The Times, 5):

Rudolf Hess, the deputy Führer of Germany, and party leader of the National-Socialist Party, has landed in Scotland in the following circumstances.

On the night of Saturday, the 10th inst., a Messerschmitt 110 was reported by our patrols to have crossed the coast of Scotland and to be flying in the direction of Glasgow. Since an Me110 would not have the fuel to return to Germany this report was at first disbelieved.

However, later on an Me110 crashed near Glasgow, with its guns unloaded. Shortly afterwards a German officer who had baled out was found with his parachute in the neighbourhood, suffering from a broken ankle

He was taken to a hospital in Glasgow, where he at first gave his name as Horn, but later on declared that he was Rudolf Hess. He brought with him various photographs of himself at different ages, apparently in order to establish his identity.

These photographs were deemed to be photographs of Hess by several people who knew him personally. Accordingly an officer of the Foreign Office who was closely acquainted with Hess before the war has been sent up by aeroplane to see him in hospital.

A later report from the Ministry of Information said that the man's identity 'has now been established beyond all possible doubt' as Hess.

What does this mean? Neither The Times nor the Manchester Guardian offer any speculation (quite possibly because the news came too late at night for anyone to process it fully). For its part, the party which Hess served reported that 'he was suffering from an illness of some years' standing':

A letter which he left behind unfortunately shows by its distractedness traces of a mental disorder, and it is feared that he was a victim of hallucinations.

But then they would say that, wouldn't they?

London is still recovering from Saturday night's raid. Some of the incendiaries landed 350 feet above ground level in scaffolding which surrounded the Victoria Tower. To put them out, Sergeant Forbes of the Palace Police climbed up the scaffolding with a sandbag, 'a strenuous feat in daylight and a magnificent achievement in the dark and danger of the night' (Guardian, 5). Elsewhere the damage was grievous, reports The Times:

The chamber in which the Commons have held their debates since 1852, when Barry completed that part of his new Palace of Westminster, was completely destroyed in Saturday night's raid. Not since the fire of 1834, which completely destroyed the old Palace, has there been such a scene of ruin on this historic site.

On the other hand, the ancient roof of Westminster Hall is in better shape than had at first been feared. The same is true of the Abbey next door which has sustained little irreparable damage, though the sight revealed yesterday by 'Sunshine streaming in' through the hole in the roof was 'melancholy to look at' (The Times, 2).

The Guardian is quite sure (5) that Parliament was deliberately targeted:

The destruction of part of the Palace of Westminster on Saturday night was not the result of indiscriminate bombing but of a deliberate attack, continued for two hours, during which six high-explosives, an oil bomb, and countless fire bombs were dropped.

So too is The Times, adding that 'There has never been a raid which has done less military damage' (5):

let the world note also what manner of men these enemies are who, on a night of brilliant moonlight, when there could be no question of mistaking targets, deliberately sought to destroy things which by any criterion must rank among the architectural treasures of the world.

The German press's take is somewhat different (3). The Völkischer Beobachter says that

Naturally the British again assert that our mass attack [on Saturday night] was indiscriminate, but the High Command reports objectively that the region round the bend of the Thames -- that is, the centre of London's docks and business quarters, was again the focus of the attacks.

It sounds like it is talking about the Isle of Dogs, but that's not particularly close to Westminster and neither The Times nor the Guardian have mentioned it. Is the British press being censored or is the German press lying?

There were more raids on Britain on Sunday night. The Guardian says (5) that

the raids were widespread, and although the damage was caused at a number of points it was nowhere heavy.

Bombs were dropped in several parts of the North-east, and raids were also reported from South Wales and the South and East coasts.

According to German reports, these night raids included attacks on

numerous aerodromes in the South of England and the Midlands, with good results. Large fires were caused in hangars, barracks, technical buildings, and fuel dumps. On several aerodromes direct hits were scored on stationary bombers.

London admits that 'a large number of R.A.F. aerodromes were attacked' but that German claims of damage were 'as usual, grossly exaggerated'. For it's part, that night Bomber Command raided Bremen and, again, Hamburg, 'to continue the destruction and disorganisation of the vital parts of this great seaport'. Again, the German News Agency has a different story, saying that 'in Hamburg six people, including three children, were killed and injured. A church situated next door to a hospital was burnt out'.

The Guardian today prints (3) a review by W. H. C. of Lord Davies, Foundations of Victory (Collins, 2/6). The most interesting paragraph for me is the following:

For Lord Davies air-power is decisive, and he regards large-scale Army operations as a means of victory as impracticable. He does not fail to reproduce the vision splendid of an international air force maintaining the sway of law and order and decency as seen by our present Prime Minister in Volume V of "The World Crisis." No longer, however, does the author contemplate after the war a "Federal Europe," but rather a number of British-American commissions -- justices of the peace, so to speak -- in the various capitals of Europe, whose task it will be to rebuild the shattered civilisation of the Continent.

I'll be keeping an eye out for this one!

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2011/05/13/tuesday-13-may-1941/feed/ 4 http://airminded.org/2011/03/15/saturday-15-march-1941/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=saturday-15-march-1941 http://airminded.org/2011/03/15/saturday-15-march-1941/#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:45:11 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=6458

The war news today is much closer to home for the Glasgow Herald than usual. A big air raid last night on 'a Central district of Scotland' (5) is vividly described, as though the reporter had witnessed it: readers would know for themselves just how far away it was.

One Nazi 'plane which appeared to be heading for home was spotted by searchlights, and immediately there was a road of gunfire as battery after battery opened up and poured shells into the apex of the searchlights.

The crackle of bursting shells followed a maze of flashes. When the gunfire stopped and the 'plane emerged from the barrage one of its engines could be heard misfiring. The 'plane seemed to be in difficulties and gradually losing height.

On the ground, civil defence workers 'toiled side by side with firemen after bombs scored a direct hit on a tenement building':

As rescue workers struggled to break down the massive barriers of broken stone and secure the safety of those feared trapped in the debris the fire-fighters poured a continuous stream of water to keep down the creeping flames.

But this isn't all. On the previous night, Clydeside itself received a heavy raid which wrecked 'Houses, churches, schools': some people were killed when an air-raid shelter received a direct hit. ARP services are praised for working smoothly and heroically through the bombing. As for the air raid victims (emphasis in original):

The people of the blitzed districts spent yesterday recovering property and furniture from partially ruined homes and settling down in new billets, while a few had the tragic task of tracing missing relatives.

It was this courageous attitude to the situation which characterised the outlook of every victim of the blitz to their misfortune.

"Tell the world that we here in Scotland can also take it," said a smiling invalid in one of the rest centres.

There's more on Thursday night's raid -- already being called 'The Clydeside Blitz' (7) -- on other pages. One is especially emotive (6):

The long, fierce attack on a Clydeside town on Thursday night, in which working-class homes, trim villas and bungalows, and a few industrial establishments were set ablaze, was carried out with a grim and revolting sadism by relays of raiders.

The article asserts that 'What angered Clydeside' about the raid was that it seemed to be 'a deliberate adventure in terrorism'.

For what other purpose, they argued, could the raiders be bombing again and again an already tenement? For what other reason did renewed showers of bombs fall among little houses which were already blazing and shattered?

But, another article on the same page asserts:

All the violence of a merciless night of incessant bombing of a Clydeside town, with its train of homeless families, many of them suffering the ordeal of sudden bereavement, failed utterly to weaken the splendid morale of the population.

If the raid was intended to strike a blow at industry it failed, the assault falling in the main on a working-class community, which has revealed itself as heroic as any elsewhere affected by air attack on a large scale.

The leading article today is somewhat more restrained. It notes that this, the 'first long and heavy air raid that Clydeside has suffered' (4) could hardly be considered a surprise considering its importance as an industrial centre and as a port. It also notes the 'remarkable record of 13 night raiders brought down' as evidence that Britain's night defences have improved greatly since 'the long weeks of autumn and early winter, when the Germans were able to bomb London and other English towns night after night almost with impunity'. Given that the Luftwaffe's ability to hit 'targets of real military targets has been far below that of the R.A.F.', it predicts that it may be forced to give up 'attacks of a mainly terroristic and indiscriminate type' and stick to 'tactics of the kind which our airmen have made our own', demonstrating 'the inferiority of the Nazis [...] more clearly than ever'. (This is an unusual argument: how does an effective air defence make precision bombing easier instead of harder?)

Meanwhile, the people of Clydeside, by intensifying their effort for victory, can prove to the world and the enemy that their reactions to frightfulness from the air are not less formidable than the reactions of the Londoners or the men of the English Midlands.

One such reaction: Ellen Wilkinson, Labour MP for Jarrow, on a visit to blitzed Swansea: 'Thank God we can hit back. I never realised what a vindictive person I was until I went through this city.'

RAF Bomber Command raided Hamburg for the second night in a row Thursday night, 'the "heaviest yet" raid on the city' (5). The Air Ministry claims that 'Shipbuilding yards, docks, and warehouses suffered badly'. The German News Agency, on the other hand, says that

"Most of the bombs again fell in residential districts as the violent anti-aircraft forced the British pilots to release their bombs without taking aim," it was stated."

Reid wraps up his series of articles on peace aims today by reiterating his call for 'a Military Union modelled on the British Commonwealth of Nations' (4), which must have 'the strongest air force in the world' and 'undertake to protect its members automatically and unquestionally if any of them is attacked'. He considers membership. It sadly can't be assumed that the United States won't withdraw into isolation again. The Union would then have to be restricted to Europe and Africa 'since it dare not repeat the error of the League of Nations by accepting members which it cannot protect'. Ideally it would only be composed of nations with 'Democracy and economic freedom' which, unlike 'socialism and dictatorship', are 'guarantees of peaceable policies'. Finally there is the question of Germany. It can have no place in the military union; it 'will have to be disarmed far more completely than in 1919, and the country will have to be occupied for many years'; its 'industrial power [...] will have to be broken or controlled'. Germany will have to learn its 'lesson of peaceable self-control' before it could join a 'European Union'.

In an earlier article, Reid had discarded the idea of a federal union. But Sir Robert B. Greig, of Barnton, either did not read it or was not convinced by it, for he yesterday gave a speech at Stirling Rotary Club in favour of one. He pointed to the danger of aviation as justification (6):

"When you look at the modern aeroplane you would say it was invented and built by a superman," Sir Robert continued. "But look what has happened. 'Planes have been used by people with an ape mind, not a human mind. That is the danger we are up against. Science will run away from us altogether and we shall destroy civilisation unless there is a controlling power, and the first controlling power should be that of the prevention of war. Unless we have a Federal Union which has an overriding Government over and above national sovereignties I do not see how we can prevent war.

To end on a lighter note, the third leading article today is on war slang. It suggests that the present war has produced fewer than the last one, but notes the following: winkle bag, cigarette; gin palace, a large wireless truck; rompers, 'the Army pet name for the new battle dress' (4); quads, gun-pulling tractor ('an affectionate memorial of the horse').

The "fed up" of the last war has become "browned off" in this -- a phrase in which a culinary reference is retained.

Only time will tell which of these terms, if any, will enter into general use; 'But English will not be English if it does not open hospitable doors to a proportion of these latest outcasts'.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2011/03/15/saturday-15-march-1941/feed/ 2 http://airminded.org/2011/03/14/friday-14-march-1941/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=friday-14-march-1941 http://airminded.org/2011/03/14/friday-14-march-1941/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:31:27 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=6448

The big news today is that the latest Italian offensive against Greek forces in the Tepelini sector has been a disaster. War correspondents estimate 10,000 Italian casualties, including 2000 dead; yet 'it was stated in authoritative circles in London yesterday that the Italians do not appear to have made any perceptible progress' (5). This is despite (perhaps there's a hint of because of) Mussolini's presence at the front lines over the last few days, 'leading or encouraging the Italian troops'. Greek spirits are understandably high. Looking at the bigger picture in the Mediterranean, the Herald's military correspondent suggests that the Germans

are not over-anxious to commit their forces to an attack on Greece while Russia is dissatisfied. Turkey threatens to become actively hostile, and Yugoslavia is, at least, very restless.

The reported presence of three German divisions (or elements thereof) in Tripoli is puzzling. It will certainly bolster Italian morale in Libya after recent defeats there.

It is not likely that an offensive against the Army of the Nile is planned. But it may well be necessary in German interests to safeguard a buffer between British troops and those of the French African Empire.

The bomber offensive against Germany continues. Big (for the Herald) headlines scream 'NAZIS GIVEN HEAVIEST NIGHT OF BOMBS':

R.A.F. bombers on Wednesday night carried out the heaviest raid yet launched on Germany, bombing Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen.

While nine of the Luftwaffe raiders over Britain were being destroyed, the R.A.F. were attacking the enemy from Berlin to Boulogne. A Nazi destroyer was torpedoed by a Beaufort aircraft of the Coastal Command, the flash from the explosion being "as big as a house."

An aerodrome in Southern Norway and shipping and docks at Ostend, Ymuiden, and Boulogne were bombed. Several of our new and powerful types of aircraft were in action over Germany. By the light of the moon many large fires were started near Berlin railway yards.

This was Berlin's 37th raid, though its first since December.

The 'nine raiders destroyed over Britain' mentioned above made Wednesday the air defence's most successful night of the whole war so far (the previous record being seven on 18 June 1940). Three were shot down by anti-aircraft guns, five by night fighters -- including two Ju 88s by the new 'Beau fighters' [sic], and two He 111s 'by Defiants of the squadron which, at Dunkirk, destroyed 37 Nazi 'planes in one day without loss to themselves'. Mysteriously, '"other devices"' (the Herald puts this in quotation marks) are also credited with at least one kill. This is, it is claimed, the first time the Air Ministry has mentioned 'other devices':

What these "other devices" are the Luftwaffe may soon know to their cost. They represent another stage in the scientific research which is constantly going on in the hope of finding the solution to night bombing.

It's all very hush-hush, but apparently senior RAF officers made 'indirect reference' to experimental work on these 'other devices' over the winter. So perhaps for those paying attention the 'other devices' are not such a surprise.

As for the air raids themselves, Merseyside was the main target on Wednesday night.

[It was] the longest raid by German bombers on England this year, but yesterday the city and neighbouring towns looked much as usual, and transport was normal.

A group of auxiliary firemen were killed by a bomb; and 'policemen, fire-watchers, and wardens are missing' after a bomb exploded in the roof of a school. If it weren't for 'one major incident in a working-class area', casualties would have been considered light for such a heavy raid. As far as Scotland is concerned, no damage has been reported from Wednesday night or yesterday, although the German News Agency claims that the Luftwaffe 'badly damaged' an aluminium works at Fort William in Inverness-shire.

All of that is 'straight' war news, but much of the rest of the news is related to the war one way or another. An article on recent London fashion shows is subtitled 'Fashion's peace plans' (6), as they were showing off 'the kinds of floral and pastel cloths which will adorn women after the war is over'. The leading article today commends a deal being offered to Glasgow dockers of a 'by no means ungenerous' (4) minimum wage in return for '11 turns of four hours each' every week. This will 'make Glasgow Harbour play an even more important part than hitherto in defeating HITLER's U-boats'. The annual report of the Aberdeen Royal Mental Hospital claims that the war has had surprisingly little effect on the mental health of civilians: 'it has increased their courage, morale, and faith, and it has lessened fear' (3). And an ad on page 7 orders householders, retailers, millowners and farmers to 'KILL THAT RAT!' - 'TRAP 'EM, POISON 'EM, GAS 'EM, HUNT 'EM'. Why? Because 'IT'S DOING HITLER'S WORK'.

Let's see how Reid is doing with those peace aims. Today he considers another possible model for collective security after the war: the British Empire. It is 'not a federation [...] not an economic union [but] is, however, a military union' (4).

Britain and the Dominions form the one group of States whose union is firm enough to stand the full strain of war while each one of its members is free to follow its own policy in peace time.

(Reid has very deliberately referred to Dominions here, not colonies.) The strength of this union is based on loyalty between its members, and the knowledge that 'in any real crisis they could count on support that would be instantaneous and automatic':

the Dominions have known that if they ever had to face actual aggression the Navy and other Imperial Forces would come to their aid at once.

Reid's conclusion is that there is no need for any 'supra-national Government controlling political, economic, and social affairs [...] The share of sovereignty to be given up need only be military'. As the basis for this 'European Union' he proposes 'an International Air Force':

An air force of overwhelming power in the hands of the Council of the Union would be, perhaps, the most formidable of all possible safeguards against aggression. The nucleus of such a force may seem to exist already in this island, where British, Polish, Czech, French, Dutch, and Belgian airmen act in conjunction with men from the Dominions, and there is no hint of friction or rivalry between them.

Hmmm. Seems to me I've heard this one before.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2011/03/14/friday-14-march-1941/feed/ 4 http://airminded.org/2011/03/13/thursday-13-march-1941/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=thursday-13-march-1941 http://airminded.org/2011/03/13/thursday-13-march-1941/#comments Sun, 13 Mar 2011 06:37:21 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=6436

The Glasgow Herald today again leads with Lease-and-Lend, specifically the massive appropriation request made by Roosevelt to Congress -- over half a billion pounds' worth of 'aircraft and aeronautical material, including engines, spares, and accessories' alone (5). The Bill will be ready for debate early next week: the Speak of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn, promised 'We are going to put everything else aside'.

Of course, the passing of Lease-and-Lend was welcomed here in Britain. Churchill, with a degree of historical inexactitude, likened it to the Magna Carta. His speech was 'spoken with that artistic perfection which we have come to expect from our national leader' (4), in the opinion of the Herald's political correspondent. However, there is a hint of unease too:

It is fully realised in official circles that the United States's decision may drive Hitler soon to make his supreme effort in the war before the guaranteed help can reach us. Developments in that sense are expected without the elapse of a long interval.

And it may 'be made through the Balkans'. Here Greece (with some British assistance in the form of the RAF) is still holding firm against the Italian attack from Albania (even though Mussolini is currently there directing operations). Now comes news that Germany is placing 'extremely heavy' (5) diplomatic pressure upon Yugoslavia, with a 'new German Note' calling for

active assistance for the Axis should Yugoslavia desire the place reserved for her in the "New Order" in Europe.

Still, there seems to be general confidence in Britain's position in the Balkans. The offensive into Italian-held Abyssinia is also going well, with the 'British force' from Somaliland advancing 120 miles in the last 48 hours. It's now 600 miles from Mogadishu, and has inflicted 31,000 casualties upon the Italian defenders.

Let's have some air war news. A German air raid on London last night was met by 'a terrific anti-aircraft barrage':

The thunderous rumble seemed to indicate yet another development in the ground defences. Nothing like it has been heard before in the raids on this country.

No speculation is offered as to what this new anti-aircraft weapon might be, however. Raiders were also active over the north of Scotland: 'bombs were dropped', no indication of any damage given. On the other side of the equation, on Tuesday night Kiel was raided by Bomber Command for the thirty-third time. The Air Ministry reported (6):

The flashes of heavy explosions and the glare of a large fire were observed. The docks at Bremerhaven and two aerodromes in North-West Germany were also bombed.

In daylight on Tuesday single aircraft of the Bomber Command bombed an oil storage plane at Rotterdam and a factory near Utrecht.

No aircraft were lost on any of these operations.

Reid's third article on peace aims looks at a couple of ideas. The first is that Britain should try to encourage revolution in Nazi-occupied Europe (4):

If we are to break the power of Nazi Germany, runs this argument, we must have the active support of the oppressed nations of Europe as well as of the remaining neutrals. We can never have a British Army as large as Hitler's. The only way to redress the balance is to create at the right moment an immense Continental revolt.

His main objection to this is that it seems unlikely that the conquered peoples of Europe are looking forward to a new order, but instead are looking back to the old one, a restoration of the liberties which Germany took from them.

If our propaganda lays its main stress on "revolution" it will certainly discourage those among our conquered Allies who are not in a revolutionary frame of mind, or do not share British Leftist ideas of what a desirable revolution would be.

Reid seems unable to conceive of a popular revolution as being anything other than Bolshevist. Is it not possible that people would rise up to reclaim their lost freedoms instead of for a communist state?

The second idea Reid deals with is the 'vision of a Pax Britannica (or Anglo-Saxonica)', where Britain and the United States would combine their military strength to keep the peace. This has the virtue of precedent in the century of relative peace from 1815 to 1914. But Reid argues that the world has changed since then, when Britain had a monopoly on industrial as well as naval power:

Even Britain and the United States combined have no such monopoly now. And we cannot feel at all certain that if the "Anglo-Saxon Powers" were deliberately to set themselves to dominate the world -- for its good as well as their own -- other countries would not, sooner or later, combine to revolt against that domination.

There is a brief obituary on page 7 of F. Britten Austin, author of (among other things) The War-God Walks Again (1926). He began writing in 1911 but joined the Army in 1914, serving in France and demobilising with the rank of captain.

Mr Austin was a military expert who foresaw with remarkable accuracy great battles between mechanised armies before the tank was invented.

He died yesterday, aged 55.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2011/03/13/thursday-13-march-1941/feed/ 0 http://airminded.org/2011/03/12/wednesday-12-march-1941/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wednesday-12-march-1941 http://airminded.org/2011/03/12/wednesday-12-march-1941/#comments Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:11:35 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=6424

The Glasgow Herald, like many early-twentieth-century 'provincial' newspapers, made a serious effort to cover war and other international news, as well as reporting on national and local issues. (In fact, it almost seems more interested in what's happening overseas than it is in London or even Edinburgh.) Its highmindedness is also evident in its lack of interest in trivialities (no sports section today!) and in its rather staid appearance, with the outside pages taken up with classified ads, and the news and editorials at the centre of its twelve page. The Herald might be excused for its old-fashioned look: it was first published in 1783, making it two years older than The Times. (Though admittedly the Daily Mail, a jaunty newcomer, was like this too until the start of the war).

Above is the lead item in today's Herald, President Roosevelt's signing into law of the Lease-and-Lend Bill. This will allow (7)

the President to supply Britain and her Allies with almost unlimited supplies of guns, tanks, aeroplanes, ships, and all other war materials and goods.

In fact, he has already begun to do so, approving the transfer to Britain of 'the first allotment of Army and Navy material'. What this consists of was not revealed, but information from 'Well-informed circles in Washington' suggests that it may include 'Army and Navy 'planes, flying fortresses, and patrol bombers' as well as 'ships, tanks, and machine-guns'. And Roosevelt is asking Congress for another $7 billion to buy more weapons for Britain after that.

This is certainly timely news (though that would probably have been true whenever it came), for the Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, announced yesterday that while the RAF is already stronger 'now than when the Battle of Britain began last August', its growth will be 'enormously accelerated' over the next year.He also revealed the existence of two new British aeroplanes, the Beaufighter, 'for long-range fighter operations and for night-fighting', and the Halifax bomber, which joins the Stirling and the Manchester as Britain's heavy bombers:

All three of these have already proved their worth, the first [Stirling] against enemy targets.

Bomber Command has so far conducted 300 raids on docks and shipping in Germany, 470 [?] on railways and communications (ditto), and 430 on industrial targets (ditto). In his speech before the House of Commons, he also commented on the enemy's offensive (8):

I will not be optimistic about this menace of the night bomber. I have warned the country, and I repeat the warning, that attacks more severe than any that have yet been experienced may well come upon us. But I know that our methods of defence and counter-attack are gradually improving. Last night we destroyed by fighters and anti-aircraft fire four enemy aircraft and damaged two. As our equipment on the ground and in the air is developed and multiplied, and as our training progresses, we shall extract from the night bombers -- as we have already begun to extract from them -- an increasing toll.

Sinclair goes on to say that

I will not conceal from the House my own belief that the war is about to enter a grimmer phase. It will be no easy task to defeat Nazi Germany, but it can and it will be done.

Sinclair doesn't explain why he believes the war will enter a 'grimmer phase'. His belief in ultimate victory, however, seems to be shared by the Herald, which has begun publishing a series of articles by J. M. Reid on peace aims. Today, in the second of the series, he writes about 'The gospel of federation' (6), defined as:

Federal Union -- The formation of a super State by the junction of a number of peaceable nations

Reid's aim is to test this (and in forthcoming articles, other proposals for the post-war order) to see whether, if it were adopted by Britain, it would 'help us to victory?' Would it prevent war in future? Would it be welcome 'to other free peoples as well?' He notes the basic argument:

If a large number of highly civilised States were united, with a common citizenship, a common army, navy, and air force, a common financial system, and a common government that could deal with their joint affairs, the vast federation would be too strong to be attacked, and it would be impossible for the countries belonging to it to part company with one another when danger threatened, as the League Powers did.

Such a federation would tend to grow over time, accreting other nations until it encompassed the whole world. Not incidentally, this would also lead to global free trade.

But Reid is sceptical of the historical arguments used to justify the idea of federation. The collapse of the Roman Empire shows that it's not necessarily true that 'as men become more civilised political units grow larger'.

History suggests that there is a sort of rhythm in such matters, that huge States of conglomerations of States come into existence and break up again, and that civilisation is by no means always at its best when political divisions are fewest.

Germany itself was disunited when it produced Bach, Goethe, Kant et al; united Germany produced Goering and Goebbels (as well as, admittedly, Einstein). Also, Reid argues that the League was not doomed to failure because of the speed of modern warfare.

In fact, preparations for aggressive war on a large scale take months if not years -- there was ample warning of Germany's aggressive policy and even of Italy's movement against Abyssinia.

So formal federation was not needed then; if the nations had upheld the League's Covenant, it could have worked.

Lord Rosebery, Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence in Scotland has warned that 'Objects washed up on the beaches at this time are capable of killing those who handle them' (5). Anything unusual which is found on the shore should be reported to authorities.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2011/03/12/wednesday-12-march-1941/feed/ 6 http://airminded.org/2010/09/12/thursday-12-september-1940/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=thursday-12-september-1940 http://airminded.org/2010/09/12/thursday-12-september-1940/#comments Sun, 12 Sep 2010 13:51:08 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=5131

Today I'll take a break from the press and look at The Listener. This was a weekly publication of the BBC, a higher-brow companion to the Radio Times. Both carried listings of the week's radio programmes, but whereas these are the main focus of the Radio Times, The Listener confines them to half a page towards the back. The bulk of the magazine consists of the texts of some of the previous week's more intellectual broadcasts, as well as original articles, book reviews, recipes (I'll spare you the one for sheep's head curry) and a famously difficult crossword.

There are a couple of articles of interest today. One is the cover article, 'Twenty-five years in the air' by J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon. (The cover shows a 'British pilot of today'.) It's an odd title: he says 'It is not very long ago really since we have been able to fly -- about twenty-five years' (367), i.e. 1915. Moore-Brabazon would have known this was a little inexact, since it was over thirty years since he himself was the first Englishman to fly (in England at least), back in May 1909. Perhaps he didn't like to think about his age.

Anyway, the article is mainly about aerial warfare and how it has changed in that time (which makes 1915 a bit more sensible as a starting point). Moore-Brabazon (ex-RFC himself) talks about the origins of the word 'archie', meaning anti-aircraft fire (from a popular song, 'Archibald, Certainly Not!') and the Constantinesco gear. He passes quickly over the interwar years and comes to the present war, where he notes the enormously greater numbers of aircraft involved, as well as their far greater speed: but those who predicted that dogfights were a thing of the past have been proved wrong. He credits the Americans with having 'accidentally' invented the modern bomber: 'Generally, bombers are all adaptations of this original American Douglas commercial aircraft', with variable pitch propellers, retractable undercarriage and 'the flap which enabled you to glide down at a coarse angle so as to land in a small aerodrome'.

Moore-Brabazon comes to the conclusion that today,

daylight bombing raids are an expensive form of amusement as the bombers cannot defend themselves efficiently against the fighter.

But it's very different at night (368):

Here there is practically no reply. Searchlights and anti-aircraft guns are a deterrent, but it is useless to risk using fighters in large quantities in the blackout with all the dangers of crashing on landing. Ferreting out obscure corners of Europe by night to bomb is a very specialised business, and here again our training has been extremely wonderful.

So aerial warfare today is really no longer a contest between armed forces, but 'between the staying powers and the manufacturing powers of the people'. Eventually one side will wear down the other, which alone will be able to manufacture the bombers to continue fighting. As to the future:

After this war I believe that the English-speaking nations and anybody else who in good faith is prepared to join, will have to say to the world at large and all nations, that never again is any independent State to produce war aircraft. Military air power should be vested in the world policeman, who will guarantee all countries from aggression. This force would be mobile, efficient and overwhelming. Commercial aviation can continue; it must always be limited to what is called performance by economic considerations.

But the world's fighters and the world's real big bombers ought no longer to be made in any country planning world aggression. Kipling's A.B.C. must be born, and police the world.

The other article is the text of a broadcast made by Air Marshal Sir Philip Joubert on 5 September, here given the title 'Blitzkrieg bulletin'. Joubert was another RFC veteran: in fact he flew one of its first wartime sorties. At the start of the present war he was Air Officer Commanding India. At some point along the line he must have developed a talent for oratory, because in 1940 he spoke often on the BBC and his talks were well-received. This time he begins by saying

When the aerial Blitzkrieg started it was not quite clear at what objective the Germans were aiming. This is now quite clear. The enemy appears to have made up his mind that a necessary prelude to a successful invasion of this country is the achievement of air superiority.

Joubert then summarises the various phases of the German offensive thus far (as I will not!) The most recent phase he highlights is interesting, given that he was speaking two days before 7 September:

And now night bombing on a large scale is in progress. At times two or three hundred aircraft have been employed on one night. A good deal of damage has been done and a number of people have been killed or injured.

Even more interesting is his forthrightness about British night defences:

So far we have not been very successful.

At least for a time, the Germans will probably bomb even harder, both by day and by night.

But we must try to stick it. It is, and will be, a most unpleasant proceeding, exasperating, very trying and fatiguing. But remember that the German people have been enduring really heavy bombing since the middle of May, nearly two months longer than you have had to put up with it. And we are not going to show ourselves less capable of bearing this burden than the German people.

Joubert 'cannot imagine' that Germany will not attempt an invasion, after all the boasts it has made so far. But it can't be done successfully without air superiority. To this end he exhorts

every man and woman in the country who is in any way connected with the production of the resources which Fighter Command requires to maintain that high standard of devotion to duty which has been such a feature of our industrial and service life during the past two months.

I think I can see why the BBC's audience like Joubert: he was a straight talker who respected them, both for their capacity to hear the hard facts and for their contributions to the war effort. Moore-Brabazon was a politician; his article (not broadcast, I think) seems to have somewhat more cant. How was his call for a post-war international air force received? Unfortunately I don't know.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2010/09/12/thursday-12-september-1940/feed/ 0 http://airminded.org/2010/05/14/bulldog-drummond-and-aero-chemical-warfare/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bulldog-drummond-and-aero-chemical-warfare http://airminded.org/2010/05/14/bulldog-drummond-and-aero-chemical-warfare/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 11:48:08 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=4026

Given that it climaxes on board an airship which is carrying a devastating new chemical weapon, Sapper's fourth Bulldog Drummond novel The Final Count (1926) is somewhat disappointing from an airminded point of view. The poison gas is not intended for use against a city, or to terrorise an enemy, but to cover up a boringly mundane (if large-scale) theft.

But there is still much of interest. Hovering in the background of The Final Count is the threat of warfare, especially aero-chemical warfare. George Simmers noted some time back that this novel seems to present an unusually early example of the feeling that the Great War had been futile. That's my impression too, from a slightly different angle. The events described in the novel take place in 1927 (i.e. the near future of the time of publication in 1926), and Europe seems to be on the brink of war again. That's at odds with my impression of the mid-1920s, certainly after the Locarno treaties of 1925; it's not that there were no tensions between nations, but there was little feeling that war was likely any time soon. Perhaps Sapper needed to exaggerate the possibility of conflict in order to find employment for Drummond and his band of merry vigilantes, preferably against the Bolshevik menace.

The poison mentioned above was originally developed near the end of the Great War by Robin Gaunt, a British chemist serving in the British army. It's actually a liquid (as was mustard 'gas') which causes instantaneous (and very painful) death if applied under the skin. This made it impractical as a battlefield weapon, because the intended victims would need to already have some minor cuts to allow the poison to get in. There is also the problem of how to spray a liquid over a large area. The plan put forward was to use tanks for this purpose (a la J. F. C. Fuller in The Reformation of War).

The Armistice fortunately made this unnecessary. But by 1924 the world is on the edge of ruin again:

Six years later found Europe an armed camp with every nation snarling at every other nation. Scientific soldiers gave lectures in which they stated their ideas of the next war: civilised human beings talked glibly of raining down myriads of germs on huge cities. It was horrible -- incredible: man had called in science to aid him in destroying his fellowmen, and science had obeyed him -- at a price. It was a price which had not been contemplated: it was a case of another Frankenstein's monster. Man had now to obey science, not science man: he had created a thing which he could not control.

Gaunt comes up with the idea of 'inventing a weapon so frightful that its mere existence would control the situation. The bare fact that it was there would act as the presence of a headmaster in a room full of small boys'. The intention is that a world policeman would threaten its use against potential or actual aggressors. He meets an Australian (!) millionaire who also hates war, having lost two sons at Gallipoli, and who agrees to fund his researches. Gaunt manages to improve his gas by combining it with a blister agent which will rupture the skin and allow the poison to penetrate it. Only a few drops are needed to kill. The problem of deployment is also solved:

The tank scheme, however effective it might have been when a war was actually raging, was clearly an impossibility in such circumstances as I contemplated [wrote Gaunt]. Something far more sudden, far more mobile was essential.

Aeroplanes had great disadvantages. Their lifting power was limited: they were unable to hover: they were noisy.

And then there came to my mind the so-called silent raid on London during the war when a fleet of Zeppelins drifted down-wind over the capital with their engines shut off. Was that the solution?

There were disadvantages there too. First and foremost -- vulnerability. Silent raids by night were not my idea of the function of a world policeman. But by day an airship is a comparatively easy thing to hit; and once hit she comes down in flames.

The solution to that was obvious: helium. Instead of hydrogen she would be filled with the non-inflammable gas helium.

Gaunt's benefactor buys an airship from Germany; the idea is to present the completed weapons system to the War Office (no mention of the Air Ministry!) and spring the whole scheme on the world as a fait accompli. But Bulldog Drummond's arch-nemesis Carl Peterson intervenes, and the airship is diverted from its noble purpose ...

The idea of a 'world policeman' here might relate to proposals for an international air force which were beginning to percolate at the time. But there's an important distinction: in Gaunt's vision, the death-dealing airships would not be at the service of the international community (the League of Nations is pointedly labelled useless) but instead would be wielded a great power which could be trusted to use them responsibly, i.e. Britain (possibly in concert with the United States and the other English-speaking nations). So this is more a revived pax Britannica, air-based rather than sea-based. The idea of scientists developing a terrible new weapon in order to end war is also suggestive of such novels as W. Holt-White's The Man Who Stole the Earth (1909).

The prospective use of airships as an offensive weapon (and the parallel denigration of aeroplanes for the same purpose) is unusual for a story written after the First World War. Sapper gives their combustibility as the main reason for their unsuitability, which is why he fills his with helium. (Also for important plot reasons.) This strikes me as both backwards and, er, forwards. The combustibility of hydrogen was certainly a problem, as the Hindenburg discovered in 1937. And helium was starting to be used in airships: the USS Shenandoah, built in 1923, was the first to use it. But inflammability was hardly the only reason why airships were no longer thought of as bombers. Being filled with helium didn't stop the Shenandoah from being ripped apart in a storm.

Similarly, Sapper misunderstands the nature of the so-called 'silent raid' of the night of 19 October 1917. This was a big Zeppelin raid which encountered heavy winds when the eleven airships crossed England's east coast. They were driven hard by the wind across the country and even into France; in all five were destroyed, four due to the weather, one by anti-aircraft fire. Accounts differ as to why the raid was 'silent': it may have been because the high wind dispersed the sound of the Zeppelin engines, or it might have been because London's AA defences held fire as L45 flew overhead, figuring that fog hid the city's location and that there was no need to let the Germans know where they were. According to Sapper, however, the silent raid was an intentional tactic in which the Zeppelins switched their engines off, effectively sneaking up on their target. Before radar, when sound location was one of the primary means of detecting enemy bombers, this was indeed a worrying possibility (which the Italians were later accused of making a reality over Barcelona). But Sapper seems not to have realised that the silent raid was an utter disaster for the airship raiders. He might at that have shared in a popular misconception, but accurate accounts of the silent raid were already available, for example in Joseph Morris' The German Air Raids on Britain, 1914-1918 (1925).

So Sapper -- real name H. C. McNeile, a decorated ex-Royal Engineer -- was not particularly well-informed about aerial warfare. He probably picked up his ideas about airships from incomplete reports of the Great War air raids and reading about the Burney and Imperial Airship Schemes in the mid-1920s. Well, not everyone could be an aviation expert. But equally, few readers would have noticed or cared -- his books certainly sold well enough, and The Final Count perhaps helped to sustain the image of the airship as a bomber. But if so, it left few traces that I can find.

[Cross-posted at Cliopatria.]

'To-day and To-morrow' was a series of over a hundred essays on 'the future' of a diverse range of subjects, which were published in pamphlet form by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. between 1924 and 1931. The authors are equally varied: some were acknowledged experts in their fields, others seem to have been chosen for their ability to provoke. Some of the 'To-day and To-morrow' essays have since attained classic status; most have been forgotten. But as a whole they are an impressive testimony to a vibrant, wideranging (and idiosyncratic) kind of British futurism, and I think they deserve more attention. Some of them have been reprinted from time to time, and if you're rich you can buy nearly all of them in collected volumes through Routledge, but otherwise there are so many they are are hard to track down. So I've tried to compile a definitive list of the series' titles (which are mostly classical allusions) with links to online sources for the texts and some sort of author biography, where available. Google Books has many of them, but only snippets or previews, so I've linked to other sources where possible. Additions and corrections are welcome.

Physically, they were very small books (pott octavo, to be precise), easy to slip into a pocket, and numbered only a hundred pages or so, in large type and generous margins. Their price was 2/6, about the same price as a cheap novel, but five times the price of the later, hugely successful Penguins. So they did not attract a mass readership, but do seem to have been much read by the chattering classes. (See Peter J. Bowler, Science for All: The Popularization of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2009), 139.) Many of the titles went through multiple impressions. And at least one was discussed in the House of Commons.

As I said, some of the essays are still well-known, at least to historians of science: for example the first two in the series, Daedalus, or Science and the Future (1924) by chemist J. B. S. Haldane, and Icarus, or the Future of Science (1924) by Bertrand Russell, the philosopher. Daedalus was Haldane's first book. His prediction in it of universal ectogenesis (i.e. the artificial creation of life, true test-tube babies) was its most startling feature, but he also discussed eugenics, the problems of peak oil and peak coal (Haldane's answer is, in part, wind power: he foresaw a Britain 'covered with rows of metallic windmills working electric motors which in their turn supply current at a very high voltage to great electric mains'), the creation of food from coal and atmospheric nitrogen, and so on. Russell was already famous (hence another book by him in the series, What I Believe, published 1925). Icarus was a bit more glum than Daedalus, as the titles perhaps suggest; he spoke of race suicide (of the white races, that is, due to birth control), the end of liberal ideas such as a free press, a despotic world state (though he thinks it would become more benevolent as time passed), the control of personality through hormones (possibly to create a compliant underclass). The apparent dominance of biological themes in many of the books is interesting. The 1920s were the great days of physics -- Einstein was a worldwide celebrity because of his theory of general relativity; the cornerstones of quantum mechanics were being laid in Germany; in the United States, Hubble was showing that the Universe was far bigger than anyone had imagined. But judging from 'To-day and To-morrow', it was evolution and its implications which gripped the imagination of the reading public. It's true that there are books on physics (Archimedes), chemistry (Hermes) and cosmology (Eos). But there are a number on aspects of biology (e.g., evolutionary psychology, Down's syndrome, the body of the future, Darwinism itself), and evolution seems to feature in many of the books, even when they ostensibly have nothing to with it. For example, Gerald Heard's Narcissus: An Anatomy of Clothes (1924) apparently makes the argument that fashion is evolution at work, that 'evolution is going on no longer in but around the man, and the faster because working in a less resistant medium'.

Another example of futurology from the series which is remembered today is J. D. Bernal's The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul (1929), particularly for its discussion of space travel. Rockets, solar sails, hollowing out asteroids to make space colonies -- Bernal spheres -- and ultimately interstellar colonisation. That's pretty heady stuff, and its not the sort of discourse we would usually associate with early twentieth-century Britain. But how unusual was it? Not that unusual, it can be argued. Olaf Stapledon published the wonderful Last and First Men the following year, which makes The World, the Flesh, and the Devil look stodgy and unimaginative by comparison. The British Interplanetary Society was founded in 1933. H. G. Wells had his Space Gun on screen in 1936; and much earlier, his First Men in the Moon. The British Empire even expanded into interstellar space in 1900. There was also (at least one) earlier example of spacemindedness in 'To-day and to-morrow', Hanno, or the Future of Exploration (1928), by J. Leslie Mitchell. I'm not sure what Mitchell's qualifications to discuss exploration were: later he was a key novelist in the Scottish Renaissance (again, as with Bernal, Haldane and Heard, this was his first book -- which says something for the judgment of Kegan Paul's editors). He served in various bits of the Empire in the Army and the RAF so perhaps that's it. I haven't read Hanno, and it's only available online in Google Books's snippet view, but judging from the word cloud it doesn't just talk about darkest Africa and Antarctica. Some of the most common phrases are 'extraterrestrial', 'Martian', 'lunar', and the names of several lunar craters and mares. So why haven't I heard of Mitchell before? (Not to mention André Maurois's 1927 parody of what sounds like a 'lunar panic' and subsequent war against the Moon, The Next Chapter.)

Some entries are important in the history of military strategy, or at least the airpower parts of it: Basil Liddell Hart's Paris, or the Future of War (1925), and Haldane's Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare (1925). Paris falls pretty squarely into knock-out blow territory, a position Liddell Hart had mostly retreated from by 1939. Callinicus was infamous for its argument that poison gas was actually a humane weapon, since during the last war it had a low mortality and high recovery rate, compared with explosive and bullets. Haldane also favoured the knock-out blow line of thinking, though it wasn't his main concern. (He did downplay the risk of gas attacks on cities.) But again, there are other relevant titles which are less well-known. For example, Aeolus, or the Future of the Flying Machine (1927), by Oliver Stewart. While he didn't discount the possibility of a knock-out blow, Stewart did believe that air defence was possible (and he was a Great War fighter ace as well as an aviation correspondent). Or what about Janus: the Conquest of War (1927), by William McDougall? As a psychologist, maybe McDougall doesn't seem likely to have had a lot to say about aerial warfare. But as I've argued, he was perhaps the first person to propose a fully-fledged international air force. So there are interesting things here, when you look beyond the well-known titles. (Sadly for me, one title was advertised but seems not to have been published: Mercurius, or the World on Wings by C. Thompson Walker, billed as 'A picture of the air-vehicle and the air-port of to-morrow, and the influence aircraft will have on our lives'. Sigh.)

But I don't want to leave the impression that 'To-day and to-morrow' is just about science and technology. The future is presented as being much more than that. There are books on the future of Canada, of music, of Shakespeare, marriage, crime (and miscreant youth), Oxford and Cambridge (and another just on Oxford), humour, swearing (both by Robert Graves), psychical research. There's one on the future of Futurism (the kind with the manifesto) and another on the future of prophecy. There's C. E. M. Joad on the future of morals (Thrasymachus) and Sylvia Pankhurst on the future of international language (Delphos). Vera Brittain wrote on the future of monogamy (Halycon), J. F. C. Fuller on transport and on America (Pegasus, Atlantis), Arthur Keith on 'the problem of race' (Ethnos). An expatriate Scot who left for New Zealand some sixty years before was recruited to write about his former homeland, but another key member of the Scottish Renaissance was given the chance to respond in another volume. Anthony Ludovici wrote Lysistrata (1924), which one reviewer described as an anti-feminist but pro-feminine tract; Dora Russell provided a counterblast in Hypatia (1925), though her feminist credentials may have been undermined by being listed in the publisher's catalogue as 'Mrs Bertrand Russell'. So broad was the range of subjects that some don't seem to fit at all with the rest at all: dragons? aid for the best-seller? Then there's what isn't discussed. A decade later, you might expect such a series to be dominated by international affairs: the future of the League, the future of Germany, the future of dictatorships (which is the sort of thing the Penguin Specials were about, pretty much). There's not much of this here. It was a more peaceful time. There was plenty of anxiety but it was caused by problems seen on the horizon. And as for authors, the most famous British futurist of them all is missing -- no H. G. Wells! (Though an early biographer of his, Geoffrey West, is there, writing on the future of literary criticism.)

After more than a hundred volumes (I have 103 listed, though I may have missed some), 'To-day and to-morrow' came to an end. Interestingly, despite the very British flavour of many of the books, they were simultaneously published in New York by E. P. Dutton (which seems to have added a couple of its own), which perhaps suggests an even greater appetite for speculation about the future in America than in Britain. Certainly, the writing, publication and reading of these books tells us something about the way the future was constructed in those countries in the early 20th century. Max Saunders, who is in the English department at King's College London, has a research project going on 'To-day and to-morrow'; a conference was held a couple of years ago. Even in putting this post together, I can see there's a lot potential there, and I'll be looking out for any resultant publications!