League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

At the start of World War I, few countries could match Germany’s air power. It was the rigid air ships - often called Zeppelins - which especially caused great fear among Britain's population (Before the 20th century, for the most part, British civilians did not directly experience the traumatic effects of war.)

Able to stay aloft at 10,000 feet while inflicting death and destruction, the great bomb-dropping ships were frequently (but not always) safe from anti-aircraft fire. In 1915, for example, Germany lost no rigid air ships to combat injuries. It was in that year, however, during the Second Battle of Ypres, that the Kaiser’s troops inflicted combat injuries with chemical weapons.  (It was the first time such weapons were used in war.)

When Britain invented incendiary bullets, meant to target the hydrogen bags that fueled the Zeppelins, Germany responded with the “height climber,” a rigid airship able to maintain altitude at 20,000 feet. (Twenty-two years later, when the Hindenburg exploded, some experts blamed hydrogen fuel for the disaster.)

In one London raid, on September 8, 1915 (before America entered the war), Zeppelin L-13 killed 22 people and caused massive property damage.  Far worse, however, was the psychological damage the great air ships caused to people who lived within their range.

Had the fictitious League of Extraordinary Gentlemen actually existed in 1898, its members would have been powerless to stop production of the mighty Zeppelins or to prevent World War I. Once Queen Victoria (who was the only one able to keep her feuding grandchildren from fighting against each other) died in 1901, political arrogance and diplomatic ineptitude ruled the day.