Technology and War by van Creveld Martin

Author:van Creveld, Martin [Martin, van Creveld,]
Language: zho
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2010-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

Command of the Air

SINCE THE DREAM of man soaring like a bird dates back at least to Biblical times, the beginning of the beginning of aviation is shrouded in more obscurity than that of most technological devices. Nor is it merely a question of deciding who built the first flying device, when, where, and how. The real problem is to decide exactly what is meant by such a device. Depending on the definition selected, one might include under the rubric of flying devices—imaginary or real—the wings that Daedalus allegedly made for himself and for his son Icarus; the contraption which Eylmer the Lame, a late eleventh-century monk from Canterbury, apparently built in order to leap from a cathedral tower; and of course the famous ornithopter, or flying machine with flapping wings, which Leonardo sketched in his secret notebooks. A complete catalogue of these devices would probably show that, throughout recorded history, hardly a century has passed which did not see somebody at work, somewhere, trying to translate the dream into reality. Most of these attempts were destined to remain on paper, mere dreams based on science, religion, or magic. Those that got beyond this stage often ended when the inventor suffered a few broken bones, or fell to his death.

For practical purposes, the history of aviation starts in 1783. It was in that year that the brothers Montgolfier, manufacturers of paper in Lyons, France, first built a hot-air balloon large enough to carry one or two men. A few months later, another Frenchman, J. A. C. Charles, constructed and flew the first hydrogen-filled balloon, the principles of which have barely been altered to the present day. News about these inventions caused an immediate sensation. The year had not come to an end before a tract published in Amsterdam engaged in speculations concerning the use of “flying globes” for military purposes, specifically the capture of Gibraltar from the English. During the Napoleonic wars, a great many pamphlets were brought out containing detailed descriptions of the employment of balloons for military purposes. Often these pamphlets were accompanied by printed illustrations showing huge hot air or hydrogen-filled flying devices crossing the English channel and landing entire units of the Grande Armée, complete with their horses and guns.

These sanguine hopes notwithstanding, during most of the nineteenth century the use of aerostatic, or lighter-than-air, devices for military purposes remained marginal at best. Against the Austrian-Prussian forces at Valmy in 1792, and possibly on one or two other occasions, the French put aloft a couple of balloons to observe the enemy armies. Apparently the balloons were not considered very successful, for Napoleon a few years later decided against keeping a balloon unit on his establishment. During the American Civil War, too, both sides sometimes employed tethered balloons for observation. During the siege of Paris in 1871 a few dozen balloons were manufactured and used to take mail and people out of the city—among them future premier Leon Gambetta. These experiments demonstrated the possibilities of balloons as

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