Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Since ancient times, warfare has been conducted both on land and at sea. Regular combat in
a third environment - the sky - is of much more recent origin. This map, dating from around
the turn of the 19th century, incorporates aspects of all three modes of conflict. It depicts
both the harbour of Brest in western Brittany, a major Atlantic-facing base for the French
navy, and a number of defences on land, notably the fortifications of the city of Brest itself.
The map's most striking feature, however, is the six balloons shown hovering over the wa-
ter. Three of these are dropping explosive devices upon French ships within the harbour. The
others sit poised above the open sea, taking their bearings from the British vessels at lower
left in preparation for a further attack.
The raid portrayed here (and described briefly in an accompanying note) was a purely hy-
pothetical operation. Great Britain did not actually launch any airborne attacks on France or
other countries during this period. This particular scheme was the brainchild of Charles Ro-
gier, a dancing master who lived in Chelsea, then on the outskirts of London. The son of an
English mother and French father, he considered himself a patriotic Briton and was a staunch
supporter of his country's armed forces. He was also a keen amateur inventor whose other
proposals included: a lighthouse, a whaling harpoon, a scheme for defending Gibraltar with
boiling water, a noiseless carriage, and a scheme for relieving the national debt.
Although certain details are Rogier's plan are fanciful - particularly his suggestion that
the explosives could be discharged by clockwork - most of the technology required for it lay
well within the bounds of possibility. Owing to the efforts of the Montgolfier brothers and
other pioneers, mainly in France, human pilots had successfully flown balloons powered by
both hot air and hydrogen during the 1780s. The French army had been quick to see the pos-
sibilities of ballooning. The earliest recorded use of aeronauts in European warfare was at the
Battle of Fleurus in 1794, although there the victorious French employed their balloon for
reconnaissance purposes and not for launching the 'spiked Rockets' or 'Chymical, inflam-
mable Liquids' that Rogier later envisaged.
The British did in fact deploy rockets against the French during the Napoleonic Wars, but
fired them only on land or from boats, never from the air. Nonetheless, the Secretary of State
for War and his staff apparently took Rogier's idea seriously enough to retain this map for
reference. The French Revolution and the subsequent regimes of the Republic and the Em-
peror Napoleon had prompted bitter conflict between France and Great Britain. In this polit-
ical context, the idea of using ballooning technology against the nation which had perfected
it must have been highly appealing to British leaders and officials. It is their foresight that
we have to thank for the survival of this map, the oldest in the archives to show a military
operation in the skies.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search