14
overlapping photographs which could be converted into
topographical maps.
Military applications, while obvious to scientists,
photographers and balloonists themselves, were not
immediately apparent to many military offi cers. There
does not appear to have been any attempt made by
either the British-led allied army or the Russians to
photograph from balloons during the Crimean War
(1854–1856) which was the fi rst international confl ict
closest to photography’s birth. The British balloonist
Henry Coxwell failed to convince the British War Offi ce
to use balloons in the Crimea. The United States Civil
War was the fi rst large-scale military action in which bal-
loons played a role on both sides. While their presence
made no difference to the outcome of the war, the fi rst
and successful use of balloons by the Union (Northern)
Army is inspired the Confederate (Southern) Army to
establish its own balloon corps. There appears, however,
to be disagreement on whether photographs were taken
from balloons during the United States Civil War. F.S.
Haydon, who published the fi rst detailed study of mili-
tary ballooning during the war, concluded that absence
of evidence meant evidence of absence. Another author
came to a another conclusion based on Union Army
reports which described the use of aerial photography
to create a map-like image used by ground commanders
and the aerial observer.
The U.S. Civil War is acknowledged to be the source
of British air power developed under the leadership of
the Royal Engineers who also operated in Canada and
elsewhere in the Empire. A Royal Engineer observer
of balloon operations took his experience back to Eng-
land. Because of the public expense and the somewhat
impractical nature of maneuvering and transporting
balloons, the British Army, of which the Royal Engi-
neers is a part, only slowly yielded to the inevitable. It
took nearly two decades for a balloon detachment to be
incorporated into the British Army chain of command.
With typical British thoroughness, however, in the early
1880s “The training of the aeronauts incorporated aerial
reconnaissance, photography and signalling....” (Mead,
1983, p. 19). Like Great Britain, France also established
a special school for instructing its military in ballooning
and photography.
Military confl icts in which aerial photography was
practiced or thought to have been used via balloons/di-
rigibles, kites, gliders, rockets and pigeons were the 24
June 1859 French action under Napoleon III at the Battle
of Solfernia, Italy; the Spanish-American War of 1898;
and the South African (Boer) War of 1899–1902. Lord
Baden-Powell, who invented a man-carrying kite, had a
non-manned version used during the South African War
at Modder River for photographic reconnaissance. A
British Army balloon section was sent to China during
the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 but saw no action.
One of the more unusual accounts of photography
and ballooning occurred during the Siege of Paris in the
Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). Although Nadar was
in charge of the balloon corps during this confl ict, aerial
photography by balloons does not seem to have been
utilized. Microphotography, however, was employed
in the Siege of Paris to reduce the size and weight of
letters carried out by carrier pigeons. A Paris photog-
rapher, René-Patrice Dagron (1819–1900), perfected
the microphotography technique and was smuggled
out of Paris with his equipment on 12 November 1870.
The balloons, one of which held the microphotography
equipment, were named Niepce and Daguerre. The fi rst
carrier pigeon camera was patented in 1903 by the Ger-
man experimenter Julius Neubronner; he also developed
a panoramic camera for the birds in 1912.
The most tragic association between ballooning and
aerial photography is the story of the Swedish adventurer
Salomon August Andrée’s fatal 1897 expedition in his
balloon, the Eagle, along with two companions, to reach
the North Pole by air. The remains of the expedition,
including undeveloped photographs, were only discov-
ered in 1930 on White Island, Spitzbergen. Some of the
photographs taken by Andrée and his companions were
developed by G. (or J.) Hertzberg, a detailed account of
which appears in a book commemorating the journey.
Expedition member Nils Strindberg, who was the prin-
cipal photographer, built his own camera.
If photography from balloons can be considered a
partial success in the 19th century, then photography
from other aerial contrivances such as kites and rockets
was, at best, even more of a novelty. The introduction
of roll fi lm by the Eastman Kodak company permitted
further kinds of experimentation with aerial photography
because cameras were considerably lighter. Kite pho-
tography was primarily used for meteorological experi-
ments and military observations, and were conducted to
this end beginning in the 1880s. Amateur experimenters
invented their own ingenious kite and photographic
systems. In some cases the camera was triggered from
the ground, and in other cases, particularly with early
rocket photography, the camera was on a timer. The
photographic results were completely unpredictable
and mainly served as experimental evidence. Probably
the most celebrated fi gure in kite photography is Arthur
Batut (1846–1919) of Labruguière, France. He is some-
times credited with being the fi rst to take a successful
photograph using a kite in either 1887 or 1888. Batut
published the fi rst book on kite aerial photography: La
photographie aérienne par cerf-volant (Paris: Gauthier-
Villars, 1890). The Musée Arthur Batut in Labruguière
preserves his work and celebrates his genius. Other early
kite photography experimenters were E.D. Archibald
(England, 1886), Emile Wenz who worked with Batut
(France, late 1880s), U.S. Army Lieutenant Hugh D.