Page 108 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

108 airpower in 20 Century doCtrines and employment - national experienCes
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General Ludovico has reminded us of some of the flattering things that British and
US newspapers said about Italian aviation during the war. For instance, in 1917, the
“Times” stated that the courage of her aviators, the perfection of her aerial instruments,
the good disposition of her aviation organisation and the use which the command is
able to make of it, have brought Italy to the first place among the nations powerful in
the air, for she is the one that is able to gather the major fruits in this field.
At the same time as highlighting the extensive and flattering coverage of Italian
aviation in the British newspapers of the day, in his book Ludovico seems to hint that
the spectacular Italian bombing raids of 1917 might possibly have had some influ-
ence on the Smuts report. Whatever one’s view of this, it is a fact that Smuts (along
with a great many others in Britain) did admit to being very impressed by Italian
aviation, that his report was written at the height of the Italian bombing campaign,
and that the British press - and others - did use Italian achievements in the air to point
up what they saw as British deficiencies in aerial organisation and strategy.
Not surprisingly, Caproni, his aircraft and his ideas all featured prominently in
the coverage that British newspapers and aviation journals gave to Italian aviation
during WWI. An interview which Caproni gave to the “Petit Parisien” was reprinted
in the “Times” in Oct. 1917, under the heading “Possibilities of the Air: Aeroplane
raids as a decisive factor”. And another interview which Caproni gave to the “Auto”
was reprinted in the “Globe” in Nov. 1917. Caproni (who was a fine linguist) was re-
ported as saying: “Next spring we shall see a remarkable blossoming forth of Austro-
German effort. The rear will suffer equally with the front. Paris, Lyon, Le Creusot,
St. Etienne, St. Chamond, will be bombed with a frequency that we do not dream of
now, and in the same way the Allies will carry death and desolation into the enemy’s
country. But they ought not to lose a single minute.....It is aviation that will bring the
war to an end. Victory will go to the belligerent who first perfects his aerial army.
We must therefore speed up production. The enemy is on our heels and making tre-
mendous efforts to gain mastery of the air, without which victory in modern warfare
is nothing but a myth”.
In light of the above, it is not surprising that during WWI the British aeronauti-
cal community was very much interested in the bombers being made by Caproni
and used against Austria. And this interest produced many close contacts between
Caproni and British airmen, as is amply shown by copious references in the Caproni
diaries in Rome and in records held in Britain. I only intend to detail the most sig-
nificant of these contacts.
In December 1914, and on Caproni’s behalf, Arturo Mercanti (a respected avia-
tion pioneer) approached the British embassy in Rome, offering Britain the right to
manufacture Caproni bombers in exchange for raw materials. The military and na-
val attaches informed the War Office and Admiralty respectively and Mercanti was
cordially invited to London. And in January 1915 Mercanti visited the War Office,
although his visit was brief and without result.(By this time the French had already
applied for a licence to manufacture Caproni bombers).