...st of war will break down all conventions.6 I will remind the House of the instance which I gave a few weeks ago of the preparations that are being made in the case of bombing with gas, a material forbidden by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. To go a little more closely home, let me remind the House of the Declaration of London, which was in existence in 1914, and which was whittled away bit by bit until the last fragment dropped into the sea in the e...
...et from a high altitude is a factor making for indiscriminate bombing. For instance, a variation of 6 m.p.h. in the speed of an aeroplane travelling at a speed of 120 m.p.h. and at an altitude of 15,000 feet can make a difference of 80 yards in the the position where the bomb falls. As wind pressure and other factors cause constant variations of speed, it is practically impossible to consider accurate aiming from this altitude.3 An uncommon claim,...
...interesting for three reasons. The first reason is that it's a very early instance of the idea of air control, using airpower to subdue colonial unrest. The classic example of air control was in the Iraq mandate in the 1920s, which was inspired by the RAF's success in 1920 in helping to end the revolt in Somaliland of Abdullah Hassan (the 'Mad Mullah'), a revolt which had been causing the British grief since the last days of Victoria's reign. But...
...and, but, like France, a Continental Power in Asia and in Africa, and many instances the frontiers of France and England marched. Let the French make it possible for them to menace those frontiers, and the sayings of their diplomatists would have far greater weight than they had to-day.6 Again, after Fashoda it's not to Europe that Britain's new connections are linking; it's to its empire in Africa and Asia. A couple of months later, the Taunton C...
...e recovery of American faith in British chances against Nazi Germany': For instance, the British are now being "cut in" on future production of the huge Flying Fortress type of American bomber. The showing made by the much-praised R.A.F. furnishes the grounds for this step adopted by the army authorities Hitherto these authorities, recalling how American planes destined for France had fallen by the hundreds into Nazi hands, were reluctant to make...
...projects are often started during the camp, or tools written, or software installed. The first THATCamp was held at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in Virginia in 2008; last year there were 17 held around the world, including one in Canberra. Melbourne's is being held at the University of Melbourne, where I work and near where I live, so it would be hard to justify not going! But the truth is that I did have qualms...
...refuge in a sparsely populated part of British Colonial territory. Having installed themselves in a planter's house (and murdered the planter and his staff!) they proceeded to erect the stolen aircraft with the intention of conveying (and ultimately disposing of) the booty to various destinations.7 The RAF is sent in to put a stop to this with a mixed force of fighters, bombers (the Horsleys are seen above), and troop carriers. As one of the pira...
...elling towards her, and seemed to swerve up and down like sea waves for an instant, and then disappear downwards'; yet (rather contradictorially) 'the light was unlike a star', and could not have been a meteor because it 'travelled horizontally towards her in waves'. Though Morris sought confirmation, there are no other reports from other witnesses. Morris reports that 'Miss Moir is not, however, an hysterical person', and believes that 'there is...
...equenting place', and 'Each tree should carefully be searched for wireless installation', since 'A wire run up a tree suffices for transmitting & receiving messages'. A mounted constable from Macarthur, J. C. Pickett, did investigate the site and talk to some of the locals, and his report is at NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, pages 181 and NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, 182, again with a typed copy at NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, pages 177 and 178. He found nobody...
...eing described as 'the most important of all' British forces in India, for instance), but he doesn't actually show us until very late in the novel.4 For example, the Allies learn that 'the air strength of the rebels was out of all proportion to their own', due to the success of the air strikes on the first day of the mutiny: It left the mutineers with a preponderance of 300 to 400 planes, including bombers and fighting machines, while the Allies m...
