English

DTIC ADA529474: Expectation and Reality. The Great War in the Air

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

Sign in with your free account to read, download EPUBs or listen.