This paper caused a great amount of interest to be taken in aeronautics, with the result that various Frenchmen turned their attention to airship design and production. To France must be due the acknowledgment that she was the pioneer in airship construction and to her belongs the chief credit for early experiments.

At a later date Germany entered the lists and tackled the problems presented with that thoroughness so characteristic of the nation. It is just twenty-one years ago since Count Zeppelin, regardless of public ridicule, commenced building his rigid airships, and in that time such enormous strides were made that Germany, at the outbreak of the war, was ahead of any other country in building the large airship.

In 1908 Italy joined the pioneers, and as regards the semi-rigid is in that type still pre-eminent. Great Britain, it is rather sad to say, adopted the policy of "wait and see," and, with the exception of a few small ships described in the two succeeding chapters, had produced nothing worthy of mention before the outbreak of the great European war. She then bestirred herself, and we shall see later that she has produced the largest fleet of airships built by any country and, while pre-eminent with the non-rigid, is seriously challenging Germany for the right to say that she has now built the finest rigid airship.