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The Zeppelin: Threat or menace?
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A century ago, Americans saw war looming on the horizon. In an earlier article, I commented on a New York Press cartoon by Floyd Triggs, which suggested that Britain and Russia were on the brink of war. While war would break out five years later, the two empires were allies against the German, Austrian, and Ottoman empires.
The Los Angeles Times cartoonist saw Germany’s latest development in air travel, the Zeppelin dirigible, as a major threat to world peace. He was right to see Germany as a potential aggressor, and that airships would be used militarily. But while the Zeppelin raids over Britain frightened and occasionally killed British civilians, they were not very effective in destroying military targets.
A brief article which appeared in the September 21, 1909 Truth gave no indication of the military application of airships:
Berlin, Sept. 21—If present expectations are fulfilled Germany will have dirigible balloons and aeroplanes carrying passengers between Berlin and the principal cities of the empire by May, 1910. The Air Navigation company, which is to perform this service, is being actively supported, and at least twenty financial institutions and men of wealth have subscribed to the company’s stock.
It is not expected to make money from the start, but the hope is entertained that it will be possible to cover expenses from the tourist and other travel. The company has arranged to buy Zeppelin, Parseval and Gross dirigible balloons, as well as some of the Wright aeroplanes, if these machines can be adapted to long cross-country trips.
Several of the men interested in this new company are shareholders in the in the company that acquired the Wright patents for Germany.
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin had been interested in balloon travel ever since 1863, when he was a military observer with the Union army during the American Civil War, and had seen a Balloon Corps unit. Upon his retirement from the military in 1890 he began planning earnestly to build a fleet of airships.
The first Zeppelin was built on a floating factory on Lake Constance in southern Germany. Its first flight, on July 2, 1900, lasted only 18 minutes because of mechanical problems. Subsequent flights were successful, but investors were unwilling to invest more money, so von Zeppelin’s dream of airship travel was put on hold.
By 1908 the dream was alive again. The army and navy were interested in airships, while the Air Navigation Company (DELAG) placed orders.
The cartoonist’s fears of the Zeppelin as a weapon were realized during the First World War, when the dirigibles were used for scouting and as bombers. They were most successful in reconnaissance, tracking the movement of British ships and assisting minesweeping operations. As bombers, the dirigibles were less successful, especially toward the end of the war when British fighter planes and antiaircraft guns became more effective. During the course of the war Zeppelins dropped 5806 bombs, resulting in 557 deaths and 1,358 injuries, and causing an estimated £1.5 million in damage. But of the 84 airships built during the war, over 60 were lost to accidents and enemy action.
The Zeppelin raids were frightening for the British people: the giant Zeppelin hovering over London in the 1970s BBC drama “Upstairs, Downstairs” and a more recent "Young Indiana Jones" episode vividly show the terror of the raids. And fear was perhaps the Zeppelin's greatest weapon.
Source: Wikipedia
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