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May 21, 1911. More than two hundred thousand people gathered at the Issy-les-Moulineaux
airfield in the south of Paris, to celebrate the start of the big air race.
Some of the best aviators of the time were invited to compete for the prize of
200 000 francs. It was a big event and that is why among the crowds on the airfield
were not only ordinary French citizens but high-ranking government officials as well.
The race began early in the morning, with the first airplane lifting into the air,
but in less than an hour after the start, the event was overshadowed by a tragedy - right
after takeoff one of the planes crashed into the crowd, killing one of the spectators.
Although tragic, just like the loss of any human life, the death of a single person,
at first, didn't seem to be that much of an extraordinary occurrence. After all,
various fatal accidents happen quite often. In fact, that very same day an airplane in
Russia also crashed into a crowd, killing 5 and injuring around a hundred spectators.
But with the airplane crash in Paris, it was not HOW MANY victims that was important,
but rather WHO had died and what the CONSEQUENCES of the accident were. This one crash of a tiny
airplane in 1911 cost France not just the life of a single spectator but, arguably,
the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of French soldiers on the battlefields of WWI.
When learning history it is surprising how often you find that a small event or detail that may
seem insignificant at the time may have had such a huge influence on the future. And at some point,
it is almost inevitable that you start asking yourself the question: what if?
What if the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna had accepted a young painter named Adolf? What if the
judgement of the Soviet Colonel, who received a false signal of an American nuclear attack,
had been different that day? What if the guy from Paper Skies didn't have an accent?
And while getting the answer to the last question is quite easy, finding
the answer regarding the events of historical importance will most often be simply impossible.
That doesn't make those questions any less interesting, though. Quite the opposite. They
were and always will be a reason for multiple historical debates. One such historical event
was the crash of a small airplane in France on May 21, 1911. I m sure most of my viewers here
are big aviation fans but, I bet, not many of you remember a French aviator named Louis
Emil Train, even though in the early days of aviation his name became world famous.
This, however, was not primarily due to his accomplishments as a pilot, but because Louis Emil
accidentally could have beheaded, in this case literally, the government of the French republic.
One of the pioneers of aviation, Louis Emile Train was born in Saint-Etienne, France on October 22,
1877. From an early age Louis Emile found an interest in mechanics and engineering.
He worked in his father s repair shop, fixing bicycles, sewing machines, and
automobiles, but his main passion was motorcycles.
Not being able to fulfil his passion for engineering at home, he left Saint-Etienne
and moved to Paris. He tried his skills in various areas, but financial success came
to Louis-Emil with designing vending machines. The revenue he started to receive now was enough
not only for a comfortable living but also to financially support his new passion - airplanes.
He soon received a pilot s license and starting in 1910 built several airplane
models of his own design, which, for the time, were quite advanced. The French Army
even placed an order for a dozen of Train s airplanes. But despite this promising future,
the aviation career of Louis Train appeared to be short lived. The main reason was the
huge shock that Louis-Emile suffered after his accident on May 21, 1911.
That day he was among 20 aviators invited to compete in the air race from Paris to Madrid.
The race was sponsored by the French millioner Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe who offered an
impressive prize of 200 000 francs for the winner. The event brought together some of the most famous
aviators of the time, like Rolland Garros, Jules Vedrines , Andre Beaumont and others, among whom
was also Louis-Emile Train. For Louis-Emile this wasn't his first such event, and unlike other
aviators, he always flew airplanes of his own design. That day he was to fly in his 3rd model,
which Train had already used in previous races and considered to be quite reliable.
The first pilot took off at ten after five am, followed by other pilots at short time
intervals. Everything went smoothly until the turn of Jules Vedrines, whose airplane,
due to mechanical issues, crashed on take off. There were no casualties and the
airplane suffered only minor damage, but the accident attracted the attention of the crowd
and dozens of curious spectators rushed onto the airfield, leaving the designated viewing area.
To drive them back to safety, a squadron of cuirassiers was sent immediately,
and it was exactly at this moment when Louis-Emile Train took off in his airplane. But just a few
moments after he became airborne Louis Emile suddenly found his engine quickly losing power.
Tragic, Comical, Unfortunate it s really hard to choose just one word when describing the crazy
sequence of events that happened moments after Louis-Emile s airplane lifted into the air.
There were even some rumors that the famous bomb scene from the classic 1966 Batman movie
was actually inspired by the events that occurred at the Issy-les-Moulineaux airfield in 1911.
Anyways, right after takeoff Louis Emile noticed that his engine all of a sudden started to lose
power and the airplane s speed was rapidly decreasing. Train quickly understood that
he wouldn t be able to continue the flight and an emergency landing was inevitable.
But the problem was that ahead of him, just beyond the edge of the airfield, were the
houses of a Parisian neighborhood. Trying to avoid a crash and casualties, Louis-Emile made probably
the only correct decision possible - to turn his airplane around and land back on the airfield. Not
wasting a second, he immediately turned his plane but to his horror he saw a squadron of cuirassiers
who were now crossing the airfield where he had taken off a moment ago. Trying to save people and
horsies, he turned the plane more to the right, but here he found a crowd of spectators who had
scattered out of their designated area. Pulling the yoke desperately he tried to fly over the
crowd but the airplane, which by that moment had lost power completely, crashed into the ground.
Louis Emile, who was not injured even the slightest, later recalled that until
the very last moment he thought that he had managed to fly over the crowd. Unfortunately,
the reality was different. While avoiding the cuirassier squadron and the crowd of spectators,
Train s airplane crashed into a small group of people. And it happened that out of two
hundred thousand spectators present on the airfield that day, this small group appeared
to be a bunch of high government officials. Buried under the crashed airplane was the Prime Minister
of France Ernest Monis . He was found unconscious, suffering from multiple internal injuries,
two fractured bones in his right leg, a broken nose, and a frightfully torn scalp. His condition
was so bad that at the time there were serious doubts whether he would be able to survive at all.
The Prime-minister s son was also injured, as well as Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe,
who probably at the moment deeply regretted his decision to sponsor this event.
But the least fortunate appeared to be the French Minister of War Henri Berteaux.
The rotating propeller killed the minister instantly.
Just to remind you, it was 1911 - a time when most people, despite their poor understanding
of aviation, nevertheless saw it as a symbol of their bright and technologically advanced future
soon to come. Thus, they were forgiving of current airplanes lack of practical use, poor reliability,
and many other problems, but the aircraft falling down from the skies, killing a high government
official, was a little bit too much. The tragedy at Issy-les-Moulineaux airfield deeply shocked
not only France but the whole world, making the accident in Paris one of the main news topics.
Almost immediately a special government commission started the investigation of the accident.
A few days later the commission concluded that, given his situation, Louis Emile Train did his
utmost to avoid casualties and there was no way he could have predicted the engine malfunction,
thus the accident and the casualties that occurred were not his fault.
But despite being officially exonerated from killing the Minister, and despite
having a promising future career building aircraft, Louis Train eventually decided to
leave aviation. The shock of the tragedy appeared to be too heavy for him. And
soon Louis Emile sold his aircraft business and,
until his death in 1939, focused solely on the biggest passion of his youth motorcycles.
And that may look like the end of the story of yet another tragic, though unremarkable accident, but
with the outbreak of World War One, 3 years after the accident in Paris, it appeared that Louis
Train s crash may have become the reason, although indirectly, for the enormous human casualties that
France suffered in the first months of the war. Including the French Army s deadliest day ever.
Out of all wars that humanity has suffered through all of its history, World War One
was arguably the most shocking. Of course, the level of atrocities and human casualties
during World War Two are unmatched by anything in history and, let s hope, they never will be,
but in some way World War Two was just an upscaled projection of the preceding war.
Meanwhile the outbreak of the Great War caused a profound and horrible shock
due to the massive human casualties and tremendous scale of violence unknown in any previous war.
One of the main reasons for such enormous losses, in particular, was the discrepancy between the
outdated battle tactics and the existing modern weaponry, such as artillery and machine guns. But
when speaking about France, which was among the countries that suffered the highest losses during
World War One, there was yet another, quite unique factor. It s difficult to notice it if you watch
French soldiers in old black and white videos, but when you add accurate colors to the historical
images, you will see that the soldiers of one of the biggest and most powerful armies in the world,
were dressed in blue jackets and red trousers. It s hard to believe that but at the time when
battlefields were now expanding into the heights of the skies and depths of the seas, the French
Army with its brightly colored uniform seems to still be stuck in the age of the Napoleonic Wars.
Of course, not everyone in the French government was indifferently accepting of the existing
military uniform. Quite to the contrary, the army uniform in France had for years been a topic of
multiple political debates. But sadly, those politicians had prevailed who claimed
that the camouflaged uniform was a symbol of weakness and cowardice, and that the Army should
keep the patriotic colors in its uniform since it better represented the French battle spirit.
Unfortunately, it was not the politicians but regular soldiers who would have to pay the
price for such cheap patriotic statements. And the final price appeared to be extremely high.
Three weeks after the outbreak of World War 1, during the Battle of the Frontiers the French Army
lost 27 thousand killed in just a single day. Not counting missing, wounded or captured. August 22,
1914, even until today remains the French Army s deadliest day, and not only in World War One but
in its entire history. None of the belligerent countries in any battle of World War One
suffered greater single day losses than France did during the Battle of the Frontiers.
It is believed that one of the reasons for the French Army's enormous losses was, in particular,
the bright military uniform that made French soldiers perfectly visible and
easy targets for the German machine gunners. It would take about a year
before the whole French Army would switch to the so-called horizon blue - a new
blue-grey uniform that made French soldiers less visible to the enemy.
But interestingly enough,
way before the horizon blue the French Army had started to learn about another color: reseda .
3 years before the outbreak of World War One, the French Minister of War at the time devoted himself
to drastically reforming the French Army to better respond to modern warfare. Despite massive
political opposition, the Minister, in particular, managed to start the so-called la tenue reseda
project, whose goal was for the French Army to adopt a new gray-green military uniform.
The first examples of the new uniform had already been manufactured and sent to the Army for
testing, and eventually the uniform would probably have been accepted by the French Army if not for
the sudden death of the Minister, which eventually led to the abandonment of the reseda project,
leaving the French army to enter World War I still wearing blue jackets and bright red trousers
The name of that Minister was Henri Berteaux - the one and only victim
of the small airplane crash at the Issy-les-Moulineaux airfield in 1911.
And here it s really hard not to ask the question: What would the history
of France in World War One be, if one young and talented engineer had stuck
to his passion of building motorcycles and never became interested in flying airplanes?
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