Italo-Turkish War
The Italo-Turkish War was fought in the Mediterranean in 1911–1912. Italy's main goal was to colonize Libya. This war was the first in which airplanes was used as well as LTA airships.
Captain Carlos Piazza flew the first wartime airplane reconnaissance mission on 11 October 1911. On 1 November, Lt. Giulio Gavotti dropped four 2-kg grenades on Taguira and Ain Zara (both in the area of Tripoli). Gavotti apparently wrote to his father: "Today I have decided to try to throw bombs from the aeroplane. It is the first time that we will try this and if I succeed, I will be really pleased to be the first person to do it."[1]
Gavotti was incidentally flying an "Etrich Taube" monoplane, an aircraft following the design of Ignaz Etrich.[2]
[Some sources [1][3] describe this event as the first "aerial bombing"; but in fact aerial bombing by balloon dates back to 1849 at least.[4][5] Maybe it was the first bombing by airplane (and maybe this restriction applies to the definition of "aerial" understood by these sources). Hallion writes that Gavotti "usher[ed] in the era of aerial bombing"[6] but he is aware of the earlier bombing of Venice in 1849.[7]]
Military strategists took notice of Italy's use of airplanes in attacks and support operations. The war also had an influence on on Italian thinkers including futurist Filippo Marinetti whose book about the war used the sound of airborne bombs as a theme.[8]
Gavotti's action blurred the lines between attack and reconnaissance and between warfare on the front lines and against civilian populations.[9]
Links
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Alan Johnson, "Libya 1911: How an Italian pilot began the air war era", BBC News, 10 May 2011.
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etrich_Taube
- ↑ Eyder Peralta, "100 Years Ago, World's First Aerial Bomb Dropped Over Libya", NPR, 21 March 2011.
- ↑ Brett Holman, "The first air bomb: Venice, 15 July 1849", Airminded, 22 August 2009.
- ↑ Hippler, 2013, p. 3.
- ↑ Hallion, 2003, p. 314. Also Hallion, 2010, p. 11.
- ↑ Hallion, 2003, p. 66.
- ↑ Hallion, 2003, p. 315. "Italy's air operations in Libya constituted only a footnote to the overall intervention, but it did attract great attention in the military community: the airplanes and airships had fulfilled multiple roles, supported the land battles and naval operations, and even undertaken strategic and tactical air attacks themselves. Also, the Libyan air war drew the attention of artists and intellectuals such as the aviation-minded Futurist poet Filippo Marinetti (who earlier had dedicated a play to Wilbur Wright) and artist Carlo Carrà. In 1912, Marinetti authored a book of impressions from the war, entitled Zang Tumb Tumb, 'referring to the whistling and echoing sounds of speeding bullets and exploding bombs': 17 years later, he founded the aeropittura movement, dedicated to Futurist art employing aviation as its central theme."
- ↑ Hippler, 2013, p. 2. ""What Gavotti did on 1 November 1911 was actually more than just applying the new technological device of the aeroplane to military purposes. His action implied a mixing-up of different forms of previously separate military missions. The original mission he was assigned to was reconnaissance and had had carried out the bombing without any formal order from the military hierarchy. In the Libyan desert, aircraft thus performed a role that had traditionally been played by cavalry forces." etc.
