A few years back, my article ‘William Le Queux, the Zeppelin menace and the Invisible Hand’ was published in Critical Survey, with the following abstract: In contrast to William Le Queux’s pre-1914 novels about German spies and invasion, his wartime writing is much less well known. Analysis of a number of his works, predominantly non-fictional, […]
It seems like only last week that I was spruiking a podcast appearance — actually, it was last month, which is also not very long ago! This time it was on the History of the Second World War podcast with Wesley Livesay, chatting about the German air raids on Britain of the First World War
While you’re waiting for me to write Home Fires Burning, here are some other books (mostly) on the same topic, whether wholly or in substantial part. This is not meant to be in any way a comprehensive list; it’s merely what I have found to be most useful. I’ve included links to out-of-copyright/open access versions,
So I’m writing a book. Why? There are already many histories of the German air raids on Britain in the First World War: in my proposal, I listed eleven published since the 1980s alone, and even that is hardly exhaustive. Many of these are excellent — Ian Castle’s books, in particular, are required reading on
I am delighted to announce that I have signed an advance contract with Cambridge University Press((Founded in 1534. Just sayin’…)) to publish my next book, currently entitled Home Fires Burning: Emotion, Spectacle, and Britain’s First War from the Air, in their Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare series. Here’s a one
The ostensible purpose of the Air Services Exhibition was to raise money for ‘the FLYING SERVICES HOSPITALS’ and ‘VISCOUNT FRENCH’S WAR CHARITIES’, as you can see in the poster above. But those laudable aims didn’t mean it wasn’t also propaganda (as you can also see in the poster above). And, despite the name of the
So if I had been able to go back in time and visit the Air Services Exhibition at the People’s Palace on Mile End Road in November 1917, what would I have seen? Well, there are some photos extant. The one above gives a general idea of the exhibition space.
This advertisement, which appeared in the East Ham and South Essex Mail on 2 November 1917, excited my curiosity. An exhibition of German aircraft… held in the East End of London… just after the Harvest Moon raids? I’m there! Or would be if time travel was a thing. As it’s not (yet…) I’ll have to
A great image found by @100YearsAgoLive of ‘bombing by wireless’ in 1921: The question of aerial armaments will be discussed at the Washington Conference, and it is as well for us, while hoping for the best results from the conclave of the nations, to realise some of the terrifying developments in aerial warfare to which
[Edited version of an oral summary of ‘Mutual aid in an air-raid? Community civil defence in Britain, 1914-18’, International Society for First World War Studies Virtual Conference 2021: Technology, online, 16-18 September 2021.] The first thing to note is that the German air raids on Britain of the First World War were much smaller in
