Aerial Navigation.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 8, 1 June 1907, Page 294

Aerial Navigation.

The fascination of forecasting the political effects of projected scientific developments has just claimed an eminent victim, in the person of Professor Rudol Martin, a German savant and writer of Buropean celebrity. The professor has convinced himself that the problems of aereal navigation are so certain of triumphant solution in the immediate future, that by 1910 airships will be travelling about the world with the untrammelled freedom of swallows and something more than the speed of our fastest express trains. Proceeding from this hypothesis he has formulated and elaborated a theory from the German view point of the changes which the new agency of transit may be expected to work in the comity of nations ; and he has published his conclusions in a book — "From Berlin to Bagdad " — which has excited great interest among German naval and military experts, and has caused somewhat of a sensation in Great Britain. Naturally, Professor Martin's theme is mainly concerned with the military uses and advantages of air ships. He assumes that all the nations will start building aerial fleets from the first moment practicable, in his opinion 1910. He then points out what he considers the overwhelming military advantages possessed by Germany in this new struggle for supremacy. Germany starts on a level with her rivals in the race ; she has therefore no lee-way to make up, as in her attempt to wrest the sovereignty of the sea from Britain. Britain, of course, and other countries may build aerial fleets equal to hers ; but Britain does not possess the great army without which it will be impossible to follow up the victories won by flying squadrons. Germany alone can do that and, granted that she can once obtain aerial supremacy, she could instantly overwhelm her enemies with millions of troops conveyed to any point she pleased by her flying transports. Throughout his book the professor deliberately directs his attention to Britain as Germany's ratural enemy and destined victim. Mr. W. T. Stead, on the other hand, considers that the development of the aeroplane will supply the convincing and compelling argument which is the only thing wanting for the universal agreement to substitute arbitration for war. He rejoices that the introduction of so deadly an element must abolish war, as it was abolished among the tribes of Central America, according to Warterton and Humbolt, by the discovery of a specially deadly poison with which arrows were coated.