French Strategic and Tactical Bombardment Forces of World War I (review)

English readers interested in the history of military aviation and of the First World War ought to be grateful to Allen and Steven Suddaby who respectively translated and edited the classic work of French historian René Martel on the development of French strategic and tactical bombing in World War I. This father and son endeavor resurrected an important document that bears relevance not only to its stated topic but also to the immediate pre-World War II period. The book was originally published in France under the title L'aviation française de bombardement (Des origines au 11 novembre 1918) in 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War that caught French air power in a state of disarray and unable to stop the subsequent German onslaught. Professor Martel conducted extensive research in French military archives and drew from his personal experience as an observer/bombardier in World War I to write this important book. The latter is a thorough account of the development of French air power as it applied to tactical and strategic bombing operations over the course of the Great War.

Following a strictly chronological outline, Martel painstakingly documents the tribulations of the French bomber forces, accounting for all recorded operations down to the number and models of aircraft involved in particular raids, the number and types of bombs dropped on enemy targets, and the damage they reportedly caused on the ground. Martel also retraces the evolution of technology and tactics as they pertained to the requirements of the war; all of which evidence France's pioneering role in the formative years of air combat. He shows how France developed an effective bomber force through the devotion of a few visionary and charismatic leaders and the courage of bomber crews. By war's end, France was staging large raids made up of over 100 aircraft and asserted itself as the world's greatest air power. Martel tries his best to remain academically objective, but his writing occasionally betrays his patriotic biases and his antipathy for Germany. In his drive for thoroughness, he devotes some attention to the small Belgian bomber force, to maritime aerial bombardment and to peripheral theaters. This book assuredly contains a wealth of information, but it is hardly a page-turner. It is not entirely lacking in human interest and occasionally imparts remarkable insight into the lives of bomber crews. It also provides an interesting analysis of the success of German propaganda in sowing doubts into the minds of French strategists as to the benefits of strategic bombing. But these nuggets are too few to liven up what remains a dry and overly detailed book. This makes the outstanding translation of Allen Suddaby and precise editing of Steven Suddaby all the more remarkable and worthy of praise, for it could have only been a labor of love. Although this book is not likely to appeal to a wide audience, but rather to a narrow public of air power scholars and aviation enthusiasts, it constitutes a welcomed addition to the body of World War I literature in English that all too often under-appreciates France's contributions to the war effort.