The Zeppelins of World War I: The History and Legacy of Zeppelin Air Raids during the Great War

While airplanes had never before appeared above the field of war, other aerial vehicles had already been in use for decades, and balloons had carried soldiers above the landscape for centuries to provide a high observation point superior to most geological features. The French used a balloon for this purpose at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, and by the American Civil War, military hydrogen balloons saw frequent use, filled from wagons generating hydrogen from iron filings and sulfuric acid.

In fact, with advances in dirigible technology, many military thinkers and even aeronautical enthusiasts believed that blimps would remain the chief military aerial asset for the foreseeable future. These men thought airplanes would play a secondary role at best and might even prove a uselessly expensive gimmick soon to fade back into obscurity, leaving the majestic bulk of the dirigible as sole master of the skies.

The Zeppelins, slow and large as they were, proved to be easy targets for fire from the ground, so they were too vulnerable for reconnaissance in the warzone. Instead, they were used for the task of bombing targets. Bombs were dropped on Paris in August 1914, and Zeppelins bombed Belgian forces as the Germans advanced on Liège. The Germans also used them to bomb England’s eastern ports and London in an attempt to disrupt military supplies. On the other side, British pilots destroyed a Zeppelin on the ground at Düsseldorf. 

This was bombing at its simplest; the explosives were kept on hooks on the side of the machines and dropped by a crew member by hand. These small forays into aerial bombardment barely even hinted at the bombing campaigns to come, but Zeppelin raids on Britain would continue for nearly four years, killing more than 500 people and injuring 1,300. These raids and the attempts to stop them would be carried out at the cutting edge of new technology.