AL. F. Wheeler's Circus Band

 

Coatesville, Pennsylvania

Record
11 March 1916 

 When The Circus Arrives 

How Wheeler Bros. Shows Operate

From Day to Day.

    When Wheeler Brothers’ Circus, which will open the season in Coatesville on April 22, arrives, the cook tent is the first to reach the show grounds.  It is the first one put up, and the circus man knows better than any other type how to enjoy substantial and plentiful food fresh from the kitchen.  From the moment of arrival everyone is continuously busy.  A few are eating, many working.  Canvas is laid out, the boss canvas man directing the laborers, the boss hostler hurrying the grooms and horses.  There are 26 bosses with this show, for all the many departments.  Men with mauls form quartettes and sextettes about points, and begin a rhythmic hammering of stakes into the ground.  A foreman with a keen eye superintends the jacking up of the huge center poles and hauling the canvas to the top.  Sidewalls are whipped in over the quarter poles as fast as the poles can be set, and even before one can marvel at the rapidity of it, the job is done.

    

    Then comes the parade, for no circus is a circus without a "grand street display." Schools are out, business suspended, sidewalks lined. When the parade has passed there is a rush to the circus grounds, the side show manager begins his leather lunged announcement while introducing his platform ballyhoo; the big outside, open air free act is over, the band plays until the cheeks of every musician seems inflated.  On with a grand opening tournamental pageant, and the big circus program is in full swing, and the three rings filled with so many wonderfully thrilling scenes and stunts that one would become cross-eyed to even try to absorb it all at one sitting.  One convincing explanation of this is the passing forever of the old-style one-ring show, because of the enormously increased railroad expense. The high cost of living and the increased salaries of union bill posters, musicians, agents; and the continuous fight for high-grade ring talent makes it absolutely necessary in protecting the financial investment to have a large enough seating capacity to clear the show, and more, because of weather conditions: all days are not sunshine.

    Matinee and night, and before the night is fully ended the menagerie tent is down and the brilliant cages, now all canvas covered, are on their way to “the runs."  Silently the big circus top swings itself back into the folds, and is loaded.  Before the sun has even started to rub its eyes for a new day the long show trains are away down the tracks, headed for the next town, where the scene of activity is repeated.  But it is worse than useless to attempt a full description of how a circus is handled.  Every detail is a story in itself.  

    It is the daily tearing down and building up of a white city that knows no home until it goes back again to Oxford, and settles down to the business of making ready for the next season.  Wheeler Brothers’ Circus, famous as the “Pennsylvania Show,” is well and favorably known throughout the East and South, and this season will make its first tour to the great Western country.

    

***

Twelve bandsmen pose outdoors next to a horse-drawn freight wagon. The men are are of various ages, most in their late 20s or 30s with a few aged 40+. With two clarinets and two drummers this brass band can barely pass as a concert band. Their uniforms are embellished with fancy embroidery but in a generic style that suggests they are off-the-rack mail ordered. The leader, standing third from left, holds both a baton and a cornet, but his garb is no different from his musicians. In the background we can see a few faces of onlookers, some canvas tents, and rope rigging. They are clearly a circus band, but the only clue to their identity is in a painted notice on the boxy wagon behind them.

Al. F. Wheeler's
New Model
SHOWS
   

Yet the best clues are in the message on the back of this postcard photo. It was never posted but sent in a letter as a gift. 

Harry "Doc" Richards
                                         Newark, NJ
With best wishes to my old
Pal " James"    this is our
band   I run double drums
inside & concert
yours   Sincerely
H Richards
Season 1915                                                           

Next to the postcard's stamp box is another clue, an imprint of the photographer made with an embossing seal which left reversed letters. Flipping the image reveals that the photo was produced by Westphal of Vineland, N. J.  That's a bit over 50 miles east, as a crow flies, from Oxford,  Pennsylvania, the home of circus impresario Alson (F.) Wheeler (1873–1957) and winter quarters for his circus, the so-called "Pennsylvania Show" described in the newspaper clipping above.  

Wheeler was born in Poestenkill, New York, a few miles east of Albany and the Hudson River. He was the youngest of a family of eight and saw his first circus, a wild animal menagerie, at age seven. Evidently this show inspired him to pursue a career in the world of circuses. After working in a few traveling shows he formed his own circus company in the fall of 1893. But this small one ring show did not last beyond its first season. 

In 1903 Wheeler, now 30 and with more business experience after working as secretary/treasurer in his family's ice business, started a second company. He called it "Al. F. Wheeler's Circus", adding an invented middle initial (his parents never gave him one) for a bit of genteel respectability, I suppose. Acts in this show performed in a single ring and there was an animal menagerie, too. In its first season the small company traveled by four wagon through New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and New Jersey. In 1906 the company became "Al. F. Wheeler's New Model Shows" and set up its winter quarters in a fairground at Oxford, PA where Wheeler would later move his family in 1908.

The Billboard
13 August 1910

Over the next few years, Wheeler expanded his circus by forming partnerships with other circus owners. In this era shows were constantly changing artists and often desperate to fill vacancies. Companies bought want-ads offering their employment needs in the entertainment trade weekly, The Billboard. In August 1910 Al. F. Wheeler's shows wanted an experienced "boss canvasman" to handle its tent equipment. They also wanted a "strong cornet and slide trombone", as well as a "good 'Cooch' dancer with A1 wardrobe and appearance", along with "sober workingmen in all departments." 

The larger show moved into two rings with more acts which necessitated traveling by train. By 1913 it had three rings and needed 30 train cars to carry the full show. The route now included North and South Carolina and Virginia. 

The following season Wheeler formed a combined circus called "Wheeler Bros. Greater Shows & Stampede Wild West". Beginning in Oxford on 18 April 1914, for six a days a week the company performed 157 dates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, New York, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, and South Carolina and even 4 towns in New Brunswick, Canada.    

Bernardsville NJ News
24 June 1915

In season 1915 when Harry "Doc" Richards sent his band's photo to his friend, Wheeler's circus was, possibly because of the new war in Europe, even though the United States was still a neutral bystander then, or more likely for financial economy, very much reduced. The company had returned to touring by wagon which, course, meant travel was slower and covered less distance. The circus spent hardly anything on advance publicity in the many small town newspapers on their route. 

The show opened first in Oxford. on Saturday 24 April 1915, with two performances at 2:00 and 8:00 for the circus's hometown folk. The acts included "Wheeler's dancing horses; Capt. Snider's wonderful trained wild animals; the peerless European wonders, the Cowden Troupe; Flossie La Blanch, the world's champion strong woman in her great feats of strength; Wheeler's troupe of highly educated trained ponies; and a host of funny clowns."  An outbreak of Foot-and-mouth disease in Pennsylvania had caused some concern after the state authorities restricted movement of livestock across state boundaries. But as it only afflicted cloven-hoofed animals like cattle, swine, and sheep, it didn't cause problems for the Wheeler show.

Vineland NJ Evening Journal
6 August 1915

By the end of July, Wheeler's circus show was in New Jersey but had changed from "Wheeler Bros. Greater Shows" back to "Al. F. Wheeler's New Model Shows." What this indicates about the business and relationships in the Wheeler family is unknown. Hyperbole and extravagant statements were a standard of show biz publicity then, just as it is now. Their 1915 tour didn't go as far as in 1914, but by mid-November somehow Wheeler's show made it to Littleton, North Carolina just below the Virginia state line. The local newspaper reported:   "Though the Wheeler Brothers Show was a small affair as to tents and external paraphernalia the entertainment was good. Big shows can boast of no better actors."

The next season of the Wheeler shows was pushed as bigger than ever before. It added more extravagant acts including one with seven polar bears. They toured by train covering many states but by October 1916 things didn't look good. A want-ad in The Billboard says a lot in between the lines.  

The Billboard
7 October 1916

Wheeler Bros.' New Model Shows

WANT Trap Drummer, Tuba and Slide for White Band. Assistant Boss Canvasman, Seat Man, two hustling Billposters.   FOR SALE—Best Five Elephant Act in America, all large animals; anybody can handle them. Also Troupe of Trained Ponies, Bucking Donk, Untamable Lion and other property now with Tompkins Wild West.   WANT TO BUY—small Trained Elephant, suitable for two-car show: Llama, Camels.       Address- Al. F. Wheeler 

Also (F.) Wheeler
(18 September — 14 May 1957)
Source: circusesandsideshows.com

Alson (F.) Wheeler would go on to manage several more circus shows around the country, earning a reputation as a "healer of sick circuses" after turning poor productions into successful touring shows. But no doubt he could see that sound films and radio were a growing force of entertainment in the country and the future of circus shows was in decline. Alson Wheeler retired in 1937 and went into a real estate business in Oxford, PA. where he died in 1957.

Could Alson F. Wheeler be the man in the straw hat
standing left behind the band?

 

What really intrigued me about this photo was the message on the back. Who in that group was Harry "Doc" Richards? Obviously he was a drummer but which one? After a lot of searching through the archives of Ancestry.com and several historic newspaper websites, I finally tracked him down. It came from his extra note next to his name at the top: "Newark, N. J." 

Harry was the son of Henry and Jane Richards of 815 Ridge St. in Newark, New Jersey. According to the very useful 1900 US Census, Henry Richards. age 48, was a "silversmith", born in England in 1852, who immigrated to America in 1866. His wife Jane, age 40, was born in Wales. Together they had three children: Florence, age 4; Grace, age 18; and Harry, age 22, whose occupation was "grocer". This meant Harry would be 37 years old in 1915 which matched the younger bass drummer, not the older snare drummer in the photo. 

Richards, Harry - trap drummer 
1922 Newark, NJ city directory

 

Furthermore Harry left enough bread crumbs in his personal history for me to find him again in Newark's 1922 city directory. He was living with his parents again on Ridge St. along with his sister Grace who worked as a "music teacher". Harry's occupation was a "trap drummer" (the standard drum kit played by a percussionist in jazz or pop bands is sometimes called a "trap set".) Also helpful was to see that a second Harry, Harry E. Richards, did not play drums.

Most helpful was Harry's 1918 draft card which confirmed his address in Newark, his father's name, and his occupation: "Musician (Show), Shannon Stock Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio, Road Show en-route." 

Further research connected Harry 'Doc' Richards to several circus and minstrel show bands, of which two are in my photo collection, so Harry may make a return in future stories. Harry was still working as a drummer in the 1930 census but by the 1940s seems to have retired. He kept up correspondence with reporters for The Billboard providing them with news or remembrance of old circus performers. I've been unable to find any end to his life but I think it fair to say Harry 'Doc' Richards was a true genuine trouper of the sawdust circuits. 

From its inception The Billboard provided a central hub for people involved in every kind of show business ranging from big city theatres to small town opera houses. It followed the vaudeville circuits and circus routes, reported on comics to dramatic artists, promoted acrobats to animal acts, and advertised suppliers of giant tents to band uniforms. 

In June 1915, as it did every month, The Billboard provided a list of the current routes and venues for every kind of entertainment group. There were 30 different professional bands on the road that month, from John Philip Sousa's Band playing in San Francisco to the Fadette Ladies Orchestra of Boston performing in Milwaukee. There were 11 minstrel show bands; 17 circuses & wild west shows; and 60 traveling carnivals. I'll skip the equally long lists of dramatic & musical variety shows, and repertoire and stock troupes that were also  on the road touring the continent. With few exceptions, every group used musicians in either a band or orchestra ensemble. The little band of Al. F. Wheeler's New Model Shows was just one of thousands of groups making America come alive with music. This is what Show Biz used to be like.    

One of America's lesser known great band composers was Charles E. Duble (1884–1960). He started as a trombonist in circus bands playing for the Gentry Brothers Dog and Pony Show, H. W. Campbell's United Shows, John Robinson's Big Ten Shows, Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, Sells-Floto Circus, Sparks, Robbins Brothers, the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show, Russell Bros. Circus, Downie Bros. Circus, and finally under the baton of Merle Evans, with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He went on to compose numerous works for band, many written specifically for professional circus bands that became known as "circus screamers." 

Charles Duble also once played in Wheeler's New Model Show Band. I can't confirm this yet, but from the few images I found online, he looks very like the trombonist standing behind Harry in my photo. 

Here is the Rancho Bernardo High School Royal Regiment of 90 pieces performing their competition march entitled Bravura by Charles E. Duble  at the 59th Annual Arcadia Festival of Bands Band Review in San Diego, CA on Saturday, November 17th 2012. They won the 1st place prize that year.

Duble composed this march in 1918
but I bet Harry Richards played it
many times during his career.
Even elephants would keep step to this march.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where some people would drive a long way

just to try out a new old pub.

Porch Music - The Band at Clear Lake, Iowa

 

 Cedar Rapids, Iowa
The Gazette
5 August 1907 

  With the Interviewer  

   “It seems to me that the larger brass bands throughout the country are losing much of their old time popularity, and I believe it is all their own fault,” said a gentleman at one of the local outdoor concerts recently.  “I am told that two or three of the big traveling bands have been forced to go out of business this season because they failed to draw crowds, and when a brass band can’t draw a crowd there is something wrong somewhere. 

    "In my opinion the trouble is in the music the bands are playing.  It doesn’t have enough ginger in it.  The leaders of the big bands, and some of the small ones, seem to have fallen into the idea that it is undignified or unprofessional to play popular music, or even marches with a ‘get up and git’ swing to them.  Go to almost any band concert nowadays and you will hear a program of classical overtures and grand opera music with high sounding d**o titles that the ordinary mortal cannot understand any more than he can understand the music when it is played.  The music drags along as though it would never end, and were it not for the fact that the drummer occasionally takes a smash at a Chinese gong or something of the kind the audience could hardly be kept awake.  

    "Why is it that a minstrel show band will always draw a crowd quicker and receive more applause than any other musical organization on earth?  It is simply because the crowd knows that this class of bands play nothing but fast music and every man blows his horn as if his life depended on how much noise he made.  This kind of music may not be classical and it may not be played correctly, but it is the kind the people like.  

    "I was up to Clear Lake a couple of days ago and attended a band concert that was given in one of the parks there by a local organization.  The park in the vicinity of the band stand was simply jammed with people, and everyone of them was there for no other purpose than to hear that little twenty piece band play.  I have heard all of the big ones in the country, but I want to say that I never heard a band concert in my life that I enjoyed as much as I did the music that was rendered by that little Clear Lake band.  They did not play popular music either, but the music they did play had a go to it that made the blood run a little faster in your veins.   Every man played as though he meant it, and at no time was two-thirds of the band sitting gazing out over the crowd while one or two so called soloists ran up and down the scale in a way that gets on the peoples’ nerves.  

    "Sousa has the most famous band in the whole world, and for no other reason than that he plays the kind of music the people like.  Who ever heard that splendid organization play the ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ without thinking it was the best thing he ever heard and would gladly travel miles to hear it again."

^*^

The preceding article is a rare first person interview of someone who attended a concert by a band in one of my photos. The gentleman is not identified but the editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette thought it a music critique worthy enough to include in a weekly feature of the newspaper. The publication date of 5 August 1907 was only a week after this postcard was mailed from Clear Lake, Iowa.  

The twelve men in this band are mostly brass players but with four clarinetists, I suppose it could be categorized as a concert band. They are all wearing a simple bandsmen uniform except for one, the older cornet player seated second from right, who has a different suit jacket. So I think this is likely the band's leader. They are seated on the wide steps of a porch that I suspect is a hotel/inn or maybe a boarding house. The photographer wrote a caption in the lower corner:  Clear Lake, IA. 

Clear Lake, Iowa is a small city situated on the eastern side of Clear Lake, a large body of spring-fed water of approximately 3,684 acres (15 km2) that was once the summer home to the Dakota and Winnebago American Indians. In the 1850s white settlers came to the region and Clear Lake was incorporated in 1871 when the town had a population of around 800 citizens. At the time the beauty of the lake was already attracting many summer residents from Des Moines and Minneapolis–Saint Paul. The city created a lakeside recreation park and built its first bandstand in 1877 which began a long tradition of summer band concerts. From 1878 newspapers from around the state made mention of a Clear Lake Silver Cornet Band as a special feature of the town. 

This postcard was sent on 28 June 1907 from Clear Lake, Iowa to Miss Julia Willand in Mason City, Iowa, which is just 9 ½ miles east of the lake. Ten days before, on Tuesday, 18 June, Clear Lake hosted the Marshalltown Retail Grocer's association annual outing with around "850 grocers and their families, clerks, and others" who traveled by two special trains from Marshalltown which is about 100 miles south of Clear Lake. The journey took a bit over three hours, a newspaper report noting, "Neither accident nor incident happened...to mar the pleasure of the day." 

During the early afternoon there was a baseball game, though the grandstand seating was insufficient for the number of people. The grocers' association also arranged athletic events including several 50 yard dashes for boys, girls, men, and women; a fishing contest won by a husband and wife with two pickerel fish 3 lbs each; a walking race for grocers over age fifty; a tug-of-war for grocers, and a second one for grocers' wives; and a distance guessing contest. Music for the day was furnished by the Clear Lake Band which also played for a dance in the park's pavilion later that evening.  

Evidently, according to the anonymous critic from Cedar Rapids, the little Clear Lake Band sounded pretty good.

Well how are to day  I  spose you

feal all right and so do I am feal
-ing sleepy to-day.  ever thing look dante (?)
Write soon   H. H. D.

The last four words of the third line are very difficult to decipher.
The word "ever" might be "does" but the next word doesn't fit logically.
But the last two are a real puzzle as there are few five letter words that end in "nte".
My guess is that it's a misspelling of "dandy"
Any ideas? Please leave a comment below. 

The message seems innocent enough but it has a curious quality, let's call it a hint of romance, that made me wonder about the recipient, Miss Julia Willand. She was born in Iowa in 1872 of Norwegian parents. In the 1900 census she lived in Brit, Iowa and listed her occupation as Laundress. In the 1907 city directory for Mason City she lived and worked at 221 Jackson as a domestic. Sometime in the summer of 1907 she got a day off and went to Clear Lake park to hear the band, and maybe met someone there. Did she send a reply soon after? Maybe. 

A year later on 26 October 1908, Julia Gurine Willand married Harry Herbert Durr — H. H. D.

1909 Mason City, IA city directory
Durr, Harry H (Julia)

Harry was a foreman at the M. C. Bottling Co.. He was born in Iowa in 1882. As far as I can determine, Harry and Julia lived out their lives in Mason City and had no children. Harry died in 1944 at age 61, and Julia in 1949 at age 77. 

I could not find any report that Harry ever played a musical instrument so I don't know that he was pictured in this postcard. But I suspect he and Julia enjoyed many concerts of the Clear Lake Band and remembered that summer of 1907 with great fondness. 

I was assisted in my detective work by a later relation of Harry and Julia who recorded some of their life facts into Ancestry.com. Surprisingly, Julia's age varied quite a lot. In 1900 she was age 24, supposedly born in 1876. In 1907 on her marriage license she was age 34. In the 1910 census she found a fountain of youth and became 27 again. In 1920 after a decade, the census taker recorded her age as 38. In 1930 apparently the fountain had dried up and she was now 58, eleven years older than Harry. And in 1940 the spring of youth returned and she was 54 years old, three years younger than her husband. As every genealogist learns, never trust a record as a fact.  

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is showing off their new old house.

The Art of War – Aerial Assaults, part 2

 

It looks like a fanciful poster from a travel brochure.

Calm ocean waves lap green and russet seaside cliffs.
A steamship glides past on the distant horizon.  
It's an idyllic seascape lit by a blue sky filled with
fluffy white clouds, a biplane,
and one gigantic dirigible airship.
Who wouldn't want to go there for a summer break?

Except that this picture was advertising war.

This is the second of a two part series which I started last weekend.
I recommend reading The Art of War – Aerial Assaults, part 1  
to pick up this history on the postcard art

 that promoted the first aerial assaults of World War One:

Graf (or Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838–1917) was a German general who designed and produced the first successful lighter-than-air rigid dirigibles that became eponymously known as Zeppelins. His first airship, the LZ-1, made its first flight over Lake Constance on 2 July 1900. It carried five people to an altitude of 410 m (1,350 ft) and managed to cover a distance of 6.0 km (3.7 mi) until mechanical problems forced to land after 17 minutes aloft. But Zeppelin doggedly persisted despite the inherent obstacles to building a flying machine that could overpower the laws of gravity. 

In 1906 his third airship, LZ-3, proved that a lighter-than-air dirigible powered by petrol engines had viable commercial and military uses. The LZ-3 successfully demonstrated controlled flight in all directions, at different altitudes, and for a significant distance. In 1908 the Imperial German Army bought it and ordered another airship. The following year the Wright brothers were demonstrating their iconic aeroplane in France, Germany, and the United States. Aeroplanes and airships quickly became the next important topic for military planners along with battleships and artillery. 

In 1908 Ferdinand von Zeppelin founded a company, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, which would manufacture his airships. And in 1909 his company established DELAG, an acronym for Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft, the world's first commercial airline. By July 1914 at the the start of World War One, Graf Zeppelin had built 25 airships since his first one had flown above Lake Constance. Over 34,000 passengers had already traveled on DELAG's Zeppelin fleet for 1,588 commercial flights that altogether covered 172,535 kms over a spam of 3,176 hours of flight time. Zeppelins were no longer an experimental aircraft. To the German people Zeppelin was a great visionary who advanced the new German Reich into the forefront of modern aviation. 

The portrait above was painted by a very skilled artist but his signature is unclear and the only caption on the back is just: Zeppelin. The postcard was sent 12 April 1916, 11 months before Zeppelin's death on 8 March 1917 at age 78. 

I've written several stories for this blog about early postcards of Graf Zeppelin's airships, The Art of Zeppelins, Zeppelin Kommt!, and At, on and over Lake Constance. Not surprisingly his airships were as inspiring to artists as well as to the general public. 

Zeppelin's face, his walrus mustache, and his gentle grandfatherly appearance made him the subject for many portraits, so his likeness was well known. This second postcard is typical of his portraits but it includes a wartime element of seven menacing airships ascending into the dark sky behind him. This postcard was printed in half-tone for the Deutscher Luftflotten-Verein, a.k.a.: 

German Air Fleet Association

for the creation of a strong German air fleet

and promotion of the aviation school!

Annual membership fee: including the association magazine

"The Air Fleet" at least 3,— Marks.

 

The card was sent by a soldier on 24 January 1916 using the free military post. 

By this year Zeppelin's airships were no longer just a wonder of aeronautics. 

They had become intimidating monsters of war.

This picture depicts a group of Catholic monks standing outside their abbey watching as a zeppelin drops bombs on the Belgian city of Liege in 1914. A caption in the upper corner reads:

Mönche beobachten die furchtbare
Wirkung der Beschickung Lüttich
durch ein Zeppelin Lüftschiff.
~
Monks observe the terrible effect
of the bombing of Liège
by a Zeppelin airship.

Like the previous card, this one was also produced by the Deutscher Luftflotten-Verein. Such huge conflagrations were beyond the ability of cameras of this time, but skilled artists were adept at using their imagination to reduce a complex event into an illustration that conveyed the turmoil, noise, and horror of this new warfare of aerial assaults.

 

The other nations at war had their own versions of airships. This postcard depicts a British airship on convoy duty, flying relatively low above three cargo chips or possibly ships of the Royal Navy. This airship is a semi-rigid dirigible with an outer shape maintained by a lifting-gas envelope under pressure, just like non-rigid blimps and balloons. Inside the envelope are smaller ballonets or bags that are filled with normal air. Pumps and valves on the ballonets control the pressure of the lifting gas (mainly hydrogen) which balances the aircraft and changes its altitude. The semi-rigid component is a partially flexible metal keel which runs under the envelope and supports the attached gondola for the engine and crew. 

The back of the card shows that the picture was "supplied bu the Ministry of Information, Design No. 6, Passed by Censor, Printed in England" and was a "War Bonds Campaign Post Card issued in connection to the National War Savings Committee's Campaign." Breaking some rules, a message was carefully written across the dividing line:

DEAR DADDIE, MANY HAPPY RETURNS
OF YOUR BIRTHDAY.  AND WE HOPE YOO
WILL SOON BE BETTER. LOVE FROM
HUGHIE AND KATHLEEN.

 

A drawing of the downing of LZ 37
on 7 June 1915 over Ghent, Belgium
by the pilot, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Rex Warneford,
originally published in The War Illustrated, Vol.2, № 44
Source: Wikipedia

As military commands on all sides began using aircraft to observe combat operations, it did not take long before airplanes and airships were weaponized. Initially this was for air to ground attacks but it quickly changed into aerial battles between airplanes. When Zeppelins were used for bombardment of cities they were also armed with machine guns to defend against enemy fighter planes. 

The thrilling picture above shows a Zeppelin exploding in air after being attacked by a mono-wing airplane. It's a rare example of a scene recreated by the man who actually experienced it. He was Reginald (Rex) Warneford (1891–1915), a Sub-Lieutenant and pilot in the British Royal Navy. He made this sketch in June 1915 shortly after he succeeded in destroying the German airship LZ-37 as it was returning to its homebase in occupied-Belgium after a bombing raid on England. 

The sketch appeared in a British magazine, The War Illustrated, a few days later on 19 June 1915. The caption reads: 

The Great Aerial Exploit of Lieut. Warneford: For skill and daring the magnificent exploit of Flight Sub-Lieut. Warneford, V.C., has rarely been equaled. While flying at a great height between Bruges and Ghent he encountered a Zeppelin. Quickly rising above it, he swooped down and launched bombs on the massive airship. A loud explosion followed, and the Zeppelin caught fire and fell to earth. The explosion caused the British machine to turn several somersaults, during which the petrol escaped from the rear tank and the pilot had to descend in the German lines. He managed to refill the empty tank, restart his engine, soar again into the air, and return safely to the British lines. Within thirty-six hours after his heroic deed the King had conferred the Victoria Cross on the young aviator.

Tragically on 17 June 1915, just hours after Lt. Warneford received the Légion d'honneur from General Joffre, the French Army Commander in Chief, Warneford and a passenger died in an accident during a routine flight trip to transfer an airplane to another aerodrome. A wing collapsed, causing a catastrophic failure of the airframe. Warneford was just 23 years old.

This postcard offers a similar frightening scene. High above a city and a river two dirigibles pass each other. The higher and larger Zeppelin uses a searchlight to illuminate the other airship which has just burst into flames. A caption reads: 
 

Unsere Gefürchteten.

Zeppelin im Kampf mit einem
feindlichen Luftschiff.  
~

Our Feared Ones.

A Zeppelin in Combat with
an Enemy Airship.

As far as I can determine this kind of airship vs airship action is a fantasy, as it never occurred. The smaller airship is a semi-rigid dirigible, likely a British airship, which was used for daytime reconnaissance. In this early age of aviation, night flying for airplanes was particularly dangerous as pilots could only navigate by sight. 

 Zeppelins encountered the same problem, too, but they were also very large and relatively slow so they were very visible in daylight. This problem was more difficult to solve, so, instead, these behemoths of the air staged nighttime bombing raids when a dark sky would give the best concealment, allow better observation of bomb explosions, and also inflict the most terror on civilians. 

It did not take long before cities in France and Britain mandated blackout restrictions in their cities. This created another problem for Zeppelin navigators. Maps were useless if you could not see the ground. Most of the first raids resulted in lost Zeppelins that never got close to their targets. In this illustration we get a view captioned:  In der Zeppelin-Gondel ~ In the Zeppelin's Gondola, though to be accurate the view is not inside but outside and more like what a passing seagull might see. The crew use searchlights to ascertain their position. A Zeppelin might reach an altitude of 10,000+ feet but determining a factory from a school, in the dark, with binoculars, and while in motion was extremely difficult. Not surprisingly, the accuracy of a Zeppelin's bombs was very imprecise.   

After the first raids ground searchlights and anti-aircraft guns were quickly developed by the allied forces. Though airships were very vulnerable to incendiary shell fire igniting their hydrogen lifting-gas, they were more at risk from ordinary bullets tearing small holes in the gas cells. The loss of even a small percent of gas would cause the airship to quickly lose height and steering control. Many Zeppelins during the war never made it back to their home airfield. 

In this postcard an artist creates a colossal armada of six Zeppelins and four naval ships heading across the English Channel. The caption reads: Nach England! ~ To England!   This was another postcard put out by the Deutscher Luftflotten-Verein with a postmark of 18 February 1915 from Erfurt, Germany. This was just one month from the first aerial assaults on the night of 19/20 January 1915. 

The plan had been proposed in August 1914 just as the war began. The Zeppelin force was under the command of the Imperial German Navy. Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz supported the plan and wrote:

The measure of the success will lie not only in the injury which will be caused to the enemy but also in the significant effect it will have in diminishing the enemy's determination to prosecute the war. 

In fact this first raid only used two Zeppelins which were to attack targets near the Humber estuary, 170 miles north of London. However strong winds forced the German airships southward where they dropped bombs on Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn and surrounding Norfolk villages. Four people were killed and 16 injured. The damage was estimated at £7,740 (equivalent to £860,700 in 2024). Two British fighter aircraft took off but failed to find the airships in the dark.  

This dramatic picture depicts two Zeppelins high in a dark sky seen from a dock at a harbor. There is fire, smoke, explosions, anti-aircraft shells, and searchlight beams on the airships. According to a printed caption on the back the painting is by A. Hubert and titled Luftangriff auf Londoner Hafenanlagen ~ Air Raid on London Port Facilities. It was produced as a "Welfare Card for Members of the Imperial Navy, for the Purposes of Family Support and the Recuperation of Personnel on Leave". It cost 10 pfennig with 3 Pfennig going to the charity.

When Germany first began bombing Britain in 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm II initially prohibited any attacks on London for fear it might harm his relatives in the Royal Family. (The Kaiser's mother was Victoria, Princess Royal (1840–1901), the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.) But by Spring he expanded bombing targets east of the Tower of London and on the night of 31 May 1915 the airship, LZ 38, struck the capital. Two months later in July 1915 authorization was granted to target the entire London metropolis.  

This cartoon shows a another pair of Zeppelins flying over London's Trafalgar Square. Like so many ants, people flee in all directions, hide under umbrellas, or leap from double decker buses. We may not see explosions but we can see  fear, and it is not amusing.

 

Because of the wartime blockade and censorship the German public had practically no unvarnished news about the war since all military information was controlled by the German government. Postcards like this that promoted unrestricted strategic bombing were propaganda used to reassure Germany's citizens. 

This censorship and restraint on accurate reports of casualties and damage caused by aerial bombing was also applied to news coverage in Britain, France, and later the United States. The truth was deemed contrary to recruitment, military and labor morale, and considered potentially provocative of civil unrest.        

This scene is similar to the German card taunting Londoners but this cartoon comes from a defiant French perspective. It shows two Zeppelins (the one on the left is viewed from its tail) attempting to carry away one of the celebrated symbols of France. The caption reads:

Enlèvement de l'arc-de-triomphe de l'étoile

par le Zeppeli K.K.100
~

Removal of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile

by the Zeppeli K.K.100

It is plainly silly which must have given many French people a brief smile or laugh. The card was sent from Paris on 4 August 1915.

                                tu vois d'ici le

                                continuel danger

                                que nous courerons

                                ournellement dans

                                la Capitale

                                    Sincères Salutations

                                        E. Bedutson

                                        ~

                                                    You can see from here the

                                                    continual danger

                                                     that we will run

                                                     daily in the Capital

                                                         Sincere Salutations

                                                                E. Bedutson

The preceding transcription and translation of the message on this postcard
was provided by Claude.AI which was given only an image of the message's French text and the year, 1916. It provided this note:

**Notes:** This is clearly the closing portion of a longer message — the text begins mid-sentence. Written during wartime Paris (1916), the writer's reference to "continual danger… daily in the Capital" almost certainly alludes to German Zeppelin and Gotha bomber raids on Paris, which were a source of real anxiety for Parisians during the war. The signature *E. Bedutson* may be a foreign name (possibly Scandinavian), which would explain the slightly non-native French phrasing — *courerons* is an archaic/dialectal future form of *courir* ("to run/face"), and *journellement* is an uncommon adverb meaning "daily."

The last aerial assault on London by Zeppelins took place on the night of 19 October 1917, over 12 months since the last Zeppelin raid. The latest German airships were larger and had increased their ceiling altitude to be above the reach of aeroplane fighters. That night eleven Zeppelins approached London from the north using the prevailing wind to carry them silently across the city without using their engines. The British commander of the London Air Defense Area, Lt-Col. Alfred Rawlinson, recognized the German strategy and ordered all of London's searchlights to be turned off, since they would otherwise 'give the game away' and reveal the geography of the city. 

Though a few bombs hit around the metro area, Rawlinson's deception to keep the city dark worked and London avoided up to 200 bombs which fell outside the city's important center of commerce and dockyards. Later that night an unexpected gale blew the Zeppelin squadron off course as they tried to return to their home bases in Jutland. Not one of the eleven airships made it back.  One was shot down by French anti-aircraft guns near the German frontier at Luneville. Another was forced to land in western France by pursuing aeroplanes. Two Zeppelins were destroyed by fire in south-west France. Three more were taken out to sea and lost with all hands in the Mediterranean when their fuel ran out.

Following this failure the German military decided that airships were incapable of achieving their mission goals. Each Zeppelin cost the equivalent of several million dollars. The fatality rate for Zeppelin crews in WW1 was an appalling 40%. Of the roughly 80–90 airships deployed, over 30 were lost to enemy action or accidents during operations, resulting in the deaths of over 400 flight crew members.

So the Imperial German Army command withdrew Zeppelins from attacks on Britain and France and instead placed their bet on their Gotha heavy bombers.

French postcard illustration, circa 1917
of Imperial German Gotha G. heavy bomber
Source: Wikimedia

British recruiting poster from 1915
Source: Wikipedia

According to the Wikipedia entry for German bombing of Britain, 1914–1918:

Airships made 51 bombing raids on Britain during the war in which 557 people were killed and 1,358 injured. The airships dropped 5,806 bombs, causing damage worth £1,527,585. Eighty-four airships took part, of which 30 were either shot down or lost in accidents. 

Aeroplanes carried out 52 raids, dropping 2,772 bombs of 73.5 long tons (74.7 t) weight for the loss of 62 aircraft, killing 857 people, injuring 2,058, and causing £1,434,526 of damage. 

The German bombing has been called, by some authors, the first Blitz, alluding to the Blitz of the Second World War. The defense organization developed by the British foreshadowed the ground-controlled interception system used in the Second World War.

The First World War supposedly ended 108 years ago on 11 November 1918, but that was just the date for the Armistice, a cessation of hostilities. It would take another seven months to conclude the official peace treaty, the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on 28 June 1919. That document divided the old European empires into many new sovereign nations, while retaining other vast regions of the world in colonial subjugation. It would take decades and an even more terrible world war to change that dynamic.    

Wikipedia has a page, of course, on the last day of WW1. Under the section "Last casualties" of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 is this short report about what happened in the last minutes before the 11th hour of the 11th day: 

Many artillery units continued to fire on German targets to avoid having to haul away their spare ammunition. The Allies also wished to ensure that, should fighting restart, they would be in the most favourable position. Consequently, there were 10,944 casualties, of whom 2,738 men died, on the last day of the war.

An example of the determination of the Allies to maintain pressure until the last minute, but also to adhere strictly to the Armistice terms, was Battery 4 of the US Navy's long-range 14-inch railway guns firing its last shot at 10:57:30 a.m. from the Verdun area, timed to land far behind the German front line just before the scheduled Armistice.

My purpose in collecting these grim examples of the Art of War was partly because I'm fascinated by the way early aviation was depicted in its time. What did people think when they first saw a Zeppelin airship or Wright brothers' Flyer? In this collection I sought to answer a different but related question. What did people feel when those airplanes and airships first dropped death and destruction? 

I'm sure that Wikipedia has a very, very long list of all the wars that have occurred since those final shots on 11 November 1918. It is deeply depressing and disturbing to me that mankind seems to have learned nothing in all those years. What pictures will artists paint about our time in 2026?  

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone, except me,

is singing along in perfect harmony.