The War In The Air: H.G. Wells

[poliphilo]

Wells (in 1907) thought a world war would bring about the collapse of civilisation as we know it.  He was soon proved wrong, of course. He was also wrong about air war rendering ground-based armies obsolete- which is odd because- while he foresaw the horrors of aerial bombarment- he also realised you couldn't conquer and subdue a population simply by dropping bombs on it.

The book has lost its interest as prophecy but survives as entertainment. It is- I suppose- the grandaddy of steam punk. A little cockney cad- not unlike Kipps or Mr Polly- gets caught up in the drama of the breaking of nations and comes out the far side as a thin-lipped gun-slinger. There are air-ships. Lots of them. And aeroplanes with flapping wings piloted by Japanese swordsmen. 

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Interesting that he was wrong about air war and its consequences, but then so were -- and are -- many military men, from those who mocked Billy Mitchell down to the present day.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He thought in terms of vast invasion fleets of airships- supported by primitive fighter planes. I suppose it wasn't a bad guess for 1907. His account of the aerial bombing of New York rings true.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

No, not a bad guess at all, really. When the Nazis bombed England and the Allies bombed them back, it was done with vast fleets of bombers supported by fighter escorts. I think they previously intended something similar with dirigibles.

[sovay]

He was also wrong about air war rendering ground-based armies obsolete

Kipling assumed something similar about transport and trade in "With the Night Mail"; it's either airships or submersibles, nothing that runs overland or on the surface of the sea, whereas as far as I can tell from humans in real life, they use as many different technologies as are available to them unless something becomes either genuinely impractical or not cool enough.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

People went a bit airship crazy in the noughties of the last century.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

You say crazy - I say inspired :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Airships are cool!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Wells (in 1907) thought a world war would bring about the collapse of civilisation as we know it.

He was kind of right. The post-WWI world, and the post-WWI view of war in general, is vastly different than pre-WWI. It DID provide a collapse of civilization, with a different, better-in-many-ways civilization replacing it.

Well, maybe "collapse" is too strong a word. And the world he was imagining would replace it turned out differently.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

His war in the air is more like WWII than WWI- though it's not very much like either.

His model for the collapse of civilisation was the fall of the Roman Empire. In his post-war world people no longer possess any advanced technology and have reverted to a primitive, peasant lifestyle.