Zeppelins - Past and Future #250557

When, however, early in 1909, Count Zeppelin handed over his first military airship to the German Government and it was found successful to a degree, a considerable section of expert Opinion in Germany decided that the superior of the aeroplane for military purposes had been discovered; and despite, or rather because of, a series of failures and catastrophes, she secured just such a lead in rigid-airship construction as France had Obtained in aeroplanes, with the added advantage that it was much more difficult to overcome or equal. Those catastrophes, coupled with a tremendous advance in aeroplane design and performance, had induced other nations to believe that the aeroplane was the better, as it was the more attractive machine, and while France, Italy, and Great Britain devoted some attention to non-rigid types of airship, the rigid was, broadly, regarded as Germany's preoccupation.