Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/18386
Title: | The Phantom Airship Panic of 1913: Imagining Aerial Warfare in Britain before the Great War | Contributor(s): | Holman, Brett (author)![]() |
Publication Date: | 2016 | DOI: | 10.1017/jbr.2015.173 | Handle Link: | https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/18386 | Abstract: | In late 1912 and early 1913, people all over Britain reported seeing airships in the night sky, yet there were none. It was widely assumed that these "phantom airships" were German Zeppelins, testing British defenses in preparation for the next war. The public and press responses to the phantom airship sightings provide a glimpse of the way that aerial warfare was understood before it was ever experienced in Britain. Conservative newspapers and patriotic leagues used the sightings to argue for a massive expansion of Britain's aerial forces, which were perceived to be completely outclassed by Germany's in both number and power. In many ways this airship panic was analogous to the much better known 1909 dreadnought panic. The result was the perfect Edwardian panic: the simultaneous culmination of older fears about Germany and the threat of espionage, invasion, and, above all, the loss of Britain's naval superiority. But, in reality, there was little understanding about the way that Zeppelins would be used against Britain in the First World War - not to attack its arsenals and dockyards, but to bomb its cities. | Publication Type: | Journal Article | Source of Publication: | Journal of British Studies, 55(1), p. 99-119 | Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | Place of Publication: | United Kingdom | ISSN: | 1545-6986 0021-9371 |
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: | 210305 British History | Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: | 430304 British history | Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: | 950504 Understanding Europe's Past | Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: | 130704 Understanding Europe’s past | Peer Reviewed: | Yes | HERDC Category Description: | C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal |
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Appears in Collections: | Journal Article School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences |
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