Sir H. Maxim on Invasion.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 8, 1 June 1909, Page 262

Sir H. Maxim on Invasion.

The scare which followed Sir Hiram Maxim's declaration that the Germans could transport an army of 50,000 men into Britain on airships without the slightest hope of successful resistance by the British seems to have been caused oy a lecture delivered before the American Chemical Society on "The Warfare of the Future". On that occasion Sir Hiram said a good many other things, giving the weight of his authority to the belief that the flying machine of both kinds is destined to play a very important part in war. He said : — "Now that the flying machine has become an actuality, and as all that now remains to be done is to perfect already existing means and apparatus in order to complete the conquest of the air, it is well to forecast some of the adjustments that will be necessary to meet the changed conditions when we shall have our aenai navies of commerce and of war. That the flying machine will find very wide application in future warfare there can be no doubt. Furthermore, it will be the demand for the flying machine as an engine of war that will give to the industry its greatest stimulus. Some terrible things have been predicted for the flying maclime as a war engine. Many a sanguine inventor has claimed that with the advent of his flying machine battleships, coast fortifications, and cities could be utterly destroyed by dropping dynamite from the air. It is comforting to know that no very great loss of life or property would result from dynamite dropped from llying machines, for the reason that dynamite requires confinement to work very wide destruction. The flying machine will have very great use in war as a scouting craft for the purpose of locating an enemy and inspecting his position; but the enemy will have his aerial picket out too, and there will be many a tilt in the air between the warring craft. Then it will be that speed will count for much, and there will be intense rivalry between the nations in the production of flymg machines that will fly fast and fly high, for those able to fly the highest will have a tremendous advantage over their enemies. It will be high flyers that will win. In the not distant future we shall have our automobiles of the air, and in the wars of the future we shall have our aerial battleships, our cruisers, our tcrpedo-boats, and torpedo-boat destroyers. Although the value of the flying machine in future wars will be mainly as a scouting craft, still its value and importance for that service alone is hard to over-estimate for the flying machine vedettes will be at once the eyes and ears of the armies of the future ; and they will have their use in naval warfare too.