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Updated: June 12, 2025
We refer, of course, to the two fleets of war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats, possessed by France and Russia.
In view of the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, and the terrible effectiveness of the war-balloons, it was decided that any attempt to retake Constantinople, or even to continue to hold the Dardanelles, could only result in further disaster.
With the first glimmer of light, the two aërial fleets took the air, the war-balloons in a long line over the van of the Moslem army, and the air-ships spread out in a semicircle to the southward. The hour of prayer was allowed to pass in peace, and then the work of death began.
In return for this, Russia is to invade Germany and Austria, destroy the eastern frontier fortresses with her fleet of war-balloons, and then cross over and do the same on the Rhine, while France at last throws herself upon her ancient foe.
The warships steamed away westward on their last voyage to the South Atlantic, beneath whose waves they were soon to sink with all their guns and armaments for ever. The war-balloons were to be kept for purposes of transportation of heavy articles to Aeria, while the fleet of air-ships was to remain the sole effective fighting force in the world.
Outnumbered four and five to one in every engagement, and with the terrible war-balloons raining death on them from the clouds, the British armies had eclipsed all the triumphs of the long array of their former victories by the magnificent devotion that they showed in the hour of what seemed to be the death-struggle of the Empire.
"But if it is possible I should like to hear something a little definite as to this mission with which I have been, I fear, undeservingly honoured. I have been very greatly interested in the problem of aërial navigation for some years past, but I must confess that this is the first I have heard of these particular war-balloons."
"Come on board, Colonel, and bid your balloon follow me. No nonsense, mind, or I'll blow you into eternity and all your squadron after you." The Russian did as he was bidden, and the Ariel, followed by the aerostat, ascended to the Ithuriel, while the Orion kept up her patrol round the captive war-balloons.
An immense force of warships and dynamite cruisers swarmed between Gallipoli and the Golden Horn. Twenty air-ships and forty-five war-balloons lay outside Constantinople, ready to take the air at a moment's notice. The conqueror of Northern Africa and Southern Asia had only a very general idea as to what had really happened in Europe.
Hour after hour the merciless work continued, until by three o'clock in the afternoon there was not a gun left upon the whole range of coast that was capable of firing a shot. All this time the ammunition tenders of the aërial fleet had been winging their way to and fro across the Strait constantly renewing the shells of the war-balloons.
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