The delegates decided to reduce the period of the ban from indefinitely to until the next peace convention. Despite being susceptible to aerial attack, balloons would still be used in the First World War as observation posts and bombing platforms. Machine powered aircraft might enable more precise methods for launching projectiles from the air, thereby precipitating a speedy conclusion to the conflict and sparing lives. Crozier argued that while the technology at the time did not allow for aerial targeting, perhaps new technologies in the future might add forward mobility to aircraft. Captain William Crozier of the American delegation objected to the proposed unlimited ban on aerial warfare. During the Second Hague Peace Convention in 1907, Russian delegates encouraged a ban on the launching of projectiles from balloons. Prior to the First World War, balloons were the main platform for military aviation. It was a conflict in which, as the cultural theorist Paul Virilio writes in War and Cinema, aviation ceased to be about breaking flight records and became “one way, or perhaps even the ultimate way, of seeing.” With advances in aviation, communication and photography, the First World War not only was the dawn of aerial warfare, but also the emergence of a sophisticated aerial reconnaissance and intelligence apparatus. In the First Battle of the Marne, French and British forces reversed the German encirclement of France-known as the Schlieffen Plan-and a long and costly war began in earnest. ![]() The following day, more Parisian airmen confirmed the German mistake, convincing French and British commanders to halt their retreat and to drive a wedge between the German armies. At the Paris headquarters, aerial observer Lieutenant Watteau reported a 48-kilometer gap between the First and Second German Armies on the far right flank of the advance. The French government had fled the city and the British-Franco armies were retreating under the pressure of the German right flank. In the four weeks since the outbreak of World War I, German armies had advanced to within 30 kilometers of the center of Paris. On the morning of September 3, 1914, an aerial observer by the name of Lieutenant Watteau assigned to the Paris garrison rushed to the Deuxième Bureau, the French military intelligence agency, with urgent news.
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