THE BALLOON IN WAR
Of recent years the balloon has been developed into the dirigible, the flying machine that can be steered and directed. Made effective by Count Zeppelin and others, its possibilities as an aid in war were quickly perceived. Then came the notable invention of the Wright Brothers, and after 1904 the aeroplane quickly expanded into an effective aerial instrument, the probably serviceableness of which in war was evident to all. Here we are tempted to stop and quote the remarkable prediction from Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall,” the truth of which is now being so strikingly verified:
“For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder storm;
Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.”