THE BEGINNING OF
MILITARY BALLOONING.
MANY articles have appeared on this subject, but they are mostly concise compilations as to the dates of the employment of war balloons, and there is yet wanting a more simple and systematic arrangement of the order and particulars under which the respective balloons figured in early aëronautic history.
I have endeavoured to supply these requirements and to add a few practical and critical observations as to the merits and faults of the various equipments and plans from an aëronautic standpoint; as this kind of treatment may interest military aëronauts, and assist civilians who are studying the matter, and it may also prove more attractive to general readers who like to know what professional men have to say (in friendly rivalry) as to the ideas of naval and military officers, who have devoted attention to ballooning.
On the other hand military men, the young especially, who are apt to conclude that veterans know very little compared with modern tacticians, may find that in this speciality they are somewhat mistaken, and that ballooning is not to be “picked up,” so to speak, without having a regular and legitimate schooling in an art which so very few understand.
“One science only will one genius fit,
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.”
The inventive genius of the French may be traced no less than their intrepidity in their early efforts to apply the balloon to purposes of warfare.