My book, The Next War in the Air: Britain's Fear of the Bomber, 1908-1941, is getting closer to being real. In June, in just three months, it will be in the bookstores. Soon the indexing will be undertaken. Yesterday I made the final corrections to the text, and shortly I'll receive the page proofs from Ashgate, for last-minute error checking. And it has a draft cover design! Which I must say I am rather pleased with.
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Getty Images has just announced an embed function, which makes it possible to very easily use images from their collections in blogs and other social media, while simultaneously maintaining Getty Images' rights and -- this is the really nice bit -- avoiding the use of unsightly watermarks. This is rightly being greeted with enthusiasm (though not so much by photographers), and I'll try to use it myself where possible. Even a quick search turns up many great historical images, some familiar, most not. (Basic tip -- to filter out stock photos, restrict your search to editorial images.)
But there are problems, too. Above is an example of a embed from Getty Images. It's from a lithograph by W. Walton of Day & Haghe, lithographers to the Queen, depicting 'Ariel, the first carriage of the Aerial Transit Company', and printed on 26 March 1843 by Ackermann & Co., Strand, London. But the only part of all that which is given in the Getty Images metadata is the title; the rest came from the Library of Congress's copy, which moreover has no usage restrictions at all (since it's long out of copyright) and shows the uncropped lithograph (admittedly, probably less desirable for a blog post). The only other information offered by Getty Images is that the date it was created was 1 January 1900, which is ludicrously incorrect.
We can't expect Getty Images to thoroughly research every image they hold, and an aeroplane flying over Egypt in the mid-19th century is kind of weird to begin with. But the problem of poor or incorrect Getty Images metadata is actually quite common.
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This is the poster produced by the Navy League in 1913 as a key part of its campaign to force the government to increase the amount it spent on military and naval aviation -- or as the poster itself puts it, rather more succinctly:
THE NAVY LEAGUE
DEMANDS £1,000,000.
FOR
AERIAL
DEFENCEBRITONS
WAKE UP!
Describing this poster as a holy grail is somewhat of an overstatement, but it had been proving elusive. I'd read a description of it in the popular press, and found some information about where it was distributed and how much it cost in the Navy League archives, but I hadn't managed to find an actual reproduction of it until I looked at The Navy, May 1913, 135. The official organ of the Navy League was always a likely bet, but when I visited the UK last year, the British Library's copies were unavailable due to the move from Colindale to Boston Spa, and the relevant volume in the Navy League archives was missing. So, naturally, I found a copy in the State Library of Victoria on a quick visit during my holidays.
The description I'd already had turns out to have been perfectly accurate, and so arguably being able to see the design rather than read about it adds little (though the lines of airships and aeroplanes rising up behind Britannia might suggest it an influence from the Illustrated London News). But it will make a nice illustration for an article -- and even nicer if I can find a colour version...
This must be about the strangest image to have ever appeared on this blog. How to explain it?
First of all, it was published in Review of Reviews, May 1913, 457, accompanying the second part of a two-part article by Count Zeppelin on 'The conquest of the air'. However, apart from the obvious aviation theme there's no obvious link to the text. The caption reads:
The Pictorial Postcard issued for sale on behalf of the Swiss National Aviation Fund.
I can't find much about the Swiss National Aviation Fund (which doubtless had a proper name in French and German -- there's a version of the postcard in the latter), apart from a solitary but simultaneous mention in Flight, 3 May 1913, 496:
Having arranged to fly at Aaran in the interest of the Swiss National Aviation Fund to which £16,000 has already been subscribed, Oscar Bider flew over from Berne on his Blériot tandem on the 22nd ult., in 45 mins.
This confirms what was already apparent from the name, that the Swiss National Aviation Fund was an effort to raise funds to buy aircraft, 'pour la Patrie', for the Fatherland, presumably for military purposes. (It seems to have been reissued during the First World War, in which Switzerland of course was neutral, but in need of aircraft more than ever.) Similar efforts were then underway in Britain and the Dominions, such as the Britannia Airship Committee and the Imperial Air Fleet Committee, and during the recent airship panic the Navy League had tried to get British municipalities to volunteer funds to buy aircraft for their own defence -- though I suspect none were as successful as the Swiss National Aviation Fund, if the report in Flight is correct.
All that may help explain the presence of this image in Review of Reviews, but it doesn't explain the image itself, a photograph of a sculpture, probably in clay, by the Italian Domenico Mastroianni. All I can offer is that the woman with the sword and the cross on her breast is Helvetia, the national personification of Switzerland. The grouping of her with the horses almost seems like a statue group; perhaps it is a reference to a well-known depiction, but I haven't been able to find it. Like Helvetia herself, the horses also seem to pull the image away from modernity into a classical past, which is contrary to how you'd expect such a radical new technology to be portrayed -- on the Italian side of the Alps, the even newer literary and artistic movement, Futurism, was filled with images of aviation precisely because it was such a break with the past. But perhaps that was the point of this image -- maybe by classicising the aeroplane and relating it to safe and familiar forms of patriotism and strength it reassured the viewer that the traditional virtues and mores would not be overturned along with transportation and warfare. It this context it might be noted that the British committees and leagues referred to earlier all had, in that typical Edwardian way, aristocratic patrons: Lord Desborough was president of the Imperial Air Fleet Committee, for example. It's a more subtle way of giving the same assurance, that the social order will be upheld.
It's still a bizarre image, though. And it must be pointed out that 3 hp is woefully underpowered for an aeroplane, even in 1913.
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History.]
Above is a poster printed in Australia during the First World War. It very strikingly shows a Zeppelin caught in searchlights (with an aeroplane just visible at the top) over what looks like a town nestled in a valley beside a river. The text reads:
ZEPPELINS OVER YOUR TOWN ON ________
"COME TO OUR DUGOUT"
No Charge
It was pointed out to me by Peter Taylor, who found it in the Imperial War Museum's collections and noted that it seems unusual for a Zeppelin to feature in Australian propaganda. So what's going on here?
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Previously I looked at Excubitor's claim that in 1913 the Anglo-German naval race was turning into a more dangerous aero-naval one, and that Britain, having won the first was now in the process of losing the other. Here I'll look at some related strands of thought in the press more generally, and what the point of it all was.
Excubitor was not alone in suggesting that Germany was concentrating on airships to compensate for its inferiority in dreadnoughts. A leader in the Devon and Exeter Gazette, for example, drew on an article in Blackwood's Magazine by T. F. Farman (the journalist father of aviator Henri Farman), for its argument that Britain could not afford to be complacent:
Without impugning the sincerity of the German Chancellor's assurances, it is, nevertheless, permissible to inquire whether the alleged intention to abandon, for the time being, the project of creating a fleet equal in every respect to that of Great Britain cannot be accounted for by the creation of a German aerial fleet of dreadnoughts, which is at the present moment unrivalled, and which could, in the case of hostilities, render signal service in a naval engagement in the North Sea or English Channel, and be utilised for attack on ports, arsenals, etc. The Germans may be, indeed, justified in calculating that the proportion of ten to sixteen units is compensated for to a considerable extent by the aerial fleet they have already created, and which is being increased with extraordinary rapidity, both in the number of its units and in their power.1
Relatedly, and more commonly, there were a number of commentators who also pointed to the threat posed to Britain's decisive naval superiority by Germany's even more decisive air superiority, but stopped short of claiming that this was a continuation of the dreadnought race (though, arguably, this is implicit). So, for example, an anonymous 'naval expert' interviewed by the Daily Mirror said that
'I think that the strength of the British fleet is unchallengeable [...] if you have regard solely to the old conditions of warfare -- that is to say, that we have a comfortable margin of superiority ship for ship.
'Naval science, however, has recently made such rapid progress that it is not now merely a question of sea ship for sea ship; but sea ship plus the air fleet. Bear that in mind, and you will realise the gravity of the present situation.
'The plain fact is that while Germany can come over and attack us by air, we not only cannot attack Germany, but we have no air fleet to resist their attack.
'Our defence against an air attack by Germany is so insignificant as to be practically worthless.
'I believe that if Germany sent over half a dozen airships they could cripple if not destroy our battle fleet and blow up many of our fortresses, and having reduced us to a state of impotence and panic these airships could head for home again unscathed.2
John Ptak recently pinned a 1964 science fiction magazine cover depicting a ruined Statue of Liberty, predating the more famous ending of Planet of the Apes by four years. He wondered about earlier images along the same lines, and after a bit of digging I found not many at all. The above is the only example, but it turns out to be relevant to my interests. It's an American propaganda poster dating to 1918, appealing to the viewer to invest in the latest war bond issue. Lady Liberty is ruined all right -- her head and her torch have tumbled down beside her. Behind her New York City is burning, and the flames and their reflection in the harbour dominate the image. The cause of the destruction is presumably the aeroplanes which can be seen on either side of the Statue. A submarine is also sailing past, which may be responsible for the merchant vessels wrecked on Liberty Island.
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While searching for images to illustrate my Wartime article, I came across this German propaganda poster from 1918. It ultimately didn't make the cut but I think it's very interesting. The seaplane soaring into the top left of the poster is a Friedrichshafen FF.33; in fact it is the very one which scouted for the raider Wolf during its voyage into Australasian waters in 1917, Wölfchen ('Little wolf' or rather 'Wolf's cub'). But what about the two people in the lower right, cowering in fear before the swooping aeroplane? They appear to be stereotypical and somewhat racist images of Africans, or possibly Papuans. I suspect the latter. The Wolf came close to Africa twice, near the Cape of Good Hope on both its outbound and inbound legs, but it also sailed past Rabaul after preying on Allied shipping in the South Pacific. Rabaul would have had more resonance for Germans than South Africa, because it had been the capital of German New Guinea until 1914, when the Australians occupied the colony. So perhaps this poster should be seen as suggesting to the German public that Wolf's visit was a token of Germany's continuing claims in New Guinea and would soon return to reclaim its imperial possessions. And that it had reminded the natives who their real masters were.
But the poster had a more overt purpose, indicated by the text at the bottom: to advertise the Deutsche Luftkriegsbeute Ausstellung, or 'German air war booty exhibition', held in Munich sometime in 1918 (after February, when Wolf returned to Germany, and before November, presumably) along with associated military concerts. Presumably these were primarily propaganda exercises to rally the home front, but they may also have been used to raise funds for the war effort. However, I haven't been able to find much information about the exhibition, other than this poster and the rather striking ones below. (Apparently a pocket guide is still extant.)
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[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.]
In the published version of his 2008 Lord Trenchard Memorial Lecture, Richard Overy concluded that now
air power is projected for its potential political or moral impact. In Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan it is the political dividend that has been central to the exercise of air power, just as it was when Trenchard’s Independent Force flew against German cities in 1918 with the hope that a demoralised urban population might pressure the German government to make peace. In this sense it might be possible to argue, without stretching the history too far, that the RAF has begun to forge a new sense of identity in the past two decades more compatible with the traditions of Trenchardism.1
My interest here is in that last word, 'Trenchardism'. Overy nowhere defines it -- in fact, it's the only time it occurs in his article -- but as an airpower historian I have a pretty good idea what he means, despite the fact that it's actually a relatively uncommon term. Marshal of the Royal Air Force (as he ended up) Lord Trenchard is well-known for his belief in strategic bombing as a war-winning weapon, particularly through its effects on morale, and as the RAF's Chief of the Air Staff from 1919 to 1930 he was in a position to promote it. This sense of Trenchardism, something like Douhetism, seems straightforward enough, and it's the sense in which I've encountered it in the secondary literature.2 But here I'm interested in other uses of this word Trenchardism: specifically the way it is used in a a Wikipedia article of that name which was created recently by Jo Pugh of The National Archives, who invites additions and comments (as discussed on Twitter).3 There, Trenchardism is taken beyond simply an enthusiasm for bombing, indeed beyond the military sphere entirely. The dilemma is that in so doing it risks diluting Trenchardism past the point of usefulness. But equally, it highlights a contemporary understanding of Trenchardism which is very different to that we understand now. Are they reconcilable? And if not, which should we prefer?
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The phantom airships seen over Britain in the early months of 1913 had their counterparts in Europe. It's hard to reconstruct what happened from the scattered references in English-language sources, but it seems that far fewer were seen than in Britain, even in toto. Here are the ones I've been able to find mentioned in the British press.
[...] the Brussels correspondent of the Central News telegraphs that the newspapers of that city state that for several nights past [prior to 26 February 1913] mysterious dirigibles have been carrying out evolutions over Peperinghe [sic], in West Flanders. The airships are believed to have come from the French frontier, and one of them is said to have been followed by a motor car fitted with a searchlight, which was flashed at times, apparently to guide the dirigible.2
It is reported from Jassy, near the Russian frontier, that at eight o'clock last evening [29 February 1913] an aeroplane with powerful searchlight was observed over the town coming from the direction of Russia. It manœuvred over the town for ten minutes, afterwards making towards the barracks. Troops were ordered out, and signals were made to the aviator to come down. The command was not obeyed, and two guns were fired at the machine. The aviator immediately put out his lights and disappeared. The affair has caused a great sensation.3
According to the journal 'Slovo Palski' a Russian aeroplane, equipped with a searchlight, was seen manœuvring over Lemberg on Saturday evening. At Tarnopol (Galicia) likewise an aeroplane, making signals, was sighted over the town.4
Reuter's Berlin correspondent says that a detachment of the 8th Chasseurs of the Guard spent yesterday morning searching for the remains of a mysterious airship which, according to a story told by peasant women, caught fire, exploded, and fell to earth over the woods at Kaputh, near Potsdam, on Wednesday evening [12 March 1913] The women, who were positive they saw the disaster, reported it to the local authorities, who promptly telephoned for help. The Commandant of Potsdam set out with an ambulance column, with doctors and fifty Chasseurs. The fire brigades from Potsdam and other places in the neighbourhood hurried out and troops and firemen spent the night seeking in vain for the wreck of the airship. Yesterday morning another eighty Chasseurs took up the search without result. All the known airships were reported safe and sound in their various sheds. Nevertheless the women adhered to their story, and insisted that they saw the fire spread from one end of the ship to the other, then a sudden explosion occur, wrapping in flame the whole ship, which plunged headlong to the ground.5
Other countries had aerial visitors too: Russia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg. Around the start of February, the mayor of a village near Plock in Russian Poland claimed to have kidnapped one night by Austrian airmen and taken for a 60 mile flight, lashed to their aeroplane's fuselage. However, I haven't seen primary sources for any of these, only secondary ones, and ufological works at that -- albeit well-researched ones.6 At least these do draw on some contemporary French- and German-language newspapers, which is better than I can do as a monoglot. There could well be far more incidents than just these few.
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