The German Emperor Watching the Progress of Aviation

The use of air craft as military auxiliaries is not new. As early as 1812 the Russians, before retreating from Moscow, attempted to drop bombs from balloons: an attempt carried to success by Austrian engineers in 1849. Both contestants in our own War of Secession employed captive and drifting balloons. President Lincoln organized a regular aeronautic auxiliary staff in which one Lowe held the official rank of chief aeronaut. This same gentleman (who had accomplished a reconnaissance of 350 miles in eight hours in a 25,000 cubic foot drifting balloon) was subjected to adverse criticism on account of a weakness for making ascents while wearing the formal “Prince Albert” coat and silk hat! A portable gas-generating plant was employed by the Union army. We are told that General Stoneman, in 1862, directed artillery fire from a balloon, which was repeatedly fired at by the enemy, but not once hit. The Confederates were less amply equipped. Their balloon was a patchwork of silk skirts contributed (one doubts not, with patriotic alacrity) by the daughters of the Confederacy.

It is not forgotten that communication between besieged Paris and the external world was kept up for some months during 1870-71 by balloons exclusively. Mail was carried on a truly commercial scale: pet animals and—the anticlimax is unintended—164 persons, including M. Gambetta, escaped in some sixty-five flights. Balloons were frequently employed in the Franco-Prussian contest; and they were seldom put hors de combat by the enemy.

During our war with Spain, aerial craft were employed in at least one instance, namely, at San Juan, Porto Rico, for reconnoitering entrenchments. Frequent ascents were made from Ladysmith, during the Boer war. The balloons were often fired at, but never badly damaged. Cronje’s army was on one occasion located by the aid of a British scout-balloon. Artillery fire was frequently directed from aerial observations. Both sides employed balloons in the epic conflict between Russia and Japan.

A declaration introduced at the second international peace conference at the Hague proposed to prohibit, for a limited period, the discharge of projectiles or explosives from flying machines of any sort. The United States was the only first-class power which endorsed the declaration. It does not appear likely, therefore, that international law will discountenance the employment of aerial craft in international disputes. The building of airships goes on with increasing eagerness. Last year the Italian chamber appropriated $5,000,000 for the construction and maintenance of flying machines.

A press report dated February 4 stated that a German aeronaut had been spending some weeks at Panama, studying the air currents of the Canal Zone. No flying machine may in Germany approach more closely than within six miles of a fort, unless specially licensed. At the Krupp works in Essen there are being tested two new guns for shooting at aeroplanes and dirigibles. One is mounted on an armored motor truck. The other is a swivel-mounted gun on a flat-topped four-wheeled carriage.

The United States battleship Connecticut cost $9,000,000. It displaces 18,000 tons, uses 17,000 horse-power and 1000 men, and makes twenty miles an hour. An aeroplane of unusual size with nearly three times this speed, employing from one to three men with an engine of 100 horse-power, would weigh one ton and might cost $5000. A Dreadnought costs $16,000,000, complete, and may last—it is difficult to say, but few claim more than ten years. It depreciates, perhaps, at the rate of $2,000,000 a year. Aeroplanes built to standard designs in large quantities would cost certainly not over $1000 each. The ratio of cost is 16,000 to 1. Would the largest Dreadnought, exposed unaided to the attack of 16,000 flying machines, be in an entirely enviable situation?

An aeroplane is a fragile and costly thing to hazard at one blow: but not more fragile or costly than a Whitehead torpedo. The aeroplane soldier takes tremendous risks; but perhaps not greater risks than those taken by the crew of a submarine. There is never any lack of daring men when daring is the thing needed.

All experience goes to show that an object in the air is hard to hit. The flying machine is safer from attack where it works than it is on the ground. The aim necessary to impart a crippling blow to an aeroplane must be one of unprecedented accuracy. The dirigible balloon gives a larger mark, but could not be immediately crippled by almost any projectile. It could take a good pounding and still get away. Interesting speculations might be made as to the outcome of an aerial battle between the two types of craft. The aeroplane might have a sharp cutting beak with which to ram its more cumbersome adversary, but this would involve some risk to its own stability: and the balloon could easily escape by a quick ascent. It has been suggested that each dirigible would need an aeroplane escort force for its defense against ramming. Any collision between two opposing heavier-than-air machines could not, it would seem, be other than disastrous: but perhaps the dirigible could rescue the wrecks. Possibly gas-inflated life buoys might be attached to the individual combatants. In the French manoeuvers, a small aeroplane circled the dirigible with ease, flying not only around it, but in vertical circles over and under it.

The French war office has exploited both types of machine. In Germany, the dirigible has until recently received nearly all the attention of strategists: but the results of a recent aerial war game have apparently suggested a change in policy, and the Germans are now, without neglecting the balloon, actively developing its heavier-than-air competitor. England seems to be muddled as to its aerial policy, while the United States has been waiting and for the most part doing nothing. Now, however, the mobilizations in Texas have been associated with a considerable amount of aeroplane enthusiasm. A half-dozen machines, it is expected, will soon be housed in the aerodrome at San Antonio. Experiments are anticipated in the carrying of light ammunition and emergency supplies, and one of the promised manoeuvers is to be the locating of concealed bodies of troops by air scouts. Thirty army officers are to be detailed for aeroplane service this year; five training schools are to be established.

If flying machines are relatively unsusceptible to attack, there is also some question as to their effectiveness in attack. Rifles have been discharged from moving balloons with some degree of accuracy in aim; but long-range marksmanship with any but hand weapons involves the mastery of several difficult factors additional to those present in gunnery at sea. The recoil of guns might endanger stability; and it is difficult to estimate the possible effects of a powerful concussion, with its resulting surges of air, in the immediate vicinity of a delicately balanced aerial vessel.

But aside from purely combative functions, air craft may be superlatively useful as messengers. To send despatches rapidly and without interference, or to carry a general 100 miles in as many minutes—these accomplishments would render impossible the romance of a “Sheridan’s Ride,” but might have a romance of their own. With the new sense added to human equipment by wireless communication, the results of observations may be signaled to friends over miles of distance without intervening permanent connections of however fragile a nature.

Flying machines would seem to be the safest of scouts. They could pass over the enemy’s country with as little direct danger—perhaps as unobserved—as a spy in disguise; yet their occupants would scarcely be subjected to the penalty accompanying discovery of a spy. They could easily study the movements of an opposing armed force: a study now frequently associated with great loss of life and hampering of effective handling of troops. They could watch for hostile fleets with relatively high effectiveness (under usual conditions), commanding distant approaches to a long coast line at slight cost. From their elevated position, they could most readily detect hostile submarines threatening their own naval fleet. Maximum effective reconnaissance in minimum time would be their chief characteristic: in fact, the high speeds might actually constitute an objection, if they interfered with thorough observation. But if air craft had been available at Santiago in 1898, Lieutenant Blue’s expedition would have been unnecessary, and there would have been for no moment any doubt that Admiral Cervera’s fleet was actually bottled up behind the Morro. No besieged fortress need any longer be deprived of communication with—or even some medical or other supplies from—its friends. Suppose that Napoleon had been provided with a flying machine at Elba—or even at St. Helena!

The applications to rapid surveying of unknown ground that have been suggested as possible in civil life would be equally possible in time of war. Even if the scene of conflict were in an unmapped portion of the enemy’s territory, the map could be quickly made, the location of temporary defenses and entrenchments ascertained, and the advantage of superior knowledge of the ground completely overcome prior to an engagement. The searchlight and the compass for true navigation on long flights over unknown country would be the indispensable aids in such applications.

During the current mobilization of the United States Army at Texas, a dispatch was carried 21 miles on a map-and-compass flight, the round trip occupying less than two hours and being made without incident. The machine flew at a height of 1500 feet and was sighted several miles off.

A dirigible balloon, it has been suggested, is comparatively safe while moving in the air, but is subjected to severe strains when anchored to the ground, if exposed. It must have either safe harbors of refuge or actual shelter buildings—dry docks, so to speak. In an enemy’s country a ravine or even a deep railway cut might answer in an emergency, but the greatest reliance would have to be placed on quick return trips from a suitable base. The balloon would be, perhaps, a more effective weapon in defense than in attack. Major Squier regards a flying height of one mile as giving reasonable security against hostile projectiles in the daytime. A lower elevation would be sufficient at night. Given a suitable telephotographic apparatus, all necessary observations could easily be made from this altitude. Even in the enemy’s territory, descent to the earth might be possible at night under reasonably favorable conditions. Two sizes of balloon would seem to be indicated: the scouting work described would be done by a small machine having the greatest possible radius of action. Frontiers would be no barrier to it. Sent from England in the night it could hover over a Kiel canal or an island of Heligoland at sunrise, there to observe in most leisurely fashion an enemy’s mobilizations.

At the London meeting of the Institute of Naval Architects, in April, 1911, the opinion was expressed that the only effective way of meeting attack from a flying machine at sea would be by a counter-attack from the same type of craft. The ship designers concluded that the aeroplane would no more limit the sizes of battleships than the torpedo has limited them.

For the more serious work of fighting, larger balloons would be needed, with net carrying capacities perhaps upward from one ton. Such a machine could launch explosives and combustibles against the enemy’s forts, dry docks, arsenals, magazines, and battleships. It could easily and completely destroy his railroads and bridges; perhaps even his capital itself, including the buildings housing his chief executive and war office staff. Nothing—it would seem—could effectually combat it save air craft of its own kind. The battles of the future may be battles of the air.

There are of course difficulties in the way of dropping missiles of any great size from flying machines. Curtiss and others have shown that accuracy of aim is possible. Eight-pound shrapnel shells have been dropped from an aeroplane with measurably good effect, without upsetting the vessel; but at best the sudden liberation of a considerable weight will introduce stabilizing and controlling difficulties. The passengers who made junketing trips about Paris on the ClÉment-Bayard complained that they were not allowed to throw even a chicken-bone overboard! But it does not seem too much to expect that these purely mechanical difficulties will be overcome by purely mechanical remedies. An automatic venting of a gas ballonet of just sufficient size to compensate for the weight of the dropped shell would answer in a balloon: a similar automatic change in propeller speed and angle of planes would suffice with the aeroplane. There is no doubt but that air craft may be made efficient agents of destruction on a colossal scale.

A Swedish engineer officer has invented an aerial torpedo, automatically propelled and balanced like an ordinary submarine torpedo. It is stated to have an effective radius of three miles while carrying two and one-half pounds of explosive at the speed of a bullet. One can see no reason why such torpedoes of the largest size are not entirely practicable: though much lower speeds than that stated should be sufficient.

According to press reports, the Krupps have developed a non-recoiling torpedo, having a range exceeding 5000 yards. The percussion device is locked at the start, to prevent premature explosion: unlocking occurs only after a certain velocity has been attained.

Major Squier apparently contends that the prohibition of offensive aerial operations is unfair, unless with it there goes the reciprocal provision that a war balloon shall not be fired at from below. Again, there seems to be no good reason why aerial mines dropped from above should be forbidden, while submarine mines—the most dangerous naval weapons—are allowed. Modern strategy aims to capture rather than to destroy: the manoeuvering of the enemy into untenable situations by the rapid mobilization of troops being the end of present-day highly organized staffs. Whether the dirigible (certainly not the aeroplane) will ever become an effective vehicle for transport of large bodies of troops cannot yet be foreseen.

Differences in national temper and tradition, and the conflict of commercial enterprise, perhaps the very recentness of the growth of a spirit of national unity on the one hand, are rapidly bringing the two foremost powers of Europe into keen competition: a competition which is resulting in a bloodless revolution in England, necessitated by the financial requirements of its naval program. Germany, by its strategic geographical position, its dominating military organization, and the enforced frugality, resourcefulness, and efficiency of its people, possesses what must be regarded as the most invincible army in the world. Its avowed purpose is an equally invincible navy. Whether the Gibraltar-Power can keep its ascendancy may well be doubted. The one doubtful—and at the same time perhaps hopeful—factor lies in the possibilities of aerial navigation.