ermany were the
rigid Zeppelin and the semi-rigid Parseval. The Zeppelin Company was
forbidden by the German Government to sell its ships to foreigners; but
negotiations for the purchase of a Parseval airship were successful. An
Astra-Torres non-rigid airship of about 400,000 cubic feet of capacity
was acquired from France in the course of the year 1913. In July of the
same year Mr. Winston Churchill, the then First Lord of the Admiralty,
who regularly gave his strong support to naval aeronautics, approved of
the construction of two rigid airships and six non-rigid airships.
Treasury sanction was obtained for this programme. The rigid airships
were to be built by Messrs. Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness. Of the six
non-rigids, three were to be of the Parseval type, and three of the
Forlanini type. One of the Parsevals was to be built in Germany, and two
by Messrs. Vickers, who had succeeded in obtaining a licence for the
construction of this type of ship; one of the Forlaninis was to be built
in Italy, and two by Messrs. Armstrong Whitworth. When the war broke
out, the Parseval airship completing in Germany was confiscated by the
German Government; and the Forlanini airship, under process of
construction in Italy, was retained by the Italian Government. The
building of one of the rigid airships had just begun, and work on it was
for a time abandoned. It is necessary thus to anticipate later events,
in order to show how it came about that no airships of the larger type,
suitable for distant reconnaissance with the fleet, were in the service
of Great Britain during the war.

The building and manoeuvring of airships is not a pastime within the
reach of a private purse. The British Government had taken advantage of
the enterprise and rivalry of private makers of aeroplanes, whom it
wisely permitted to run the risks and show the way. No such policy was
possible in the manufacture of airships, which is essentially a
Government business. There was therefore, it is perhaps not fanciful to
say, something agreeable to the German temper, and disagreeable to the
English temper, in the airship as a weapon of war. The Germans put an
absolute trust in their Government. Yet, after all, it is the spirit of
a people that matters; the most magnificent and exclusive of Government
organizations will fail through weakness if it is not ultimately based
on the voluntary efforts and ingrained habits of the people who stand
behind the Government and