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tation in this country has done much to arouse an interest in the matter. He has made a close study of the way in which European nations use balloons and he will probably introduce some of those methods to this country, although he has some ideas of his own that he will put in force. Lieutenant Lahm's work will be watched closely by army men in all parts of the country and it is quite possible that if he meets with success balloon corps will be added to a great many army posts in the near future.

New Art of Warfare.

The balloon became a factor in battles when the five-year prohibition of the Hague peace conference expired. The prohibition did not relate to the employment of the balloon in mere reconnoissances, as was effectively done in the Spanish-American and several preceding wars, but to a possible species of offensive tactics which would enable one man or at most a few men to inflict death in a horrible form upon thousands without the latter having more than a remote or very slender chance of defense or retaliation. The one man in a balloon, which could be maneuvered directly over the enemy's head, while he himself, far out of range, could let fall upon the latter bombs of such tremendous explosive power that he alone might decide a mighty conflict in which hundreds of thousands of soldiers were arrayed against one another. In the western American phrase, "getting the drop" on a foe would then have a terribly intensified and terribly literal meaning.

This novel instrument has already been used by each belligerent, both armies having used balloons for purposes of observation during the great battle of Liaoyang, which closed in disaster to Russia. The Japanese early in the battle sent up a balloon southeast of Liaoyang and the location of the Russian defenses by keen-eyed observers high above the battlefield may have doomed Russia to defeat through the resulting accuracy of fire from the Japanese batteries. General Kuropatkin as well received assistance by the same means. His defensive positions, however, were fixed and once their range had been determined the Japanese had them at the mercy of their relentless guns. The Russians, on the other hand, faced an ever-shifting foe, seeking this eminence, that hidden vantage point, anywhere within range. The balloon, therefore, served the Japanese relatively far more effectively than the Russians. Its use by both armies however, adds new pages to a fairly new chapter in the art of warfare.

Early Use of Balloons.

Balloons used for observation in warfare may be free or captive, but up to the present they have more usually been the latter. Inventors have been strenuously at work for many years upon the problem of the "dirigible" aerostat, to use the French adjective—the airship that may be made to go whither its director wills, independently of the winds. If this were perfected the captive balloon in warfare would probably be superseded almost entirely. The French government has been endeavoring for a long time to perfect the dirigible balloon and rapid progress towards that end has been made in the last fifth of a century. It has been suggested that France, being in alliance with Russia, may have placed her advances in military ballooning at the service of the latter. It is a subject of wonderment, too, that the alert and keen Japanese nation, so forward in whatever else pertains to warfare by land or sea, is seemingly indifferent to the possibilities of aerial bomb practice, though their use of the balloon at Liao-Yang for reconnoissance may have been but preliminary to its employment as an offensive agent.
The first suggestion of the use of the balloon in warfare cam from Joseph Montgolfier, the French pioneer balloonist. In 1782 he proposed by this means to send soldiers into the fortress to overpower the British garrison which the French and Spanish were besieging. Twelve years later the revolutionary government of France gave countenance to efforts to produce an airship to be used in warfare. A captive balloon called the Entreprenant actually did good service against the Austrians. It was observed that its effect upon the morale of the enemy was almost as important as its material effect. At the battle of Fleurus, which determined the fall of Brussels, Morlot was ten hours in the balloon basket in midair reporting in detail to his chief, General Jourdain, all the movements of the enemy as they developed. Messages were sent up to the balloon by means of a cord and the answers were wafted down to the earth. Five balloons were used in this war and through one of them the French obtained possession of Liege and the Rhine country. Napoleon took an illy provided balloon train into Egypt, chiefly for the moral effect that it would have upon the Arabs.

Used in Civil War.

From that time there was little use of military balloons until the war for secession in this country. Professor Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian institution induced the federal government to give them a trial and in charge of T.S.C. Lowe, who was already a famous
aeronaut, they were of immense service in